Pregnancy after Miscarriage or Loss #9

Mildez.....hoping you are holding your precious baby and enjoying some newborn snuggles. Much love and strength.

Thank you all for the well wishes. We are delighted to let you know our little man arrived yesterday evening. A few complications but nothing to complain about :) he is just lovely. Both in shock about the gender not that we knew. I'll be back later when I am home. Pretty exhausted and dizzy from the heavy blood loss.

YAY!!!!! Welcome little man, and congratulations Mildez! Best news ever! Will you be getting a transfusion?

Woohoo Congratulations and Welcome to the world little man. :leap::leap:

I hope you are feeling a little better by now and the complications are nothing to serious.

Wonderful news!

Been stalking Mildez & just wanted to say congrats on your little man. I knew it was a boy : D

Congratulations Mildez!!! So thrilled. I have been following all of your posts and it sounds like it's been a very demanding time!! Understatement. So glad for you that bubs is here, and you can do some healing and bonding with your little guy. Hope you feel a little more energy in coming days and very best of luck!!!

WW
x

Mini celebration here..... look at my ticker 20 weeks!!!!!! It's a very odd excitement today. 20 weeks means legal recognition for wee Popsicle, which is so very important to a bereaved mumma. So by law I am required to register Popsicle's birth from now on, and have a funeral, and I am able to obtain a death certificate.

But it is just meaningless in terms of bringing Popsicle home if labour started today, or in fact any time til 24 weeks. And even then Popsicle's chance of surviving would be very slim.

But it's a milestone and I'll excitedly take it. So well done me! And wee Popsicle of course.

Morph scan tomorrow - so a more detailed look at this placenta and liquor of mine, as well as baby. Hopefully my words don't come back to haunt me, but I have a sense that Popsicle is actually Ok, though there are still some nerves until I get to read the report.


MILDEZ - how are you and your wee gorgeous little man doing? Are you home yet? Guess you'd be busy. Hope the in laws have left or are being decent.

WW - how are you going? I see you're 28 weeks today!!!!

Thank you all for the congrats :) Absolutely stoked with our wee little man. Although I will miss parts of pregnancy etc we have had such a lovely ending to this chapter of our lives and are very excited for the future. Still not feeling human so I will be back later when I can think straight. Just wanting to come in and say how thrilled I am for your Dory to see your ticker at 20weeks. I will be thinking of you tomorrow and praying your morphology scan will be perfect. If your feeling like your growing and bub is moving around then that's reassuring that popsicle is progressing along well.

Yes I am home. Came home on New Years day. Nice and early. Still very tired and struggling with the most basic tasks but enjoying our baby immensely.

Dory hope everything went brilliantly yesterday and all the findings were reassuring :)

Mildez.... yes! It was lovely to get some genuinely positive news, rather than no news is good news. Baby is looking great. SCH still evident on scan 33 x 6mm seen anteriorly. i forgot to read the report whilst I was there and ask questions about it, so will ask the Obs tomorrow when I see him. And it's been lovely to have a day without bleeding! Gender will be a sweet mystery for us..... we only find out when we meet them. How are you going with your new bundle? Have your energy levels come up yet ( from the blood loss)? Are you eating a diet rich a haem and non haem iron? The only non haem iron stuff I can remember is apricots, almonds and avocado.... LOL, must have only remembered the "A's".

Great news to read Dory :)

Great news about your recent scan Dory. Is the SCH smaller then it was? I guess size really doesn't tell you much does it? I once saw one that was 15cm by something on scan :( I hope you got more positive news at the Ob. So good to see your ticker edging closer and closer to your next big milestones :)

Unfortunately trying to increase my iron intake has been difficult as I have had a tooth crisis the day before DS was born. I've had 4 trips to the dentist and am finally pain free (and a few thousand dollars poorer). So until today I have hardly eaten. I am slowly feeling a bit better and not so breathless.

A surprise is awesome. I had 3 surprises and 1 I knew. It was a very special moment meeting our DS after 3 DD's. Obviously we would have been absolutely delighted with another DD too and part of me felt I was given the wrong baby as I really expected to have anther girl and had daydreams of going on trips away and cafe's with 4 girls lol. I wish I had DH on record to watch his reaction again. He had tears in his eyes and this is a man that never cries and did this funny dance thing with his hands on his head.

