PGAL Check-in - Week of 9/5/2016

lajoliedreamer · September 2016

This is for those of us moms who are pregnant after loss. If you have not participated on the weekly thread yet introduce yourself first.

Weeks:

Next milestone/appointment?

Rant/Rave/Anything else:

Questions?

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever?

rspalding001 · September 2016

Weeks: 29 +1

Next milestone/appointment? I have an apt today, just a regular check up

Rant/Rave/Anything else: My almost 3 year old has been having tantrums every day, its exhausting. Im guessing this is the dreaded "Threenager" rearing its ugly head, but knowing that does not make it much easier. Mama is tired.

Questions?

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever? Im a bit weirded out by the resurgence of the high waist shorts and pants. Does this actually look good on anyone? Maybe its just a sign that I am getting old

lajoliedreamer · September 2016

Weeks: 29w

Next milestone/appointment? Appt next Thurs. Had my GD test last Friday and haven't heard anything back yet, so hoping that means everything was fine! (I'm not expecting anything else, but it's still good to have confirmation.

Rant/Rave/Anything else: MIL visit went fine. She kept buying baby things because she had left a small stack of things at home thinking we didn't want gifts, when in fact what we'd told her is that we didn't want to celebrate baby with any kind of shower/party until after the birth. Despite the misunderstanding, I was glad to be able to have a say in what she was getting for us.

Questions? None

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever? I am not a fan of the pre-ripped jeans fad. Why would I want someone to put holes in my jeans for me? And along the same lines, the pockets being visible through said holes or hanging down on cut-off shorts is so ugly to me!

@rspalding001 - Oh no! Not a threenager! I hope she gets through the phase quick for you!

tigerfish227 · September 2016

Weeks: 32 today!

Next milestone/appointment? Childbirth class tomorrow evening, OB appt on Tuesday. Loss#4edd 9/9, loss#1edd 9/15

Rant/Rave/Anything else: I'm not sure I'm fully prepared for the next week or so but I guess ready or not, right? If I never had any of my losses I would have an almost 1yo right now. It's so hard not to think about that fact. I feel so much like pieces of my life have been stolen from me and I won't ever get them back. Saturday at my niece's birthday was a major stepping stone for me tho. My cousin and his wife had their second about a month before my first was due. It's very difficult for me to see that little guy most of the time but I did OK this time. Of course I love him and I'm happy for my cousin but I can't help being a little jealous that they didn't have any trouble but I lost not only the baby that should have been born a month behind theirs but 3 more after that and the doctors can't even tell me why. It's just not fair and it really sucks. Apparently I've been holding that in a bit since i just basically word-vomited my emotions.

Questions? Has anyone done anything special to commemorate their loss babies? I want to do something but I can't decide what. I would like to maybe just do one big item or maybe a tattoo to incorporate all my babies(including this one) I just can't see ever forgetting this journey so I want to do something special to make it less painful.

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever? Oh there are a few that need to never come back but right now I'm mostly annoyed at the whole skinny jeans thing and the fact that I can only find bootcut maternity jeans at motherhood maternity. I freaking hate skinny jeans. They aren't comfortable and not everyone looks good in them. Whose dipshit idea was it to stop selling normal jeans for pregnant women? I mean, at least have the option of straight cut. To ONLY offer skinny jeans is stupid!

Shima42 · September 2016

@tigerfish227 I have only been lurking on this thread, but I suppose I must introduce myself because your story spoke to me. My twins would be about two years old today if I hadn't lost them. For the first half of this pregnancy, I did nothing but worry about losing it. When I finally started to feel the kicks and felt that it was appropriate to prepare, I started worrying about everything else instead. Now I am more worried about whether my baby will be yanked around by her neck by the midwife to get her out, and whether I will actually have the crib I want. I am grateful to worry about these things, because I know that if I lose this baby at this stage, I will lose myself entirely too. After loss of twins and two years of infertility, I am a little glad that my sister and I aren't speaking to each other. I've never met the nephew that would have been born the same week as my twins. I desperately wanted to hold him, but somehow she thought that my pregnancy was upstaging hers, and she never got over that, even after my miscarriage. How painful or how healing it would have been to watch him grow up, I'll never know. It's a dreadful mix of emotions, and I am just grateful that I have a little being to remind me every day that there are reasons to be happy, too :-)

I was 29 weeks exactly, yesterday.

My next appointment is in a week-and-a-half. I passed my 3-hour GD test last week, and my blood pressure is little bit high.

