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March 2018 Moms
ashtuesday
member
How far along are you?
PGAL Check-In: December 20
ashtuesday
member
This is a safe space for those who are pregnant after a loss. General TW for this thread.
How far along are you?
Any appointments coming up?
How are you doing? (Dear diary posts and venting are welcome and encouraged here)
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
Re: PGAL Check-In: December 20
29+5
The 28th and then I start appointments every two weeks.
I’m doing okay. My anxiety has kind of reared it’s head this week over baby movements. It feels like this dude is breech. I hope I’m wrong.
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
I just want to be a photographer.
One thing I feel weird to talk about, but wonder if you all can commiserate with: yesterday, we received a pregnancy announcement from one of my husband's friends. As happy as I am for them, I can't help feeling... Bitter? I've felt this way about every pregnancy announcement made since our first loss - I thought having a healthy pregnancy would make the feeling go away, but nope. With our losses, I really struggled (and continue to struggle) with the "Why us?" portion of things. Being a mother has ALWAYS been the most important thing to me, and every decision I made in my life revolved around the concept of motherhood. I had this feeling like I had paid my dues - so why did I have to lose a child? I'm slowly processing the fact that that's not how life works (which in all other contexts feels like a "duh" - but I'm struggling in this one). While I have come a long way in learning to accept that nothing is guaranteed and doing the "right" thing isn't always rewarded, I struggle seeing other people get good things without (seemingly) putting in work. The feeling is: why do they get good things easily when we don't?
I know it's a childish mindset, but it's one that's real and I'm trying to work through. I also realize that there are people who struggle to conceive much more than my husband and I did and they could be thinking the exact same thing about us. Sorry this was so lengthy - just wanted to voice that all.
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have? I'd love to write. Writing has always been a passion of mine, but I couldn't pursue it wholeheartedly knowing how inconsistent the pay can be: my career has to put food on the table for my family. If all things were even though, I'd drop everything to be a writer.
When my husband and I experienced our losses, we discussed them only with our immediate families. It wasn't out of shame or anything of the sort - people kept saying the wrong things trying to be helpful, and to protect ourselves from how agonizing that was, we just shut our damn mouths.
We'll be spending Christmas Eve with one of my cousins and his wife (in addition to lots of other family). My cousin's wife confided in my mom that they have been trying for years to get pregnant, and only recently found out that isn't possible for them. They're in the process of trying to adopt, but it is slow-going. My cousin and his wife don't know I know this, and they don't know about our miscarriages.
Christmas Eve is the first time I'll be seeing them since my pregnancy's become public knowledge. I want to be sensitive to them because I can only imagine how painful the evening will be for them. Any ideas or advice here? I know my other cousins will talk about the baby non-stop, even when I try to shut it down, and I know that will only make things more painful for all parties involved.
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have? I've always dreamed of being a stay at home mom. I'm a SAHM wannabe... I take vacation days to volunteer for field trips and the reason why I moved from IT into executive assistant work is for more of a work/life balance. Right now I'm actually focused on retiring as crazy as that sounds. My goal is to take an early retirement at 55 - which for me is only 14 years away... then I can finally be a SAHM - having a second wave of children with my second husband, I will still have relatively young kids. Nova will be a few months younger than Zane when I turn 55.
@mdfarmchick this chick IS breech. foot first breech after being head down... doing what the dr told me - like icing the top of my bump and shining a light at the bottom... all its doing is pissing off my child.
@ashtuesday my bereavement therapist has left me with many jewels of wisdom... one of which is "grief is competitive." She tells me to catch myself everytime I start a sentence with "at least..." a well intentioned friend sent me some internet article about another bereaved parent who lost a son aged 22. I know she meant to be kind, but my knee jerk reaction was to think, "at least he had 22 years with him... at least he got to witness his son walking, and talking and in school performances, graduating high school... at least his son got to experience things like dating and sex and falling in love, driving a car, going to school, holding a job, etc etc etc and it just made me feel sour... how shitty am I to feel like like this poor bereaved father who lost his 22 year old son, struggling to go on, is lucky...luckier than me, unworthy of complaining... how messed up is that? I have another friend who lost a 2 year old daughter to a rare genetic deletion... she has gone on to have another 2 children after losing her second child... and we went for drinks a couple months after we lost Mars and sobbed in this bar... I told her we were trying to get pregnant, and she said, I think we want another one too... BAM I think maybe 3 weeks later, she was pregnant and I was still out of the game... my first reaction was anger - at least she has 3 other children with her husband when my husband and I lost our only son, and we cant even get pregnant now, at least shes in her 30s, i feel like these are such ugly ways of thinking but I just can't help it.
as far as your question - you remember what it was like when you were in the trudges... you are right to be sensitive... it might be hard for your cousins to hear any kind of advice or words of wisdom from you in your pregnant state... or it might not be hard.... I would err on the side of caution and do everything you can to talk about other things in the world, besides growing families... its not the easiest situation... and i wish you luck!
Zane William 9/17/03
Vance Xenophon 5/17/06
Mars Florencio 11/15/16 - 3/6/17
Nova Marsela 3/14/18
You are so right about grief being competitive! I try not to beat myself up over having these super negative thoughts because I know it's all part of tge grieving process - I guess it will never not be hard.
