Today's the day. It's like the continental divide of pregnancy loss. . .you get to this day and you stop thinking "I should be pregnant right now" and start thinking "I should be holding my baby right now."
Just how do you handle a day like this? We had William's body cremated, so we don't have a gravesite to visit. But I do have his garden, and that's where I spent the better part of my evening. As I was digging around, moving out rocks and pulling up old roots, I found that there were some old bricks at the bottom of the bed, put there decades ago by some previous owner. I had to laugh at this discovery. . .years ago I saw a pathway paved with old bricks, and I became instantly infatuated with the concept of "salvaged brick", as the magazine article called them. When I found these bricks today, it felt like a little gift from William to me. Silly, I know, but I'm going to take comfort wherever I can find it.
I could go on about what this day has been to me, delve into the thoughts that have been swimming around my head since I first woke up. But I'm tired. I understand now why they call it "griefwork"--it takes a surprising amount of energy. So I'll finish up this post now and leave myself some time to work on the blanket I'm making to give to the hospital, in William's memory.
Momma loves you, little guy.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Reasons
After I lost William, the biggest thought looming in my head was "WHY?" I'm not talking about a spiritual, metaphysical why-do-bad-things-happen-to-good-people why. That really didn't concern me too much. I knew that I have a deal with my Heavenly Father, and that it's not part of that deal that nothing bad will ever happen to me, no matter how "good" I may be. It was the logical, mathematical what-went-wrong why that kept me up at night. Why did my body just give up on my perfect, healthy baby and go into labor?
I played back the last week of my pregnancy over and over. I combed the internet looking for information, for stories like mine. At my checkup the week after I delivered William, my OB had kept talking about doing a cerclage next time around--since my placenta "looked fine" and it didn't seem like I had an infection, he'd said I probably just had an incompetent cervix. This really didn't sit right with me (my cervix had been plenty competent during my first two pregnancies, for starters), but I included IC in my ever-growing list of conditions to research.
I finally worked up the nerve to go in to my OB's office and request a copy of my records--included was the results from the pathology exam. A little background here: This was my first baby with "Dr. W."--we'd moved just before Anna was born and I finished out that pregnancy with the same OB I'd seen with Elizabeth. I hadn't felt great about the "vibe" I got from Dr. W--in fact, I had been looking for a new doctor when everything fell apart. I need to be straight here: I don't blame Dr. W. for my loss. There was nothing he did or didn't do to make this happen. But that said, I wish he'd been a little more proactive--at least sending me in for a thorough ultrasound when I kept bleeding long after the first trimester. It would've been nice to know that I did indeed have a sizeable subchorionic hematoma, as the pathology report noted. It would've been nice to know that this put me at a higher risk for P-PROM, infection, and early labor.
Or maybe I should thank my lucky stars that I didn't know any of that. If I had known, maybe I would've ended up on hospital bedrest and IV tocolytics and antibiotics, only to delay the inevitable. Maybe I should be grateful that my little boy didn't have to hang around for extra days or weeks slowly getting sick from the infection that, according to the pathologist's report, had begun to invade.
Marginal hematoma. Signs of early acute choriamnionitis. Inflammation of the basal plate and decidua. I have my reasons, these hollow answers to my "why". But, of course, now I have a whole host of new questions.
I played back the last week of my pregnancy over and over. I combed the internet looking for information, for stories like mine. At my checkup the week after I delivered William, my OB had kept talking about doing a cerclage next time around--since my placenta "looked fine" and it didn't seem like I had an infection, he'd said I probably just had an incompetent cervix. This really didn't sit right with me (my cervix had been plenty competent during my first two pregnancies, for starters), but I included IC in my ever-growing list of conditions to research.
