The beans, they are spilled

I love writing on my blog. I like just spilling my guts and I like it too when I get the chance to really formulate my words carefully and write about what I'm feeling. The blog is very cathartic and I earn a few bucks from it on occasion too. In the past several months I have lost more than half my regular readership though and there's a good reason: I've sucked lately. First there was a bunch of illness and the miscarriage and stuff and then we got so busy and all that affected my writing. More than any of that though was something that I haven't been talking about and so all of my posts have felt distinctly...confused, like there were holes in them. And, as a result, I mostly didn't post. I do not feel ready to talk about this yet but it is time, for many reasons, so here goes.

I'm 15 weeks pregnant. The pregnancy has not been without issue but so far, so good. The first few weeks I was so desperately scared that I would miscarry again combined with such extreme exhaustion that I just ignored everything. I made it to work every day and somehow managed to move and do all the other things that absolutely had to get done but everything even mildly optional did not get done. At 6 1/2 weeks we had an ultrasound and saw the tiny little bean and saw his/her heartbeat and our OB said that seeing the heartbeat reduced the chance of miscarriage to around 3 % (from 30% before that so, big fan of 3 % frankly). I calmed down a bit after that but was still extraordinarily nervous until our 13 week ultrasound. At that appointment we got a clear picture of baby, wiggling around like crazy, and got to listen to the heartbeat (141 bpm, just perfect). The purpose of this ultrasound was to test the baby for the likelihood of Down Syndrome and Trisomy 13 and 18 and I was deeply annoyed when I found out that they couldn't give me the results for a full week. I was a bit nervous about that but the OB also reminded me then that the vast majority of miscarriages occur before week 13 so I was able to relax a little bit and I was so excited to leave for Canada in 4 days that I was feeling pretty good.

Of course, that lasted for two days only. Less than 48 hours after that great day I woke up to get ready for work and was horrified to find that I was bleeding, a lot. After a panicked call to the OB on call at my caregiver's office, we headed to the ER - the same one where we lost the baby last time, the same room in fact. I know this all sounds crazy, why did we go back there, but it is one of the two hospitals affiliated with my OB's office and its a lot closer than the other one (although the other one is where I have chosen to give birth, for obvious reasons). Within 45 minutes after arriving I was getting wheeled into the ultrasound room and to my utter shock we heard a strong little heartbeat. I so didn't expect it that I almost passed out, I think. Of course, the ER could give us no information on what could be or could have been happening and by that time my OB's office was open so we headed over there. First they tried the Doppler machine on me and the nurse could not find the heartbeat and I was panicking all over again but then the doctor came in and found it right away. We headed for another ultrasound and then had a consultation with the doc and he showed us a still of the ultrasound and above the baby was a large dark crescent. This crescent, he said, was a subchorionic hemorrhage (basically a bleed behind the placenta) and it was unclear what it would mean to the baby, it could be very bad or it could go away. Regardless though we were not going to Canada and I was staying in bed for a week and a half.

We were ecstatic that the baby was, at that moment, okay but to be honest that was greatly tempered by the idea that s/he might not be and also that we could not go to Canada for Christmas as you all know how very much we wanted both of those things. I sat in bed for 10 stinkin' days thinking about Winnipeg and snow and my friends and my mom's baking etc. (And, on Christmas Eve my niece gave birth to a healthy little girl named Meadow who I could have been there to hold...but perhaps that would have been bittersweet, I don't know) After the first 3 or 4 days the doctor said I could do a few things so Paul and I went out for food way too many times, even fast food is SO expensive, but we couldn't really do anything else so we sublimated with food. Of course we were also still nervous about the genetic testing results and OF COURSE they did not call with the results when they said they would so I had to hound them until they FINALLY discovered that the lab who did the testing spelled my name wrong so the results had been misfiled. Because I didn't have ENOUGH TO WORRY ABOUT. The results were good though, thank God. For a woman of my 'advanced maternal age' (and believe me, being 36 is a HUGE factor in a first pregnancy) the odds of a Downs baby are between 1 in 250 and 1 in 500 depending on who you ask (by 45 some say the risk is 1 in 8. EIGHT) but my odds after the test are 1 in 2500+ and my odds for a baby with the very serious Trisomy 13 or 18 are 1 in 7000+ so I'm good with those results, although they are, of course, not a guarantee.

On Wednesday of this week we headed back to the OB whose staff members are all intimately acquainted with me by now and had another ultrasound. 156 bpm and the baby was waving around one of her little arms frantically, which was really cute. The doctor said that there was no sign whatsoever of the hemorrhage. I am more likely than the average woman to get another one now, as well as more likely to go into labor early and more likely to have placenta abruptio. I worry about all these things but I'm trying to calm down a little, take it easy and hope and pray for the best.

Whew, that was exhausting. I always dreamed of the day when I could announce my pregnancy to my friends and family and now to this blog but for some reason I have found that I have no desire at all to tell people. For one thing I am so worried still about something happening to the baby (I imagine that this will not go away for another 25 weeks, well, probably another 25 years, right?) and so I don't want to tell and then have to go through the agony of telling people if something happens. Also, strangely, I feel that this is somehow very private, like it is just me and Paul and Baby and no one else in the world. But for numerous reasons it was time to tell, so I have told.

My feelings about all this are not what I expected, its all very different that what I imagined. But we are already deeply in love with this baby and we are praying for a healthy, happy little girl or boy on or about June 24th, 2009. Your prayers, or for you atheists, your power thoughts(hi Andrea!) would be greatly appreciated.