#PandemicBaby - Part 1

Trigger Warning: I am going to be blogging about fertility, miscarriage, pregnancy loss. I hadn't documented my parenthood journey on my blog before, and it feels like it's an important part of my life and history that I would like to write about. I recognize -- oh, I fully understand since I have been through it myself -- this can be a difficult subject for some to read about, so please take care of your mental well-being if this topic may trouble you.  Please just also know, you are not alone.

I suppose it's time to mention the Big Deal that's happening for my family during this pandemic. We're about to welcome our second baby boy into our family.  I have a scheduled c-section on April 14th.

Yep. I'm about to have a baby during a global pandemic. (Wut. OhGodWhy?!)

It seems almost fitting, so for this first post I am going to go back and describe my challenging journey into parenthood.

I have always wanted to be a mother. I was that little girl playing house and mothering my dollies, I was a caregiver to my young cousins at our family cottage, I was a local baby-sitter to neighbourhood kids as soon as I was 12 (um, do people trust 12-year-olds to baby-sit anymore??) I was always nurturing. I loved kids, and I always dreamed of the day when I was a mommy myself. I always wanted a big family -- 3 or 4 children.  I used to wish I could just be a stay-at-home-mom.  I love my career as primary teacher; with today's economy an at-home parent is not as feasible, but I do love my career and that I get to work with children so that works well for me.

My fertility journey, however, was not as simple as I hoped. Which is a familiar story for so many these days -- I'm certainly not unique in that.  I got married just before turning 29, and while we tried to get pregnant right away it took about nine months of trying before I got a positive pregnancy test.

However, unfortunately, that resulted in an early miscarriage at 7 weeks (it was a "missed miscarriage" -- I thought I would have been 9 weeks along, first ultrasound yielded the sad result). I had a D&C. Over the next year, I went on to have two more miscarriages (one at 10 weeks - which I miscarried naturally and painfully at home, and a very early loss at 5 weeks). I was now in the world of an identification of "recurrent miscarriage" and was sent to see a fertility specialist. We could never find a reason for the losses, so likely just some genetic bad luck (but nothing that came out on blood work for my husband or I that indicated specific genetic risks).  We worked with the specialist for cycle monitoring, and then in May of 2016 we got another positive pregnancy test -- and finally, FINALLY (taking baby aspirin daily and progesterone) this was a successful pregnancy.

My first, and much wished for baby boy, was born on January 30, 2017.  Fortunately very healthy, a very normal pregnancy with no complications. He was late -- so at 41 weeks I was induced.  Pushed and pushed and he wouldn't come out, so he resulted in a c-section.  We've had three awesome years so far with our very funny, intelligent, and curious little man. For the blog I will give him the pseudonym of Nate (it was our other baby name for him that we didn't end up using, haha).

Since the pregnancy ended up going so well, we were hopeful that maybe we would be able to add to our family naturally.  When we were ready, we were able to get pregnant again without returning to the fertility clinic (I had conceived naturally in the end there anyway just with cycle monitoring), and my own family physician prescribed me progesterone like I had used before and I began the baby aspirin. Things were going very well.  We got through to 12 weeks, no spotting, and having seen the heartbeat at 8 weeks and heard it in my doctors office at 10 weeks.  At 12 weeks, 3 days I had my next ultrasound.

Sadly, it was another loss. The baby had grown to 12 weeks exactly and then the heart stopped. I miscarried in the hospital with medication to induce it (misoprostol).  I was very scared to miscarry at home because of what I went through when I had the 10 week loss before, so fortunately at the time the hospital could admit me and let me go through the process there with some pain management ready if I needed it.  This was a very difficult miscarriage to work through emotionally, though I'd been down that road before. It was the longest pregnancy I'd gone through before miscarrying and it really seemed things were going well. Once again, we didn't have a reason for the loss other than a genetic abnormality that was poor luck and it just wasn't meant to survive.

Six months later, I felt ready to try again. I just didn't feel "one and done" -- I was no longer hoping for three or four children, but I did want to continue to attempt to give my son a sibling while I was within child-bearing years. I wanted to know I'd tried all of my options before moving on, so that I didn't have regrets years down the road.

I ended up having a strange occurrence -- I didn't think I was pregnant, but then my period was a little late. I had a faint positive pregnancy test, but I started to bleed like a period. It seemed very much like the third miscarriage I had before having Nate -- it was just a very early loss.  It was over New Years Eve, so I hadn't been to my doctor about it.

Then, on January 2nd just as everyone began to return to work (but I was home alone with an almost 2-year-old Nate, as I was still on school break from teaching), my bleeding changed and I began to have a sustained pain on my right side. The pain was getting slightly more intense, and I nearly fainted just after I had laid Nate down for his afternoon nap. I had messaged my husband to let him know something was wrong, but when I nearly fainted I called 911.

Paramedics arrived -- I think in the process of talking to the 911 operator I fortunately worked through some anxiety and I didn't end up fully fainting. They checked my blood pressure, and I explained that I was having an early pregnancy loss but this was different than I'd experienced before. I had already asked my friends who lived locally to please come to my house to help with Nate in case I had to go to the hospital, since it would take Mr. Lock about an hour to get back into town from where he worked. It was a strange experience. I couldn't just leave the house -- I had a toddler asleep upstairs -- but the paramedics weren't really helpful and just ended up asking me to sign a thing that I wasn't going to come with them, but they advised me to go to the emergency department as soon as I could.

Honestly, it was very odd to me (my first time ever having called 911 for help to my home) and I wasn't that impressed by these two men who seemed to know nothing about what to do about a woman talking about a miscarriage. It was not what I expected.

My friends got to my house shortly after the paramedics left. While her husband stayed home for Nate, my best friend took me over to Emergency and waited with me until Mr. Lock could get there. My mother-in-law came to stay at our house to relieve my friends of staying there.

In the end -- it was a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. I was bleeding internally.  I was taken into surgery that night, and lost my right Fallopian tube.

So now, I had a history of four miscarriages and one ectopic pregnancy. I was beginning to feel it was becoming hopeless that I could have a second baby and give my son a sibling.

But I also felt resolved not to give up all options, because again -- I didn't want to have regrets a decade from now if I didn't make sure to follow-through on the different ways I could have added to my family IF it was possible during my child-bearing years.

Part 2 will follow up tomorrow...