I finally worked up the nerve to go in to my OB's office and request a copy of my records--included was the results from the pathology exam. A little background here: This was my first baby with "Dr. W."--we'd moved just before Anna was born and I finished out that pregnancy with the same OB I'd seen with Elizabeth. I hadn't felt great about the "vibe" I got from Dr. W--in fact, I had been looking for a new doctor when everything fell apart. I need to be straight here: I don't blame Dr. W. for my loss. There was nothing he did or didn't do to make this happen. But that said, I wish he'd been a little more proactive--at least sending me in for a thorough ultrasound when I kept bleeding long after the first trimester. It would've been nice to know that I did indeed have a sizeable subchorionic hematoma, as the pathology report noted. It would've been nice to know that this put me at a higher risk for P-PROM, infection, and early labor.
Or maybe I should thank my lucky stars that I didn't know any of that. If I had known, maybe I would've ended up on hospital bedrest and IV tocolytics and antibiotics, only to delay the inevitable. Maybe I should be grateful that my little boy didn't have to hang around for extra days or weeks slowly getting sick from the infection that, according to the pathologist's report, had begun to invade.
Marginal hematoma. Signs of early acute choriamnionitis. Inflammation of the basal plate and decidua. I have my reasons, these hollow answers to my "why". But, of course, now I have a whole host of new questions.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
William's Garden
We live in a fairly "old-fashioned" neighborhood, and there are forsythia bushes everywhere. It's the first thing that blooms around here, and it puts on quite a show in those early weeks of spring. But the rest of the year the forsythia is decidedly un-spectacular--in fact, it's probably completely forgotten by everyone except the gardener who cares for it. Its leaves shed in the fall, and it spends the winter bare-limbed and dead-looking--until the spring, when it quietly burst into a fountain of brilliant yellow blossoms, impossible to ignore.
It always lifts my spirits to see these cheery blossoms after a long, grey winter. This year, especially--after a long winter of sickness and worry, culminating in the loss of our beloved baby boy, I was desperate for the warmth and light of spring. When the forsythia began blooming, I was so grateful. I had felt so much like those bare, empty branches; as I watched them come to life so vibrantly I felt like maybe there was hope for me, too. And I was reminded of my precious baby boy--like the forsythia blooms, his earthly life was so brief that I know he will be all but forgotten by many. But I will always remember him, and I look forward with faith to the day when he will bloom again.
This year, I planted a little forsythia in a corner of our yard, in memory of William. Yesterday I put in some flowers--lily-of-the-valley and columbine. It feels so nice to have this little spot to tend, to feel like I'm doing something *for* my little boy.
It always lifts my spirits to see these cheery blossoms after a long, grey winter. This year, especially--after a long winter of sickness and worry, culminating in the loss of our beloved baby boy, I was desperate for the warmth and light of spring. When the forsythia began blooming, I was so grateful. I had felt so much like those bare, empty branches; as I watched them come to life so vibrantly I felt like maybe there was hope for me, too. And I was reminded of my precious baby boy--like the forsythia blooms, his earthly life was so brief that I know he will be all but forgotten by many. But I will always remember him, and I look forward with faith to the day when he will bloom again.
This year, I planted a little forsythia in a corner of our yard, in memory of William. Yesterday I put in some flowers--lily-of-the-valley and columbine. It feels so nice to have this little spot to tend, to feel like I'm doing something *for* my little boy.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
In The Beginning II
A few days after my appointment and ultrasound at 17 weeks, I began to feel. . .icky. Just plain icky. And I was having some brief but uncomfortable cramps. I figured they must be Braxton-Hicks contractions made worse by a UTI--something I seem prone to, especially in pregnancy. I went to the after-hours clinic to get checked out. The dipstick test came back clean, so the doctor sent out for a culture and gave me some antibiotics in the meantime. I went home, took the antibiotics, drowned myself in cranberry juice--and soon enough I began to feel a little better. About a week later, though, I started feeling some cramps again--still short enough that again I figured they were Braxton-Hicks contractions. I took a bath, drank a lot of water, and went to bed. When I woke up Thursday morning, though, the cramps started again--and were extremely painful now, so Jared took me to the emergency room. I kept telling him I thought it was just a bad UTI--Inever dreamed how my visit would end, and so in the rush we just grabbed the girls and took them with us.
