Dear Gabby,
Happy Thanksgiving, little one. I've thought about you a lot today. Today would have been your first Thanksgiving. Time to dress you up in your 'gobble gobble' bib and take a gazillion pictures of you.
Daddy and I have a lot to be thankful for everyday. We have a great family. A very strong marriage. Your smart and hilarious older brother. Your brother or sister on the way. Our beautiful home. These are just a few of the many things that we are thankful for.
At the same time, I want more. I want you and Ryan with us. I've been told before since we've lost you that I should be grateful for what I do have.... but does that mean that all of the blessings that we DO have are supposed to in some way make up for not having you? Just because I mourn does not mean I am ungrateful b any means.
I've learned through grief that it is very possible to realize your blessings and be grateful for them, yet still miss and want back what has been taken from you. I think that is normal and natural. The pain I feel over missing you and Ryan does not at all take away from how much I love your older brother and am so blessed to have him or any of the many other wonderful things that I've been given. It simply means that you are and will always be a piece of me that is missing.
And so today I want to say that as much as I would do anything to have you and Ryan with us, I am grateful for the amount of time I was blessed to have you and Ryan here with me. I am so thankful for the wonderful groups and women I have met through this whole process. I have made new friends, realized some of my own strengths, realized the strength of my marriage, and brought other relationships to a stronger level. As devastating as this nightmare has been, there has been some light in other forms through it all.
So thank you to you and your brother for teaching me a whole new way to love.... to love someone you've never held and never seen, but have loved unconditionally from the split second I knew you.
Momma
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
The Big Announcement (drum roll, please.....)
Rainbow Babies" are the understanding that the beauty of a rainbow does not negate the ravages of the storm. When a rainbow appears, it does not mean that the storm never happened or that the family is not still dealing with its aftermath. What it means is that something beautiful and full of light has appeared in the midst of the darkness and the clouds. Storm clouds may still loom over but the rainbow provides a counterbalance of color, energy, and much needed hope.
Well.... we're expecting our rainbow!!!!!!!!!!!! We found out in October, about a week and a half before Gabby's due date. There were a lot of conflicting emotions in October.... TONS of joy, lots of fear, and much sadness as we should have been welcoming our daughter in to the world.
I am taking Heparin injections twice a day (more about that later), folic acid, b12, and b6 supplements, baby aspirin, and my prenatal every day.
We've gone to the doctor's every week..... the first sound of his/her heartbeat was the most gorgeous thing I've ever heard. I could listen to that heart thumping away all day, every day.
The past two weeks I've been out on bed rest. I went to the ER because I was having a hard time breathing. Found out I had bronchitis (joy, joy) and they did an ultrasound. The baby looked great, but they found a hemtoma. The ER doctor told me I was possiby looking at another miscarriage because he said that the hematoma was attached to the placenta. I saw my doctor the following day who told me I wasn't necessarily miscarrying and that the hematoma was NOT attached to the placenta.... I didn't even have a placenta yet!
I went in last week ( a week later) and the hematoma went down to a third of the size of what it had been before. He put me on another week of bedrest to keep an eye on it.
I went to the doctor's yesterday and our baby measured at 8 weeks 4 days with a heartbeat at 155. The hematoma has stayed the same, but good news is it hasn't gotten any larger and that our little one is developing perfectly.
Am I scared? Absolutely. Nervous? You bet. But I'm so in love and so hopeful.
answers.... at last! (and of course, some lab drama)
It wouldn't be my life if there wasn't some sort of dramatic thing that went wrong when I was trying to do something routine... such as having some blood drawn. I've said for years that for being roughly 80% Irish, I have the WORST luck over the tiniest things.... which leads to a lot of frustration.
Alas.....
I went to the lab to have my blood drawn for the thromobophilia panel. They told me it would take about 2 weeks for results. I called about a week and a half later, thinking that perhaps they had gotten the results in early.
They had some of the tests back.... negative for everything so far. Told me they'd call when the others came back.
A week later I hadn't heard anything. I contacted the office, who contacted the lab....... WHO LOST MY BLOODWORK. I was so upset. I'd been waiting for over 4 months to find out why all of this had been happening... I had a guy feeling I would find out with a blood clotting panel.... and they LOST my blood?
