PGAL (Pregnant after a loss) check in 10/6

ReadyForaB

This thread is for those who are pregnant after a previous loss(es). TW for entire thread due to discussion of MC, TFMR, CP, etc. 

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Weeks/EDD?

Previous loss(es) (share as much or as little as you like)?

How are you feeling? Emotionally & physically?

Any appointment updates?

Any big milestones?

Rants/Raves/Questions?

ReadyForaB

Weeks/EDD? - 4w5d - EDD June 10th according to LMP

Previous loss(es) (share as much or as little as you like)?  Two MMCs.  We got pregnant while not trying in February 2021 and discovered the MMC at 7 weeks.  Baby stopped growing at 6w3d.  This loss was particularly hard because we told our then 4 year old and he was so excited.  The only pregnancy we had before it was his which was textbook so we never expected a loss.   We went back on birth control for a year and decided to start trying in April 2022.  We got pregnant right away and found out at 7 weeks that it was another MMC.  Baby stopped growing at 6w1d. 

How are you feeling? Emotionally & physically?  I am exhausted.  Emotionally, I am trying not to get too attached.  At least until we pass the 7/8 week mark.  I don't think I will believe that this is actually happening until we get to that point. 

Any appointment updates?  Nope.  My OB sent me for betas last week, then this week then called and said to go again next week.  No appointments scheduled yet. I am a little frustrated because even with my second loss, my betas were 42,000+ days before I found out about the MMC.  So for me, betas don't really mean much. 

Any big milestones?  Just hoping to get past 7 weeks so I can breathe a little easier. 

Rants/Raves/Questions? Nope. 

thescarletmom

Weeks/EDD? 4w1d / June 14

Previous loss(es) (share as much or as little as you like)? I've had 5 losses, this is my 8th pregnancy. My most recent loss was the end of this summer. I have severe endo that makes it harder to stay pregnant than to get pregnant. Hoping this little one gets to join us as baby #3.

How are you feeling? Emotionally & physically? Weirdly... I have this feeling like this one is going to make it. I almost feel calm? Which is insane because I am usually WRACKED with anxiety while pregnant. But for now, I'm not going to question it and I'm going to feel grateful. Because I know telling myself not to get attached doesn't make it hurt less.

Any appointment updates? My midwife didn't use to see patients before 12 weeks, but now she is taking them at 8 since he has an ultrasound machine! (huge for a homebirth midwife). Excited to go for that appointment in one month instead of two!

Any big milestones? My previous losses were at 12, 8, and the rest 6 or earlier weeks. So not any big milestones passed yet/coming up.

Rants/Raves/Questions? I'm so bad at keeping pregnancy news to myself, so I'm struggling to keep from telling everybody i talk to lol. Want to wait until we've had our first appointment at least but it will be a toughie for me haha.

thescarletmom

@ReadyForaB aw that's so heartbreaking. We have two sons (6 and 2.5) and I know our oldest would take a loss really hard too. In the past I'd rush to get ultrasounds or to hear the heartbeat when I got anxious, but within ten minutes of the machine turning off I'd be right back to "well what if something happened right after". It was so difficult to find comfort. Thinking of you, we'll make it to 7 weeks together! Most of my losses were before that week as well. 

kalesix3

@ReadyForaB have you had your thyroid looked at? I only ask because my RE told me when she sees patients and hears they have multiple early losses where the baby stopped growing 9 times out of 10 they find out it's thyroid related. Maybe your Dr could run some thyroid labs and a miscarriage panel to see if they give you some peace of mind or answers.?

hjk5055

The app is saying I’m 5w3d. Due date of June 5th. 

This is my 6 pregnancy and I have 1 living child at home. I have had 3,1st trimester miscarriages and our son was stillborn at 35 weeks. I am “excited”, but honestly trying to not let myself get too excited. 

I’m emotionally and physically in a good place right now. Hoping that remains the same. 

I have a call out of my fertility clinic for an appointment. Hoping to get in soon for labs and a nutrient infusion. 

As far as milestones, I’m a bit jaded. I unfortunately know there is no “safe” zone in pregnancy. 

ReadyForaB

@kalesix3 I have never heard that. I do get yearly blood work from my primary care physician (just did yesterday actually) and my thyroid level is checked and always normal. Do you know if it would be anything extra other that what is in your typical cbc? My OB basically says they won’t really do much testing on me until I’ve had three losses because I was not yet 35 when I had my second. (A month shy. 🙄) Which is annoying. So we shall see. 

kalesix3

@ReadyForaB oh I'm sorry, I forget that some CPs won't run tests till you've had three losses, I hate that for you, it seems so unnecessary. 
I know the miscarriage panel is absolutely things they wouldn't do during normal bloodwork, things like clotting disorders and hashimotos markers. 
They might run your tsh normally but are they looking at antibodies, your free T4 and T3? TSH won't always tell you everything you need to know about your thyroid. 

