After my visit to the ER on Christmas, I was told to follow up with my doctor as soon as I could. The doctor's office was closed Monday for the holidays, so today was the first time I could get in to see someone.
I woke up this morning and was still bleeding. I passed another really big glob of bloody stuff (like 3 inches long!) so I had begun to prepare myself mentally for the worst possible scenario. In my mind, I thought that since the doctor at the ER was in there poking around maybe that had made things worse. So I called the doctors office as soon as they opened this morning, explained my situation, and they scheduled me to go in at noon to see one of the doctors. It is funny to me how my whole life I've always made a point to have women doctors but as soon as something goes wrong you no longer care who is looking down at your lady parts as long as they can give you some answers.
When Michael and I got to doctors office, we had to wait a while because the doctor was at a meeting. I'm sure he was probably just not back from lunch yet, but whatever. So I explained to him the situation and what had gone on at the ER and then he did an exam. He said that my cervix is closed (phew! what a relief!) and that my uterus is measuring at a normal size for how far along I am. He didn't seem to think there was anything out of the ordinary and didn't seem all too concerned about the situation. He said that I probably have a blood clot on my cervix or uterus or between the two (I can't remember exactly how he said it) but that it probably was just aggravated by having sex. He told me to take it easy the next two weeks, no sex, no exercise, no heavy lifting. Hopefully all this bleeding nonsense will be done soon.
When we walked out of the office I told Michael that I felt so relieved that everything was ok and he said "you were really that worried about it?" Of course I was that worried about it!! I was freaking out about it!!! But again, he's always the calm one.
My next appointment is next week on Thursday for my dating ultrasound. I'm sure I will feel even more relieved when I see the little peanut on the computer screen. I'm praying for a very uneventful week 8. Enough drama for this mama!
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
What a weekend!
First off, let me start by saying that the purpose of this blog is to document the things we experience throughout this pregnancy, the good and the bad, so I'm sorry if I give too much information or gross details. If you don't want to know, don't read it. If you want all the messy details... read on.
We had quite an eventful weekend. Saturday started off completely normal. Michael and I went to our favorite little restaurant for lunch. When we returned from lunch I noticed that I had some spotting, but didn't think much of it since it is common after sex during pregnancy. The day continued and I continued to spot. I felt like it should stop soon and that it was probably nothing to worry about. We went to dinner at my Grandma's house for Christmas eve. The original plan was to tell the extended family about the pregnancy at Christmas dinner, but I felt a little hesitant about it because of the bleeding. We ended up telling my aunt and uncle, who were very excited for us. After dinner I asked my mom if she ever experienced any bleeding during her pregnancy. She said that she did for a few days, but that she didn't think much of it. I, on the other hand, was beginning to freak out about it. So I decided that if it didn't stop by the morning I would call my midwife to see what she thought I should do.
I woke up Christmas morning at 4am and unfortunately was still bleeding. It wasn't a ton of blood but seeing blood at all when you are not supposed to see blood is pretty scary. I thought that it probably would be nicer to wait until a more normal hour to call the midwife, so i waited until 8:30 to call her. I am so thankful she gave me her cell phone number at our last visit. She said that no bleeding is normal, but that it is common after sex to experience some bleeding. She said that I shouldn't be really concerned unless it was a ton of blood, running a fever of 100.4 or higher, or had really painful cramps. She said that if it were a normal business day she would have me come in to her office and she would do an ultrasound to make sure that everything was ok. Her office is closed until Tuesday so she said if I didn't feel comfortable waiting until then that I could go to Winnie Palmer Hospital to get checked out. She told me to just take it easy, rest, and stay off my feet.
