***High Risk Mamas Support Thread*** - Page 9

[Sage_SS]

thats right.. you poor americans don't have Tim Hortons!! Timbits are the inner pieces of donuts.

Yay for new computers!!

[avivaelona]

actually living up north there are Tim Hortons here, but not any close to us. I've never been to one though. There are a lot of Dunkin Donuts here but I don't like them either, they have munchkins though which sound like the same thing as the Timbits. I hope Tim Hortons taste better.

I'm so achy today, I want to go for a long walk, but the last time I tried even a small walk I ended up with a sciatica attack

[soulshine]

we just got a tim horton's in maine last year... i had only seen them in canada before that.

i had my u/s yesterday. baby is 11oz. all measurements were in the right percentiles, saw a 3vessel cord, a 4 chamber heart, and plenty of fluid... and saw the boy parts again, so pretty sure he is indeed a boy.
report came back saying the sch appears to have decreased slightly in size and u/s tech said it was changing, like, getting harder and clotting by the way it looked on the screen (just like you said chesapeake, gray instead of black on the u/s). i don't think tech measured it. they seem to either be measuring baby, or sch, never at the same time. i guess even a 1/2cm decrease is good. going in the right direction anyway

also found some free-floating particles in the amniotic fluid. i saw them during the u/s and thought it was strange, but didn't ask tech. report cam back that the particles are probably blood. the ob said she thinks there is a small tear between the placenta and the amniotic sac that let a little blood in, not related to the sch. (making me think of when i fell last week...) apparently its ok for there to be blood in the fluid. i googled it and when women have amnios, there will be blood for a few weeks after, and then it just disappears. it can collect in the baby's kidneys or bowels, but usually goes away after a few weeks. i also found a site about sch that mentioned that this can happen. the ob said it was rare, but not to worry. hahahahahaha. i do feel better knowing what it was, and hearing that it is "ok". i am 19wk1d today baby's kicking every day.

so there is the report. thanks for weighing in on the vena cava everyone! if i sit in a certain way i get the feeling something is wrong so i'll move. baby seems to be growing and thriving.

august is here! already looking forward to the 31st... we'll all hit the third trimester in september

[ChesapeakeBorn]

soulshine, were those particles very small, like specks? If so, I'd think they were just vernix floating around in there!

Glad to hear everything checked out okay!

September 20th, September 20th, September 20th... that is when I'll hit 26 weeks (my OB's goal).

[soulshine]

chesapeake,
the specks are vernix usually in the 3rd trimester. that's what i thought at first too. second trimester they are usually blood.

well, i just looked for my 26wk point, and its the 19th of september. that's really right around the corner- haha. well, we can't make time go faster, so its back to day by day... 49 days, to be precise

[ChesapeakeBorn]

Well, I wouldn't worry too much. Since our babies are now covered in vernix, I still think it would be entirely possible for those particles to be vernix, more likely than blood. At least, that is what I am going to believe!

[Sage_SS]

I'll be 26 weeks on August 28.
What does that mean? Why did I just look that up?

So I'm in Vernon. This might have been more than I bargained for. I walked and moved way too much today. I nearly burst into tears in a store. I don't know what I was thinking going in there, oh yes I do. I need a damn book.
Tomorrow we're all going to the waterslides where I will sit on my bum all day and not move.

Sleeping tonight should be interesting.

[ChesapeakeBorn]

26 weeks = viability!: Well, some say there is a slight chance now at 22, even 24 weeks. There would be complications and a long NICU stay, but at least a chance!

Wishing you a restful, comfortable trip Sage!

This is the most active, wild baby I could imagine! Yesterday, he kicked and rolled and pummeled ALL DAY until I was terribly sore. It seems like he'll do this for a few days, then rest for a day, then back to being a wild man. I'm going to have my hands full! Bring it on!

[avivaelona]

I've always counted 24 weeks as viability...that's when the baby has a 50/50 chance of making it and that's when the hospital with a Nicu here will automatically attempt resuscitation. My friend Laura (sweetpeasmom...who passed away last year) had a 25 week preemie who made it with no apparent complications.