Mildez....oh you poor blossom with your tooth! Hopefully now pain free means you can start to feel better.

It's smaller than before...yay. Obs even suggested I could return to work. That is good news that there is nothing stopping me pregnancy wise......but I am nervous about being so vulnerable if something happens. I have also been taking it very easy and the change in activity level scares me but I can work at making it less active...quite easily. It's just the mental and emotional leap. I might give it a try, I feel OK.

Funnily enough I have been awake since 3 wish...woke for the loo then couldn't get back to sleep. Then had shoulder tip/scapular pain on the right and maybe some right upper gastric pain......which was a prompt to refresh on HELLP symptoms. Then discovered I can buy my own urine test strips for protein ( and quite a few others) looks a lot like the ones from hossy.
It scares me that HELLP or PE can be present without either elevated BP...mine is fine or protein in the urine...I have not had mine tested.

Not a bad thing to be hypervigilant to the signs and symptoms but I would have preferred more sleep rather than a dose of worry.

It all seemed transitory and I feel well. But just hate the hypervigilance.

Good to feel Popsicle kicking up a storm!

Love to you and all your wee ones but esp the newest...completely smiling at your DH's reaction to having a son.

Hi again ladies.

Dory have you returned to work? I'd be like you. I am not sure if I could take the leap. But on the other hand something else to think about would be good and for the financial side of things. So glad to see your ticker slowly getting up there. Did the pain you experienced in your last post go away? Not sure if it makes you feel better but I have never seen a client with PE/HELLP without high BP or no protein. And the most serious cases I have seen were after the baby was born. Mainly because its not expected so there is often a delay in diagnosis.

I have been keeping pretty quiet as I am so exhausted. No worse then before bub arrived but still struggling with this never ending fatigue. I am hoping when the kids get back to school I will start to feel more normal again. DS is going very well. His such a gorgeous bubba.

Mildez....I had hoped the fatigue was easing for you....well from exhaustion to fatigue. Yes pain resolved. Yes back at work 1 day per week and thinking about adding a second day for the next 8 weeks or so. Tho that's tricky with H starting pre prep in 2 weeks unless I am approved for reduced hours on the second day to allow for school drop off and collection.

Glad your bubba boy is being kind to you.

Mildez.... 22 weeks!!!! I can't remember exactly at what gestation Amelia was born.... just that it was about now. I might go and check. But it sure does feel exciting to reach 22 weeks. Had a little scare yesterday. I actually went out by myself ( to collect some ebay stuff I'd bought) and had a gush. So glad I decided to wear a pad. I had contemplated not wearing one. But when I got home, there was no fresh bleeding, and it didn't seem like liquor. But of course then I am hyper sensitive to any changes in sensation.... a bit of indigestion = does it mean HELLP?.

Though somewhat excitedly, not, I think carpal tunnel has returned to both hands. With HB I had pins and needles from my elbows to my fingers. But I don't remember when it started. But my rings are still fitting and not tight, so no obvious swelling of my hands or fingers.

Thanks for the reassurance about high BP and protein and HELLP.

Give your little mana big cuddle from people he's never met, but walked some of your journey with you.

Oh and I splurged yesterday and bought a new handbag.... the last one I bought was a vinyl cheapie in May and it's just in tatters. Hoping the next one lasts a little longer. Can't wait for it to arrive. The postman is my friend lately...... on line shopping makes me feel like I can still consume!!

I sound like a super worrier!!! I guess I am during pregnancy.

You have absolutely every reason to worry Dory. I knew you lost Amelia around this gestation. Only 2 more weeks until a major milestone although of course not that 24weeks is terribly reassuring. But its so close to a gestation where the outcome is pretty good if bub did arrive an at least you have options and hope. A lady on another site I am on just hit 36weeks after her membranes ruptured when her stitch was inserted.

Awesome on the splurge. I splurged on a $15 nappy bag. It had a $50 reduced tag on it but when at the checkout it scanned at $15. I was cheering. I am trying to stay at home so I don't spend money as as soon as my money runs out I am back to work. So I want it to last as long as possible, I hate the thought of Andy been in childcare.

Scored on the nappy bag! And I know what you mean about child care.