We went to Michael's parents house to open Christmas presents and by the time we were done I was in a lot of pain. I was experiencing cramps worse than you would on your period and I was still bleeding and I was really scared that I might be having a miscarriage. We decided to go to Winnie after all just so we could know something, one way or the other. Thankfully, since it was Christmas, there weren't too many people in the ER so we didn't have to wait very long to be seen. One of the doctors checked everything out and told me that he saw some blood, but that I wasn't actively bleeding (which made me wonder "if I'm not actively bleeding, where is all this blood coming from?!"). He said that my cervix is closed which is a good thing and also did an ultrasound. He was able to see the baby and see the heart beat. He had a hard time getting the computer to be able to calculate the heart rate because it is still pretty early and the baby is small. He counted the heart beats himself and said that the heart rate was 144. He also said that the baby should be dated at 6 weeks and 4 days based on the size, rather than 7 weeks 5 days which is what I thought it was based off my last period. He said that I would probably experience some more bleeding since he was in there checking things. I asked how long I could expect to be bleeding and he said maybe 2 or 3 days. He told me that it is called a "threatened abortion" which is not the most pleasant term, but that many women continue on to have healthy babies after experiencing what I experienced. He didn't seem too worried about it though. And after much googling and researching I found that 50% of women continue with their pregnancies after a threatened abortion but that if a heart beat is seen then the rate climbs to 90% which is comforting... but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
When we were done at Winnie, we went to my mom's house to exchange gifts. I used the bathroom while we were there and was very freaked out by the amount of blood I saw. I was nervous about what I had seen before, but this time it was like double what it had been before. I figured it was just from the doctor poking around in there. After going to my mom's we went back to Michael's parents house for Christmas dinner. Michael and I decided that it would probably be best to wait to tell everyone since we weren't sure what was going on with the pregnancy yet. I spent most of the evening just resting. I did notice a really big clump of blood which really freaked me out, but I figured it was probably just a combination of the blood and the goo from being examined early (trying to stay positive since the doctor said everything was most likely fine).
Today there is still some bleeding, but less than I've had the past two days. I'm hoping that this will be done soon. I'm going to call the doctor's office first thing tomorrow morning to see if they can get me in, just to check everything out and make sure I'm ok. This has been an emotionally stressful few days and I'm praying that everything will be fine.
We had quite an eventful weekend. Saturday started off completely normal. Michael and I went to our favorite little restaurant for lunch. When we returned from lunch I noticed that I had some spotting, but didn't think much of it since it is common after sex during pregnancy. The day continued and I continued to spot. I felt like it should stop soon and that it was probably nothing to worry about. We went to dinner at my Grandma's house for Christmas eve. The original plan was to tell the extended family about the pregnancy at Christmas dinner, but I felt a little hesitant about it because of the bleeding. We ended up telling my aunt and uncle, who were very excited for us. After dinner I asked my mom if she ever experienced any bleeding during her pregnancy. She said that she did for a few days, but that she didn't think much of it. I, on the other hand, was beginning to freak out about it. So I decided that if it didn't stop by the morning I would call my midwife to see what she thought I should do.
I woke up Christmas morning at 4am and unfortunately was still bleeding. It wasn't a ton of blood but seeing blood at all when you are not supposed to see blood is pretty scary. I thought that it probably would be nicer to wait until a more normal hour to call the midwife, so i waited until 8:30 to call her. I am so thankful she gave me her cell phone number at our last visit. She said that no bleeding is normal, but that it is common after sex to experience some bleeding. She said that I shouldn't be really concerned unless it was a ton of blood, running a fever of 100.4 or higher, or had really painful cramps. She said that if it were a normal business day she would have me come in to her office and she would do an ultrasound to make sure that everything was ok. Her office is closed until Tuesday so she said if I didn't feel comfortable waiting until then that I could go to Winnie Palmer Hospital to get checked out. She told me to just take it easy, rest, and stay off my feet.
