Friday, June 23, 2017

Pregnancy after loss and cold showers


After the happiness and surprise eventually came the worry. Pregnancy after a loss can be a tricky one to deal with. I remember that hard week after our first IVF when I was technically pregnant but with a low HCG value and was told it could go either way. There was a little spotting some days but it always went away. I had some mild symptoms such as tiredness, increased appetite and sore boobs. I kept doing pregnancy tests hoping the line would get darker but it grew fainter instead which was probably a likely indication that it was non viable. The longer I remained pregnant the more I had hope though that maybe it would still be ok. However the miscarriage begun the night before when our first scan at our previous clinic would have been.

I can't help having some anxiety regarding this pregnancy. I found a link online where you can calculate your miscarriage risk and it said mine was about 26% (at four weeks, it goes down the longer you remain pregnant)! That was stupid of me to look it up. However I then came across a more reassuring link and when you take our strong initial HCG value into account it seems promising that this could be a viable pregnancy. I keep reminding myself that there is no reason to assume that everything isn't fine. This pregnancy already seems stronger than my last (which was a year and a half ago. Crazy). I have barely any symptoms though of course it's super early at this point, just four weeks. It just feels surreal most of the time!

I did a second pregnancy test yesterday for some reassurance and there was a strong second line which was nice to see. The next stage is to go back to my clinic for a second blood test and provided all goes well I could have the first scan a week later. Wouldn't that be exciting!? At our new clinic they make you wait a week for the second blood test which seems so long! I have a dentist appointment that day so I asked if I could come in a day earlier (Monday) for the blood test and that's fine. The HCG is meant to be doubling every few days. A slow rising HCG can be indicative of a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. A scan at around 6-7 weeks should be able to show a heartbeat and once a heartbeat is present, then the risk of miscarriage drops to around 5%. So if I could get to that stage I can imagine I'll breathe a huge sigh of relief. One minute I feel ecstatic and love thinking about the future, and another I try to reign myself in, thinking I shouldn't get ahead of myself so early.


In other news, there have been some unexpected house costs lately. There's a problem with our water heating. It came to a head the day of the result actually. Hubby was all stressed but I was barely thinking about it. He said, "don't you care if there's no hot water and you have to have cold showers"? I think my reply was something like, "I would gladly take cold showers for all nine months if I can have a healthy pregnancy!" Anyway it turns out the problem has gotten worse so I have been having to have cold showers lately, haha. And I don't mind as long as the baby or babies on board are doing ok. That said, we are getting someone to come to the house to try to fix the problem as soon as possible. We are hoping it won't be too expensive. There have been quite a few unforeseen repairs that have come up ever since we moved in. I don't think our surveyor did a great job at predicting stuff!

I also wanted to mention that I know I have a lot of followers who are still in the midst of the infertility trenches. I will try my best to be as sensitive as possible regarding our news and I certainly don't intend to turn this into a "pregnancy" blog now. Occasionally I will mention it but I plan to write about plenty of other things too. Of course, it's still at an extremely early stage so I don't feel like I am out of the woods yet by any means but I am incredibly grateful to have reached this point!

25 comments:

  1. A 26% risk of Miscarriage means a 74% chance of successful pregnancy. That's not at all bad. After 5 losses, my chances were less than 50:50 and yet I am still pregnant. All it takes is the right sperm and the right egg to make your perfect take home baby. PUPO - Pregnant until Proven Otherwise. Hang in there xxx

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    1. Yes I did notice that statistics were showing that the more often a miscarriage happened the higher the risk of it happening again. I can only imagine the pain of going through it over and over, I'm sorry. But it so great that you are pregnant now and it's going so well!! I am feeling hopeful too. Most of the time! xx

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  2. Yay! Glad to hear things are going well. I agree with what Heather says. But I do know what you mean. I think for people like us the fear never goes away until you hold the baby in your arms. Patience and distraction are the key things now and continue that zen attitude....It's helped me loads as a lot of patience is required over the course of 9 months! Looking forward to more updates. XXX

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    1. Yes I think when you are so used to things going wrong on this long journey that it's nearly hard to accept when things are finally working out! I've been trying to be more patient and just enjoy this whole experience :) I'll update again soon x

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  3. So normal to be worried. Hope you have no reason to stop enjoying the happy as long as it's around!

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    1. Yea it's hard not to be a little anxious after everything. Thanks for all your support

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  4. *crossing fingers*!

