Trigger Warning: This post references fertility, miscarriage, pregnancy loss. Please be mindful if these are topics that are personally upsetting or produce anxiety for you -- you are not alone.
So where did we leave off? Since May 2014, I had been trying to become a mother. Three miscarriages, and then my amazing rainbow baby Nate was born in January 2017. In attempting to give him a sibling, we had another miscarriage and then I suffered a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and lost a Fallopian tube. But I wasn't quite ready to give up yet.
I went back to the fertility specialist I had worked with before having Nate. Running many tests, we once again could not determine reasons for my pregnancy losses. The only thing we discovered is that my egg count is low for my age -- and now that I had this test twice over a few years, he could see it was dropping at a higher rate than the reasoning to just be "you were born with less" or something of that nature. So we couldn't know for sure, but the best guess we could have was that my egg count being low could mean my egg quality is low and so it's genetic bad luck if it just isn't a healthy egg being fertilized. I went back to taking co-enzyme Q10 (forgot to mention in my last post, I had taken that before my one successful pregnancy) as there's some research that supports it as a supplement that promotes egg health for women.
I then began the discussion about getting onto a waiting list for funded IVF. In our province, we can receive one government funded round of IVF (doesn't cover the medications, but my work plan would). It's a long waiting list, however. So, I wanted to be sure to get onto the list knowing it would be a year or more before we were called for our IVF cycle. I wasn't ready to get pregnant too soon after the ectopic, I had some emotional stuff to work through, but I didn't want to miss a chance to be on the list sooner than later -- especially since the fertility doctor had concerns about my egg quality and how many he may be able to harvest.
He was also concerned that I was "flinching" too easily during exam and internal ultrasound. So, before he would put me on the IVF waitlist I had to go to pelvic physiotherapy first. So I began some physio around February 2019. I went for multiple sessions, and learned how to relax my anxiety related to gynecological tests and it was enough to satisfy the fertility doctor. So in April 2019, he added my name to the IVF waiting list.
I relaxed -- we weren't going to try to get pregnant naturally, as I was fearful of another ectopic pregnancy and losing my only remaining tube. I was going to wait and attempt IVF, and if it didn't work we were going to throw in the towel and move on enjoying our lives as parents of an only child.
Fast forward to August 2019. Just after being home from a vacation.
Yes, we got carried away LITERALLY ONE TIME and didn't use protection.
And yes, I found myself staring at a positive pregnancy test at the end of August.
I was surprised -- one Fallopian tube and it still worked! I was elated -- this is the best I could hope for, a natural pregnancy. I was freaking out with anxiety. I just hoped it wouldn't result in another ectopic or miscarriage... I didn't think I could take another one.
Miracle of miracles, the pregnancy continued on and progressed very well. I was nervous for EVERY ultrasound, but we made it through each one seeing a strong heartbeat and normal measurements. It was just like when I was pregnant with Nate -- things just seemed to go well. I showed much earlier, and had some pelvic pains and tension, and there was some additional work stress that I had to manage -- but everything else was going really well.
We found out at our 19 week ultrasound, after giving a post-it from the technician to our friends so they could help us find out in a fun way, that we were expecting a second baby boy. Our second little miracle boy.
So now... we are excitedly looking forward to his arrival... and yet, we've been his with this Global Pandemic. A lot of hospital protocol has changed -- we have paid close attention to what we need to do. We have been staying completely quarantined since March 17th so we know we are not ill in any way before going to the hospital (if Mr. Lock had any exposure to a positive case, he would not be allowed in with me for the delivery).
So, my miracle pregnancy that was going oh-so-normal.... is now resulting in me delivering this baby DURING A PANDEMIC.
I get it, Universe. This was already going to be our absolute last pregnancy, but we really get the message now. We done!
Looking forward to being able to share a happy bit of news when baby boy #2 arrives -- any day now on his own (though I feel that isn't likely) or on April 14th when I'm scheduled for a c-section.
Fingers crossed everything goes well, and we can safely deliver our #pandemicbaby AND that Mr. Lock can stay with me in the hospital for my short stay following the c-section surgery.
Showing posts with label Nate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nate. Show all posts
Saturday, April 04, 2020
Friday, April 03, 2020
#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...
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...
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