Just a little venting

After our last appointment in Iowa City, I have decided to start seeing my local OB as well. Once we find out that everything is ok with this little one, we will make the decision to be seen locally only and to deliver locally. I had nothing but great experiences in Iowa City when I was pregnant with Claire. This pregnancy has been very different. It all started when we had to go over our entire history (family and previous pregnancy) during our first appointment. I just had Claire in June. Shouldn't they know my history?! We are treated as just another pregnant couple there, where as locally, my OB knows me personally and knows everything about my previous pregnancy even though I didn't even deliver with her. We drive 2 hours round trip to get to Iowa City and we were in and out of there in 45 minutes last appointment. The high risk OB saw us for literally 5 minutes.

I'm also very frustrated with the timing of our first fetal echo. It seems as though every other heart mom has an echo at around 16 weeks with subsequent pregnancies. We were told we won't have one until 22 weeks. Really!? Our first echo for Claire was at 21 weeks. Shouldn't they be giving us one earlier this time to try to detect a problem earlier? I don't understand their reasoning. The more I think about it the more angry I get.

Sorry for the venting! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Happy New Year!! This will be my second new years in a row of no drinking, so drink 2 or 3 or 10 for me. I'm going to be an extreme lightweight after this baby is born.

Thank God!

Our screening went great on Friday! I can't even begin to express my relief. The nuchal fold measurement was 1.8. We were shooting for anything under 2.5, so we're ecstatic with that number! Everything is looking great so far. Of course, it's too early to see if there are 4 heart chambers, but I'll take what I can get right now. This should get me through until 20 weeks when we will find out about the heart. Baby was measuring 4 days ahead, but not enough for them to move up my due date. He/She had the hiccups and was bouncing up and down and opening and closing his/her mouth. It was so amazing! I do have an anterior placenta again, so that explains my craziness with not finding the heartbeat on the doppler. I'll try again this week now that I'm a little further along. Here's a picture. It's from my phone, so it's small. I'll try to upload the actual picture sometime this week.

Impossibly Hard

Being pregnant after a loss sucks. It is so extremely hard. I know it's like this for anyone who has lost a baby no matter how far along they were.

My first trimester screening is tomorrow afternoon, and includes an ultrasound. I am having such anxiety about it, that my mood is horrible and I haven't been sleeping well. I am so worried that the baby will pop up on the screen and there will be no heartbeat. I even bought a doppler to ease my mind, and that has made me more crazy. I found the heartbeat pretty quickly the very first time I tried (Monday), but haven't been able to find it since. I am not a doctor, I am only 11W4D, and it's very possible that I have an anterior placenta again. I should be relieved that I found it at all, but of course I am not.

Why am I so worried about miscarrying? I carried a baby with a very severe heart defect to full-term. Really, I am just worried about losing another baby, because honestly, if I lost another baby I'm not sure how I could recover from that. I dont think I would. Losing Claire is hopefully the hardest thing I will have to go through in my life. Losing another baby is unimaginable to me.

Brad of course tries to reassure me that everything is ok. I'm still having symptoms, I clearly have a belly. He's so optimistic. He doesn't understand why I am so worried. I will be worried until this baby comes out screaming! I will update either tomorrow night or Saturday. "Today I am pregnant and I love my baby."