Two Months

Wow….

It’s been two months already ! It’s going by slowly and quickly at the same time. 

I still can’t believe we are a family of four. I wasn’t sure we would ever be one. 

I’m not really sure I will continue to update this blog since it was dedicated to our journey in starting and completing our family. 

That chapter of my life is over. We are officially done TTC! I’ve donated all of my left over med in hopes that they bring some baby dust to whoever gets them. I no longer have any HPTs or syringes in my bathroom. We have one small loan to pay off before we are no longer financially reminded of our struggles. 

Now that I am done with that part of our journey, I am better able to focus on another part of our journey…the loss of Brynn. 

As you may recall, I participated in a call a few months ago with an organization that helps people when they lose a child. The founder reached out to me last week and asked if I would be part of a focus group for  one of the projects that are working on. I’m excited about what they are doing and am so happy to be part of something that may help someone else with their loss. 

For anyone who is in the midst of a cycle or maybe someone who is starting to dip their toes into the whole TTC rollercoaster- I get it. I get the low lows and the high highs. 

I can’t say what your journey will be like but I can say surround yourself with a good support system, you will need them. Whether it’s a shoulder to cry on or someone to drink wine with after a failed cycle, different people will help in different ways. 

Be your own advocate and research new treatments/procedures/etc. Don’t be scared or worried about challenging or questioning your RE. You are the only one who really knows your body and the only one who knows how badly you want a family. 

No, it’s not fair! There is nothing fair about any part of infertility. And it’s okay to be angry, sad, jealous, jaded….however you are feeling. Be gentle with yourself and your partner. It’s hard, I know. 

I wish I could say every story will have a happy ending, but I can’t. I know some people will have multiple failed cycles or multiple losses. For us, it was worth the pain and heartache. 

Having our girls doesn’t erase any of what we went through. And having the baby certainly doesn’t replace Brynn. When you “beat” infertility it doesn’t really feel like a win- you come out battered and bruised, a different version of the self that started the battle…but you come out alive. 

Birth story

Last Thursday morning I had a follow up at the MFM. We knew it would be the last appointment since I was going to be induced on Monday morning.  The OB went ahead and did a cervical check and shockingly I was 3cm and cervix was soft, so the OB went ahead and did a sweep. 
After that she did a NST because I told her the baby was quiet all morning. Her baseline heart rate was 120 and it really made me nervous. That coupled with the fact that I was having contractions, the OB  sent me to the hospital for additional monitoring.

Once there, I was checked and told to walk for two hours to see if I was going to be admitted or sent home. The walking definitely helped and I was admitted. That was around 4 pm.

Fast forward, to midnight and I was finally 10 cm but the baby was still really high so we waited another hour. At 1am on Friday, I was finally ready to push. It took 1 1/2 hrs of pushing to get her out because she was posterior (sunny side up) and she had her cord wrapped over her shoulder! Her poor head and left eye was bruised and her head was totally a cone head! 

Recovery up until yesterday has been fairly easy. I didn’t end up getting any tears/stitches, just sore and (tmi) swollen. 

My milk came I’m on day 3 PP and I got engorged fast! My goal is to breastfeed and not EP like I did with H. Even with breastfeeding and pumping, I now have 18oz of milk frozen. 

I ended up getting a fever and mastitis which is awful! My right breast is red swollen and super painful. I’m taking antibiotics for a week and hope that they help soon. I’ve been trying to break up the blocked duct but it still seems pretty hard 

Last night, H woke up in the middle of the night and made her way into our bed. As I feeding  the baby, I looked over at our little family. I still can’t believe she is here and our family is complete. 

And here is our rainbow baby. 

The Most Pregnant I’ve Ever Been

I’m still here and chugging along at 38w2d!!

I’m very much in count down mode right now. There are still a few things we need to do, but for the most part, I would say we are about 75% ready! The biggest things are done and I’ve been in complete nesting mode. I just need to find time to do the little things that are left…ya know like figure out how my new pump works and stock the pantry and freezer. 

Since my last post, I haven’t had any more hospital visits. I’ve had a ton of regular BHs, some cramping, some nausea and some pressure/lightening crotch. 
My appointment last week was pretty uneventful, which is not a bad thing! We made it to 37 weeks after all.  Even though we didn’t do a growth scan, I feel like the baby is going to be huge! I mean I feel huge! How do women go to 41 weeks?!? I give them a ton of credit! 