I finally found a place on my peninsula that makes *okay* donuts, but it is a half-hour drive away.

The fad that I hate the most is hip-hugger pants. I think they are like foot binding. They impress themselves upon and permanently destroy the beautiful line of the hip on so many women, making women feel fat when they are actually supposed to have a curvy, unbroken pad of fat on the hip. The whole point of hip-huggers was that you could wear short shirts with them, and the swelling of the hip holding the pants just barely up would titillate the viewer. Now, there is no titillation, just muffin-tops that are still there no matter what you wear, and hitching your pants up constantly. Why can't I buy any bloody pair of pants that sit at my waist? Why the smeg would I want them to sit 'just below the natural waist?' Why would I want pants that slip down and form any kind of fat pad below my waist? Fie!

MollySm · September 2016

Weeks: 26w 4d

Next milestone/appointment? My next appt is next Tuesday. Just a regular check, and then I start with every 2 weeks.

Rant/Rave/Anything else: My husband was away for 8 days, and it was just way too long. But now he's home!!!!! Life is so much easier when backup comes home in the evenings and on weekends. I need adult interaction in my life.

Questions? Nope

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever? I feel so behind on what is actually fashionable these days!! Who knows. I only hang out with people under the age of 5.

kvruns · September 2016

@tigerfish227 I'm a lurker on this thread but I understand what you are saying. I only had one loss but the EDD was 8/22 and my step-SIL had her baby on that exact day. We never shared the loss with anyone but it was tough sometimes seeing pictures of her getting really big and then having the baby on that exact day that I had my eyes on for a while.

tigerfish227 · September 2016

kvruns said:

@tigerfish227 I'm a lurker on this thread but I understand what you are saying. I only had one loss but the EDD was 8/22 and my step-SIL had her baby on that exact day. We never shared the loss with anyone but it was tough sometimes seeing pictures of her getting really big and then having the baby on that exact day that I had my eyes on for a while.

Omg these damn boxes!

My cousin and I are only about a year apart and he is one of my best friends. It's so tough to feel so conflicted like this. When we found out we were supposed to have babies only about a month apart we were so excited because our kids could hang out like we did and be best friends too and all those "plans" that you start envision for your LOs. I know our babies can still have that since they will be almost exactly the same age gap as me and my cousin are but it's still an empty spot in my heart that it didn't happen how it was supposed to when things started out.

I really could not stand seeing her FB posts about how far along she was and I never went to see them in the hospital when he was born because my heart couldn't take it(we were starting our first cycle of TTC after our second loss at that time) so the kid was almost 5 months old before I met him the first time. I cried when I held him and it's still hard to be around them but I'm hoping that gets better once I actually have my baby and take him/her home. I would still love for our kids to have a chance at having the relationship that my cousin and I had growing up. I don't want my losses to overshadow the happiness that they could enjoy.

Shima42 · September 2016

@kvruns I feel that pain, too, every time I stalk my sister's FB page and see my nephew's smiling face. It hurts even more because I can't talk to her about it. I've avoided sharing too much here, because people here are often unnecessarily cruel, so having no one in my family to talk to about it is even harder.

tigerfish227 · September 2016

Shima42 said:

@kvruns I feel that pain, too, every time I stalk my sister's FB page and see my nephew's smiling face. It hurts even more because I can't talk to her about it. I've avoided sharing too much here, because people here are often unnecessarily cruel, so having no one in my family to talk to about it is even harder.

No one here is cruel, especially when it comes to losses. We all understand that it's a pain that no one can imagine unless you've been thru it and none of us(having been thru a loss or not) would wish it upon our worst enemies. I've seen nothing but respect and compassion shown to those who have been thru losses, difficult pregnancies and emotional struggles.

You say that like we are a bunch of prissy, stuck up brats that don't care about anyone else's pain. I'm sorry that your sister apparently doesn't want you to be part her life but I'm not inclined to offer much support to someone who calls people names and gets mad at others for not agreeing with her. I've only seen you posting within the last couple weeks and quite frankly you have been more cruel than anyone else I've seen on here simply because you didn't get the outpouring of support for your extreme feminist ideals that you wanted. People tried to offer you feedback but instead of listening to their opinions(that you asked for) you went all crazy and accused people of being hateful trolls. Suffering a loss is terrible. I'm sad for you and everyone who has ever had to deal with the pain. I think that if you changed your attitude towards the members of this board you might actually see that there is an outpouring of support and very little, if any, cruelty.

kvruns · September 2016

tigerfish227 said:

kvruns said:

@tigerfish227 I'm a lurker on this thread but I understand what you are saying. I only had one loss but the EDD was 8/22 and my step-SIL had her baby on that exact day. We never shared the loss with anyone but it was tough sometimes seeing pictures of her getting really big and then having the baby on that exact day that I had my eyes on for a while.