In the emergency room they took a urine sample and put me into a private room, where the doctor performed an ultrasound. I'm so grateful for those few moments when for one last time I got to see my little boy's heart beating away. After the ultrasound, they brought Jared and the girls into my room. The contractions had gotten closer together but were still just a few seconds long. . .I was still viewing them as an annoyance rather than a danger. But then as I was talking with Jared, a contraction started up--and at its peak I heard and felt a "snap" and a gush of fluid. My heart plummeted. I knew that sound, that feeling. I told Jared to take the girls out, quick, and find the nurse because my water had broken.
Maybe it was because my water had broken, maybe it was because I was scared, maybe my placenta began abrupting at this point--whatever the reason, now the pain had become excruciating. My nurse ran in, saw the bloody fluid, threw my bed down flat, and dashed out again to find the doctor. I don't know how long I was alone. It felt like hours, though I know it was just minutes. I don't know what was harder to endure--the physical pain of the contractions, or the emotional pain of knowing what was going to happen and knowing there was nothing anybody could do to stop it. I know the nurses and the doctor came in and out of my room during this time, to start an IV and tell me my OB was on his way. Long before he arrived, even before they had a chance to start any medication, my little boy was born. Suddenly, everything just stopped. The physical pain was gone. I felt so quiet, so very empty.
My OB arrived--he came straight into my room and began talking about doing a cerclage. He didn't know I'd already delivered my little boy. I told him, and his face fell. He expressed his condolences, conducted a brief examination, and asked if I wanted to see my baby. I felt like shouting--Of COURSE, what mother wouldn't want to hold her baby, no matter what?
The nurse handed me my little boy, wrapped in a towel. I was surprised--I think I even gasped--when I saw how much he looked like Jared. He was bigger than I'd envisioned--nearly as big as one of my girls' little baby dolls--and yet so, so tiny. I was amazed at how utterly perfect his little body was--those tiny fingers, those miniscule ears. His long, long legs with those perfectly articulated knees. I just fell in love with those darling little knees. I sat there, marvelling over the miraculous creation of his body, drinking in every tiny detail.
My husband came back (he had taken our girls home, where my mother-in-law was now watching them) and together we held our little boy and wept. Jared made a comment about how it really was "just" his body now, and I agreed--as precious and marvelous as that little body was, it felt empty and hollow to hold it now that his little spirit had departed it. I told him about the prompting I'd felt about this being William--I couldn't deny it now, for sure--and Jared offered David as a middle name. Our friends down the street had recently had a little boy--their 5th child and 1st son--and had named him David. It's a sweet reminder to me now to see their little David and think of my little boy who shares that name.
I don't know just how long we stayed there together, just the three of us. Nurses drifted in and out, bringing a blanket for my baby, checking my vital signs, asking us how we were doing. I'll never forget their kindness--offering to sit with us, asking to see our little boy, telling us how beautiful he was. I can't think about this without tearing up all over again.
All too soon it was time for us to say our final goodbyes and hand over our precious little boy. Even knowing that it was "just" his body, it still hurt to say goodbye. I couldn't bear the thought of his tiny body in the cold February ground alone, so we chose to have him cremated--the mortuary would pick up his body after the pathology examination was finished. The nurse handed me the receiving blanket he had been wrapped in, and we walked out into the cold evening.
I couldn't believe how unchanged the world seemed. . .This was punctuated by the discovery upon our arrival home that Elizabeth, our older daughter had an ear infection--she was sobbing on the couch when we got in the door. Without missing a beat I got the phone and called our pediatrician to make an appointment, thankful that they kept such late hours on weekdays. It seemed almost surreal to be doing this--for a moment I felt the urge to pour out my entire story on this unsupecting receptionist. Jared took Elizabeth back down the street (the pediatrician's office is connected to the hospital we'd just come home from), while my mother-in-law watched Anna, our younger daughter. I went into our bedroom and laid down, listening through my tears to Anna laughing and chattering to her grandma while they read stories together. It did my heart such good to hear that simple exchange of love and joy, to be reminded of the joy that life has to offer and the blessings that I have in my girls.