I think its so hard that we are even thinking about viability though, I mean, none of us wants our babies that early...its just hard not to be a bit relieved when we get to that point I guess. Last time around though I expected to be relieved at 24 weeks because not only does it mean viability but the chance of IC acting up goes way way down because of some other changes that occur. But I just didn't feel any of that relief til 28 weeks when suddenly everything felt great and I became really confident...only to fall apart when I got close to birth.

So, this time I'm hoping not to do that! I'm 24 weeks on August 28th, 26 on Sept 11 (weird timing...I was in NYC on sept 11th and its a hard day still for me...but its also my husband's grandmothers birthday and my birthday is later that week) and 28 weeks on September 25th.

How are you all doing? I'm "ok" but not as good as I'd like to be, I'm just so achey. I think I have a bit of that too much relaxin problem, its not affecting my pubic bone so much (thank goodness) but my sacroiliac and the ligaments between my thighs and crotch are just really loose feeling and uncomfortable. I feel like moving around more would actually help, just because the muscles would be stronger to compensate, but I don't know, after a day out yesterday I'm very achey today. More sleep helps but its hard to get that. I'm not having discomfort in bed but I'm just having a hard time sleeping.

Its all kind of small change...the baby is staying in, and I'm not in outright bad pain, its just ....I don't know, other than the worry I actually enjoyed being pregnant last time, this time I just sort of want it to be past.

[ChesapeakeBorn]

Warning - heavy post, not for the faint of heart

(I realize, after having rambled here, that this may evoke strong emotions. So you may not want to read this)

How am I doing... well, physically, okay. Just the normal bedrest woes, the occasional bleeding. Mentally, I may be going a little crazy. I mean, even if I make it to term, there are just no guarantees. And even after he is born, there are no guarantees. And then I realize that there is nothing that is guaranteeing the survival of my daughter either. Suddenly, I am consumed by the fear and reality that I have no control over any of this. It is strange to say, but I came to terms (for the most part) with the fact that I could not always protect my husband. The fear of losing him used to haunt me; I would be physically ill with longing for him when I wasn't with him. I finally realized that a life spent in worry is not lived as fully and enjoyably as one spent celebrating the moments we have together. But I have this new-found paranoia that my children will be taken from me. It makes me want to have many more children, but one child cannot replace another. Not to mention that after this, I am done, unable to endure another pregnancy and/or financially unable to support a larger family. The weight of this prospect, having my loved ones taken from me, is so great that most of the time it forces me to turn it over to God, to accept my lack of control. But sometimes it comes creeping back....

Oh, I am so sorry to be such a downer. I really don't want to pass these thoughts on to any one else. Strangely, I feel better now though, at peace again. After all, there is only so much I can do.

[avivaelona]

CB its ok to vent those feelings here. I've been in the same place often. Pregnancy after a loss is hard, and it was easier once the baby was born, but parenting after a loss is a little more difficult too. You just can never completely go back to being innocent of loss. I'm sure if you put this on the PAL thread you'd find that we all feel a bit that way, and in fact even those who never had a difficult pregnancy or a loss probably feel that from time to time.

Don't worry about passing on the thoughts we all have them.

[Sage_SS]

CB, I used to feel that way too. When I was pregnant with our first and for the first year of her life. My grandmothers first died, my oldest two aunts and my mom's first babies died. I was the first one of my generation to have a baby and I was convinced that the baby would die, that our family had some terrible curse. When she was born I trained myself to sleep to the sounds of her breathing. When she stopped, even for a half second, I woke up panicking.
After a while I just kind of accepted that it IS possible for her to die. But it is also useless for me to stress out about something that hasn't happened.

I hope you feel better soon!

