The Journey that is My Pregnancy

As far as pregnancies go I was quite lucky (from what I hear). No morning sickness and overall minimal symptoms. Now typically people would have been relieved by that, but unfortunately no symptoms can also heighten fears and anxieties, especially after having bleeding episodes (I believe in my last post I had commented on having one bleeding episode, well that turned into 4 in total between weeks 5 and 9). By week 13 I was so consumed with anxiety that I was thinking almost every day or every other day that the baby was dead. Each new thing or new step worried me, I constantly feared that I would cause harm to the baby. Progesterone was to be stopped at week 12, and even though I knew so many other women had stopped their medications much earlier in the pregnancy and everything turned out fine, it still caused me huge anxiety. Taking those meds every day was after all the only piece of control I had. I was also reintroducing foods since I had been on the full Paleo diet. Trimester 2 was the introduction of dairy and I actually worried that something bad would happen if I ate cheese or had a yogurt. I know, not very rationale but the mind does play tricks on you! 

 I told myself early on in the pregnancy that I would not buy a home Doppler, but my constant fears took over so I decided to get one. For me, it was the best decision ever! I knew it could take awhile to find the baby's heartbeat and I used a suggestion to try looking after the midwife had found it (that way if I couldn't find it, it wouldn't be as stressful). Each time I started to get anxious and worried about the baby I would use the Doppler and just hearing the heartbeat reassured me.  I also had an anterior placenta (at the front of the uterus instead of the back)  and therefore I wouldn't be able to feel the baby move until much later than a person with a posterior placenta, so just waiting to feel the baby for reassurance was not an option. At about 21 weeks, once I finally started to feel the baby's movements I no longer needed the Doppler regularly and only used it once in awhile. There is a lot of criticism on the use of Dopplers and although yes I agree it is not a diagnostic tool and therefore if something is wrong it is best to contact your care provider, I do feel that for someone like me, that had absolutely no reason to worry but constantly did, it was a life saver and actually reduced my anxiety. 

I had a great midwife and was glad I had chosen that route, if I called and asked for a check in she would accommodate me and she was super sensitive and empathetic to my fears. She actually told us several times that it is quite common to have more anxiety/fears after suffering with infertility so it was great knowing that she 'got it' and validated our feelings. We not only worried about loosing our baby, we were also worried about the time and money it could potentially take us to get pregnant again since it had already taken us 3 1/2 years and around $30,000, it was quite daunting just thinking about
it. 

So we had scan after scan (12 week test to rule out any potential complications and then our anatomy scan at 20 weeks) and everything was coming back clear, indicating a strong and healthy baby. More and more I started to relax, was slowly able to enjoy the pregnancy and plan for the future. I stopped worrying that something bad was going to happen and started to envision how the birth was going to happen. I was getting excited to feel the baby growing inside of me and getting to experience the later stages of pregnancy.  All of that changed when I went for a routine scan at 29 weeks. Typically one would not have this extra scan but since I am plus sized they weren't able to estimate growth so wanted a scan to make sure everything was still going well, turns out that that was a blessing in disguise. It was discovered that my cervix was open and the baby's feet were right at the top of my cervix, known as a footling breech. The ultrasound technician consulted with the Radiologist who broke the news to us. He suggested that I get in touch with my Midwife asap, which I did. We met at the hospital and she consulted with an OB on call. The plan was that they were going to send me to McMaster which is a high risk pregnancy hospital however, the OB did his examinations and declared that my cervix was not open and that everything was in fact fine. I asked my midwife how I could have gone from completely open to completely closed and she told me that sometimes the ultrasound machine can distort images and having an internal exam was more accurate. We made a plan for me to return the following week for a follow up ultrasound and then we would go from there. The OB suggested I take one day off and return to activities as normal but my midwife told me to take the rest of week off and relax. The next day I received a phone call from my family Dr. who had reviewed my ultrasound results and was concerned. She told me that I was at high risk of preterm labour and wanted me to get a second opinion. So that's what I did. I had my midwife make a referral to McMaster Hospital as opposed to waiting for the follow up appointment. I told her that although I knew we had a plan in place I just wanted this referral for a second opinion and piece of mind. The day I was to return to my local hospital I actually went to McMaster to have my consultation. They brought me into a separate ultrasound area with a higher quality machine and as soon as the technician told us that she was going to get the Dr. to review something on the screen I knew that something was wrong. I was supposed to go to the clinic to review the results but they ended up transferring me to Labour and Delivery so I that I could be assessed much sooner. The Dr. came in completed an internal exam and said 'Okay, so your cervix is open, you are 4cm dilated and the baby's feet are right on top of the cervix so you're going to be staying with us until this baby is born'.  At that moment I was grateful that we had gone for the second opinion! I was also very angry with the OB at my local hospital who told me that everything was fine when in fact it wasn't. I couldn't get into that though or think about it for I had to focus on myself and the baby and I was just relieved that nothing serious had happened (like a breech delivery of a preterm baby in a small town hospital that does not have the facilities to manage). 