Before long, Jared and Elizabeth were home. Elizabeth curled up on the bed next to me, and as I stroked her hair she fell asleep. Again, this simple moment filled my heart with joy, love, and peace. This little chance to just be a mom. . .to have a "baby" to hold and love, even if she was my big, gangly 4-year-old "baby". . .felt so good, so healing.
Later that night Jared and I knelt to say our prayers together. I can't remember much what he said, but I remember it was so beautiful. I felt such peace and comfort wash over me, knowing that our little boy was safe in the arms of a loving Father in Heaven. My heart ached, but I knew we could do this--we could get through this together.
In the emergency room they took a urine sample and put me into a private room, where the doctor performed an ultrasound. I'm so grateful for those few moments when for one last time I got to see my little boy's heart beating away. After the ultrasound, they brought Jared and the girls into my room. The contractions had gotten closer together but were still just a few seconds long. . .I was still viewing them as an annoyance rather than a danger. But then as I was talking with Jared, a contraction started up--and at its peak I heard and felt a "snap" and a gush of fluid. My heart plummeted. I knew that sound, that feeling. I told Jared to take the girls out, quick, and find the nurse because my water had broken.
Maybe it was because my water had broken, maybe it was because I was scared, maybe my placenta began abrupting at this point--whatever the reason, now the pain had become excruciating. My nurse ran in, saw the bloody fluid, threw my bed down flat, and dashed out again to find the doctor. I don't know how long I was alone. It felt like hours, though I know it was just minutes. I don't know what was harder to endure--the physical pain of the contractions, or the emotional pain of knowing what was going to happen and knowing there was nothing anybody could do to stop it. I know the nurses and the doctor came in and out of my room during this time, to start an IV and tell me my OB was on his way. Long before he arrived, even before they had a chance to start any medication, my little boy was born. Suddenly, everything just stopped. The physical pain was gone. I felt so quiet, so very empty.
My OB arrived--he came straight into my room and began talking about doing a cerclage. He didn't know I'd already delivered my little boy. I told him, and his face fell. He expressed his condolences, conducted a brief examination, and asked if I wanted to see my baby. I felt like shouting--Of COURSE, what mother wouldn't want to hold her baby, no matter what?
The nurse handed me my little boy, wrapped in a towel. I was surprised--I think I even gasped--when I saw how much he looked like Jared. He was bigger than I'd envisioned--nearly as big as one of my girls' little baby dolls--and yet so, so tiny. I was amazed at how utterly perfect his little body was--those tiny fingers, those miniscule ears. His long, long legs with those perfectly articulated knees. I just fell in love with those darling little knees. I sat there, marvelling over the miraculous creation of his body, drinking in every tiny detail.
My husband came back (he had taken our girls home, where my mother-in-law was now watching them) and together we held our little boy and wept. Jared made a comment about how it really was "just" his body now, and I agreed--as precious and marvelous as that little body was, it felt empty and hollow to hold it now that his little spirit had departed it. I told him about the prompting I'd felt about this being William--I couldn't deny it now, for sure--and Jared offered David as a middle name. Our friends down the street had recently had a little boy--their 5th child and 1st son--and had named him David. It's a sweet reminder to me now to see their little David and think of my little boy who shares that name.
I don't know just how long we stayed there together, just the three of us. Nurses drifted in and out, bringing a blanket for my baby, checking my vital signs, asking us how we were doing. I'll never forget their kindness--offering to sit with us, asking to see our little boy, telling us how beautiful he was. I can't think about this without tearing up all over again.
All too soon it was time for us to say our final goodbyes and hand over our precious little boy. Even knowing that it was "just" his body, it still hurt to say goodbye. I couldn't bear the thought of his tiny body in the cold February ground alone, so we chose to have him cremated--the mortuary would pick up his body after the pathology examination was finished. The nurse handed me the receiving blanket he had been wrapped in, and we walked out into the cold evening.
