David and I decided that we felt comfortable going "public" with this pregnancy after today's appointment. And it went well! Haley is going to be a big sister around Thanksgiving!!!
By measurement, which was very difficult to get, we are going with 9 weeks, which is inline with my ovulation info.
Today was the marathon appointment. 3 hours! At Kaiser:o( Appointment itself was pretty quick, but everything else takes FORever! And, we managed to pick the first day of a new pilot program for prenatal patients, which meant more paperwork that everyone doesn't quite understand yet. Then, we had to wait about half an hour to meet with the prenatal clerk, who was less than friendly. Boo! Where we filled out more paperwork and scheduled a couple of appointments. Then, we had to go to the lab, where I got to do the 1 hour Glucose Tolerance Test and get 8 vials of blood drawn and pee in 2 different cups! But it was all worth it to know that everything seems to be going well:o) The picture we got is pretty bad, but the Dr. had a really hard time getting head and body at the same time so she could measure, so this is what we got;o)
I scheduled my first ultrasound for April 8th. I would be 6w2d so we should be able to see a heartbeat. It was a nerve wrecking couple of weeks, but I made it and this is what we saw:
And she was able to find a heartbeat of 138 bpm which is great for this age.
She wants to see me again in 2 weeks for the traditional first prenatal appointment.
The tummy growling hunger multiple times per day has started, but doesn't seem to be accompanied by nausea as it has been in the past. I have also had a little bit of heartburn.
No one talks about it casually, but many women have had, at least one, Miscarriage. I know several ladies who have had them. 20-25% of pregnancies end in miscarriage in the first trimester. Once I had cleared the infertility hurdle that seemed to plague my family, I thought I was home free. I guess not.
January 3rd came and David and I went to our appointment to get a glance at our baby, but . . . there. . .was. . . no. . . baby. Not just no heartbeat, NO baby, no yolk sac, just an empty, fairly large sac. My husband lovingly nicknamed it "egg whites." My Dr. explained the situation, the options and the plan moving forward.
First, she wanted me to go for Quantitative Beta HCG tests 48 hrs apart. If the numbers were the same or decreased, we would know that the pregnancy wasn't viable and probably on its way out.
Second, we would come back in one week for a repeat ultrasound to make sure there was nothing in there.
Third, we had a choice to make. 3 options: a) wait it out and hope nature takes its course, b) use a drug called Misoprostol, which would help induce the miscarriage, c) have a D&C where the Dr. would go in and scrape/suck the stuff out of my uterus.
Let me tell you, that was THE longest week of my life. My Dr. had also told me what to do/expect, if it happened naturally during that week. I felt like a ticking time bomb. At any moment I could go into labor and start bleeding heavily. All while trying to care for my almost 3 year old. That week was probably the worst part of the whole thing.
Luckily, I had my surro sisters to lean on. Between the two groups I am in of close to 150 surrogates, MANY of them had been through something similar in either a surro or bio pregnancy.
So, I went for the blood tests and they were inconclusive- the numbers were high, in the 60,000s and increased in the 48 hours. Not as much as we would have liked, but not small enough to rule out viability.
I did my informal research by polling my surro sisters. I decided a) was not an option for me. I am alone with a 3 year old 9+ hours/day and, although my husband could be home in half an hour, the ticking time bomb aspect was terrifying to me. And there was a chance it wouldn't happen or wouldn't all come out and I would need the D&C anyways. I wasn't cool with b) either. The majority of people who had used it said it was awful. So I decided to go with the D&C. It sounded the most controllable and dependable and everyone said it was pretty easy.
By Monday (the appt was Friday), I emailed my Dr. to tell her I had decided on the D&C and did I really have to wait all the way til Fri. She said I had to wait the full week. Boo!
I survived the week and Friday morning, as we were getting ready to leave for the appt, my Dr. called and said she had an opening to do the D&C that day, right after lunch and she could save that spot for me, if that's what I wanted. I said, "yes, please!" That was a long day, but it was finally over and we could move on.
Dr. did a good job cleaning out my uterus and I had very little bleeding (it lasted 2 weeks, but I would go 24 hours with nothing several times. Kinda annoying, but not so bad.
My Dr. told me I needed to have one period after the D&C before Trying to Conceive (TTC) and I asked her if I had to wait until 9 weeks again for the ultra sound because I knew I was going to be much more worried the next time. She said I could go in anytime, but I should wait until at least 6 weeks. I could do that, I just needed a goal:o)
My husband and I knew that we were ready to have a second baby as soon as was medically advised after I had the surro babe. My OB told us 6-7 months, so, at 6 months (November), we were ready to go.
Through my surro experience, I had learned that I could get a positive Home Pregnancy Test (HPT) at 9-10 days past ovulation (dpo), so I started peeing early, not really knowing when I had ovulated. I finally got a faint positive on December 6th, the day we were leaving to visit my sister in AZ. I kept peeing while there and kept getting slightly darker positives.
I scheduled my first OB appointment for Jan 3. Kaiser won't see me until, at least 7 weeks and they prefer 8+ weeks. I think my Dr. was off for the holidays, so I would be almost 9 weeks (using first day of last period) at that appointment. We were excited, told all of our close friends, and family and were preparing for an August baby.
All that time, I just had a weird feeling, like something wasn't right. But I had a 2 for 2 record of cycles trying to babies made, so I had no reason to doubt my body's abilities. Until January 3rd. . .