Thank you for your advice with my cousins. I think one thing I need to keep in mind is that NOTHING made me feel good when I was in a similar situation - I will do everything I can to minimize their hurt, but I know some will be unavoidable.
30 weeks today!
Getting ready to leave for my next growth scan. So excited to see my Emma!!
I’m doing pretty good. I’ve noticed myself getting really nervous if I don’t think I’ve felt her moving enough that day. I’m so glad I did decide to get myself a fetal Doppler.
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
If I could get paid for being a SAHM that would be awesome. It’s amazing to stay with my baby, but we definitely struggle sometimes. We live on a tight budget and diapers are expensive af lol
Doing ok other than back and rib pain starting up. And it’s getting bad QUICK. The usual constipation and indigestion is still lingering.. I’m obsessing over baby’s movements so that’s turning me into a mad person. Always something keeping my anxiety going...
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
I would continue as what I am, a SAHM, but maybe feel less guilt since I would make money. It’s times like this (Christmas, birthdays, needing to make bigger purchases, etc) that’s guilt kicks in about being a SAHM. My husband doesn’t say anything at all, I just do it to myself. I LOVE being a SAHM and am so grateful I am able to be, but I do feel guilty regularly about different things.
Thinking of you @senora76
edited because spelling is hard
29 weeks 4 days
MFM tomorrow and quest for blood work. My appointment schedule from now on will be just super dense, this is fine, and I appreciate how closely they are watching my preeclampsia and gestational diabetes, and that all these appointments are what keep me outpatient for now, but I don’t drive, I am very phobic about it and also very bad at it, and I am spending a lot on Lyft,or feeling guilty when I let friends s or family drive my lame ass around.
I don’t know, I am sad and worried and trying to stay calm and optimistic. I just want at least another month, I want 2, but if I can’t have that I just really don’t want him to come out really soon.
GTKY: If all jobs had the same pay and hours, what job would you like to have?
I would like a job assembling other people’s ikea furniture.
@senora76 I’ll be thinking of you today, I don’t know if anything you could find out would bring any solace, but I know I would want the information anyway.
eta, “him” not “John”, because my baby’s name is not John, autocorrect.
Long story short - the medical examiner at the coroners told us 10-15% of SIDS cases are correlated to a cardiac channelopathy so test for that if we have the means... the genetics team at Kasier one upped that and said if we only have 5 ml of blood why would we test for one thing if we can do full dna sequencing and test for everything.. all covered by insurance mind you - this cost us $20 co-pay. So here it is - it took months due to the extensive nature... they didnt find anything genetically wrong with our boy...but they did find one very rare (1 in 200,000) nuance: CARDIAC CHANNELOPATHY. This came from DH. He has the same one. He is devistated to find out it came from him, but is digesting it. Jose has the same cardiac channelopathy so its clearly conducive to life...so they can't say this is the cause, but they can give us this correlation: 1 in 10 SIDS cases have this yet 1 in 200,000 in the general population have this... so it does seem relevant. What does this mean for Nova? we have 3 options: 1) do nothing 2) test Nova at birth 3) get an amnio test now, with the option to terminate... 1 and 3 are both HELL NOs for us. Clearly there is a correlation... Nova has a 50/50 chance of having this... but clearly if Jose is walking around OKAY this is conducive to life but I would like to rule it out in the case that Nova does NOT have this. So, we are going to test her at birth - will take 2 weeks to come back instead of 3 months since they are only testing one thing. Other interesting facts, I am apparently not only a tay sachs carrier, but a CF carrier too since Mars was a carrier of both. It states his father is negative and mother is heterozygous.
I feel a lot better having these results back... still digesting tho... what a day.
Zane William 9/17/03
Vance Xenophon 5/17/06
Mars Florencio 11/15/16 - 3/6/17
Nova Marsela 3/14/18
Were they willing to test your kids easily? I’d like to know if my older sons are carriers... My teenager wanted a copy of Mars results cause he wanted to analyze them himself (total science guy) so he’s in the know of what it could mean, but it would be reassuring to know for sure.
here are some other symptoms:
https://uvicf.org/researchnewsite/carrierhealth/
Zane William 9/17/03
Vance Xenophon 5/17/06
Mars Florencio 11/15/16 - 3/6/17
Nova Marsela 3/14/18
Our state tests for CF as part of newborn screening, so that is how we caught it. DS was negative. Not to say he couldn’t have a mutation they don’t test for I guess if they also don’t test infants for ALL mutations like adults? Due to a kidney disease I have I had genetic testing done while pregnant with DS so that’s where they found out I was a carrier. DH was tested at that point. So had our newborn screening not included that as part of the panel we would’ve known to test the kids. I definitely think it’s important to know for later in life when they start thinking about having kids, they will know to have their significant others tested if they choose to.
For all you ladies... hope you all have your gifts wrapped and under the tree!!! For those of you working outside the home like me, hope you get an early release today!!! Wow, Christmastime is here!!!
Zane William 9/17/03
Vance Xenophon 5/17/06
Mars Florencio 11/15/16 - 3/6/17
Nova Marsela 3/14/18