Clear NT Scan

January 2, 2008 we had our first appointment with the perinatologist.  The big fun of a baby over 35.  My gp wrote my refferal for 6 visits.  WE all that was so over the top.  Little did we know how close to using all of them i would come.  The extra joy of going nutty and placenta previa.  Thanks to living on the wilds of the Eastern Shore it meant an hour drive to Annapolis to see the specialists that my ob likes.  The group really is great.  The visit took forever.  Thankfully, not all of my visits were that long.  

The first visit comes with all of the paperwork which had been mailed and dutifully filled out by me.  You arrive early and wait.  Then you meet with a genetic specialist.  They go over risk rates for certain disorders and ask about ethnic backgrounds.  My husband is adopted, so a lot of that we did not know.  Well we had a clue with his 2 healthy daughters.  Oddly seeing it all laid out like that made it somehow more comforting.  Then we get an option to add blood work screening which can further rule things out.  We of course accepted that.  Back to the waiting room.  

You are then called over to the ultrasound side, after some more waiting.  That is where the blood is drawn as well.  The us showed what to me was a remarkable amount of detail of my baby at 12 weeks.  Somehow she has always felt like a baby not a fetus to me.  They take shots at all sorts of different angles.  One she totally looks like some sort of an alien baby.  The test itself is super cool they are counting the folds at the back of the baby's neck.  The test is call neural translucency.  The name is kind of funny and feels a little odd on the tongue.  We passed with flying colors.  The blood work would further rule out downs syndrome and a host of other genetic defects.  I think after all of my clear testing my chance was something like 1 in 60,000.  Funny how with medicine it is never zero.  

Even those numbers did not come with a complete peace.  I was still so strung about how baby would get out.  Hope can be and often is a cruel bitch.

Oddly this was the first contracting check we received that day as well.  So that meant a little shopping and a nice lunch whole over the bridge.  With 13 plus months of wildcatting and almost 3 months this fall of no work i am fatigued with the consultant life.  Well really is going on almost 4 years now.  Paid time off and company healthcare seems like some long ago dream.  Sigh it would be nice. Setting your own schedule is not quite the panacea it seems from the other side.  Thankfully work came at the very tail end of November.  Not quite a full calendar or the full rate yet, but it inspires hope.  We are both at this point ready for full time.  2 weeks paid vacation and a week sick seem like some yummy dream.  Maybe this will be the year.  

I will either blog a lot this week or be rather silent.  I have a 6 month checkup and a trip to the pediatric urologist coming up.  Wish us luck with that.  

Time Flies

One year ago today was my first ob checkup.  Wow i will hit these milestones over the next few months.  They will i am sure culminate with July 5-Tabytha's 1 year birthday.  The first was last month with one year of realizing i was pregnant.  The doctors appointment was the first time it seemed real  Helped in no small part by my husband not wanting anyone to know until after that appt.  i was allowed to breech for 2 close girlfriends.  Somehow the secret seemed not right to me.  I feel it in some way set a tone for the entire pregnancy.  I do remember a few periods of bliss during my pregnancy though.  Odd how my doc kept the secret of no v-bacing from me while we kept our secret from people who were and are quite close to us.  Are secrets ever really good?

Tomorrow i have to take Tabytha for a sonogram of her kidneys.  This seems to be a common rule out for infants with utis.  hopefully, all will go well, but still pray for us.  I am more nervous that i want to admit about it.  I was not bothered about the hip, but this for some reason i am.  I have even started a few negative loops again this week.  I am not sure exactly why.  it would be nice to know what brings them so they could be just as easily banished.  But no easy fix for that i guess.

I have also realized that i am just pissed this last week.  I think i have lied to myself about this one.  I am it turns out pissed at my doc for lying to me in the first place, i know c-section was needed and better to be on lock down 20 mins from home, but still irked about the original deception.  I should go over this with him first, but i will probably have to wait until my next annual to do that.  I am also flamingly pissed over needing a c-section at all.  to think of all these who could care, yet they get to push.  i mean who could care either way mentally--why?  or people who could really care how their body looks,, no new scar for them.  Why do i get yet another line on my body.  Flamingly pissed about it.  most especially the little overhang that never goes away after being cut open and sewn back together with the extra baby belly.  I guess a deeper, better woman would not care, but i do.  i have also realized that i feel a little like God left me.  Now that last bit is not good and is a thought i need to get working on banishing.  Maybe some fear over that is linked to the negative looping.  Something for me to explore another day.

For now i need to stop before this becomes a book and i get none of the church paperwork i am next door to do done.  

