I Wish

I've had to take a bit of a step back. I wish that I were able to stay a more active part of the blogging community. I'm having a tough time reading about other's losses and wondering why them and not me? I'm also having a tough time being pregnant and understanding why me and why not others?

Not much is new here, which is great. I'm having a tough time grasping that I'm 19 weeks pregnant. Time has been going so incredibly slowing and so incredibly quickly at the same time. Every time I buy a new batch of clothes I am afraid to even take them out of the bag and jinx things. I've been trying to cover up my bump at school for the last few weeks (but I learned tonight, not so well).

Today was tough. My mom works in the benefits department of a department store. She saw the crib that we want was not only on sale but that she has tons of other discounts to use which drops the price quite a bit. I'm really buying a crib? Really? I told her to go ahead and buy it but it needs to stay at her house (at least, for now). I tried to talk to Mr SC about why I am freaking out and he just doesn't understand. He keeps saying that we have every reason to think everything will work out and all I keep saying is that my body betrayed me four times before.

At my last OB visit (almost two weeks ago) I asked the doctor to check my cervix. She asked all of the cervical incompetence symptom questions and after I replied, "no", to all of them I said that yes, I know that there is no reason to think there is a problem but I'm having trouble because in most cases, there are no symptoms. She smiled, said I was right, and checked my cervix. All was fine. Closed, long and good. My quad screen bloodwork also came back great.

Next up? Our level 2 scan on Tuesday. This Tuesday.

In some moment of insanity, I asked my mother to come with us. Now I'm freaking out about getting bad news and having my mother there. We're very close but I can't stand the thought of finding out there's something terribly wrong with the baby and watching both her and Mr SC be crushed at the same time.

In the meantime, I keep listening to the little lion daily and have now gotten to the point where I regularly hear "thumps" while listening for my ten seconds a day. I also felt her move twice this past week, I think.

Deep breaths....I just hope we get great news in about 40 hours.

Sick...and a Pic

I've been battling yuckiness since Friday. Each day got progressively worse and peaked yesterday. I tried to go to a conference yesterday and ended up having to leave early. (It's a three day technology conference that I really, really wanted to go to). I'm not feeling good now but I'm feeling better. I resisted taking Sud.afed (even though my OB said it was ok) and truly believe I am solely responsible for the increase in Puf.fs stock prices this past week.

This morning, as I was trying to get ready, I grabbed our camera and took a pic. The coloring is way off and it's not a great pic but it's my first officially belly pic (at 17w 2d)!

Suvivor's Guilt and This Shit Only Happens to Me, Right?

First, I was shaken yesterday. I went to the bathroom and, upon inspection, there appeared to be a tiny, tiny sliver of red. I started panicking. Actually, I started saying out loud, "you've got to be fuc*ing kidding me". Upon much, much closer inspection, I was able to remove the red from my mini-pad. It was a freaking THREAD from my sweater. Seriously. WTF??

Today, one of my friends was all about trying to talk to me about being pregnant. I had to gently tell her no, no. Not yet. She didn't understand why not. "But you're pregnant! Look at you!" she said. Although I gave her a shortened version of what I'm feeling, here's why:

I don't understand why this is happening to me. Instead of thinking about nurseries and lullabies all day, these are the questions that swirl around my brain:

Why do I get to be pregnant when so many women aren't who desperately want to be?

How can I even think about wearing maternity shirts (which I need to start wearing) with my history? Who do I think I'm kidding? Wearing those shirts is just like wearing a big, red, flashing sign that says, "HAHA!! She actually thinks she's have a baby!"

Why is this time any different from any of the others?

How can someone tell me to rest easy about those "rare" complications? Um, statistics weren't in my favor with four miscarriages. Why would they start now?

I read loss stories. Second and third trimester loss stories. All I can think about is, "why them"? Why should they experience such hell and why would I get so lucky to have a take-home baby?

What I realized yesterday is that this is it. Mr SC and I decided to stop trying in October. We decided all the loss was just too painful. A week later we found out I was pregnant. If we lose this baby, this is it. No more hope. And, the pain of yet another loss, so much further along? I can't even wrap my head around that pain.