[ChesapeakeBorn]

Thanks you guys for understanding. Last night my sister, the one who is living with us, came in after shopping. She said "I am giving you hope" and handed me a sweet little newborn outfit, the first we have held since we started this TTC journey. The reality that maybe our little one could be wiggling around in that was very powerful. I think it must have affected my husband the same way because when he came in later and saw it, he just couldn't stop staring at it and touching it, imagining our little guy in there. When he climbed in bed to watch a movie with me, he laid it on his chest until the film was over. Then, before turning out the lights, he took the tags off the outfit and tucked that sweet little romper between our pillows.:

[avivaelona]

Oh that is so sweet, give that guy a big hug.

Sage that is a little freaky that your family has had so many losses. I'm sure that did make you feel insecure at first. Wow. My mom said she had a lot of trouble with my youngest brother feeling secure...no losses, but my middle brother was born with some problems and after that she realized she wasn't immune.

We also got our first outfit for the baby yesterday...my mil had gone to a sale and bought something for J. and she called me to check on his size and asked if it would be ok to get something for the baby. So he'll have at least one outfit that isn't a hand me down. Its adorable too.

Its 3M size though so I still do want to get him at least a couple of newborn size things...we didn't have any for J.! Everyone said just buy 3month size because they outgrow them so fast...and we knew he was a reasonably large baby so we did, and they were mostly right, he would have outgrown newborn size in a matter of a few days, but it would have been nice to have a couple of outfits to bring him home from the hospital in, so this time I'm buying a newborn size outfit or two so something fits on the way home from the hospital (watch him be 10 pounds and they won't fit!) That's kind of my "thing I'm doing to celebrate" at 24 or 28 weeks...whenever I feel ok about getting up and doing that kind of shopping.

[soulshine]

how coincidental... we went and bought the first item for this baby yesterday too... was conscious of 'maybe its too early' and 'hope this doesn't jinx anything' actually had a conversation about leaving the tags on just in case.... sigh. but we muddled thru all that and purchased a hiking backpack/baby carrier combo thingey. its huge! we won't be able to use it until baby can hold his head up, but husband is very gear-ey and needed to buy this now, i guess! this time next year we will be able to use it

chesapeake, *big hug* to you. i have felt those same things over and over. it is so heavy i really try not to 'go there'. if you think about it, the paranoia of worry that our children will be taken from us, well, it is just a very heightened, exaggerated normal feeling of parental protectiveness over our children. there will be times when that paranoia gets peaked, but i feel like most of the time it will waver around the normal worries, etc.- the way 'normal' parents have it most of the time.
it is so good to talk it out, rather then mull it over and over in your brain. i am glad you wrote about it! and that you are feeling a little better. (((hug))) p.s. your husband is very sweet to be all lovey on the newborn outfit... my husband remains a bit standoffish about talking very much about this baby, but when he does it really melts my heart.

sage, i had to laugh when you were like 'ok, why did i just look that 26 week date up?'! this must be a strange aspect of this 'bedrest group' to you... us worrying about making it to viability... so depressing! so, you are on your trip, yow! i will be relieved for you when you are home safe back in bed- although not that the pain will go away, just that it may not have the opportunities to be increased by a lot of activity.

aviva,
our friend used to work at our hospital's mfm dept and also in the nicu, she told us they like to see 25-26 week babies starting out. i don't know what 'level' our nicu is... i think i would totally want to get the baby to one that had the ability to start at a 22+ week baby... that seems very miraculous. and you are totally right- i want FULL-TERM!! not just viability! but it will be very nice to pass those baseline weeks. this little boy is such a mover and shaker, and this 4-d pic i have of him.. to my heart he is much more than just a 19+week fetus, he is himself. so, aviva, can you tell me about the sacroiliac pain? where does that come from? i have such pain in my legs sleeping at night i have no idea why that is- i am lying down all day, so why for every hour at night do i wake up in pain from my legs (thighs) hurting? is that related to sacroiliac?

here is another question for you all...
do you think being on bedrest has anything to do with weight gain or lack thereof? i am wondering because i am not gaining. i am not too worried about it, but wondering... we are not expelling too much energy, so the caloric intake is probably lower than 'normal'. but do you think that would cause a lack of weight gain? i would think being on bedrest would make us gain more than average with not having much ability to burn calories in the normal way... i havn't had a moment of high cardiovascular activity in months! and actually, just going up the stairs gets me a little winded these days! what am i going to do with a newborn- i'll be so out of shape (and with a c-sect to heal...) yikes. so, are you paying attention to weight gain? have you all gained anything since getting pregnant? i started the ivf cycle at 155ish, and am now only at 161, and i've been that weight since the ivf meds kicked in 21 weeks ago. so... just wondering.

