Agonizing over Family Planning…

When I found out I was pregnant last January we had a family plan. This would be our last natural child, I would get my tubes tied after the baby was born, and when the baby was 6 months old we would start fostering a little girl between the age of 5 and 7. It was simple. It felt right.

Then I miscarried.

Then we got evicted and we are moving to a home that doesn’t have the required 3 bedrooms in order to qualify for foster care.

Suddenly it feels really complicated. Our answer to most problems is to make a list of pros and cons…

Pros to having another baby:

1. B and I would get to experience the pregnancy, labor, delivery, and new born phase of parenthood together for the first time in a loving supportive relationship. My son was 2.5 years old when B and I met, and I went through my entire pregnancy, labor, and delivery without a partner present. I reconciled with my ex when my son was 3 months old, but he was less than supportive and loving (understatement of the year award) through the new born phase, and then we separated and divorced when my son was 20 months old. I was a single parent until I married B when my son was 4.5 years old.
2. Our son would have a sibling, and the opportunity to grow up with another child without worrying the child would be leaving, as happens with a foster sibling.
3. Babies are lovely. They are sweet, dependent, innocent, and they love you unconditionally. There’s nothing like waking up to a baby snuggled up to my breast for morning milkies, grinning up at me with milk dribbling out the side of their mouth. All the firsts are so precious  – first laugh, first word, first step, first kiss.

Cons to having another baby:

1. I hate being pregnant. I am extremely miserable, fatigued, and have chronic pain in my hips and back from the day of conception. The whole 40 weeks I feel like I’m in a daze and am unable to connect with anyone emotionally until I give birth and all those pregnancy hormones rush out of my body.
2. I’m terrified I’ll have another traumatic miscarriage.
3. I’m unsure we’ll even be able to get pregnant again with mine and B’s combined fertility issues, and the constant roller coaster of hope and dashed hope is very hard on us emotionally.
4. I’m terrified I’ll have another 80+ hour labor and delivery, but am too educated and knowledgeable about the negative effects of medical intervention to compromise on anything less than a natural home birth.
5. After having a child who has multiple serious life threatening food allergies, a speech delay, sensory issues, severe eczema and asthma, I’m terrified I’ll have a baby with truly major health issues or complications and am not confident I have what it takes to deal with that.
6. There will be a minimum 7+ year age gap between our son and the new baby, so will they even have much of a relationship? By the time the baby starts school, our son will be a teenager, likely with other interests.
7. Even if we move into a 3 bedroom home, foster parenting will be put on hold until the baby is at least 6 months old (their policy).
8. We are attachment parents who believe very strongly in breastfeeding, co-sleeping, child led weaning, baby-wearing, and no daycare or babysitters until baby is weaned. Having a baby is a huge emotional and physical commitment for us – but more specifically me. We just signed an extended lease on a business commercial space and in order to afford it, I need to work in the salon booking appointments, and doing reception, bookkeeping, marketing, and admin. Baby would have to come to work with me, which is possible, but not an ideal arrangement by a long stretch, especially given the line of work – people come to a hair salon/spa to be pampered, and babies don’t generally fit into that equation.
9. We have a very full busy, and often hectic, life and adding sleep deprivation into the mix is not appealing.
10. Babies cost money (clothes, cloth diapers, car seat, slings, etc) which means less disposable income for replacing our VERY old car, holidays and travel, and purchasing our first home.
11. We are in our mid and late 30′s and when the baby leaves home after graduating high school (or college) we’ll be less than 10 years away from retirement.

So there are the hard cold facts and emotions about what we are agonizing over. Making a list of pros and cons doesn’t help because it’s such an emotion-driven decision to make. We have gone round and round and round and can’t come to a conclusion. Most people we talk to suggest we just use BC and not do anything permanent, but quite honestly there are few BC options available for us personally, for private reasons I won’t get into, and we need some kind of resolution.

My head says I should get my tubes tied. My heart says wait. Do we go with logic and reason, or heart and emotion? We would love for our friends and family to weigh in with your thoughts. We just ask that you please be sensitive and thoughtful in your response as this is a very vulnerable topic for us…

The Storm… (sensitive content regarding miscarrying)

Last night after I posted about miscarrying, things went from bad to much worse. I started hemorraghing around midnight and ended up needed emergency transfer to Nanaimo. No small feat when you live on a small gulf island where the ferries don’t run through the night. An ambulance came and hooked me up to an IV and started monitoring me while we waited for my parents to come and sleep at the house with our son so my husband could come with me.