My Ob and I briefly talked about the plan for this week. I have my appointment tomorrow and she will do a cervical check to see if anything has changed. I would be surprised if it did since I haven’t had a ton of painful contractions. I’m probably still just 1cm dilated. I do feel like the baby has dropped some more though.

If things are somewhat favorable we will try a membrane sweep. I’m a bit nervous since I’ve never had one, but how bad can it be compared to every other fertility procedure I’ve had? 

Guess we will see!!

Just Call Me April

Yesterday was the second time in two weeks that I went to the hospital.

At my weekly appointment , I told my MFM that I was having tightening/cramps off and on. She hooked me up the NST machine and sure enough the contractions showed up.

I ended up spending the night in the hospital and got two doses of steroids for the baby’s lungs and medicine (procardia) that I have to take every 6 hours to stop contractions. 

Yesterday morning, from 3:30-5 I was up with contractions coming every 3-4 mins. I was able to get some sleep but when I woke up the contractions continued. I called my dr to let them know and they sent my to triage. 

For over two hours, I was having contractions every 4-5 minutes but they didn’t do a damn thing to my cervix.

 My dr seems to thinks my body is ready to evict the baby, but she’s not in the right position so the contractions are actually trying to turn her and get her in the chin to chest back of her head to my front position.  While she is head down, I think she’s faced somewhat sideways.

She also mentioned that because I gave birth at 37 weeks last time that my body might be thinking now is a good time since I’m getting close to that.

So I’m going to start taking long walks and bouncing on a ball to help open my pelvis and encourage the baby to turn, The dr thinks once she’s in the right position and taps my cervix again that it will be go time!

While it sounds like I can happen at any point, I’m still feeling like we have all this time to prepare. I finally packed my delivery bag, still need to get a small labor bag together and I guess we should get the car seat installed! 

100 Foot Waves

Anxiety, fear, hormones, lack of sleep, I don’t know what it is but I am an emotional mess today.

Getting ready to start the day, I was sitting there and brushing H’s hair and just started crying. I don’t feel like doing anything. I have no motivation or maybe I do, but I don’t have the energy to do anything.

After I dropped H off at school and started my day, I received an email from someone at a nonprofit organization called EverMore in regards to a program called North Star that I am participating in.

I was asked to provide a brief bio and one of the last questions I was asked was if there is any encouragement or message I wanted to share with other bereaved parents/families?

This made me think. What would I say to someone who has experienced something similar to help them? The thing is, there are no words that really can “comfort” you or make the pain/anxiety go away. When you lose a child you are forever changed. But the one thing that has stuck with me, was an excerpt from a story that was read at a hospital memorial service for babies who passed away:

As for grief, you’ll find it comes in waves. When the ship is first wrecked, you’re drowning, with wreckage all around you. Everything floating around you reminds you of the beauty and the magnificence of the ship that was, and is no more. And all you can do is float. You find some piece of the wreckage and you hang on for a while. Maybe it’s some physical thing. Maybe it’s a happy memory or a photograph. Maybe it’s a person who is also floating. For a while, all you can do is float. Stay alive.

In the beginning, the waves are 100 feet tall and crash over you without mercy. They come 10 seconds apart and don’t even give you time to catch your breath. All you can do is hang on and float. After a while, maybe weeks, maybe months, you’ll find the waves are still 100 feet tall, but they come further apart. When they come, they still crash all over you and wipe you out. But in between, you can breathe, you can function. You never know what’s going to trigger the grief. It might be a song, a picture, a street intersection, the smell of a cup of coffee. It can be just about anything…and the wave comes crashing. But in between waves, there is life.

Somewhere down the line, and it’s different for everybody, you find that the waves are only 80 feet tall. Or 50 feet tall. And while they still come, they come further apart. You can see them coming. An anniversary, a birthday, or Christmas, or landing at O’Hare. You can see it coming, for the most part, and prepare yourself. And when it washes over you, you know that somehow you will, again, come out the other side. Soaking wet, sputtering, still hanging on to some tiny piece of the wreckage, but you’ll come out.

This pregnancy has been full of waves for me. And today feels like a 100 foot one.