I spent the night in labour and delivery for they expected me to have the baby at any time. At this point I was only 30 weeks into the pregnancy so they gave me steriod shots to help the baby's lung development. Since I had no signs of labour and my cervix just opened I was diagnosed with an Incompetent Cervix (An incompetent cervix, also called a cervical insufficiency, is a condition that occurs when weak cervical tissue causes or contributes to premature birth or the loss of an otherwise healthy pregnancy - Mayo clinic). I feel lucky that this was caught though, and in the third trimester where the baby definitely had a better chance for an early arrival, for most cases of IC are found after a second trimester loss. After a night in labour and delivery with no signs of delivery they moved me to a high risk ward. It was emotional, I wasn't able to be home with my husband or dog and we had no idea how long I would have to stay there. The hope was that I would be there for the long haul since that would be in the best interest of the baby. I was prepared to be there for as long as it took, I didn't go through everything I had to give up or start thinking about myself. I had a couple emotional days but I had great family and friends who dropped by to visit or called to keep me occupied and entertained. My husband and sister in law also made a couple visits with the dog so that I could get some cuddles in (he was in the front of the hospital and my husband would bring me down in a wheelchair to visit him). I wasn't really allowed to leave the ward so the 2 visits I had with the dog were to be quick and we had to know what to do in the event that my water broke while I was outside. I was allowed to use the washroom, take a shower, and occasionally fill up my water bottle in the kitchen but overall I needed to lay in bed. They had explained to me that my lining was also very thin so the worry was that weight of the baby would cause my water to break, and since we were trying to keep the baby in there for as long as possible I had to keep pressure off of my cervix. At each nurse's shift change I was asked what to do in the event that my water broke, it was my mantra for the time I was there "ass in the air, face down, call for help, and get to Labour and Delivery asap!". As amusing as it was, it was also scary as hell!! I would get anxiety going for a shower worrying that my water could break at any second! For anyone on bed rest, Netflix will be your best friend! I watched so many different TV series and movies, it was great to pass the time and keep my mind occupied, although I was only really half watching most of the time. I also was crocheting different projects for our baby.

Although I knew we were at the best hospital, and that they deal with preterm babies everyday (so much so that the joke when I came in was that we were considered full term for them at 30 weeks), I was incredibly worried about our baby. I wanted to hang on as long possible to give our little peanut the best chance possible but I also wanted the baby out right away because I feared that the longer we held on the more risk I was putting the baby in. With the baby being a footling breech there were increased risk factors if were a vaginal birth, such as the cord wrapping around the baby's neck. At 12am, the evening on my 33rd week my water broke, it was not the scary 'rush to L&D' I had imagined so I was grateful for that! I had gone in for my routine stress test (I had to go twice a day during my stay to monitor any possible contractions), returned to my room at 11pm. Just after midnight I had woken to use the washroom and noticed a little bit of bleeding. The nurse sent me back to labour and delivery for monitoring and they told me that they could not see any reason for the bleeding and I had no signs of contractions. They told me they would keep me for a couple of hours and then send me back to the ward if nothing changed. At just after 2am that change happened! My water broke, it actually broke higher up so it was a trickle as opposed to a gush, so even though I had to go for an emergency c-section we had a bit of time to get prepared. I called my husband and told him that tonight was the night we were going to have a baby. He asked if I wanted him to come down (he had been staying with his sister who lived a short distance away), to which I said that would be a good idea. It was quite humorous having that discussion with a half asleep person. It was scary as hell but also exciting to finally find out what the sex of our baby was and meet him or her! My husband nearly passed out while we were waiting for all of the preparations to be made. I think the adrenaline of everything happening and his only have had a couple hours of sleep had gotten to him. While the Anesthesiologist was talking to us he got very pale and declared he wasn't feeling well. The nurses called for help and people were running from everywhere and then they were declaring 'it's the dad, it's the dad'. It was actually too funny, poor guy! They gave him some juice and he sat on the floor and soon he was back to himself. In my head I was cursing him though, thinking he needed to be there for me and the baby and that we couldn't deal with this, but outwardly I was telling him to take it easy and if he needed to sit outside of the OR then I understood completely and to not have any guilt about it. Thankfully he didn't need to do that and recuperated. 