I wasn’t dizzy or anything, but my legs were really unstable and I left a murderous looking trail of blood behind me as I was moved from the ambulance to the emergency medical boat to another ambulance and then into the hospital emergency room around 3 AM. They monitored me closely, subjecting me to all manner of unmentionable horrific torture-style procedures until the on-call gynecologist finally arrived at 9:30 AM. Within moments they had me in O/R and I was under anesthetic to have an emergency d&c done to stop the hemorrhaging.

B had gone home a couple hours earlier cause my parents had an appointment in Vancouver they couldn’t miss, and he had just gotten our son off to school and was crawling into bed for the first time that night when I called to let him that the hospital wouldn’t release me unless I had someone to pick me up after surgery. My incredible super-husband who hadn’t slept in well over 30 hours picked our son up from school and was there to meet me when I was released from recovery. He truly is my safe place in this storm.

We had to break the final news to our son, and I did a sloppy inadequate job of comforting him, but we just tried our best to validate the pain we are all feeling as a family. B & I went to bed when we got home around 1:30 PM, while our ds watched movies and kept quiet until B got up a couple hours later. I slept straight through for about 6 hours, just in time to wake up and tuck my son into bed, with deep gratitude for the gift God gave us in him.

There will always be a hole in our heart for “nemo”, and we are planning a little memorial for our family of three to honor and remember “nemo”. We thought it would be fitting to send some of nemo’s tissue back into the ocean, in the same place where our family started, where B proposed to me, and where we had our wedding. Life is a full circle of laughter, joy, death and pain.

Inconclusive and confusing ultrasound results

When I found out I was pregnant with my son I went in to have my first ultrasound thinking I was between 11 and 12 weeks, and came out being told I was only 7 weeks along. I hadn’t written anything down and wasn’t tracking, so I just took their new EDD with little comment or thought… I have polycystic ovaries so my “normal” is very wonky. I had only had three cycles the entire year I got pregnant with ds, so I wasn’t surprised that the dates were off… a month is a lot, but still… I can go 6 months without a cycle, so quite honestly, menses dates mean nothing to me… and I had no idea or inkling I was pregnant, so was sort of walking around in a daze anyways. I went into labor on his due date and he was a healthy full term 8 lb 8 oz baby two days after the revised due date they gave me at my first ultrasound.

Yesterday I went for my first ultrasound, thinking I was 11 weeks, because I’ve been having spotting and cramping for more than a week now and we were all concerned that I was possibly miscarrying.

The tech looked and looked and looked. She asked for the date of my last period. December 12th. Then she asked the date of the FIRST day of your last period. Yes, like I said, December 12th. How sure was I of my dates? Positive. I wrote it down.

I started getting nervous and asked if she could see a heart beat. Her answer was strange. Well… no… but you’re only measuring 6 weeks and 1 day, so that is normal. Huh?! My immediate thought was that the baby stopped growing and was no longer viable…

Then she swung the screen around and showed me that it likely IS viable. There was the yolk sac, the little perfect embryo, the amniotic water… The tech pointed out that the line around the uterus was clear and black, which doesn’t indicate any re-absorption, but rather growth. She also explained the spotting – implantation of the placenta.

I went out to the waiting room and told my husband and son I’d explain in the car. Prior to my appointment we had agreed that if the baby was gone, I would not invite them in, but if there was a heart beat they would come in to see. And here I was, still in limbo, with neither scenario!

Despite having polycystic ovaries, the month I got pregnant this time was the third month in a row I had a normal cycle after almost completing our healing cleanse.

When I got home I pulled up my fertility chart to see if I could make sense of it all. I started charting Dec 12th, the first day of my last period… I had signs of ovulation, and we had sex on Dec 26, Dec 29 and Jan 11th. We haven’t had sex since – we both had a horrible virus for a month, then I wasn’t feeling well, then I started spotting, so we know for SURE those are the only three possible conception dates…

I got my first positive pregnancy test result on January 12th, and referring to the cart, that would place my date of conception on December 29th, for a Sept 21st EDD. The pregnancy test was a strip. I got a positive… very very faint… couple hours later used another one and it was darker… went to the doctor’s office, and they confirmed it was positive too…

Yesterday I’m told that I have a totally normal looking viable 6 week old plus 1 day EMBRYO, putting my new due date at October 25th. I am SO confused I can’t even begin to tell you where my head is right now. That’s not possible. EVEN if I got pregnant on Jan 11th, it’s not even remotely possible I would have been able to have a positive pregnancy test on the 12th. And that still places my EDD at October 4th, NOT the 25th, so there’s still a 3 week discrepancy.

