I think back to a cold February night when I similarly laid crying in the quiet of my home, again overwhelmed by conflicting emotions....hope and fear, excitement and dread, faith and doubt. We just took the biggest leap of faith of our lives and it will prove to be either a divine miracle or the biggest mistake we ever made. The days leading up to that moment shaped our decision in an instant. Two days prior I had spoken with the doctor from Las Vegas who originally diagnosed us with immune related pregnancy loss. He tells me in order to have a successful pregnancy we must do IVF. I am so confused by this since we can get pregnant without any problem. It is just keeping the pregnancy that is the problem. I question him and he tells me, "I strongly recommend you do IVF and start immune suppression therapy BEFORE conception. If you don't do this your chances of having a baby are very slim. Please trust me. But if you want to try to conceive on your own, then just have your ob call me when you get a positive pregnancy test and I will tell her what medicine you need, but by then it will probably be too late. Good luck" That effectively ended our relationship with him and I went in search of a new doctor who specialized in reproductive immunology. My search led me to Dr. Braverman. His office is in New York and he can only do brief phone consults due to New York laws about out of state patients. After a brief conversation with him he tells me that the info we got from our doctor in Las Vegas is outdated and pretty much contradicts everything he said. He says, I do not have to do IVF and we can work with my natural cycle. The only thing the two doctors agree upon is that I do have an immune issue causing me to lose my babies and in order for treatment to be successful, it must be started at least two weeks BEFORE conception. I make an appointment to go to New York to see him and discuss it further. I hang up and I just feel angry. Why can't we find two doctors who can agree? What is really wrong with me? I have been searching for answers for four years and we still seem so far from finding them. I finally decide these doctors are smart and they know a lot, but they don't know everything and there is someone bigger than all this in charge who has the final say. I say to myself, "To hell with it. We have been preventing pregnancy for almost a year now while we try to figure this out. I want a baby and every month it breaks my heart to not try. No one seems to really know what is wrong with me so I'm done. I'm just going to live my life and if I get pregnant, great." I don't even care about the medicine I need to take before conception. All I know is I have a gut feeling inside that God is in control of this and He will make happen what He wants to. This is all pointless since I know if I tell Jason I just want to stop preventing pregnancy and not follow doctor's advice he will tell me I'm crazy and never agree to it. I myself think I am crazy and just so desperate for a baby I'm not thinking clearly. But I can't shake this feeling that we should just see what happens. I have long since stopped charting my temperature or tracking ovulation. I have no idea if it is baby making time or not. But that night after Riley goes to bed, I tell Jason my crazy feelings, fully anticipating him to tell me just how crazy I am. To my surprise, he doesn't even hesitate when he looks at me and says, "Yup, lets do it. If we ever needed a miracle it's now." "What?! Are you sure? I'm just talking crazy right now, don't listen to me." "Yup, I'm sure, lets just let what happens happen". And we do and then I lay crying with my hope and fear, excitement and dread, faith and doubt. And two weeks later, on the eve of one of the biggest blizzards in history, I find out I am pregnant.
And so starts a whirlwind pregnancy. After seeing a positive pregnancy test I decide I will call Dr. Braverman and see what he thinks we should do. He is so calm and reassuring and tells me all we can do is start the meds right away and see what happens. Getting all these meds started is a grueling process in the midst of a blizzard and I rely on God to sustain my baby for several days until I can get to the doctor and start the meds. And He did. I finally got started on all my medicine which includes Daily injections of Lovenox, a blood thinner that will help make sure blood gets through my placenta and umbilical cord to the baby. Metformin, an anti diabetic medication that is helpful because sometimes immune pregnancy complications can mess up insulin levels, and once a month hospital visits for IV infusion of intralipid drugs which reduce my natural killer cells and prevent them from attacking the baby. Also progesterone support through the first 10 weeks and extra folic acid. I get my first intralipid infusion and me HCG more than doubles as soon as I get it! I go for my first ultrasound at 5 1/2 weeks. Baby is too small to see but what we do see is a subchorionic hemorrhage in my uterus, basically my uterus is bleeding and we are not sure why. The last thing a pregnant woman with a history of miscarriages needs is to know her uterus is bleeding. I am beside myself worried and the doctor tells me no exercise, no heavy activity and lots of rest. I go back for another ultrasound at 6 weeks and there it is...a baby with a heart beat. I scarcely thought I would ever see this again. I go back every week and every week we see our baby growing bigger and bigger and heart just thumping away. The bleed is also getting bigger though and there is nothing we can do to stop it. But at 9 weeks we see the bleed is shrinking. Things appear to be going well and baby is already proving to be a little miracle considering it hung in there those early weeks before I could start all the medicine. I was supposed to start it two weeks before conception and I didn't start it until almost three weeks after. That being said, we did see major jumps in my HCG as soon as I started it. I remember Rodney, my friendly lab technician, told me he was going to pray for me and my baby. He told me I need to speak life. We have been calling the baby "Life".
And today, despite all the tears, stress, long days in a hospital and lack of sleep, when Dr. G, my specialist, came in, we saw baby Life once again, wiggling and moving, putting it's little hands up to it's mouth, heart rate strong and bleed in my uterus completely gone. I sob out of relief. My doctor hugs me. He tells me it is my official "graduation" day and I am released back to my regular obgyn for the rest of my pregnancy. He gives me a graduation gift, a bag full of pregnancy related items and most special of all, a tiny onesie with the words "Special Ordered by Dr. Gehlbach" written on it. It seems unreal to me after all we have been through that I will have a baby to fill that onesie soon. I swore if I got pregnant again, we would not tell anyone until I was past 16 weeks. But the more I see my mother in law struggle and know she needs to share the joy of this pregnancy, the more I cling to God and pray to Him for Baby Life, the more I think about how we took a huge leap of faith and I got pregnant that night, the more I hear Jason's words echo in my mind, "If we ever needed a miracle it's now", the more real this baby becomes and the more I love it, and the bigger my stomach gets (when you have been pregnant as much as me, it doesn't take long to pop right out) the more it just feels right to share our exciting news. I am 10 weeks pregnant. My due date is November 5th. 30 more weeks to go. Ready or not, whatever the next 30 weeks have in store for us, here we go. All of our hopes, dreams and prayers are with this little baby. My mother in law cried when we told her saying, "Now I can see both of my grandchildren before I go". This baby means so much to all of us. It is a light in the midst of a lot of darkness right now. There are many reasons to fear the worst and many days I do, but I hold firm to the belief that this baby will be here safe and sound this fall. I believe it, even when I don't.
I love you always and forever and no matter what.
* I wrote this post one week ago but I was not brave enough to post it until today. I had an ultra sound and saw my obgyn today. Baby Life again looks perfect, growth right on track and heart rate strong. Baby had the hiccups and was wiggling all over and even gave mommy a little "salute", which made me cry, but they were happy tears. 11 1/2 weeks today :) Here is a peek at Baby Life...
6 weeks
11 weeks
This post brought me to tears! I'm so happy for you! Praying and praying and prayers on top of that everything continues to go great and Sweet Baby Life continues to grow and thrive!!!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Heather! We so so appreciate your prayers for our sweet little one! Hope you are well :)
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