Back to the lab I went and started the whole process over again. This time they didn't lose my bloodwork.
And I was right about that gut feeling.... I tested positive for MTHFR..... heterozygous C677T.
So essentially, tiny blood clots were forming in the little bitty veins that were feeding my uterus..... cutting my babies off and eventually it killed them.
I was so happy to have an answer.......but so mad at my body. I was so angry for not having control of the thing that was killing my children. I also am not able to convert B12, B6, and folic acid on my own.....so they were deprived of that.
My doctor put me on vitamin supplements and told me to call him when I was pregnant. I asked him about taking Heparin or Lovenox ( a blood thinner given in the form of injections to women in pregnancy with the same diagnosis) and he said no, and that if I miscarried again that he'd consider it.
That answer didn't sit well with me. I had made an appointment with another doctor for a second opinion, and went in to see him.
Right off the bat, I felt totally at ease. He was so easy to talk to, was willing to take a more aggresive approach to battle the MTHFR, and assured me that he would do everything in his power to help us have a baby. It was the most assured and comfortable I had ever felt with any medical professional, much less in the past several months.
We did an ultrasound of my ovaries a few weeks later and they looked perfect. Ripe, plump, and ready to be fertilized. : ) He gave us the go ahead to try again.
I felt so confident that cycle. Again, nearly took us to the poor house over pregnancy tests..... but things didn't work out that month.
Alas.....
I went to the lab to have my blood drawn for the thromobophilia panel. They told me it would take about 2 weeks for results. I called about a week and a half later, thinking that perhaps they had gotten the results in early.
They had some of the tests back.... negative for everything so far. Told me they'd call when the others came back.
A week later I hadn't heard anything. I contacted the office, who contacted the lab....... WHO LOST MY BLOODWORK. I was so upset. I'd been waiting for over 4 months to find out why all of this had been happening... I had a guy feeling I would find out with a blood clotting panel.... and they LOST my blood?
Back to the lab I went and started the whole process over again. This time they didn't lose my bloodwork.
And I was right about that gut feeling.... I tested positive for MTHFR..... heterozygous C677T.
So essentially, tiny blood clots were forming in the little bitty veins that were feeding my uterus..... cutting my babies off and eventually it killed them.
I was so happy to have an answer.......but so mad at my body. I was so angry for not having control of the thing that was killing my children. I also am not able to convert B12, B6, and folic acid on my own.....so they were deprived of that.
My doctor put me on vitamin supplements and told me to call him when I was pregnant. I asked him about taking Heparin or Lovenox ( a blood thinner given in the form of injections to women in pregnancy with the same diagnosis) and he said no, and that if I miscarried again that he'd consider it.
That answer didn't sit well with me. I had made an appointment with another doctor for a second opinion, and went in to see him.
Right off the bat, I felt totally at ease. He was so easy to talk to, was willing to take a more aggresive approach to battle the MTHFR, and assured me that he would do everything in his power to help us have a baby. It was the most assured and comfortable I had ever felt with any medical professional, much less in the past several months.
We did an ultrasound of my ovaries a few weeks later and they looked perfect. Ripe, plump, and ready to be fertilized. : ) He gave us the go ahead to try again.
I felt so confident that cycle. Again, nearly took us to the poor house over pregnancy tests..... but things didn't work out that month.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Ryan James
I told myself after we lost Gabby that I wouldn't get too excited again.... I wouldn't get attached... I wouldn't set up another trap for myself just to end in heartbreak.
That didn't happen.
With Ryan, the hope came back. There was joy again.
Every doctors visit went well. I had blood draws every other day and watched my HCG double. I took progesterone supplements. Everything seemed to be going just fine.
I studied toilet paper to make sure I wasn't spotting. I was paranoid.
My husband and I went to my friend's college graduation. I used the restroom and casually glanced down... it was routine but I wasn't exactly studying it as I had been before.... but there was blood.
I came out of the bathroom shaking. I told Mark I needed to go home. I sent my friend a text message apologizing. I just couldn't do it.
We called the doctor who once again told me to take it easy and just relax. Sometime in the middle of the night the spotting stopped. I felt so relieved thinking that it was just typical "pregnancy spotting".