@hjk5055
This is my fifth pregnancy and I only have one living child too, I lost one of my babies during labor at 40 weeks so similar to you there's never a safe zone. I completely understand, the loss club is so terrible. 💔 

kalesix3

I kept meaning to do the checkin part of this and got distracted by replies.

Weeks/EDD? 5w4d 

Previous loss(es) (share as much or as little as you like)?
I've had two early losses, one in February this year, and I lost my daughter 3 years ago during labor. They never narrowed down a cause of death more than just a fluke. One of the fertility specialists I've seen thinks all the losses are connected and the other one doesn't. My thyroid was always fine and normal but sometime after I had my son my TSH started rising and nobody can figure out why from my labs. I'm almost certain TTC took 14 months thanks to my thyroid, plus the increased risk of miscarriage, it's a lot on my mind at all times. 

How are you feeling? Emotionally & physically?
I have a lot of specific fears and nightmares that my babies die and pregnancies are lost in cycles, so I miscarried, got pregnant with my daughter, who died in labor, then I had another baby who lived and I had an amazing calm pregnancy with, but after him I miscarried, and now that I'm pregnant again I feel a sense of dread that this baby will die in labor too. Plus with my last loss I would have been due in November and I'm really sad that it's next month and I'm just now starting all over again. 

Any appointment updates? 
I have an appointment next Wednesday for a quick ultrasound before heading out of town and then on the 24th I have my last appointment with my fertility specialist and another ultrasound. At 9 weeks I'll graduate care to a regular job/midwife practice. I'm going there to see if they can sort out my thyroid and if not I'll transfer care to the same practice I went to with my son. They just don't dig into thyroid disorders or SCH so I'm going to try to get some answers that my RE can't give me. 

Any big milestones? Not specifically, I feel like every day is a huge milestone. 

Rants/Raves/Questions?

thescarletmom

@kalesix3 I also get stuck in those cyclical thoughts. I had two miscarriages before my DS1 was born, then two more between DS1 and DS2, but I've only had one between DS2 and this babe. I nearly *convinced* myself this pregnancy was doomed for that reason alone earlier.

kalesix3

@thescarletmom ugh yesss you get it! It's so awful. I try to just give my brain lots of grace when I'm stuck thinking like that. It's okay to be traumatized after losses. 
I'm so sorry you deal with such severe endometriosis, I wish so much there was a magical cure. 

thescarletmom

@kalesix3 tooootally get it. My brain is very pattern-oriented so those types of cycles/patterns I always pick up on immediately and my anxiety will run with it. It makes sense to be traumatized! I read a quote recently that really stuck with me: "Even though physically, my baby was small and my loss early, the world I had already created for us was huge and built to last a lifetime." 

I was first diagnosed when I was 14 and the doctor told me it was so bad I was basically infertile 🥴 he wasn't the greatest. I wish no one ever had to walk the journey of pregnancy and infant loss, it's one of those things that just feels too cruel to have any purpose.

kalesix3

@thescarletmom can I just say I can't imagine how devastating and tramatizing it must be to hear news like that at 14? How heartbreaking, I'm so glad that diagnosis ended up being wrong for you ❤️‍🩹

knottie526e19fe6c315cbe

I had a miscarriage 2 years ago and just found out about 2 weeks ago I’m pregnant . Was unexpected but super happy and nervous . I’m so paranoid over everything . Today I went in and they said it looks like I’m earlier then they thought . I immediately went into thinking the worst case scenario . However the heartbeat was found and was 104 beats per minute so I’m having a lot of mixed emotions between exciting and scared .

annemarie96

I missed this thread before somehow, but I really enjoyed hearing your stories, guys. I am also on my 8th pregnancy with two living children, so that was cool to relate to. Sometimes I can get caught up in a pity party whenever I read things like “if you’ve had a miscarriage and are pregnant again, don’t worry, most of the time it only happens once” I live that that stat is true, but it can send me into such a pity party. 

kalesix3

@annemarie96 that stat always makes me feel worse too, as well as when I see someone saying things like "your body knows what to do" or "pregnancy is natural and normal so stop being anxious", or "miscarriages are so rare, you don't need to worry about it!"  Like of course it's my personal experience but I just feel so awful when I hear those things. Is it normal for your body to be a coffin? Is it normal to have loss and death etched so deeply into your heart? If your body knows what to do, why does stillbirth even exist? Additionally why do we still have next to no reasearch done on causes of stillbirth when the statistics tell us over and over that it isn't rare.  The langue is just extremely inflammatory and triggering for me because those statements are made, nine times out of ten, by someone who never lost a pregnancy or a baby and has no idea what they're talking about. 
Pregnancy AND loss are both extremely normal and everybody's body can fail. 

annemarie96

@kalesix3 👏🏻👏🏻 I agree so much. I’ve heard some people say we need to normalize death in our culture. We avoid talking about it in any form. When kids ask questions we get awkward. But death is just as real as life, and people a long time ago were so connected to that reality, with all kinds of celebrations or ways to memorialize the person lost. 