[ChesapeakeBorn]

soulshine, I am not really gaining either (I've gained 5 lbs since conception). My theory is that we are losing muscle mass (and yikes maybe even bone density, as we need weight-bearing exercise to keep that up) and some of it is being replaced by fat. If we were not on bed rest, we would be adding maternal reserves to our muscle mass so our gain would be greater.

[avivaelona]

I'm not sure Soulshine because I didn't gain with my first either when I wasn't on bedrest. I do seem to always lose in the first trimester, stay the same in the second and with J. I did gain back a little bit in the third, we'll see with this one.

I did lose muscle mass though with J. so I assume that is part of the lack of gain. This time I'm trying not to lose so much muscle, but there is no way to tell if its working or not.

The good news is that it took a few months but it did come back, and while it was a little hard having a newborn while being so out of shape, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be....a lot of time with newborn was spent sitting in a chair nursing anyway, which gave me time to slowly rebuild again...and bouncing said newborn while sitting on my big yoga ball helped get some of it back pretty fast!

I'm grouchy today.

We finally got outside for a while and were out for half an hour and it started to rain. We went in and it poured just for fifteen minutes or so. Now its sunny and bright and probably quite nice out but the chairs are soaked which means no place for me to hang out. Drat.

J. is being bearish and grumpy about being home, and I just have no "oomph" for playing with him. Plus at the moment what he's finding fun is putting hot blankets on me. Oh I don't know, its just all whinyness from both me and him. Somehow I really need to find a way to get my positive mojo about this back, it seems to have left me the last couple of weeks.

[Sage_SS]

I am not accepting others people's "sympathy" well.

My aunt and my mom.... I've told them both several times about this and how I feel and WHY this is happening etc. Nearly everytime I speak to either of them they say stuff like "so how's your day?" To which I reply, "Ugh, kinda crappy, but I'm still kickin it" and Every. Single. Time. They say...

"oh.. how come?"



or

them - "how was your sleep?"
me - "no good, barely slept"
them - "oh, why not?"



My aunt - "so, how're things goin lately?"
me - "crappy, I'm in pain alot and not getting much sleep, trying to avoid depression"
My aunt - "oh, STILL? It's too bad you can't find way to just mentally block the pain. You know the power of the mind is so misunderstood, you have far more power over the way you deal with pain than you allow yourself. "



From my friends and other family I get the extreme sympathy. The "oh, I just feel so terrible for you. This is just awful, I am so sorry that you are going through this. Your life must just be unbearable right now, I feel so sorry for you"

I appreciate their undertanding, I really do. I know complaining right now makes that hard to see, but its true. But I keep telling everyone that I'm trying to remain positive, if I could just get a little support in THAT I wouldn't feel like I'm fighting through everyone else's sadness.

*note* this post is not about you guys. The only people I vent to are you guys so I kinda need some sympathy and support when I vent. But here IRL I'm trying so damn hard to keep a smiling face and positive outlook. I don't vent to anyone.

[soulshine]

well, sage... that sucks!!

there isn't really anything anyone, family, friend, etc, can do or say to make it different or better, although there are things that they shouldn't say!! like 'power of the mind'... jeez, louise!

you are allowed to be angry and frustrated and vent!!

sometimes i try to vent but i can't even put words to what's going on in my head, so i end up crawling under the covers and sleeping it off- something which i am sure you feel like doing too, but there isn't really that relief for you!

does it help to be more clear in your responses?
i.e.
'sage, its mom, how are you doing today?'
'well, i feel terrible, i got no sleep, but i really don't want to talk about it at all so can we please talk about something else?'

and then maybe no dumb comments? you are in a really tough situation!

