The big post...part 1

Where do I even begin? For the past 5 months or so I've been a hermit. Hiding out in my house in fear. Washed over by worry, fear, nerves, and joy. And why is that? Because I'm pregnant.

 24 weeks pregnant in fact.

At the beginning I wrote and saved posts so I could publish them later on. But now I'm thinking I'll keep those for myself and start the story over fresh. It's a long, scary and amazing journey to share. And one that is not far from God. Because believe me, I wouldn't have gotten through many moments without Him. So here it is, the story (so far) of our little one.

February 18th. Positive pregnancy test. I think I took a picture of the pee stick on my phone, but can't download the picture right now so you'll just have to imagine it. I don't have many pictures from the past few months. Why? Because that meant I would have to deal with them if something bad were to happen. It's the life of pregnant after loss I guess.
Anyway, my labs came back beautifully each time and I felt pregnant. I continued to see the RE in Seattle just because I was comfortable doing so. I was seeing the specialist in Seattle so he could do some work-ups as to why I was having recurrent losses. This little one happened naturally, but he was still happy to continue caring for me. So I saw him up until 10 weeks and had 3 ultrasounds which showed a growing baby with a beating heart.

Uultrasound at approximately 8 weeks.

Ultrasound below at 10 weeks.

At around 10 weeks, I was then released from the RE and was in the care of my Ob, who may I say was awesome. He understood my anxiety and catered (still does) to me very nicely. He saw me every 2 weeks instead of the usual longer increments he normally sees his patients. Because you see I was a wreck. After my previous pregnancies of seeing a heartbeat and then miscarrying, I no longer cared about statistics. Because I was in that unlucky percent where things went wrong. I went to work and home. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone really. My anxiety was that high at times. Not all the times, but I was more comfortable at home, so that is where I stayed. Although the pregnancy had been perfect so far, I was living in the fear of the unknown. Because I knew something could happen at any moment that could change all of that.

And it did.

I was set to go to Hawaii for a work conference at the end of April. I would be around 13 weeks at the time. I was going to leave Monday and be gone about a week. The weekend before I was supposed to go, Friday afternoon to be exact, I started bleeding. I was sitting on the couch and felt a huge gush. I ran to the bathroom and sure enough, blood. Thank goodness Justin was actually home for lunch at that time, so we went to the ER. In about an hour I had gone through a pad every 30 minutes. Driving there and waiting to be seen I was actually calm. Right before the nurse came in to check the heartbeat, I started to lose it. She found a strong heartbeat and the Dr. did a pelvic exam and said I looked fine. He guessed it was a subchorionic hemorrhage. Since I had an NT scan scheduled that coming Monday, he didn't do an u/s and sent me home on pelvic rest. The rest of that night I continued to bleed on and off and the next few days it slowed down to spotting. I had actually ordered a home fetal doppler the week before and used it over the weekend to check the heartbeat. That saved my sanity!
Monday came. The day I was supposed to leave for Hawaii. I told the co-workers I was traveling with what happened so they were aware I probably wasn't going. I saw a specialist for my NT scan and also my Ob that same day. The ultrasound showed that I indeed had a SCH. Although, it wasn't bad. It was on the opposite side of the placenta so that was good news. The baby still measured ahead and checked out great. SCH's can be common pregnancy and many get them without knowing it and it goes away on it's own. Some times though it can lead to miscarriage if it's big enough and in a bad spot. Both the specialist and my ob said they were fine with me going to Hawaii and traveling won't make anything worse. My ob even encouraged me going. Of course I had some limitations while there, but I was fine with that. They also said the SCH could absorb on it's own or I could "bleed it out." Deciding whether or not to go to Hawaii was such a difficult decision. I knew if I went and something happened I could never forgive myself. If I had still been bleeding I wouldn't have gone, but I was just barely spotting. I decided to go for a few reasons. A distraction. I knew if I didn't go, I would just sit at home worrying my head off. Second, in my previous pregnancies, I literally just sat on the couch the entire time and still miscarried. And third, my gut feeling told me it would be OK. So I went. And had an awesome time. I actually never felt better. My spotting stopped while I was there and my aches and cramps went away too. Of course I took my doppler with me for peace of mind.

Will continue with part 2 later on...