So my state of mind is pretty much either a: denial or b: anxiety. I'll be in the middle of teaching and all of a sudden stop and think, "holy shit...I'm pregnant". I promptly push that out of my head.

I just can't shake the feel that fate is somewhere above me, watching over me, cackling that horrible sound and just waiting for when he's going to let the other shoe drop.

The Post With No Creative Title

I can't think of one that's witty, funny or anything else. I guess I'm more tired than I thought. Anyone else with me that Monday nights and Tuesday mornings are waaay worse than Monday mornings?

First, I wanted to tell everyone that I've decided to start a separate blog in a few weeks. Everyone has been such a great source of support and I don't want to hurt anyone by posting about pregnancy.

A follow-up to my post from yesterday: I called my current OB's office and left a question for the nurse. Then, I called the new OB and had to leave a message. My current OB's nurse called me back in about 45 minutes and I have an appointment tomorrow to talk about things. I'm going to see how things go tomorrow before I decide to switch. I guess they redeemed themselves with this call a bit. I appreciate so much that so many of you were understanding and made me feel much less crazy.

Finally, this question is for PAL women. Feel free to email me if you'd like (if that's easier). What do you do when you obsess and how do you calm yourself down? I'm seeing a therapist (well, I haven't in about two months) but the problem with that is that she never catches me in one of those spells. It's almost like I'm having some sort of survivor's guilt. I need some more tricks up my sleeve here.

Invasion of the Crazies

**Pg related post

I'm not sure what it is or what triggered it but I feel like I'm officially going bonkers. My head feels like it's all over the place but I'll do my best to keep this post coherent. I think I have some legitimate concerns wrapped up in my invented ones.

Perhaps this is all triggered by the fact that I'm 16 weeks today and have never felt less pregnant. The doppler has been great; I know the baby is fine. But:

1. I'm concerned about my risk for an incompetent cervix. I know the condition is relatively rare but so are four miscarriages (statistically speaking), so that isn't any comfort. Apparently one of the causes is trauma from a D&E or weakening of the cervix from forced dilation. My two D&Es and two hysteroscopies both fit this bill (at least partially) I'm not sure why my OB didn't check to be sure that all was ok at my last OB appointment at 14w5d OR want to follow-up with me before my next four week appointment, where treatment wouldn't really work. Anyone have any thoughts on this? At my last regular OB appointment (14w5d) they didn't do an u/s or an internal exam. My last u/s was at 13w5d due to spotting (which is often too early to see this problem) and I won't have another u/s for another four weeks or so (which to me could be too late to fix the problem).

2. Referring to #1, yes, I know I should call my OB. However, I'm thinking that I should switch. It's been a nagging feeling that I've had in the back of my head for a couple of weeks now. Why? Well, in their defense, they were great when I was spotting and fit me right in. They checked me out (via u/s) and said all was fine. But...

• I called over a month ago for my thyroid levels to be checked. I was due and left a message for a lab slip. They literally NEVER CALLED ME BACK. This may not seem like a big deal, by my thyroid always goes wonky when I'm pregnant. I saw a different doctor for my 1st trimester u/s and asked him for a lab slip (after waiting a week for them to call) and it was taken care of, but still.
• When I had my genetic counseling for the 1st trimester screen, the nurse asked if I had been on antibiotics because I had a slightly elevated level of bacteria from my urine test. Um, no. I didn't even know this. She then said oh, it must have been low enough that they weren't concerned.
• My last OB visit was awful. It was with a resident and she was horrible. She pushed me to have the 2nd tri bloodwork. Literally, she said that it's "just a blood test" and "what's the big deal about having it?" Then, she called me back bright and early Monday morning to tell me to set up an appointment with my hematologist (I saw him already...read my chart) and to PUSH, again, for this bloodwork.

So, I feel like if I call and express my concerns and say that I'd like to be checked internally to see that all is ok, I'm not even comfortable that they'll call me back. That's not really a good feeling to have.

If any of you have had similar conversations about this concern with your doctor, I'd love to hear about it. Also, feel free to tell me that I'm half-crazy, too.