I couldn't believe how unchanged the world seemed. . .This was punctuated by the discovery upon our arrival home that Elizabeth, our older daughter had an ear infection--she was sobbing on the couch when we got in the door. Without missing a beat I got the phone and called our pediatrician to make an appointment, thankful that they kept such late hours on weekdays. It seemed almost surreal to be doing this--for a moment I felt the urge to pour out my entire story on this unsupecting receptionist. Jared took Elizabeth back down the street (the pediatrician's office is connected to the hospital we'd just come home from), while my mother-in-law watched Anna, our younger daughter. I went into our bedroom and laid down, listening through my tears to Anna laughing and chattering to her grandma while they read stories together. It did my heart such good to hear that simple exchange of love and joy, to be reminded of the joy that life has to offer and the blessings that I have in my girls.
Before long, Jared and Elizabeth were home. Elizabeth curled up on the bed next to me, and as I stroked her hair she fell asleep. Again, this simple moment filled my heart with joy, love, and peace. This little chance to just be a mom. . .to have a "baby" to hold and love, even if she was my big, gangly 4-year-old "baby". . .felt so good, so healing.
Later that night Jared and I knelt to say our prayers together. I can't remember much what he said, but I remember it was so beautiful. I felt such peace and comfort wash over me, knowing that our little boy was safe in the arms of a loving Father in Heaven. My heart ached, but I knew we could do this--we could get through this together.
Friday, June 12, 2009
In The Beginning
Only logical to start at the beginning, right?
Fall of 2008. Jared and I had been married just over 6 years. We had been blessed with two beautiful daughters, and we started talking about "trying" for #3. Our second daughter was just 16 months, still nursing and not sleeping so great at night, so I thought maybe in another 3-4 months I'd be ready to think about it.
Then one day in November, I started feeling those familiar symptoms. I sat down to dinner one night and the spaghetti sauce tasted disgusting. I couldn't force myself to eat it. I mentally consulted my "internal" calendar. I knew my period was due sometime soon. Come to think of it, I'd had some spotting on Saturday, but now it was Monday and I still hadn't started. Hmmm. Jared was preparing to leave for a business trip, so I told myself I'd wait till he got home--surely by then my period would have started. . .or if not, I'd be "late" enough that a pregnancy test would be accurate.
Hah. I should have known myself better! By the next morning I was planning my trip to the store. In the parking lot as I hoisted my toddler out of her carseat, an unmistakeable wave of "morning sickness" washed over me. I didn't need a pregnancy test. I knew. Still, I grabbed the test and drove home, hands shaking with anticipation.
At home I locked myself into the bathroom and took the test. The second line popped up almost immediately. I was startled to hear a voice in my head say, "Of course. It's William." (This was a little strange to me--I'd never had any promptings or premonitions like this with my two girls. We waited to "meet" each of them before we picked their names, even.)
That night Jared called from his hotel, and I told him the news. I don't really remember the rest of this conversation. We probably talked about whether we'd need a new car, how we were going to manage 3 kids in the 2 bedrooms we had upstairs, how I needed to find a new OB. . .the kinds of thoughts that would keep my mind occupied for the next several weeks.
The next 4 weeks went by in a haze of fatigue, nausea, and excitement. We hadn't told our families yet; but Jared was sure it was only a matter of time before they noticed my fatigue and queasiness. Thanksgiving weekend we went with Jared's family to have family portraits done. Although I was disappointed at how the photo of the four (five!) of us turned out, now I treasure it--the only "family portrait" we have.
One Sunday, the day before my daughter's 4th birthday, I began spotting. At first I wasn't concerned; I'd spotted throughout the first trimester with both my girls. As the evening wore on, the spotting got heavier. We had company, and I was busy enough playing hostess that I couldn't think about it too much, but by bedtime I was a wreck. Any bit of ambivalence I'd felt about this pregnancy were gone--I wanted this baby. Desperately. I went to sleep, only to wake up in the middle of the night to a gush of blood. I got out of bed, turned on the laptop, and began searching for information about early miscarriages. Eventually I crawled back into bed and cried myself to sleep.