I will share that I had a horrible epidural experience! It took a very long time for the anesthesiologist to get the epidural in, we had to break a couple of times and at one point the Resident Dr. I had been dealing with said that another option was that they could put me out, which I was almost ready to accept! But, we plowed through and got it done, unfortunately with a considerable amount of pain. Once my husband was allowed in the room things were better. Not to mention that the epidural had kicked in so I could no longer feel the pain. I had told the nurses that I wanted my husband to tell me the sex of the baby and they respected our wishes. The nurse on our side of the curtain looked at the baby and then whispered in my husband's ear and then he told me IT'S A BOY!!! I didn't get to see the baby because they took him right over to the table to do his measurements and assess him and since he was a preemie they had to whisk him away to hook him up to the CPAP and get him some breathing assistance. His nurse lifted him up for me, from the other side of the room, so that I could at least see him, and my husband had shown me some pictures that he had taken since he had been able to see him while he was being assessed. I thought that it was actually pretty cool that they even let him cut the umbilical cord.

It was a few hours later that I was able to see our little guy for the first time. My heart melted! It was really hard seeing him in the incubator though, all hooked up to the CPap with other tubes everywhere. At that time we had not had an update as to how he was doing other than he hadn't required oxygen, just the Cpap for the time being. He was on a tube for feedings for babies do not learn how to breathe, suck, and swallow until around 35/36 weeks gestation, which was very interesting to learn. A day after he was born he also became jaundiced so he needed to be under the bilirubin lights for a couple of days. They had tried him off of the Cpap but he was working too hard on breathing so they put him back on. On our 5th day in the NICU we got fantastic news, our baby boy was doing so well he was going to be transferred to a level 2 NICU closer to home, this meant he didn't need all the bells and whistles of a level 1 NICU. He would remain in the hospital for monitoring due to being on caffeine to stimulate his breathing (we joked that he was already a coffee addict and he was getting his daily espresso shot). Before he was transferred to the new hospital they were able to take him off of the Cpap and he remained off and he didn't require the bilirubin lights any longer. I was quite emotional with the transfer. I was soo happy that he would be closer to home and that I could finally be back in my own bed after a month however, leaving him in the hospital to go home was harder than I thought it would be. I had a few melt downs and felt so guilty for leaving him. People tried to be supportive and told me to rest and relax as much as possible while he wasn't home, but that wasn't really helpful for me. After all we had been through I wanted nothing more than to be with my baby. I wanted the new baby snuggles and cuddles and I just wanted him to be home with us. Also, I was pumping every 3 hours to try and stimulate my milk production so I was only getting 2 1/2 hours of rest in between pumping sessions, not much relaxing going on there. When he turned exactly 35 weeks gestation he latched on the breast which was a wonderful feeling! I hadn't been able to pump much those first couple weeks so we were hopeful that once he started latching my milk production would start to pick up. He also started taking a bottle well and feeds got better and better. We were initially told to expect him to be in the hospital until his due date, then we were told 37 weeks corrected due to the caffeine, they would not stop it until 36 weeks and then he needed a week of monitoring. Well, they stopped the caffeine at 35 weeks which meant we got to go home a week earlier than expected! The whole time I just kept thinking that he truly was our strong little man! He had done so well and continued to prosper regardless of being evicted from my body early. As emotional as everything was he was doing well and did not have any major health issues.



My milk never did come in. I tired pumping, feeding, medications, foods, supplements, you name it I tried it. I was told that having a premature baby, a c-section, and exclusively pumping all could impact milk production and I had all 3 going against me. I gave it a good run and tried for nearly 3 months before I finally gave up. Since we were feeding him every 3 hours I was only getting an hour to myself, if that, by the time I did everything. I was starting to resent the process and him and I didn't want that, so we made the decision to exclusively formula feed him. I would joke that my body didn't want to get pregnant, then it didn't want to stay pregnant, and then it didn't want to feed our child, so what more should I expect. However, deep down I was sad. I am truly blessed with this beautiful, perfect baby that we have, but I missed out on the third trimester of my pregnancy. I missed out on maternity pictures. Although I had been breastfeeding him I felt that as though I missed out on the true experience because I wasn't able to give him what he needed. I was angry with my body for failing me over and over. It's a grieving process and I definitely went through it. Having said that though, I would do it all over again! I love being a mom, I love seeing his smile and hearing his coos. I love being able to calm him after he has been crying. I love the cuddles while he is sleeping because he won't sleep in his crib. I love it all. It was super scary, stressful, and emotional, but I love the outcome that we have. We now know that I have this problem and my next pregnancy will be closely monitored by a high risk team, and yes, I am already envisioning my next pregnancy. We have 5 embryos frozen and have every intention of trying again! We have had people ask if we'd 'stop' after all of this and my answer is 'hell no!' I've always wanted 3 or 4 kids, and with age and the financial means to pay for the embryo transfers that may not be in the cards for us, but we will try again and see what happens!