my cousin had 12 years of constant, crippling pain and not really anyone understood what that was like for him. the pain killers barely touched it. it was kind of an insanity, but its hard for others to really comprehend what that constant pain is like, year after year. not to depress you- and it is different because you have an endpoint to your chronic pain that you can look ahead to- but he lost almost all of his relationships and it strained all of his family ones at some point... he was a different person because of that pain and the management it required to just get thru one day. i felt so guilty in my 'normal' life of pain-free living. i knew he struggled but there was not one iota i could do to help. when i get a migraine i think of his pain and how it just never stopped for him. a living hell!

sage,
how would you want them to act/react? what can you imagine them saying that would be good for you? can you put a finger on what it is you need to hear, need to feel from them, especially the friends and family who are 'getting' it, but can't find the right words? sometimes thinking along those lines helps me understand my own feelings better. a lot of the time, i realize i just want someone to LISTEN to me and not say anything at all, because there is nothing they can say to change anything or make it better or different. so if i can find someone who will just listen to me, even when my words start getting really dark and angry, desparate... they just listen and let me SAY it, so i can get it out of me...

so, haha, after saying all of that to you sage, i really want you to know that i am happy to listen to all of what is going on in your head! vent vent vent! i will try not to say too much in return, althouh it is my nature to always want to respond... but i am happy to listen to all it! we all are i am sure!

how's everyone else doing?
sage, have you gone to your doctor yet this week? when is that appointment?

chesapeake, how is your bleeding? (isn't that a terrible question?!! out of context it sounds ridiculous!). are you feeling well? when is your daughter's birthday party?

aviva, and you? how is today going for you?

i am well. i get thru each day now by the kicking of this little baby inside me! thank goodness he is active! i am using the doppler way less, because of the constant movement on his part. i just ate 4 pickles!! this pregnancy is very different than my daughters... i had problems with spicy/pickled foods with her but this time around it want spicy! and sour! mmmm.

hey, the olympics are starting on this weekend... do any of you watch them? is anyone boycotting them for any reason? i have never had time to see any olympic stuff in the summer (i remember when they were all at one time, in one year!) so i will like to maybe see the gymnasts, and the track and field stuff. there are new sports that never existed before, like beach volleyball! have you seen that team (US)? those girls are super fit!

[Sage_SS]

I love watching the olympics. I was a gymnast for 12 years so of course gymnastics is my favorite event.

My doc appt is on Thursday.

I dunno.. I think I'd rather if people said nothing at all. I can really do without the whole "I feel so sorry for you bit" I can't stress that enough. "I'm sorry you're going through this" would be far better. I don't feel sorry for myself, I mean this sucks and this last weekend is the first time I've said 'ok, I'm ready for Dec. now'. The pain has escalated, as I knew it would, and now I have almost no pain free time at all. If I took the pain killers when I needed them, when the pain was becoming unbearable, I'd be taking them everyday. I'm killing myself forcing myself to go without. Its been three days since I've any, but I can't do it a minute longer. I haven't slept, I'm on the verge on tears constantly and I don't like myself when I am so cranky. It feels like my bones are splitting, literally. Sound and all. Three days ago I actually considered going to a hospital. LOL... I don't know what the heck I expect to find there. Just alot of blank faces.

The perfect response... hmm... first off.. don't ask me stupid questions like "how was your sleep" when I've told you repeatedly I don't get any. Second, when I say I'm in pain and trying to avoid depression, the correct response would be "I'm sorry to hear that, I really hope you can find a few mins of peace to relax and re-energize" THAT would be nice. Even better would be "Yuck, I can bring by a few books you might enjoy"

Its kinda hard to be here, venting to you guys. I can't even imagine how much stress you guys must feel, how worried you are all the time. Sometimes I feel like I should just shut up and be thankful that I'm just in pain. Thank you for putting up with my whining. I can't stand the look I get IRL when I tell people how I really feel.

I'm so disappointed with my mom. Not once has she offered to take the girls, or bring dinner, or come by just to be with me for a bit. Nothing. My disappointment in morphing into anger.