I'm out of the closet so to speak... I let a few coworkers know that we are currently gestating... and they were very happy for us. I explained how our anxiety level was and they nodded as if they understood. They also pointed out that it's encouraging that we got this far... and I nodded. Another coworker came by while we were talking about this and goes "Why aren't you ecstatic?" I took a moment and said - it's not that we're not happy we are... it's that we feel as if we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you've been pregnant 11 times and still have no children well... you just tend to protect your heart. This coworker who I value as a friend and a great nurse and example of pediatric nursing - she just looked at me and goes "that's just tragic." I just shrugged... What do you say other than yeah it sucks...
D and I talked about this on our way home from the RE's office and his response was - "Apparently they don't know your family history of losses." Succinct and to the point... got to love it. It's true - my coworkers know of my losses - but they really don't know about my family loss history. If you combine my mother's loss history, my sister's, my aunts, and mine it would be well over 20 losses. That's a lot of loss to know about... and grow up knowing about. Mind you D didn't grow up hearing about these losses, but he did once he and I started trying because my mother, aunt, and sister all felt that it was better for us to know then to not know. Be prepared is apparently our family motto and truthfully I'm glad that they never hid these things from me because to me knowledge is power. The losses for the women in my family ranged from early miscarriage to late first trimester to second trimester and a third trimester loss. Knowing that means that we tend to be a little more guarded. Maybe it's wrong, but it's the best we can do to cope with everything... and considering what we've been through - we're very lucky to have a healthy marriage where communication is key.
I'm glad that my RE understands even if he had the audacity to put on my chart "pt and spouse reassurred." I had to laugh because Dr. Sarcastic doesn't do reassurring very well. He's realistic and that helps both D and I because we both feel better with facts. Dr. Sarcastic asked if I had googled measurements for CRL already and I nodded then told him that it was quite frustrating as there was a big discrepancy on all the crap I found online so everything from a weird equation that you punch in to a simple equation gave you different numbers every time. We talked science for a while and he said - does the googling help? I responded with yes it does, D even nodded that it did. He just encouraged us to look at scientific sources for knowledge and I reassurred him that that was what I did rather than other sites. I have to have concrete stuff rather than personal stories - no offense to anyone's personal story, but I want facts that have been researched.
3 comments:
There's nothing wrong with being your own advocate and doing your own research. Especially given your history. So long as it doesn't send you into a tailspin of anxiety. My husband would take the internet away from me if I got too ahead of myself. :oP
And even as "textbook" as this pregnancy has been, I'm in the final leg and I still freak out and worry.
Ah.. I beg to differ with respect to the comment "that's just tragic", a little sad maybe, stressful certainly but tragic??? I just don't think you or your attitude in anyway warrants the use of the word tragic. Too many dogs, too much family, too many friends and now a pregnancy to boot (one that looks promising to say the least).
Bravo on going to the more scientific/ medical sites (I'm always trying to drill that into my students).
I'm not sure you'll want this or not but I found http://radiology.creighton.edu/pregnancy.htm#section7 to be fairly reassuring. To cut and paste the important part (because I am so technically savy),
The Living Embryo and threatened abortion:
The presence of an embryonic heartbeat is highly reassuring. When visualized by Low Resolution Abdominal sonography, more than 90% of pregnancies continue. Visualization by high resolution vaginal sonography is associated with a 70% continuance rate. The apparent discrepancy is because the heartbeat is a stronger positive sign in the larger more advanced embryos seen by transabdominal scanning.
The rate of pregnancy loss with positive heartbeat varies with gestational age and the presence of vaginal bleeding:
-Heartbeat at < 6 week., With bleeding 33% are lost, 16% are lost if no bleeding present
-Heartbeat at 7-9 week., With bleeding 10% are lost, 5 % are lost without bleeding present
-Heartbeat at 9-11 week., With bleeding 4 % are lost, 1-2% are lost without bleeding present.
The prognosis for the living embryo improves as gestation proceeds.
Of course they don't seem to tell exactly where these numbers come from but at least it's a university medical center so I assume they are not just making them up.
I apologize profusely if the numbers upset you but I found them strangely reassuring.
DinoD
I look at all the scientific facts and research as well... But then I have to grab a dictionary to make heads or tails of the medical terminolgy. At least you can make sense of it!
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