So I looked at my notes.....I was admitted on 22nd Feb at 21+6 and on 23rd Feb Amelia was born at 22 weeks. No wonder I was always so mixed up. Weird looking at my antenatal telephone call record....apparently I'd had spotting the week before. The thing that will always haunt me though is that things felt different the day before I was admitted....she was sitting lower about lunch time and by midnight some very low level cramping had started. I was concerned enough to research pre term labour but they were so infrequent and low level that I dismissed them all as just normal pregnancy related. The cramps got a bit more serious but I was able to go to sleep and woke about 6...to CX and a show. I have almost every confidence that calling or going in earlier wouldn't have changed the outcome vfor Amelia, but it's more the niaivety and failure to act protectively of us both that hurts. And maybe that if it was placental abruption something might have helped. But the pathology makes it pretty conclusive...single umbilical cord artery, chorioamniocitis. Sigh.... But it explains why I am more hyper vigilant now. I wasn't febrile or tender in the abdomen. Just a deadly infection for Amelia. For some time I thought the cause of the infection was the many days I spent in ICU with my brother.....but I never blamed him...just wondered if that was the source. Sad to know my own vaginal/body flora was the most likely source. Weird that I have fixated on HELLP but I suppose it's something I can measure and track....my blood pressure.

So I have passed a milestone date....now 22+1....even though it's no guarantee, it's a nice feeling to be on the otherside of that milestone.

It's weird....there are copies of my consent to autoposy, notes of the middies that Amelia was being sent for autoposy but then just a note that the placenta was. Weird that I didn't have to sign a withdrawal of consent. I remember talking about not sending her.

Anyway, what might have been. I was re reading Sophie's notes and I had forgotten she had inflammation of the cord. My poor muffins.

Dory yay on passing another milestone, may many more weeks lay ahead before your next bubba decides to arrive. It is amazing what our minds chose to pass over in memory and reading past notes/letters reminds us. Stay strong mumma.

I am still here feeling sick and still not believing there is an actual baby in my belly. At my u/s this week I actually said to my fs oh look it really is in there. This was my third u/s and I was still shocked......

Joeve - it does seem so "unreal".... and even seeing scans, it's not real. Thankfully for the sickness to preoccupy you? Hopefully not too sick....hopefully it only lasts a little longer.

I can't believe it... 23 weeks tomorrow. I am completely in awe and amazed. I hope nothing happens between now and when the 23 weeks ticks over. It actually means I get to have some input into life saving treatment being offered or withdrawn. It marks a new stage of the pregnancy. So exciting.

I had to postpone my NICU tour which was going to be on Tuesday because I have a cold/flu virus. :(

Happy 23 weeks!

Dory I don't think going to hospital sooner with Amelia would have made much difference unfortunately :( I know where I work there is not a consent requirement to send the placenta. That just seems to be the normal.

I am so thrilled to see your ticker another week (and a day) closer to term. Does your Ob have any plans for early delivery or at this stage just taking it week by week? How are you feeling now? Has the dreaded cold gone away or still lingering?

Worrywort if your reading I am thinking of you and hoping your little man is still inside and the stress level is reducing.

When I read your message Joeve I was thinking I can relate everytime I change DS nappy and eeing boy parts lol. After 3 girls its a little different. I love the scans from now on when you can see what looks like a real baby as opposed to a blob or bean shape baby. I hope the sickness is easing for you.

AFM I am loving having a baby in the house again. Although I know we are 100% done its a bit sad we will never do this again.

Hi Girls I hope you don't mind if I join here. I need a safe place to hide why I torture myself through the first trimester. I only got my bfp yesterday and I've already feeling anxious about having another mc especially as it's still so early. I'm trying to tell myself not to worry as I can't change the outcome anyway but it's a lot easier said than done. I thought I'd be better this time as I have had DS since my mc but I'm not.

Hang here Em :) I know how you are feeling and no amount of rational talk can take the edge off the nervousness x

Welcome Em....congratulations on your BFP... hoping this one is a sticky healthy bub for you and a completely boring and uneventful pregnancy. I agree with Joeve..... I have had two rainbows, after 3 wee angels born too soon and whilst I am probably a little less living in abject fear all the time, I suspect that's because I am so much busier. It's still scary and it's natural to worry. Don't be a stranger and hope the ms is being kind to you.

Joeve - how is your sickness going? Almost 11 weeks.... edging closer. I remember being 11 weeks like it was yesterday.