The following night I woke up to much more blood. I went to the doctor's office, who told me it wasn't anything to worry about and my HCG levels looked great. They did an ultrasound and couldn't see anything. They chalked it up to being too early.
The doctor then saw me and told me he didn't have any way of explaining the bleeding. They took another blood draw.
The next morning I receieved a call. The nurse was crying. She said they had all been rooting for me and she had been the one that called me every other day letting my know my HCG was climbing.
This blood draw showed that my HCG had taken a drastic nose dive. I was miscarrying again.
It was exactly 3 months to the date that I had the D&C with Gabrielle.
I left work. I screamed in my car. I cursed at God. I got home and sat there like a zombie. I was so hurt, so angry, and so full of hatred towards I didn't even know what.
I was mad at myself for getting attached... for setting myself up to be hurt again... but how can a mother not love their child? As much as I had tried to resist I loved that baby with all of my heart and soul.
I lost Ryan through natural miscarriage. There was no D&C. It was just time to wait it out.
It took 13 days until it was complete. 13 days of being reminded all over again of what was happening. 13 days of being afraid to leave my home because I never knew what to expect.
I went to the doctor after the miscarriage was complete. They followed my HCG down to zero. I came to him with a typed page full of questions. Most of them he seemed to laugh off and kept looking at his watch. I felt like he couldn't be bothered, and that my losses were just "one of those things".... "this kind of stuff happens". Before coming in to the office, I did a lot of research. I demanded a thrombophilia panel to be ran. He said that he didn't really see the need for it and that they don't order them until after 3 losses. I kept insisting on having it done, and he finally gave me the order for the test.
My thinking was that if this really was "one of those things" and it "just happens" then prove it.... show me that there is not other logical explanation.
That didn't happen.
With Ryan, the hope came back. There was joy again.
Every doctors visit went well. I had blood draws every other day and watched my HCG double. I took progesterone supplements. Everything seemed to be going just fine.
I studied toilet paper to make sure I wasn't spotting. I was paranoid.
My husband and I went to my friend's college graduation. I used the restroom and casually glanced down... it was routine but I wasn't exactly studying it as I had been before.... but there was blood.
I came out of the bathroom shaking. I told Mark I needed to go home. I sent my friend a text message apologizing. I just couldn't do it.
We called the doctor who once again told me to take it easy and just relax. Sometime in the middle of the night the spotting stopped. I felt so relieved thinking that it was just typical "pregnancy spotting".
The following night I woke up to much more blood. I went to the doctor's office, who told me it wasn't anything to worry about and my HCG levels looked great. They did an ultrasound and couldn't see anything. They chalked it up to being too early.
The doctor then saw me and told me he didn't have any way of explaining the bleeding. They took another blood draw.
The next morning I receieved a call. The nurse was crying. She said they had all been rooting for me and she had been the one that called me every other day letting my know my HCG was climbing.
This blood draw showed that my HCG had taken a drastic nose dive. I was miscarrying again.
It was exactly 3 months to the date that I had the D&C with Gabrielle.
I left work. I screamed in my car. I cursed at God. I got home and sat there like a zombie. I was so hurt, so angry, and so full of hatred towards I didn't even know what.
I was mad at myself for getting attached... for setting myself up to be hurt again... but how can a mother not love their child? As much as I had tried to resist I loved that baby with all of my heart and soul.
I lost Ryan through natural miscarriage. There was no D&C. It was just time to wait it out.
It took 13 days until it was complete. 13 days of being reminded all over again of what was happening. 13 days of being afraid to leave my home because I never knew what to expect.
I went to the doctor after the miscarriage was complete. They followed my HCG down to zero. I came to him with a typed page full of questions. Most of them he seemed to laugh off and kept looking at his watch. I felt like he couldn't be bothered, and that my losses were just "one of those things".... "this kind of stuff happens". Before coming in to the office, I did a lot of research. I demanded a thrombophilia panel to be ran. He said that he didn't really see the need for it and that they don't order them until after 3 losses. I kept insisting on having it done, and he finally gave me the order for the test.
My thinking was that if this really was "one of those things" and it "just happens" then prove it.... show me that there is not other logical explanation.
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