I had been scheduled for my first OB appointment later that week, but on Monday I called and arranged an appointment for that morning. The ultrasound, to my great relief, showed a perfectly-sized baby with a strong heartbeat. The OB told me to call back if the bleeding got heavier. I went home, and it did just that. Back to the office that afternoon, where another ultrasound showed the baby still doing fine. . .and nothing to explain the bleeding. And so began the waiting.
For four weeks the bleeding came and went. Even though bedrest hasn't been proven to do anything, I tried to take it as easy as I could with two little ones underfoot. One by one, we spread the word to our family. By Christmastime I was happy that the cat was out of the bag, for now I could act just as exhausted and miserable as I felt. At 12 weeks another OB appointment showed things going just fine still. The baby had a nice strong heartbeat in the 160s--a "girl" heartbeat, my OB said. But I knew better. I was convinced this was a little boy. I'd even bought a pile of flannel in boy prints to make new burp cloths and blankets.
Now that we'd passed the first trimester, I started to relax a little bit. Surely the bleeding would stop soon, just like it had with my girls. Even though the OB had said he didn't see anything to explain the bleeding, I felt it was probably a subchorionic hemorrhage--something I'd had with my first pregnancy, and a fairly common cause of bleeding in early pregnancy. It's kind of like a mini-abruption; the placenta pulls away from the wall of the uterus and blood collects underneath it. There's no accepted treatment for them; the majority of the time they resolve on their own without causing any problems. I had read everything I could find about SCHs during my first pregnancy; and now 5 years later I was amazed at how much more had be written (or, at least, made available on the internet) about them.
As I started my second trimester, my nausea went away and I started to gain back the weight I'd lost. Around 13 weeks I *thought* I felt the baby moving. By 14 weeks, I was sure that's what I was feeling. At 15 weeks, Jared even got to feel one particularly strong kick! It was such a thrill and a relief to feel my little one moving around--but as the weeks went on and the bleeding continued, my anxiety grew. It wasn't stopping like it was "supposed" to.
At 17 weeks, I went in for another checkup. My OB had said he'd do an ultrasound at this point and would probably be able to tell us if we were having a boy or girl. Just moments after he started the scan, he announced, "You wanted to know, right? Because this one's easy. It's definitely a boy."
A boy! Wow. We needed to start discussing names--we'd talked about boys' names in before but never could find much common ground. I figured we'd need the whole 23 weeks I had left to find any that we agreed on! I recalled the little voice I'd heard when I took the pregnancy test, and I figured I'd better add William to the "short list" and see what Jared thought of it.
Fall of 2008. Jared and I had been married just over 6 years. We had been blessed with two beautiful daughters, and we started talking about "trying" for #3. Our second daughter was just 16 months, still nursing and not sleeping so great at night, so I thought maybe in another 3-4 months I'd be ready to think about it.
Then one day in November, I started feeling those familiar symptoms. I sat down to dinner one night and the spaghetti sauce tasted disgusting. I couldn't force myself to eat it. I mentally consulted my "internal" calendar. I knew my period was due sometime soon. Come to think of it, I'd had some spotting on Saturday, but now it was Monday and I still hadn't started. Hmmm. Jared was preparing to leave for a business trip, so I told myself I'd wait till he got home--surely by then my period would have started. . .or if not, I'd be "late" enough that a pregnancy test would be accurate.
Hah. I should have known myself better! By the next morning I was planning my trip to the store. In the parking lot as I hoisted my toddler out of her carseat, an unmistakeable wave of "morning sickness" washed over me. I didn't need a pregnancy test. I knew. Still, I grabbed the test and drove home, hands shaking with anticipation.
