Our Pregnancy Journey and Announcement

June 17, 2016 by Ruthie 14 Comments

Photo by Theone Quattlebaum

Hey everyone!  I’m back!!  I apologize for my quite long break but sometimes life just gets in the way!  I’m stepping away from my normal DIY topics today to share with you a little bit more about what is going on in my life.  I apologize to my DIY viewers and I’ll have a new post for you next week! 

To start I have a beautiful, healthy little almost 3 year old daughter named Lucy.  She is my world and brightens my each and every day!  It didn’t take long for us to get pregnant and once I was pregnant I had a fairly easy pregnancy.  I had some minor bleeding at 6 weeks and 12 weeks but it didn’t result in anything major so I feel I had a great pregnancy.  That being said I thought having a second baby would be a cake walk! Unfortunately, that has not been the case….

Photo by Abby Libsack Photography

Prepare to read a novel below… 🙂

PREGNANCY 2

My  husband and I had always agreed to start trying when Lucy turned 2.  About a month before her birthday we started trying.  First month, no go.  Second month, we were pregnant!  I was super excited but slightly confused as my pregnancy test lines were not getting darker. (Yes I’m an habitual test taker.)  I went in to see my current doctor at the time (I had only met him once, as I was in the search of a new doctor once I moved to Minneapolis.  He was wonderful and had a great history with VBACs.  That’s another story for another time.)  The nurse took my blood and called me the next day to tell my HCG levels were extremely low, 24.  She told me to expect to miscarry.  I was devastated.  I went back a couple days later to see if my HCG levels had risen, unfortunately they only went to 41.  HCG is supposed to double every 2 days.  I tried not to google miscarriages and low HCG levels too much because there are lots of stories of low HCG levels and successful pregnancies and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  Sadly a week later, on our 4th wedding anniversary, I started to miscarry.  I was extremely sad but also relieved at the same time as I was just sitting there waiting for it to happen.  

PREGNANCY 3

We decided to start trying again right away and we got pregnant on the 2nd try.  It seemed to be pattern. My doctor had moved back to WI from MN so I was on the search for a new doctor.  A friend of mine had used a midwife and I knew lots of midwives that were supportive of VBACs (Vaginal Birth After Cesarian) so I found a practice in my home town.  I liked the midwives so at the time it felt like the right choice for me.  I was feeling a lot more confident with this pregnancy as my pregnancy tests were darkening.  I went in early to get some blood work and my HCG levels were right on target.  I felt hopeful and happy to be having a baby.  Around 7.5 weeks I went and got my first ultrasound and everything looked great and we saw a strong heart beat on our little bundle of joy.  I also had another appointment and heard the heart beat with my midwife’s fetal doppler.  Life seemed good!  It was around Thanksgiving time so we headed to California to visit my husband’s family.  I was still hesitant to announce our pregnancy to all of his family but everyone assured me that since we had heard the heart beat we should be in the clear.  On Thanksgiving Day I went to the bathroom and wiped a little bit of brown blood.  This of course made me very nervous but I tried not to get too worried as I bled red blood with my daughter.  I spoke with my midwife on the phone and she said as long as I wasn’t cramping I should be fine.

I made an appointment for that Monday when we got back to just double check.  While at my appointment my midwife told me that I had a sub chorionic hemorrhage and it was detected on the ultrasound. Unfortunately, no one had told me about this before.  She insisted it should not cause any problems but she’d like me to have another ultrasound at 12 weeks to see if the hemorrhage was going away.  After talking for a while we decided to listen for the heart beat.  I was 10 weeks and 2 days along.  The midwife was having trouble finding a heart beat but she told me not to worry as it’s tough to find sometimes with the fetal doppler.  Right then and there I started crying…I just knew something was wrong.  She went and got a small, portable ultrasound machine to double check.  And again she couldn’t see the heart beat.  I was a mess.  I was at the appointment with my daughter and was bawling so she started bawling.  I wanted to get a normal ultrasound to get a for sure answer on the heart beat so the midwives were trying to find somewhere that would let me come in on such short notice.

I sat in the room crying while waiting to see where I could get in.  I called my husband over and over again and he wasn’t answering his phone.  He was in a meeting.  I called my Mom and filled her in and told her if I was going through a miscarriage that I wanted her to come the next day to be with me.  They finally found a place about a half hour away from me that would see me that day.  I got ahold of my husband and told him to leave work right away and meet me at the imaging center.