Has anyone else ever felt this flamingly pissed over something rather normal, or so left by God?  

The journey of the last year

On year ago today i had the first glimpse of the beginning of a new journey.   I should have paid closer attention to the clues that it would not be an easy journey.  But i felt too awful to even notice.  Of course the first few days i thought it was just some awful flu.  It was not until i still felt sick 5 days later that i decided to get a test to confirm what i already knew in my heart.  Ironically it was confirmed the day before thanksgiving that we would have another blessing to give thanks for.  

The way i found out was such a clue as to how things would go.  I was never that sick with aj, but every pregnancy is different.  hurl a phrase that i could easily go without hearing again.  I catch myself saying it often though.  talk about irony.  I  so arrogantly expected that i would have an easy time again.  And that if i stayed active and watched my weight that i would have the birth experience that i wanted(the joke was really on me when i realized that i needed it).  I expected to get what i wanted.  I was at one point accused of doing babies to avoid self-actualizing.  Boy was that joke really on me.  Because getting knocked on my ass at 28 weeks made doing it not optional.  

I am no trying to claim that i had the most difficult pregnancy ever, i know of women who have been through much worse.  But it was at all how i thought it would go.  The fear that it let creep in my life is still somewhat crippling.  I do not know how people live with that kind of fear all of their lives.   That stronghold must be outright crippling.  I am so grateful for the years that i was able to avoid it.  But maybe that was more denial and pretend. 

I almost feel guilty to complain about a hard pregnancy when i think of the women i know who give anything to have a baby themselves.   Or how she came into the world.  Because that was fairly uneventful.  I know the scar on my body will fade a little more over time.  

i wonder what will happen to the ones on my mind and soul.  

When will the fear leave?

Anxiety

So the last week or so some of the anxiety has returned.  I am not completely sure what triggered it, but i know my 6 week appointment is what i am anxious about this time.  I got a good report and was released, but i am for some odd reason quite nervous about my pap results.  20 years off good ones and here i am sweating one.  I really thought when he said everything looked normal during surgery that this fear about my health old go away.  It did for awhile.  But now like a roaring lion it has returned.  Why does pregnancy seem to trigger such fear and anxiety?

A few weeks ago I was at a friend's house for a photo shoot and she was sharing some of the anxiety she felt during her pregnancy.  It struck me just how frightening this special time can be.  

If you are actively trying, you sweat is this the month?  As that drags the hope begins to fade, then it happens out of the blue almost.  Then it is oh how long will this feeling of sickness last?  Sweating the first doctors appointment.  Which screenings if any do I do?  Then sweating each result.  A few short weeks of relief, then bam a complication.  Everybody says no big deal it might move, just call if you start bleeding.  Um yeah that is real reassuring.   Of course for me this time is also made a little worse by the knowledge that life threatening complication or not if i stick with my doctor it will be another surgery.  More sonograms to check if it moved, more nerves about that.  Then that awful week in April.  I saw a week because it started with scheduling my c-section and the crippling knowledge of how broken that left me feeling.  I remember sitting on my bed and loosing it screaming teen crack heads can birth why can't I?  then that night where i felt something a late trip to the hospital and confirmation that yes at 28 weeks you are contracting.  Fortunately that was related to a secondary cause that we treated, but it still meant bed rest.  Which led to another trip to the hospital.  

The second trip led to a test that was reassuring in that it was highly unlikely that i would go into labor for the next 2 weeks at least.  That led to a gradual resumption of life.  Of course i was still limited as i had been put on light duty after some light spotting-thankfully that was old blood.  This period led to no sleeping, and a time of extreme anxiety and depression.  Thankfully ambien allowed me to sleep and pepcid let me eat something at least.  

During this i prayed and begged and fought and did everything i could think of to prevent another surgery.  Surgery is no way to have a baby, but it beats bleeding to death.  Then i began to reason-Joyce Meyer has an excellent chapter against it in her book "Battlefield of the Mind"-maybe the surgery needs to happen for a reason.  Why might i need it?  The best answer my mind came up was maybe something will be found that would otherwise never be found.  I reasoned my way into the belief that some tumor that would not be caught would be spotted during the surgery. Nothing.  I was a little shocked by this, but also very relieved.  I thought i had relaxed and gotten over.  Sadly the last week has proven that is not true.  The nightmares about some awful health scare has returned.  I have dreaded everytime my phone has rang during the hours of 9-5.  i should have my results by early next week. Hopefully that will put an end to this dread.  But i wonder what will trigger it again?  What can i do to chase it away for good?