At home I locked myself into the bathroom and took the test. The second line popped up almost immediately. I was startled to hear a voice in my head say, "Of course. It's William." (This was a little strange to me--I'd never had any promptings or premonitions like this with my two girls. We waited to "meet" each of them before we picked their names, even.)
That night Jared called from his hotel, and I told him the news. I don't really remember the rest of this conversation. We probably talked about whether we'd need a new car, how we were going to manage 3 kids in the 2 bedrooms we had upstairs, how I needed to find a new OB. . .the kinds of thoughts that would keep my mind occupied for the next several weeks.
The next 4 weeks went by in a haze of fatigue, nausea, and excitement. We hadn't told our families yet; but Jared was sure it was only a matter of time before they noticed my fatigue and queasiness. Thanksgiving weekend we went with Jared's family to have family portraits done. Although I was disappointed at how the photo of the four (five!) of us turned out, now I treasure it--the only "family portrait" we have.
One Sunday, the day before my daughter's 4th birthday, I began spotting. At first I wasn't concerned; I'd spotted throughout the first trimester with both my girls. As the evening wore on, the spotting got heavier. We had company, and I was busy enough playing hostess that I couldn't think about it too much, but by bedtime I was a wreck. Any bit of ambivalence I'd felt about this pregnancy were gone--I wanted this baby. Desperately. I went to sleep, only to wake up in the middle of the night to a gush of blood. I got out of bed, turned on the laptop, and began searching for information about early miscarriages. Eventually I crawled back into bed and cried myself to sleep.
I had been scheduled for my first OB appointment later that week, but on Monday I called and arranged an appointment for that morning. The ultrasound, to my great relief, showed a perfectly-sized baby with a strong heartbeat. The OB told me to call back if the bleeding got heavier. I went home, and it did just that. Back to the office that afternoon, where another ultrasound showed the baby still doing fine. . .and nothing to explain the bleeding. And so began the waiting.
For four weeks the bleeding came and went. Even though bedrest hasn't been proven to do anything, I tried to take it as easy as I could with two little ones underfoot. One by one, we spread the word to our family. By Christmastime I was happy that the cat was out of the bag, for now I could act just as exhausted and miserable as I felt. At 12 weeks another OB appointment showed things going just fine still. The baby had a nice strong heartbeat in the 160s--a "girl" heartbeat, my OB said. But I knew better. I was convinced this was a little boy. I'd even bought a pile of flannel in boy prints to make new burp cloths and blankets.
Now that we'd passed the first trimester, I started to relax a little bit. Surely the bleeding would stop soon, just like it had with my girls. Even though the OB had said he didn't see anything to explain the bleeding, I felt it was probably a subchorionic hemorrhage--something I'd had with my first pregnancy, and a fairly common cause of bleeding in early pregnancy. It's kind of like a mini-abruption; the placenta pulls away from the wall of the uterus and blood collects underneath it. There's no accepted treatment for them; the majority of the time they resolve on their own without causing any problems. I had read everything I could find about SCHs during my first pregnancy; and now 5 years later I was amazed at how much more had be written (or, at least, made available on the internet) about them.
As I started my second trimester, my nausea went away and I started to gain back the weight I'd lost. Around 13 weeks I *thought* I felt the baby moving. By 14 weeks, I was sure that's what I was feeling. At 15 weeks, Jared even got to feel one particularly strong kick! It was such a thrill and a relief to feel my little one moving around--but as the weeks went on and the bleeding continued, my anxiety grew. It wasn't stopping like it was "supposed" to.
At 17 weeks, I went in for another checkup. My OB had said he'd do an ultrasound at this point and would probably be able to tell us if we were having a boy or girl. Just moments after he started the scan, he announced, "You wanted to know, right? Because this one's easy. It's definitely a boy."
A boy! Wow. We needed to start discussing names--we'd talked about boys' names in before but never could find much common ground. I figured we'd need the whole 23 weeks I had left to find any that we agreed on! I recalled the little voice I'd heard when I took the pregnancy test, and I figured I'd better add William to the "short list" and see what Jared thought of it.
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