500 and 500 more.

… throwing a few thoughts together or the end of another year.

First us - we’re great. The baby is fantastic, big sister has adapted beautifully (a few bumps along the way), motherhood is much, much better the second time around. Easier, less scary, more fun. We’re lucky.

2007 - not sure what it has in store for us, 2006 was about the baby. I’m so glad I had this blog as a record of the pregnancy, it seems like a dream now, the constant fear.

I haven’t had any PND - I spent the first 6 weeks in a state of euphoria, I’m more balanced now but god its good. Physically I’ve recovered from the inevitable section really well, lots of weight to shift still but it’ll happen. The birth was perfect, I still tear up when I think about it - as different to the standard empowering no-drugs-water/home-birth as you can imagine but oh so wonderful.

IF Pain - I haven’t dealt with the pain of losing E at all. I was pregnant only 2 cycles after the miscarriage & I just couldn’t deal with it then. I get flashbacks sometimes - the smell of blood. The new baby hasn’t healed the wounds - I feel he’s debrided them, all the putrid, rotting stuff has gone & I imagine in time it will all heal over. I am still jealous - not of babies (I’ve never really had that, because I had C) - how crazy is that? Will it ever go? I’m viciously jealous of those with crops of frozen blasts, I still get a pang (wistful now) when I see pregnancy announcements. I’m able to pass for normal now with two kids - although it never occurred to me that with a six year age gap everyone would assume I’d remarried & the children have different fathers. Poor S. I’m not though, there’s still distance between me and the ’mommy world’. 

Blogosphere - I’ve had barely anytime on the computer. I hadn’t wanted to go on at all for a few weeks after J was born. Just before Christmas I read through every blog on Julie’s Big List and cried the whole time. I want them all to get the happy ending - now, soon - not just one baby but as many as the want. I don’t comment - the number of times I’ve written something then deleted it - I feel so awkward about having SIF, I feel I should preface anything I say with an apology, then I think it is probably easier not to say anything.       

Message boards - then PIF/SIF thing rages on, its depressing and counterproductive. I think it weakens us all. A PIF would swap with a secondary any day, we’d both swap with a fertile in a heartbeat. Unfortunately none of us can, we’re stuck with what we’ve got.   

There’s been so much happened since I’ve been away - the sublime, Mare & BrooklynGirl while Thalya and Manuela have been shat on in the worst possible ways. I want it all to be over everyone. 

(oh & I had to take comments off because of RL drama with EggDonorWoman, who is incapable of respecting anyone and enjoys stalking, I didn’t want to deal with her crap here)

I’m seeing my OB this week about starting back on the antidepressants. I haven’t, despite all the shit we’ve been through over the last year, felt that I’ve needed them for a couple of years now.

I’m not coping at all - my fear is completely overwhelming. I read the blogs of other pregnant infertiles/RPLers and it seems that my anxiety is in a whole different universe. I don’t have any happy moments, I cry (sobbing) frequently through the day (I’ve had two episodes recently where I’ve been driving & unable to stop crying, it isn’t safe), if I haven’t felt the baby move for ten minutes I am sure that he has died. I’m short tempered, irritable & can’t sleep, my concentration is non existent and I find it impossible to engage with people. Pretty classic depression symptoms really. 

What’s more is that it is getting worse, as I edge towards 28 weeks I find myself almost wishing that I’d PROM or start contracting. I feel that this baby would be much safer in an incubator in SCBU than inside me. I’ve worked in SCBU, I know what shite that is but I am so scared.    

I’m still here, hanging on by my finger trips & swinging over the crevice (as my gynaecologist puts it). Apparently I’m 1 in 800,000 or so and each successive ‘adverse outcome’ makes others more likely. I’ve had two complete recurrent miscarriage panels drawn this pregnancy - one at 6 weeks one at 10 - all completely normal, nothing even borderline. No thrombophilia, no APS, we’re both ‘apparently normal’ chromosomally, progesterone/testosterone/prolactin levels are all normal. My notes from the last IVF cycle have been reviewed, they don’t believe there’s an egg quality issues, PCOS has been ruled out. I even repeated the NKs … normal. I’m normal but unlucky.

As a concession to ‘our lack of knowledge’ I’m staying on the heparin until 14 weeks (I’ve been off the prednisolone since 11 weeks) and aspirin (150mg) throughout the pregnancy. She (gynae) made some interesting points about the effect of multiple losses on fertility and subsequent pregnancies - not the ‘just relax’ type but she pointed out that a long period of infertility after multiple loses isn’t unusual. No one knows why or what the mechanism is but it is as if the body just gives up - she feels that if we hadn’t ‘forced’ the issue with the IVF cycle it would be unlikely that this pregnancy would have happened. She reiterated what Lesley Reagan & the m/c centre in Canada had found that for us unexplained recurrent losers a very high levels of involvement and monitoring (betas/scans etc) can improve outcome dramatically.  

I’m seeing the high risk obstetrician next week, I’m trying to put together a list of concerns - other than the obvious I’m fucking terrified & all that’s going to make me feel better is a guarantee of a live baby - this being the NHS it is unlikely that they’ll be offering much. What I’m worried about:

• clefting (from the steroids) 
• placental insufficiency & IUGR
• pre eclampsia - my BP has been okay this time but I’m already getting some foot swelling
• my cervix & PROM

Of course this still maybe a completely academic exercise - I have another scan on Tuesday.

I’m pregnant again. A bit pregnant anyway, I’m waiting for my second beta. This is a relatively ‘natural’ pregnancy (superovulation (puregon/menopur)); how odd that is that I’d consider injecting myself with purified urine a natural way of getting pregnant but it didn’t involve ovarian puncture or anaesthesia & there was a penis involved so I’ll take it. This is my seventh pregnancy, I have no reason to believe that it will result in a child, it is fairly likely that I won’t get good news on Monday; but for the next few days I am pregnant.

My gynaecologist describes my history as grim, I agree and with him; I’ve had a veritable smorgasbord of miscarriages.

September ‘98 - blighted ovum, discovered at 8 weeks.

November ‘00 - a live birth! With a pregnancy blighted by hyperemesis, pre eclampsia, pPROM, preterm (EMCS) delivery, ABO incompatibility, a short stay in the SCBU & devastating post natal depression. 

June ‘02 - miscarriage at 5 weeks, pretty standard +hpt followed by bleeding.

December ‘02 - missed miscarriage at 13 weeks, the baby died around at 8 weeks, we got a heart beat this time but it didn’t last.

May ‘03 - another 5 or 6 week loss.

We then had 2+ years of horrific, unremitting infertility. It was honestly the hardest time of my life, everything suffered, I became a different person sad & hopeless. Our SIF is unexplained, I may have some slight immune problems, maybe PCOS, our in vitro fertilisation isn’t good, but no one can explain why.

November ‘05 - an ICSI cycle resulted our daughter Estella. Things didn’t go well from the start with low & non doubling beta HCGs, then a heartbeat but slow growth, then the growth caught up but I started bleeding from a subchorionic haematoma. Eventually I had a pPROM & placental abruption & we lost the baby at 14 weeks. We threw everything at this pregnancy, IVIg, steroids, aspirin, heparin, progesterone; it still didn’t work. We lost her twin very early in the pregnancy.

So now I find myself, only 3 months later, pregnant again & to be honest I don’t know what I feel. I’m gratefully accepting another chance but I almost can’t imagine it working.