I also don’t know how to explain the whoosh whoosh of the placenta was that we heard on the doppler… or the fetal movement the doctor was sure he picked up… or the flutters I’ve been feeling… Indigestion?

I’m having my progesterone levels checked, and will hopefully have those results later this week.

Something showed up on my blood work that I am wondering about now too… apparently I have borderline hypothyroidism, which can cause slow fetal growth…

At the end of the day I’m still pregnant, albeit less pregnant than I thought. I don’t know what to think. So until I know otherwise, I’m thankful to be pregnant, and am praying for a healthy baby.

Prenatal Care: Taking Your Power Back

If you’re anything like me, you find medical environments overwhelming and intimidating. In theory I’m a powerful woman with a voice, but put me in a sterile clinical office and something awful happens to me. I turn into mush. I nod my head stupidly and stutter over stuff I know better than to agree to. I always feel like I have to justify my decisions and I get all mixed up and confused.

This happened to me last Monday at my first prenatal visit, and I’ve decided to stop the cycle. Hopefully my experience will inspire others like me to do the same when they are put in a situation that makes them awkward and removes their voice. I challenge you, the patient, to stop being intimidated and speak up when doctors are doing things you don’t agree with. Find your voice. Take your power back.

Names removed to protect privacy…

On Monday, Feburary 22nd I had a first prenatal visit with Dr. X. She offered to see me because my regular doctor, Dr. Y, is on vacation, but I did not have a patient/doctor relationship established with her. During the visit she questioned me about my first birth, and challenged the choices my midwife and I made, which I thought was very inappropriate and upset me because the choices we made had the best possible outcome – a healthy baby and a healthy mom.

Next she took my blood pressure, which was understandably high (144/91) after all the questioning. She took me to another room to have my blood pressure checked again on a different machine, and took that opportunity to usher my husband and son out to the waiting room. I was under the impression they would come back when I returned to the examination room. I brought them with me because I wanted them present for the whole visit. Having a baby is a family affair, not a medical procedure behind closed doors.

When I returned to the examination room, she offered to do an internal exam because I had some questions about some lightly colored discharge the night before. I said no, it was probably best to leave it and see what happens, and her reply was “everyone says no to an internal, I’m going to go ahead and take charge here and just do it.” I said okay because I felt pressured by her take charge attitude, but my gut instinct was that it wasn’t a good idea.

The room was icy cold to the point that my feet were cold for hours after leaving the office. I mentioned it to her and she said the heat hadn’t been working all morning and she had performed other pap smears that day under the same freezing conditions, and they had a call in to have someone come look at it. It’s a horrible procedure under “good” conditions. Lack of heat made it unbearable.

When I returned home I was very upset to find I was spotting. I spotted off and on for the next two and a half days. At no point in the appointment did the doctor mention that an internal exam could cause spotting. I thought I was miscarrying and was very distraught, obviously not a good thing as I was trying to get my blood pressure down. It was my midwife who later reassured me that an internal exam can cause spotting and it isn’t always an indication of an imminent miscarriage.

I had a follow up appointment scheduled for yesterday morning, but after talking to my midwife, I decided to cancel it, and when I called the doctor’s office, inquired into the best way to submit a complaint about my last appointment. The receiptionist said she would find out and call me back.

I was shocked when I got a call back later that afternoon, and it was Dr. X, not the receptionist as I had expected. She invited me to share what went wrong with the appointment, and I have to say I gained a huge amount of respect for her in the way she handled my complaints. She was empathetic, apologetic, and very humble. She let me speak, heard me out, and not once made me feel foolish or inferior. A sincere apology and an honest explanation make all the difference in the world. She even took the time to read my chart thoroughly before calling me, and made me feel like I was important and she truly cared about her doctor/patient relationship with me.

I have decided to go back to the clinic to have my blood pressure checked on Monday, but we both agreed it’s in my best interest to have another doctor do the reading and appointment. I am satisfied with how a horrible appointment has now turned into a feeling of empowerment.

Moral of the story? You have a voice – use it!

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