Hey y’all!
I want to start out by saying that this is a sensitive topic for some people, and may have some triggers in it, including miscarriage and scary ultrasounds. If you can’t stomach this, I won’t blame you or be offended. But it’s our story of Baby #3, and as much as I know some people have been through and go through every day, this is just about the worst situation we’ve had to face, but I wanted to share how this pregnancy has gone so far.
4 Weeks Pregnant
We found out we were pregnant with Baby #3 and were excited. It was a weird excitement, though, paired with a lot of thoughts of WTF and “3 kids 3 and under?! Are we nuts?” Nevertheless, I began thinking of nursery themes and planning pregnancy announcements in my mind, while starting my prenatals and thanking God for no morning sickness (yet). I found out early, right around 4 weeks, a few days before I would have started my period. All went well until about 5w5d, which was Mother’s Day. I started spotting, which was nothing unusual. I had spotted with each pregnancy before so I wasn’t too nervous. I called the nurse advice line anyway, secretly hoping to just get in for an early ultrasound and not have to wait another 3-4 weeks before they’d bring me in. They said to come into an Urgent Care, since it was a Sunday, but I didn’t want to spend Mother’s Day there, and we had company coming over. So I waited and got an appointment for Monday, instead. I mean, I wasn’t worried, I really just wanted to see the baby, so what was the rush?
6Weeks Pregnant
The next day, I went to work and had the appointment after school. I left early and got there early, hoping to be seen early. WRONG. I wasn’t seen until an hour after my appointment, which was two hours after arriving. Tensions were high by this point. When I got in (around 4), the doctor came in and without examining me, told me he’d rather send me to Radiology for an ultrasound, as they have better equipment and could see the cause of spotting better. However, the earliest appointment was 6:15. After waiting for this appointment for 2 hours, there was no way I was waiting another 2. I begged him to do a scan in the office, and he obliged, but told me it might be too early to see anything. Boy, should I have just listened. He brought in the machine, and after what felt like an hour, told me he could see an empty sac, but that was it. No fetal pole, no yolk sac, just an empty sac. By that point, there should have been something. At that same day in the pregnancy with Anissa, we at least saw the fetal pole and yolk sac. He said he was sorry he couldn’t give me better news, but wanted me to still come back for the Radiology scan at 6:15. I left in tears (Mr. R hadn’t come since we thought it would be no biggie), and called him to deliver the news. Right away he went into action and grabbed the kids so he could meet me back at the doctor’s office for the 6:15 scan.
Back at Radiology, I had to go back alone again because Mr. R had the kids. I had been warned that they wouldn’t be able to tell me anything since she wasn’t a doctor, and they’d call me with the results after. But her attitude and body language told me there was nothing there. At the end, I asked her, woman to woman, did she see a baby? She snapped at me and told me that wasn’t for her to tell, and she’d let me doctor tell me that. WOW.
About an hour later, the doctor called confirming the same- they had not seen much besides an empty sac and a “questionable” fetal pole, but it was too small to date, so it would have been much too small for where it should have been.
8 Weeks Pregnant
Two weeks passed, and throughout that two weeks I had done my best to come to terms with the fact that we were probably not bringing home a baby in January. When people tried to tell me to be positive, I pushed them away. I wanted to accept what was happening, not day dream. It was a really, really hard time. I cried a lot, I was mad, and I quit pretty much everything. I didn’t blog, I rarely got on social media, I was more quiet at work and wasn’t very present at home. I know people go through SO much harder stuff every day, but this was on the top of my “hard stuff” list so far in life, and it sucked.
At the end of the two weeks, it was time to go back to the doctor. Since we have Kaiser, we see a different doctor, midwife, or ultrasound tech each time, which makes it hard to keep everyone up to speed with the situation. When we saw the newest doctor that day, there were lots of “hmms” and “huhs”. She finally asked us if twins ran in our family, and for a split second, I got way too excited. She quickly followed it up with, “I see two babies, but only one has a heartbeat.” Another gut punch and the wind knocked out of me. I was thrilled to hear the one heartbeat, but couldn’t help but get teary looking at the other baby. She explained that the bigger baby was measuring 6w3d and the smaller one was 6w1d. The smaller one was the one with the heartbeat, so the bigger one should have had a heart beat if it was going to. She also mentioned that the heartbeat was low at 111, so she still wasn’t sure if that one would even make it. I left and immediately broke down again. Another let down, another set back. We had a heartbeat, but would it last?
We were asked to come back in another week to check progress. The last doctor didn’t seem optimistic at all, saying things like “We’ll see if you make it out of the first trimester.” It sucked. When we went to the next appointment with an ultrasound tech in Radiology, she wasn’t convinced it hadever been twins, but maybe that the second baby was really just a blood sac, or an SCH. Either that, or the second baby had absorbed very quickly. This tech was much happier and convinced that the baby was here to stay. The heartbeat was 139, which was good, and the baby was measuring close to on track (the whole time, the baby has been measuring about a week small due to late ovulation). For the first time in the whole pregnancy, we were finally given an ultrasound picture and let out a sigh of relief. We just might get to bring home that January baby after all, we thought.
10 Weeks Pregnant
My next doctor’s appointment was at 10 weeks, at which point they didn’t even do another ultrasound. They listenened to the baby on the Doppler, said it sounded great, and sent us on our way! What a relief.
12 Weeks Pregnant
We just did the NT Scan at 12 weeks and did find out that the baby is still tracking about 3 days behind (again, the late ovulation) but everything else is fine and normal, so they just pushed back the due date to Jan. 16. Because of the cholestasis I’ve had with both babies, we will likely schedule an induction for 37 weeks, which looks to be around Dec. 26!
We can’t wait to meet this sweet baby that has already given us 24,932 heart attacks and made us want him/her so so badly! What a sweet blessing this little one will be!
XO,
Amanda
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