We went to Michael's parents house to open Christmas presents and by the time we were done I was in a lot of pain. I was experiencing cramps worse than you would on your period and I was still bleeding and I was really scared that I might be having a miscarriage. We decided to go to Winnie after all just so we could know something, one way or the other. Thankfully, since it was Christmas, there weren't too many people in the ER so we didn't have to wait very long to be seen. One of the doctors checked everything out and told me that he saw some blood, but that I wasn't actively bleeding (which made me wonder "if I'm not actively bleeding, where is all this blood coming from?!"). He said that my cervix is closed which is a good thing and also did an ultrasound. He was able to see the baby and see the heart beat. He had a hard time getting the computer to be able to calculate the heart rate because it is still pretty early and the baby is small. He counted the heart beats himself and said that the heart rate was 144. He also said that the baby should be dated at 6 weeks and 4 days based on the size, rather than 7 weeks 5 days which is what I thought it was based off my last period. He said that I would probably experience some more bleeding since he was in there checking things. I asked how long I could expect to be bleeding and he said maybe 2 or 3 days. He told me that it is called a "threatened abortion" which is not the most pleasant term, but that many women continue on to have healthy babies after experiencing what I experienced. He didn't seem too worried about it though. And after much googling and researching I found that 50% of women continue with their pregnancies after a threatened abortion but that if a heart beat is seen then the rate climbs to 90% which is comforting... but I guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens.
When we were done at Winnie, we went to my mom's house to exchange gifts. I used the bathroom while we were there and was very freaked out by the amount of blood I saw. I was nervous about what I had seen before, but this time it was like double what it had been before. I figured it was just from the doctor poking around in there. After going to my mom's we went back to Michael's parents house for Christmas dinner. Michael and I decided that it would probably be best to wait to tell everyone since we weren't sure what was going on with the pregnancy yet. I spent most of the evening just resting. I did notice a really big clump of blood which really freaked me out, but I figured it was probably just a combination of the blood and the goo from being examined early (trying to stay positive since the doctor said everything was most likely fine).
Today there is still some bleeding, but less than I've had the past two days. I'm hoping that this will be done soon. I'm going to call the doctor's office first thing tomorrow morning to see if they can get me in, just to check everything out and make sure I'm ok. This has been an emotionally stressful few days and I'm praying that everything will be fine.
Meeting the Midwife
On Thursday, Michael and I went to the new doctors office and spent a really long time answering tons of questions and going over paperwork. We learned that I have really great insurance and won't have to pay a penny for any of our visits and only 10% of our hospital fee. After an hour and half, we finally got to meet the midwife. She was really nice and went over a bunch of paperwork with us. I thought that I would get an ultrasound during the appointment, but apparently the ultrasound tech was not there that day. Bummer... I was hoping Michael would get to see the little raspberry and maybe see a heartbeat. She went over some of the bloodwork results that were sent over from my previous doctor and gave me a flu shot. Side note- I have never gotten a flu shot before and it made my arm sore for two days! Ouch!! I was scheduled for my next few appointments- dating ultrasound on January 5th, and my second normal visit and first round of NT tests on January 20th.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Week 6 and 7
Week 6 came along and everything you read says that morning sickness begins in week 6. I guess I was expecting to wake up on day 1 of week 6 and be miserable. Luckily, I felt the same as always... totally normal. Then after more reading and research I found that statistics show that women who suffered from morning sickness are less likely to miscarry then women who don't get sick. So now I've got a bunch of other worries in my head about how if I don't get sick I may miscarry. Sometimes I wish we didn't have access to information 24/7 because I feel like many times ignorance would be greater than worrying about every little thing.
A few days passed and then all of the sudden this awful wave of nausea came over me. Was this morning sickness? Everything I read pointed to yes. I felt awful the entire day and barely slept that night because every time I would move, I would feel sick. The next morning I woke up and felt totally fine and haven't felt sick since then. I don't want to jump the gun and assume that is all I will have, but I do kind of feel like it was God telling me "Hey, you wanted morning sickness to ease your fears of miscarrying, so I let you have it. Now stop worrying and let me handle things." So far I'm learning that pregnancy takes a lot of faith. You don't look any different and don't feel any different early on, so you have to believe in things unseen.
One small thing I have noticed has changed is my sense of smell. I feel like I could be a super hero whose magic power is to smell things from a mile away. The other night we were downtown for an event and we walked down one block and I could tell right away that a restaurant was frying fish. I don't eat fish, or even like it but I knew that smell right away. Tonight when I walked the dog, I could tell you what laundry detergent our neighbors use because I could smell it that clearly! Great for things that smell good like laundry or flowers but not so great for yucky smells like trashcans and grease.
