Pregnancy after Loss and Infertility: My Story
If you missed the beginning of my story, you can read more about it here and here.
After all we had gone through to get to the pregnancy of our son, our story doesn’t end there. Dealing with loss and infertility can mess with your mental clarity at times. You develop fears and can sometimes struggle to connect or enjoy the pregnancy. I prayed so much during our journey to pregnancy, and there was no stopping now that I was pregnant again.
I saw the fertility doctor until I was over 8 weeks pregnant. He transferred me back to my OBGYN and a high-risk doctor due to my history of miscarriage and heart issues.
I had an appointment with the high-risk doctor with a full scan on a Thursday mid-day. The next day, I got out of my car for work while on the phone with the scheduler for bloodwork to test for genetic conditions and felt a gush. I hung up on her and called my OBGYN and began crying to the nurse that I was losing the baby and I just knew it. I couldn’t calm down enough to get the words out. She told me to get to the hospital right away for evaluation.
I couldn’t get ahold of my husband and began driving to him. When he answered, all I could say was “I’m so sorry, I’m losing our baby again. I need you to get me”. It was the worst drive of my life getting to him and him driving me the rest of the way to the hospital. I walked into the hospital while he parked and fell apart at the check-in counter again. They immediately pulled me to the back and began evaluating me.
The sonographer walked in to do her part and pushed the bed over so that I couldn’t see the screen. My husband still could though and watched her. As soon as she started, I heard my husband gasp loudly. She looked at me and said, “Would you like to see your baby?” as she turned up the sound to hear the most perfect heartbeat. I had suddenly developed a hematoma that was not seen on either scan I had in the past week and it had ruptured. It did not harm the baby thankfully. I was kept overnight for observation and put on bedrest for a week. I was told no working out at all during the pregnancy because I now had an additional risk factor to contend with.
The rest of my pregnancy went off without a problem, for the most part. I tried to enjoy every moment I could because after everything we had been through I wanted to make sure I was happy. I won’t lie and say I didn’t live in constant fear during my time waiting for him to arrive. Many first time moms do, I think, but more so when you have had troubles even making it to that point.
My son was in the 90+ percentile majority of the pregnancy. I begin having signs of early labor about 8 weeks before my due date. The first time was on Thanksgiving Day. My doctor told me given my history she would only stop labor before 34 weeks. After that, she would give a shot to help my son’s lungs develop more quickly if I went into full, active labor.
I continued having contractions off and on but thankfully made it past the 34-week mark. We were elated to pass that milestone. Then we set the goal to make it to 37 weeks. If we could just make it 3 more weeks to be considered full-term, we would be happy knowing we had a better chance of a healthy baby. Talk began of induction with everything going on. I was scheduled for an induction date at 37 weeks exactly. It happened to be my dad’s birthday!
As most pregnancies go, things change quickly and the date was pushed back 10 days. I did everything from walking endlessly to bouncing on a ball to eating spicy foods trying to get that baby out while my family was in town. While I was still having timeable contractions, they never really progressed close enough. Until one Wednesday night after sitting at Top Golf with my parents while they were visiting. My dad was so excited and kept watching me try to time things, get up and walk around and began asking me if we needed to go.
My regular doctor was out of the office that week and I called the on-call doctor for direction. She sent me to the hospital to get checked out. I was indeed having contractions and they were about 5 minutes apart. However, the monitors in the emergency room showed they were too weak for me to be admitted at that time. I was scheduled for induction on the following Monday with an evening check in on Sunday.
I was so frustrated and mad at the emergency room doctor for making me feel like I didn’t know my body that day. While I realize I wasn’t in full, active labor at that time, when you hit all the boxes for when to go in for a baby and you are sent home, your pregnant self is irrational. I was ready to meet this sweet baby we had waited so long for.
We went to the museum a few days later to walk around trying to get things moving. We had a surprise snow storm and a fun-filled family day. But no baby yet!
Check back soon for my birth story.
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