    Yeah, I read similar stats - once you see a healthy heartbeat on that first scan, miscarriage risk goes way down.

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    1. Yea if I can make it to that stage it will feel even more real and will hopefully be a sign of a healthy viable pregnancy! Thanks :)

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  5. I know exactly how you feel. I am 14 weeks today, which is amazing to say. And I think with each passing week maybe there are moments it gets a little easier. But as soon as my eyes opened this morning i asked hubby if he thought baby was okay...which of course he did. I was on the fence about these, but we ended up getting a fetal doppler and so far I am really enjoying having it. It does help to calm me when I hear the heartbeat and so far we've found it every time. You might consider it...though we didn't start using it until 11 weeks or so. I can't wait to hear how many babies are in there!

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    1. Congratulations on making it to 14 weeks - that's great news! I've noticed a lot of infertility bloggers getting the fetal doppler actually, it does seem like a nice way of getting some reassurance. I know, I'm also dying to find out whether there are one or two babies! Either is great though, just as long as something healthy :)

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  6. I understand being nervous. All my trauma was in the second trimester. I've never lost a pregnancy in the first (at least that got a high enough HCG to qualify as a pregnancy). I got two chemical pregnancy.

    So I'm pretty confident about your first trimester, but that's probably because I never have known that trauma so far.

    But expect me to be anxious as heck for you in the second. I'll probably be like "and is your cervical length okay? No shortening? Right? You better check that out".

    Even if I do get pregnant again, the second terrifies me. Cervical incompetence + andemyosis = high risk in the second.

    When you make it to 10 weeks (how's that for confidence) check on that cervical length just to make sure there are no problems there.

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    1. Thanks for the advice about checking the cervical length, that's not something that would have occurred to me. I feel so sorry for women like yourself who have several miscarriage behind them. Of course then the anxiety is even worse. And that's hard if you can't relax in the second trimester like the majority can.

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  7. Copingwithmiscarriage.wordpress.comJune 24, 2017 at 11:30 PM

    I definitely understand that worry but 25% is the normal miscarriage statistic for ALL pregnancies so actually 26% is pretty reassuring.

    It must be really frustrating to have to wait a week between blood tests but that HCG result is sooo good!! I wouldn't be surprised if you have two in there ��.

    Good luck with the cold showers - you're far more tolerant than I am! X

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    1. Yeah all that waiting has been frustrating alright. Lots of patience required. I'm also wondering if there could be two in there! Just saw your positive update :) x

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  8. The only thing about dopplers is that sometimes it can be really hard to find a heartbeat which can cause more anxiety. Around 18 weeks I went to the midwife after feeling less movement. She couldn't find the heartbeat at all even after 15 minutes trying. I ended up being rushed to hospital for an emergency scan. Turned out I have an anterior placenta which means that my little lady has something to hide behind. X

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    1. Oh yikes, that must have been terrifying! I'm glad to hear the little lady is ok though :) x

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  9. I've been following along but not sure if I've congratulated you yet. So Congratulations!! I'm so glad everything is going well. I used that miscarriage risk website daily I think :). I'm excited for your scan. xx

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    1. Thanks so much! Yeah I've still been checking the miscarriage risk site but I love seeing the success odds increasing over time. I'll update after the scan, so excited to find out what's going on in there! xx

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  10. I'm so glad everything is going well so far. I can totally understand your nervousness though.

    I tend to avoid pregnancy blogs (for obvious reasons!) but I will continue following your blog no matter what you post about. Seeing people who I know have struggled having healthy pregnancies gives me hope.

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    1. Thanks! I do like to think that our story will give people hope. I honestly had gotten to the stage where I thought it would never happen for us. I hope you are doing ok. If you ever want to chat my email is dublinerindeutschland@gmail.com

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  11. So glad that everything is so far, so good! Ha to the cold showers. :) I feel like it's totally normal to want to know the statistics, and then to turn around and regret having looked at them. I will be hoping for all typical results for a healthy pregnancy moving forward!

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    1. Thanks so much Jess! Yeah I wanted to know the statistics but then was annoyed at myself for looking. Sometimes statistics are reassuring and other times ignorance is bliss! I hope you are doing well. Keep updating your blog :)

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  12. Just saw this after being on hols. Congratulations Dub! You truly deserve this as I know you wanted it so much. Greetings to you and your hub

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    1. Aw thanks so much, that's a lovely thing to say! I hope you had a great holiday, looking forward to seeing the pictures :)

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