Tuesday began week 7 and I get to meet my midwife on Thursday. The anticipation has been killing me!! I'm praying that I love her and that things go well. Most of our close family members (my mom and his parents) already know the news but we are waiting until Christmas to break the news to everyone else. I don't usually get excited about Christmas because I feel like there is so much pressure to buy the right gifts for everyone, but this year I can't wait! I can't wait to share our news with everyone. I know they say you are supposed to wait until you are out of the first trimester to tell everyone, but really? How are you supposed to keep something so exciting a secret? Christmas can't come soon enough :)
Exciting News!
On Thursday, December 1st when I got home from work I had this weird feeling that I should take a pregnancy test. I hadn't even missed my period yet, but I just felt like I should take a test. After taking the test and waiting the required two minutes, I saw two lines. One very faint line and the normal one that always shows up. So of course I googled "very faint line on pregnancy test" to see if that was a real result or if maybe I had done the test wrong. Everything I found said that if the second line shows up at all that means its positive.
My heart began racing, in excitement and panic all at the same time, and I called Michael who was in Chicago for work. I told him I was freaking out and that there were two lines on the test, meaning that we were pregnant. His response was "Oh cool". "Really? That's it?", I replied back to him and he said "well yeah... we've been trying. It was going to happen some time". Man, I wish I had been that calm through the whole process. So I tell him that I'm going to take another test in the morning just to make sure.
That night after meeting with my Bible study group, I went to CVS and spent $40 on two different kinds of the digital pregnancy tests that clearly say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" and "yes +" or "no -". I couldn't wait until the morning, so I tried one of each of the digital kind I had just purchased. One said "pregnant" and the other said "no -". Hmm... so two positives and one negative... now I don't know what to think. After another visit to google, I learned that the test I took with the "no -" result is not able to read the hormones as early as the other tests so I thought to myself "Just try again in the morning."
First thing the next morning, I took two more tests (a little crazy, I know!). Both were positive. Ok, so now thats four positives and 1 negative. Having a false positive is pretty rare, so having four false positives would be pretty unheard of.
I told my mom who asked if she could tell all of her friends. I told her that maybe we should wait a few weeks first to make sure everything sticks. I still didn't want to get my hopes up until I had heard it from a doctor. So I waited through the weekend and took a few more tests (yes, I know it's ridiculous) and called my ob/gyn on Monday morning to make an appointment. The doctor's office scheduled my appointment for Friday and informed me that they no longer deliver babies any more, but that she can see me during my first trimester check ups. Great... now I have to find a new doctor after I spent a long time researching and getting recommendations to find a doctor a few years back. It's funny how God throws in little curve balls every now and then.
This summer I had done a lot of research on deliveries and c-section rates, etc.... and decided that I would prefer to use a midwife rather than an ob/gyn whenever I got pregnant. So then when the time actually came I thought "eh... it will be too much work to switch from my current doctor to the midwife, and I really like my current doctor anyway so I guess I'll just stick with her instead of going the midwife route." And then boom, just like that, I'm informed my doctor no longer delivers so I need to find someone new. So after scheduling my appointment with my normal doctor, I called the midwife and made an appointment there as well.
At my first appointment, they did all the usual tests- pee in a cup, positive pregnancy test, blood tests. She also did an ultrasound but told me that we might not see anything since it was so early (only 5 weeks along at that point). She saw a little black dot; I didn't see anything. She's the professional, so I'll just take her word for it that she knows what she's looking for better than I do. She asked if I needed a recommendation for a new ob/gyn and I told her that I was seeing a midwife. She knew of her and said that she was great which calmed my nerves greatly. Everything came back normal in my blood tests and I found out my blood type (O+) which I had never known. I certainly didn't feel pregnant or any different so it was nice to have it confirmed through the blood tests.
My heart began racing, in excitement and panic all at the same time, and I called Michael who was in Chicago for work. I told him I was freaking out and that there were two lines on the test, meaning that we were pregnant. His response was "Oh cool". "Really? That's it?", I replied back to him and he said "well yeah... we've been trying. It was going to happen some time". Man, I wish I had been that calm through the whole process. So I tell him that I'm going to take another test in the morning just to make sure.
