I’m here!

Sorry about being MIA.  This has been stressful – and combined with the exhaustion that comes with early pregnancy anyway, a little overwhelming.

Things have been stable.  The bleed, after staying around the same size on several scans, is finally looking smaller.  I’m spotting only rarely and (TMI alert) it’s obviously old blood.  The little one (we’re calling him/her Moose) is growing, on schedule, with arms and legs and stuff.

 

 

We graduated from the fertility clinic, a week ahead of schedule, but genetics wants to do my NT scan next week instead of having it done at the clinic, which is fine with me.  There’s nobody I trust more than the genetics department.  I got the sweetest email from our genetic counsellor yesterday warning me that more than one person may scan me on Monday and it doesn’t mean that anything is wrong.  She gets it.  It’s hard, now, to not study the technicians closely, not to read too much into it.  

We’re scheduled to meet with our OB in another week.  We made the decision to change hospitals this time.  We received nothing but the highest standard of care with our first hospital and the nurses, in particular, I will remember for the rest of my life.  We just didn’t think that the clinic there would ever be anything but the place where we got devastating news, and the high risk birthing unit will always be where we lost our son.  We didn’t want to carry that into this pregnancy.  It will be a good fit, I think – we’ll be in the same office as both our geneticist and my therapist, which can’t hurt. 

We had a wonderful trip to Chicago last week…one of my very favourite cities.  I ate both a gluten-free donut and a gluten-free cupcake, so I was in heaven.  Thanks to the miracle of Diclectin, I’m eating food again, and we had some lovely dinners. We did some museums, went to the zoo.  A wonderful, unraveling, restful trip. Just what we needed. 

I did have a minor meltdown when I realized that my pants no longer do up.  This is earlier than I expected (which I know is normal for a second pregnancy), and I dug out the belly band and brought it on our trip, but for some reason it really freaked me out.  I bought a pair of maternity jeans while we were in the states (maternity clothes are so much cheaper down there!) and it was hard, harder than I thought it would be.  I don’t know why I thought that I could wait until our early anatomy scan to look pregnant.  I was already showing by 15 weeks last time.  Buying those blessedly comfortable stretchy pants just seems like a horribly presumptuous thing to do.  It’s hard to watch my body change without knowing if things will be okay, because I remember watching it change back with no baby to show for it.

Yet unbelievably, we are where we are.  The beginning of next week will mark 12 weeks and the first trimester will be drawing to a close.  It’s not a guarantee.  It’s a milestone, at least.  One I never for a second assumed we’d reach.  I’m grateful for it.