Sure enough, the ultrasound tech could not find a heart beat.  The baby measured 10 weeks even so I had to have lost the baby within the previous day or two.  It was the hardest thing I have ever gone through.  I was devastated at the loss of this sweet little baby that I had carried for 6 short weeks.

I was not happy with my experience with these midwives so I decided to find a high risk doctor who could figure out why I had had two miscarriages in a row.  I found an amazing doctor in my home town and met with her and she was great.  She had suggested that I do a D&C but I really wanted to miscarry naturally. She started doing some blood tests on me to see if I had a blood clotting disorder and everything was coming back normal.  We then did a karyotype test (both my husband and I) to see if we had any chromosemal issues that was causing the miscarriages…again we both came back normal.

I had talked with my doctor multiple times and she was all for me miscarrying naturally but she warned me the amount of blood I would lose and that I would more than likely end up in the ER.  I just couldn’t imagine the amount of blood.  My first miscarriage was basically a heavy period so nothing bad.  I did a lot of thinking and decided to go through with the D&C on the day I started miscarrying.  I started bleeding red blood and knew that I was going to miscarry soon.  

My mother was still in town so she watched my daughter when my husband picked me up to take me to the hospital for surgery.  On the way I started having terrible cramping that would come and go similar to contractions.  It was extremely painful and I was anxious to get into a room so I could get some pain medication.  I was sitting down talking to a nurse to get checked in when I felt the miscarriage beginning.  I won’t get into the details but if you need someone to talk to about this please don’t hesitate to email me.  I then started miscarrying naturally while waiting for the OR to be ready for me.  I was put under for the operation and my last memory was being wheeled into the OR and talking to the anesthesiologist.

I recovered fairly quickly and wasn’t in much pain, physically.  We decided to get the baby examined by a pathologist to determine if there was anything wrong to help decipher the cause of the miscarriage. No abnormalities so that cause of the miscarriage is still unknown.  We also found out the gender of our little angel.  Our beautiful little son is up in heaven hanging out with our family members that left us too soon. R.I.P. Joseph Peter Tabone.

PREGNANCY 4

We decided to give trying a month off and make sure my body was healed from the D&C.  After the next month we tried and I was lucky enough to get pregnant right away.  I went in to get my HCG levels checked and again they were very low.  My doctor told me to not lose hope as it could just be early.  Unfortunately I lost the baby right before 5 weeks.  This one wasn’t as hard emotionally but it did leave me very confused. How did I have a perfectly healthy baby girl but now my body could not  keep a baby?

PREGNANCY 5

I really enjoyed my doctor I was seeing but I just felt something was missing.  I was recommended to an amazing doctor about a half hour from my house.  I went in to see him and meet him on a Tuesday to share my story with him and to see what he could do.  He was hopeful that he could help me and did a bunch of blood work again to check some other blood clotting disorders that my previous doctor didn’t check.  I told him my husband and I had been trying again and there was a small chance we could be pregnant.  We did a pregnancy test while I was there and it came back negative, which wasn’t a surprise to me.  Fast forward to that Friday, I woke up and felt the urge to take another pregnancy test.  I wasn’t due for my period until the next week.  Yes I know…I’m impatient. 🙂  I was surprised to find a positive pregnancy test.  I called my new doctor’s office immediately and they made sure I would be able to see my doctor that day.

I went in and they had me take a pregnancy test and sure enough I was pregnant!  He was so happy and we started our plan to help keep this pregnancy immediately.  I will get into the details about that later as this post is already getting so long! 🙂  We took some blood work to test my HCG levels.  Monday morning they called with my results.  Yet again, it was extremely low.  I was terrified I was going to miscarry but hopeful since I felt I was in good hands with my new doctor.  He assured me that we could have caught the pregnancy super early.  I came in on Monday and got more blood work done and it doubled!  I ended up finding out I was pregnant at only 3 weeks along. 

I’m happy to say that we are expecting baby number two!  I’m almost half way through this pregnancy and I won’t lie it hasn’t been easy but we’ve made it this far!  I couldn’t be happier that we are going to add a beautiful little new addition to our family in November!

I have a lot more to share about my journey and I plan to do so in the future.  I want to share my story in hopes that I can help someone else!  If you have made it this far I commend you and thank you for listening! 🙂  This is also therapeutic for me to share my story.  Life is a beautiful thing and I can’t wait to bring another one into this world!  See you next week for a DIY project and more!