That night after meeting with my Bible study group, I went to CVS and spent $40 on two different kinds of the digital pregnancy tests that clearly say "pregnant" or "not pregnant" and "yes +" or "no -". I couldn't wait until the morning, so I tried one of each of the digital kind I had just purchased. One said "pregnant" and the other said "no -". Hmm... so two positives and one negative... now I don't know what to think. After another visit to google, I learned that the test I took with the "no -" result is not able to read the hormones as early as the other tests so I thought to myself "Just try again in the morning."
First thing the next morning, I took two more tests (a little crazy, I know!). Both were positive. Ok, so now thats four positives and 1 negative. Having a false positive is pretty rare, so having four false positives would be pretty unheard of.
 |
| Here's the proof... one of many tests that I took |
This summer I had done a lot of research on deliveries and c-section rates, etc.... and decided that I would prefer to use a midwife rather than an ob/gyn whenever I got pregnant. So then when the time actually came I thought "eh... it will be too much work to switch from my current doctor to the midwife, and I really like my current doctor anyway so I guess I'll just stick with her instead of going the midwife route." And then boom, just like that, I'm informed my doctor no longer delivers so I need to find someone new. So after scheduling my appointment with my normal doctor, I called the midwife and made an appointment there as well.
At my first appointment, they did all the usual tests- pee in a cup, positive pregnancy test, blood tests. She also did an ultrasound but told me that we might not see anything since it was so early (only 5 weeks along at that point). She saw a little black dot; I didn't see anything. She's the professional, so I'll just take her word for it that she knows what she's looking for better than I do. She asked if I needed a recommendation for a new ob/gyn and I told her that I was seeing a midwife. She knew of her and said that she was great which calmed my nerves greatly. Everything came back normal in my blood tests and I found out my blood type (O+) which I had never known. I certainly didn't feel pregnant or any different so it was nice to have it confirmed through the blood tests.
Our story
Here's our story:
Michael and I got married in April 2008 after dating since 2003 and if I had it my way we would've had a baby right away. Ask my mom. When I started college, my mom asked what I wanted to major in and I told her that all I wanted was to get married, have babies, and be a mom. She told me that wasn't an option so I ended up with a degree in Elementary Education because in my mind that was the closest thing to being a mom (and I also thought being a teacher would help me be a better mom in the future).
Michael and I got married in April 2008 after dating since 2003 and if I had it my way we would've had a baby right away. Ask my mom. When I started college, my mom asked what I wanted to major in and I told her that all I wanted was to get married, have babies, and be a mom. She told me that wasn't an option so I ended up with a degree in Elementary Education because in my mind that was the closest thing to being a mom (and I also thought being a teacher would help me be a better mom in the future).
Anyway, the original plan was to buy a house and get settled in before we decided to grow our family. A year after getting married we bought of first house. Our house was built in 1959 and needed a lot of fixing up to make it a place that was both functional and our own. We had a lot of work ahead of us and with construction costs and just the costs of owning a home in general, the thought of having a baby was pushed back a while.
After finishing up the major projects with the house (a year later), I was ready to have a baby. Michael, on the other hand, was not so ready. I decided that if I couldn't have a baby then we should get a puppy instead. We ended up getting a chocolate lab puppy and set the timeline for babies back another year. (Michael has since said that he often wished we had a baby instead of getting the dog though!) Our sweet puppy, Cooper, is now almost 2 years old.
Now we no longer had any excuses to keep waiting to start our family. This July my prescription for my birth control pills ran out, so we decided that I would stop taking it and just get pregnant whenever it happened, trusting that God's timing would be better than our own. It's easy to say that you are just going to "let it happen when it happens" and not stress out about it, but in reality it is hard. You just want it to happen right away! So every month would come and go and I would just try not to make too big of a deal that it wasn't happening right away. But like always, God's timing is always better that what I could ever possibly plan on my own. And so begins our journey through pregnancy and parenthood...
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