And with pregnancy and loss it’s even worse. It’s so easy for these babies to be invisible, which is why so many people now are kinda going against it. I talk about my miscarriages and nicu time all the time. They don’t define me, but they’re a big part of what’s shaped me and they’re my reality. There’s so much trauma associated with bringing people into this world for me. It’s a weird thing. 

Sorry for the whole book. 

❤️❤️

thescarletmom

@annemarie96 ugh you bring up another thing that bothers me! If I talk about my losses and the anxiety they cause, or my birth trauma, etc. people act like I'm "dwelling", living in the past and refusing to move on. You can't acknowledge the hard parts of your life without a weird number of assumptions about you as a person. I mentioned briefly to a coworker (who was aware of my miscarriage over the summer) that I was anxious that my symptoms were going away for a few days. She got irritated with me, chided me for being "ungrateful" somehow? You find out so quickly how few people are safe to talk to when they shift into that kind of language about your losses. 

rainbowbby28

Previous loss(es) (share as much or as little as you like)? Missed miscarriage last year baby died at 5 weeks 5 days but my body continued to think it was pregnant.

How are you feeling? Emotionally & physically? Emotionally I keep thinking of the worst 
Physically I'm tired and sick all the time 

Any appointment updates? Everything looking good and normal 

Any big milestones? We seen a heartbeat and never made it to the 2nd doctor appointment 

Rants/Raves/Questions? None

kalesix3

@annemarie96 and @thescarletmom I couldn't have said it better myself honestly. 
People erasing the children you lost is a special kind of hell. I know when I got pregnant with my son and then especially after he was born everyone would ask the obligatory "is he your first?" And I really struggled with that because I knew nobody wanted to hear that I had a baby who died, especially not a baby that the NICU couldn't save because everyone thinks babies never die in the NICU. But I came to resent myself so bad for sweeping my daughter's life under a rug to keep others comfortable and so now I never do. If you ask me a question like that I'm going to tell you the truth and if it makes you uncomfortable or ruins your day (which definitely has happened) then maybe it's a good place to ask yourself why a baby dying makes you so uncomfortable and to get curious why "is he your first" was the first question that came to mind. 

thescarletmom

@kalesix3 I think it has a lot to do with shaking their personal sense of safety. The idea of losing a child is so painful, you want to believe it doesn't happen. And someone looking you in the face and saying my baby died and there was nothing I could do to stop it makes you feel vulnerable, helpless, and unprotected. They don't want to sit with those uncomfortable feelings, so they have to make sure you feel so unwelcome that you'll never do it again. It's bizarre how the instinct is to shut it out and shut them up, before opening up your arms to take in someone who has experienced your nightmare. It's very cold. 

Speaking of, somebody lurking from the May board made a comment on the thread about first prenatal appointments that pissed me off. She said something to the effect of "well it doesn't really matter when your first appointment is because they can't do anything if something goes wrong this early anyways" like girl are you out of your mind? What does that have to do with anything? 

annemarie96

@thescarletmom @kalesix3
I’ve been so blessed to have quite a few people in my “mom friend circle” who have dealt with loss. It’s really unfortunate that it’s happened so much, but we really understand each other and understand that every situation is different too, and that we may say the wrong thing still but we all can talk about it. It’s so normalized. 

That coworker has no idea how grateful you are for every single day. Gratitude and anxiety go hand in hand!! 

I really struggled with a similar thing when people would ask how old my second son is. He was 3 months early, which is significant when you’re in the store and he’s 10 months old but CLEARLY not a 10 month old. I couldn’t bring myself to erase that time and his actual birthday even for a moment with a stranger. I had a lot of awkward encounters because of it because people don’t know what to say. 🤣

Also, when I refer to the number of pregnancies I’ve had. As in, baby #3 is on the way right now, but really it’s baby #8. 

annemarie96

Also, I couldn’t agree more with both of you and your reasons for why people can’t handle reality. All of that was so good. 

annemarie96

@kalesix3
Also, this reminds me, I had my son at 27 weeks and he ended up being okay, and then I had a friend of a friend who had a baby born at almost the exact same gestation and he went to the same hospital and everything. He didn’t make it. He lived for about 2-3 days after he was born, I think. 

We had been talking and I was trying to be so so encouraging because statistically he was going to be healthy and wonderful. She read through all my old update posts on my son’s nicu time, etc. 
I felt so upset by her sons death. For her sake of course, and it was just so so close to home. It shook me up so much, because the fragility of life hit me again. And I hate the fact that any time she comes in contact with my son she will see who her son could have been, in a way. I know how hard that is on a smaller level with miscarriage. 

