Hi and intro!
Hi mamas... I'm new to thebump boards and newly pregnant with my second. It feels so different this time... I remember the unbridled joy after I got my BFP with my daughter. Now, I'm happy and all, but filled with so much dread on top of it. Sometimes I think it's worry about the pregnancy not sticking, but I don't know. Maybe it's still baggage I'm carrying around from Molly's pregnancy and birth. You know what I'm saying?
If ever I tell someone everything we went through, they'll say, well you have a happy and healthy LO and that's all that matters. And that's true! But while I'm telling the story, I get all chocked up. I feel like I should be totally over it by now.
The short version... 1) Tripple screen came back with an elevated chance for downs, but the ultrasound didn't have any markers. I didn't like the way the docs handled it and decided to go to a birth center. Ultrasound at 16 weeks found LO measuring 2 weeks behind, no biggie.
2) Everything was going great and I was loving our care. I was measuring target until about 30 weeks. That appointment, I was 4 cm behind. They sent me into the hospital to get an ultrasound.
3) At that u/s, the doc basically gave me a really hard time about going to an independent birth center while giving me the ultrasound, and then told me that LO had a marker for downs... a missing nasal bone. Ultrasound measurements put her a month behind. We get the IUGR label and twice weekly stress tests for the next two months.
4) Midwives at the birth center decide Molly's too high risk, and I get released from their care at 34 weeks. The hospital where I got the ultrasound's OBGYN practice takes me in. Doc recommends induction immediately, thinking that the placenta's dead.
5) At some point, I remember that I'm 5'1" and my husband's 5'6" and we're both really tiny people. The nasal bone thing is dismissed by 2 other docs. I begin fighting to keep my baby inside. I get twice weekly NSTs, each time fighting to keep my LO inside.
6) I agree to induction at 38 weeks (mistake 1). They get me all prepped and ready and do an ultrasound. LO was head down at Friday's NST, but by that Monday, she'd settled back into transverse (one of the reasons my measurements were off, btw... she was transverse almost my whole pregnancy). So, they say sorry, c-section it is (mistake 2: I should've said I'm going home).
Within an hour, I was holding my beautiful, healthy, 6.1 lb girl with a broken collar bone that she sustained during the operation somehow. I threw up profusely during the whole procedure and hemorrhaged. I refused a blood transfusion, which was probably stupid and didn't help my recovery at all.
OK that wasn't short at all! We have a healthy, beautiful LO. Who should've cooked for a few more weeks and come out on her own, without a broken bone, with a healthy mom who didn't endure 6+ months of crazy stress. A LO who didn't have down's, who didn't have IUGR, who didn't have "an unknown chromosomal abnormality."
So yay! Pregnant! Let's do it again! The only thing different is that I'm going to start off with a vbac friendly doc in a vbac friendly hospital, so hopefully that last day will go better. That, and I'm skipping the freaking genetic testing.
We TTC and everything... this isn't a random accident. But suddenly all these feelings came up. Well I knew they were there, but I thought that the joy of a BFP would let me just forget everything. But it's not working that way. It's just straight terror. I know that mamas who've had trouble TTC probably want to kick me in the teeth for having feelings like this and saying it out loud. I know I should just be 100% grateful and over the moon.
Natural complete miscarriage 3.16.11. Baby was 14 weeks 5 days. Meet you soon, little one.
Re: Hi and intro!
Welcome to the board! I hope this pregnancy is a lot less stressful for you. Given what you've told us, I can completely understand why you're having a harder time being excited about your BFP. I was pretty nervous when I got pregnant this time around, and it was planned. I think that's normal--you don't have to be 100% puppies and rainbows all the time about pregnancy. Sometimes it's scary and stressful and that's OK.
Good luck with everything!
Natural complete miscarriage 3.16.11. Baby was 14 weeks 5 days. Meet you soon, little one.
Oh yes, I totally agree. I would've loved her just the same. I worried about the medical complications that come with Downs very often, but otherwise opened my heart fully to having a Downs child.
Natural complete miscarriage 3.16.11. Baby was 14 weeks 5 days. Meet you soon, little one.
Wow, that's a lot of crazy you had to deal with.
I was high-risk for Downs with Bug, but we had a CVS right away and was cleared. I spent a couple weeks reading up on it like crazy until we got the results, though.
"you have a happy and healthy LO and that's all that matters"
I know people who say this mean well, but they'd never say it if they'd been there. It's hogwash. I can be thrilled to be married, but still be sad about how my wedding went. I can love my birthday present, but still feel pain from the paper cut I got from unwrapping it. The resulting baby and the birthing experience are two different things and can (and often do) conjure up two totally different feelings. Do not let yourself feel bad or guilty about that! And there is no "right" amount of time for dealing with those feelings. There is no "should be over it."
Like you, I thought I'd dealt with my feelings until I found myself pregnant again, and it hit me that the baby was going to have to come out again. Obvious, I know! But we feel what we feel.
Congrats on your pregnancy, and welcome to the board!
Oh man, just reading about your first pregnancy stressed me out - I can't imagine dealing with that for 6 months! Congrats on the BFP, and like pp said, it's okay to have mixed feelings - my pg with DS2 was very stressful for me. I thought I had prepared myself for getting pg again, but when it happened, yep, a lot of sad/angry/hopeless thoughts about DS1's birth came up.
This website might help you out, too: https://www.solaceformothers.org/. It's for women who've been through birth traumas, or just really stressful pregnancies/births. hth and welcome to the board, too!
DS2 - Oct 2010 (my VBAC baby!)