Omg these damn boxes!

My cousin and I are only about a year apart and he is one of my best friends. It's so tough to feel so conflicted like this. When we found out we were supposed to have babies only about a month apart we were so excited because our kids could hang out like we did and be best friends too and all those "plans" that you start envision for your LOs. I know our babies can still have that since they will be almost exactly the same age gap as me and my cousin are but it's still an empty spot in my heart that it didn't happen how it was supposed to when things started out.

I really could not stand seeing her FB posts about how far along she was and I never went to see them in the hospital when he was born because my heart couldn't take it(we were starting our first cycle of TTC after our second loss at that time) so the kid was almost 5 months old before I met him the first time. I cried when I held him and it's still hard to be around them but I'm hoping that gets better once I actually have my baby and take him/her home. I would still love for our kids to have a chance at having the relationship that my cousin and I had growing up. I don't want my losses to overshadow the happiness that they could enjoy.

I hope that your LO and the cousinsLO do grow up to be great friends and once you have that baby in your arms it helps. I know for me I would have had a much tougher time if I didn't have this little guy squirming around and kicking me when that date rolled around.

tigerfish227 · September 2016

@kvruns I think it will really help this time around that I am pregnant and so far along too. Last year it sucked hitting my first EDD because my first appointment with the RE was 2 days later. This year I'm feeling baby kicks and my rainbow baby is much more real.

BLyn627 · September 2016

Weeks: 28+5

Next milestone/appointment? MFM ultrasound today - baby weighs ~3.5lbs (67%)!! We were told we were graduating and no more ultrasounds there unless OB ordered anymore.

OB appointment in 2 weeks

Rant/Rave/Anything else: we might be making name progress...but I still can't commit

Questions? I found out I can take FMLA for all the time I'll be missing for NSTs (and really for appointments to)...is anyone else doing this? It will still use up my sick time, but at least I'll be "covered" when missing time 2-3 times a week starting in October.

GTKY: What fad do you wish would come back OR what fad do you think should stay gone forever? High waisted shorts - yuck. I really don't think it looks good on anyone

kvruns · September 2016

BLyn627 said:

Questions? I found out I can take FMLA for all the time I'll be missing for NSTs (and really for appointments to)...is anyone else doing this? It will still use up my sick time, but at least I'll be "covered" when missing time 2-3 times a week starting in October.

Intermittent FMLA is an option but it would go against your 12 weeks, so for me I wouldn't want to use that time for appointments, I'd rather have it for after the baby is born but everyone is different. I'd opt to just use sick days/hours for those appointments and then save FMLA for birth

lajoliedreamer · September 2016

@BLyn627 - I'm with @kvruns that I would prefer to save my FMLA for when baby is here to be able to have the most time off before going back to work. When I can't work enough hours in a week to make up my appts, I am using sick time, but not FMLA yet. I could see if the appts are keeping you away from work a significant time that you may want to consider using some FMLA, but I would definitely sit down with HR and see what the best option would be for you since you're using the sick time anyway.

BLyn627 · September 2016

@kvruns and @lajoliedreamer

The way my work works is I'm already using sick time with FMLA to get my full pay and doctors note only gives me 8 medical weeks with a csection (6 with vaginal birth) After that, I can't use my sick days to get paid. After 10 unpaid days, I would lose my current teaching position at the end of the school year. I would still have a teaching job within the district, but not necessarily the exact one I'm in now. Plus I can't afford to go unpaid. So, I'm only taking 8 weeks paid, which means I still have enough to use for my NSTs. I'm not really sure the benefit of using these under FMLA except that I'm covered legally for leaving work early two days a week for almost 2 months.

Does that all make any sense?? Lol

kvruns · September 2016

@Blyn627 wow that seems really strange, the whole point of FMLA is to protect job leave to care for your own illness or that of certain family members so it seems odd that they would have a clause that would cause you to lose your position if you're out on protected leave. Though perhaps their theory is you're still guaranteed a job so it is protecting that, and FMLA does allow for placement in a similar position....but dang, not cool.

BLyn627 · September 2016

@kvruns that's exactly their theory. You lose your placement but essentially you're keeping the same job - same job and same salary. You're just changing locations and maybe grade levels. It sucks.

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