She has been so sweet and still reaches out too, which I can’t fathom. I don’t think I’d want to remember the little boy who made it. 

Anyway, all this is to agree, even as a nicu mom, sometimes I want the nicu to be only the life-sustaining place. It’s traumatic too, but I want it to stay that place of miracles in general. 

thescarletmom

@annemarie96 in a much smaller/distant way, I completely get what you mean by how the "close to home" things can really get to you. I had two mcs before DS1, and they dramatically increased my sensitivity to loss, especially child loss. Around when he was born, a girl I had gone to middle school with lost her newborn baby. Both boys, both similar ages. I sobbed for days on end thinking about her loss, and I hadn't talked to her in years. I just couldn't look at my baby without imaging how awful it would be to have him taken away from me like hers was. In the years since, it's gotten stronger. Anything to do with infant/child loss rips my beating heart out. Especially so if they resemble my kids at all. But I think it's like... my heart, as a mother of children I've never met, casts such a wide net in search of those babies, trying to give them my love... that it picks up every child. Any of them could be the face of my angels. And I grieve every single one of them. Hell, I remember reading the first PGAL thread and when I got to @kalesix3 daughter I had to take a break from the thread because I couldn't read through watery eyes.

It's one of those secondary losses that people don't think about... I lost the ability to compartmentalize loss. Everything feels so personal. Because I know what loss looks like, anyone else who does is a sister and I can't help but take on some of their grief, whether I know them or not. I'm sure this isn't the healthiest thing, but it feels the most human to me, being in the trenches with everyone else. And you know, now that I think about it, maybe this plays a role in that too. People who haven't experienced loss can still compartmentalize, they don't have to take it personally because that wave of loss has never pulled them under. They're free to stay afloat and they don't want to give up their life vest.

kalesix3

Wow all of this is so good, I can't reply to every single thing but I feel all of what you've both said. I do understand how hard it can be to read my story, I'm not insensitive and I want to say I really appreciate peoe who take a break to process but still show up. I think when you're a loss mom the people who show up despite the pain and discomfort put your heart back together that much more. My daughter was, and always will be a huuuge part of my life and I'm a mother because of her and the few people who recognized that when she was gone were lifesavers. 
@thescarletmom I still have to take breaks in similar stories to mine, it's all so sad and heartbreaking because I know exactly what that visceral gaping wound feels like. 
I have a shrine of candles that I light on baby's birthdays who died of friends of mine and other people I've met in the community and on infant loss awareness day I help or participate in remembering all the babies and children who aren't here anymore. It's really healing. 
I also saw that comment from the may lurker and I had to just look away because I wasn't going to start drama over an ignorant opinion. Both my miscarriages happened too early for an appointment and it doesn't diminish the anxiety waiting for an appointment. It's not about saving a pregnancy that's already going to end. 
@annemarie96 similar to your story, two mom friends  and I went into labor with our babies at the same time, two of our babies died and one didn't and the mom who's baby lived had a lot of trauma from having the 1 living baby out of all of us. I haven't personally experienced it but I can imagine how much it would hurt too for completely different reasons. Grappling with the why's is one of the hardest thing. 

thescarletmom

@kalesix3 I feel very strongly that everybody deserves to have their worst chapter read if they're brave enough to publish it.

annemarie96

@thescarletmom Man, I can relate so much. I feel like a sponge sometimes for the emotions and really, grief of others. If I hear of anything bad happening to a child almost every time I picture my child in their place and I have to spend a moment actually enveloped in the grief as if it were my kid. It’s like my brain forces me to feel it as if it’s really happening in my family. 

I can’t watch almost any movies anymore because anything remotely violent is so upsetting. It’s very strange the ways I’ve changed since becoming a mom/experiencing loss. I’m so sensitive now to these things! 

But after putting up walls and not being able to feel my feelings for a long I am grateful to be alive and feel alive in this way. 

@kalesix3 I definitely fully imagined your experience with your daughter happening to me and one of my living children as I read, and I could barely take it. Had to stop reading! We definitely grieve the loss of your daughter with you. Thank you for sharing about her. ❤️❤️

thescarletmom

@annemarie96 exactly. Any harm to a child is a harm done to mine, my brain can't separate them. I can't watch so many movies or TV shows, I have to skip episodes of my true crime podcasts, I haven't read a news article in 2.5 years. It's one of those things where it hurts so much! I can't live like this, taking on the pain of every person on the planet. But in the same breath, doesn't it feel a little lighter to know someone out there is carrying your pain alongside you? Maybe someone you'll never meet. The interconnectivity of life is always miraculous (sorry I'm a huge sap).

But yes, 1000 times over thank you for sharing with us about your daughter @kalesix3. She deserves to be loved and cherished and grieved and remembered, and I am certain she lives on in many hearts.