Everyone else seems pretty quiet at the mo.......

How are you doing WW?

AFM - I have my NICU tour booked for next Tuesday and then a session with my grief counsellor. DH will look after the girls. And then it's time to book my GTT in. Can you believe it? I might actually get to do my GTT. So just pottering along at the mo. I met the nanny again today... but seeing as things are going reasonably well, it's hard to know exactly how I want to use her at the mo. But I want to have the girls comfortable with her, and me too, in case we really need her a lot. My eldest DD starts pre-pre/kinder tomorrow. She's very excited. Where did the past 4.5 years go? She'll do fabulously and I am so excited for her. But what I am going to do with only one wee one at home? Will be interesting for the two of us left at home.....

Joeve, so glad to see you're in here and progressing well.

Em, congrats on your BFP. Hope this first trimester flies by.

Dory, over 23 weeks now! It would be so tough given what you've been through. Hope the counselling is a help. My DD starts kinder next week too. Hope it goes well for her (for both of them!).

Mildez, glad to hear you're enjoying your little man.

AFM, I have been really tired and not able to work up the energy to post. Things are still going well, and I am now doing a few more things but still trying to lie down a bit in the afternoons.

All the best,
WW
x

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone.

Dory- you have had an incredibly tough journey. I'm so glad you have made it this far and the 24 week milestone is just around the corner now :)

Joeve- you are so right about that! I hope your first Tri is being kind to you- you are so close to the end of it now

Worrywart- I'm glad you are still around. I remember you from when you were newly pregnant and now look at you almost 32 weeks!

AFM I had my first lot of hcg tests this morning. I wasn't going to do them as they stressed me out with DS as I had a longer doubling time but I need to know. I'll get the results tomorrow then have the next test on Sat. Fx for good results . I have my first OB appt booked for the end of Feb so he will do a scan then but I'm thinking of getting a referral and having one around 6 weeks if nothing happens before then :)

Congratulations Em. Sending you heaps of sticky vibes. Have you your results from your first HCG test?

Just wanted to come in and how excited I am to see WW and Dory's ticker this morning. More big milestones. I'm so excited for you guys :)

HCG was 74 at 11dpo. I get the results from yesterday's test on Monday so I hope they have risen nicely.

Dory well done on reaching 24 weeks! Getting closer and closer now :)

Nice work Em :) good numbers.

I'm feeling so sick, I forgot how miserable it makes you feel

Oh Joeve big :hug: I really hope it passes for you soon and you can enjoy the rest of your pregnancy sickness free.

I was planning on posting about how I had zero symptoms and was getting worried but I just randomly started dry reaching so maybe ms is on its way after all. I'm trying to remind myself that every pg is different as I had ms from the very start with DS that lasted till 20 weeks so it's hard not to worry when I haven't had much with this one. I'm heading down to get my blood results once DS wakes from his nap so I'll update with the number when I get it :)

I really struggled with my last pregnancy too Joeve. I felt pretty miserable the entire way through. To start with it was extreme anxiety and then I had horrific pain from a 15cm ovarian cyst and anxiety about having it removed which didn't end up happening. It was pushing on my bladder due to the size so I needed to wee on average 6-8times a night. Then when all that eased I was over 20weeks and I was still extremely tired constantly. The good news is now bub is almost 5 weeks old I am starting to feel a bit better and I am actually doing more activity despite having DS joined to my boob for a large percentage of time. I saw a lady yesterday clearly struggling with the later stages of pregnancy and thought hey that was me only a few weeks ago. I hope the 2nd trimester is easier for you.

Em goodluck for your BT results. By the sounds of things they will be great :)

HCG was 324 at 13dpo! So happy it has more than doubled in 48hrs one less thing to worry about :)

That's fantastic Em. I'd be thrilled with that. My HCG was 258 at 16DPO. And at 21DPO 1788. I was convinced it was over as it was incredibly low on comparison to DD. But DS proved me wrong.

Just checking in how is everyone feeling?
Dory another week down!
Last night I lost of bit of pluggy type mucous which freaked me out a bit but read this is ok as it regenerates. No blood all clear and no cramps etc. what do you ladies think?

Joeve it sounds like a variation of normal to me. Especially if its clear.

Thanks Mildez little bit today but not a lot.
All clear.
So gross really!! Lol