12 Weeks Pregnant

Current mood . . .

As the first trimester comes to an end, I know my risk of miscarriage is going down to around 1 %. However, my perceived risk remains high. In other words, I remain terrified that I'll lose this pregnancy like I lost my last one. I think that once one has had a miscarriage, that fear is higher than it would be in other pregnancies. Add a foreign process like IVF to the mix and the fear of miscarriage will be even higher (especially when you have a specialist quoting terrifying statistics at you about your chance of miscarriage at your age- 20-25%- and your chance of having a live birth from IVF- 28%).

The cat's look clearly says "please rescue me from this Stage 5 clinger. I can't take it anymore."

I still haven't bought any maternity clothing, though I have virtually nothing that fits me. I feel like it will jinx things. I keep wondering why nothing will fit. Yes, I'm three months pregnant, but I haven't gained a single pound since I started the set of hormones for this round of IVF on September the 1st (in fact this week I was down 0.2 pounds below my starting weight). My body must be doing some interesting rearranging internally. Maybe a week from now I might invest in a maternity bra or two. For clothing, I'll wait for boxing day sales. I've heard that maternity clothes are expensive (not that it's news to me that being a woman is expensive).

Making things more difficult for me, my blood serum level of lithium dropped below a therapeutic level when I tested it this Monday at the lab. This has of course not improved my mood, which has been destabilizing for a while (as my blood volume increases with pregnancy, my requirement for lithium rises and therefore my current dose become insufficient to stabilize my bipolar disorder). And then there's my family. Neither of my parents have expressed any interest at all in my last ultrasound (8 days ago). Neither of them asked about it, asked if the fetus is still alive, or asked how I'm doing. It's as if they could care less. It's natural to want your parents to show an interest in yourself and any children that you may have, so it's bewildering and heartbreaking when they don't. After years of dealing with family turmoil, dealing with this while I'm hormonal and not properly medicated is almost more than I can bear. Other members of my family who promised to help me with something while my husband was away then went back on their word leaving me alone and unable to do certain things. It's been a very upsetting week.

At least I can always rely on Lamont, even if he looks like a grouch sometimes.

Then there's other people in my life who try to minimize and diminish my feelings of pain and dispute my perception of reality. For anyone reading this blog who doesn't think that this has been the worst year of my life, that's your opinion. This opinion is of course subjective. If I say it's been the worst year of my life then it is. Period.  But for those doubters, here's a summary of my year. I continued to struggle to become pregnant after seeing a fertility specialist in December of last year, my husband was away much of the late winter and early spring for work, only coming home on the weekends, our car stopped working and since it would have cost a fortune to repair it, we had to look for a newer car and purchase it right before we were going to have to pay for IVF, weeks after getting a newer car, I scraped it on the shitty carport at our rental duplex which is not wide enough for our new car (this was my first at fault accident ever in twenty years of having a driver's license), I turned 36 and six years after I had wanted to start having children I still wasn't pregnant and as the six month window that the fertility specialist recommended for trying to get pregnant without fertility treatments ran out, I grew increasingly depressed, I signed up to get IVF on the advice of the fertility specialist knowing that this process is a horrific combination of hormones, physical discomfort, emotional strain, and costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars, but I was so desperate to have a child that I charged forward with the process, going to the orientation session for IVF alone as my husband was out of town, I started my first hormone for IVF, my period didn't arrive when it should have and I found out that I was pregnant without IVF, a blood test confirmed this, I then found out that my second set of blood tests was abnormal, I then found out that the embryo was either dying or dead and I was starting to miscarry, I miscarried the only embryo I had ever managed to conceive (my father told me to "stop feeling sorry for yourself" the day I started miscarrying and was crying on the phone when he called), I was disturbed and greatly distressed and depressed by miscarrying the only baby I had ever become pregnant with and spent the summer wandering British Columbia and then Europe trying to move past this tragedy (not just mentally and emotionally, but also physically), I failed to become pregnant again, I had to watch a bunch of people that I know either have children, become pregnant, or live a joyful life with their new babies, I signed up for IVF again, I lost further friends as they failed to care about my miscarriage or support me through the very difficult and foreign process of IVF, I started hormones and went through three months of hormones including spending weeks injecting myself with hormones 2-4 times a day (with my paralyzing fear of needles) and undergoing uncomfortable and foreign medical procedures and a lot of stress all while not having much support from my family and very few of my remaining friends (and paying over $15,000 and having our insurance company deny us coverage for most of our $9,000 worth of prescription drugs that should have all been covered according to our policy), I endured horrifying side effects while undergoing IVF, but none more so than the fear and doubt that it would ever work (when a figure of 28% live birth is quoted to you, you really doubt that it will ever happen, especially if you're a recovering lawyer), I became pregnant and have continued to have nightmares and flashbacks to my miscarriage in the summer which have not allowed me to enjoy the pregnancy at all and have made me terrified of losing it, my husband has had to work on the other side of the country this autumn and will be into the spring, so I'm living with just a cat and have no one to help me or to talk to most of the time, and we haven't been able to find anywhere to move to in Victoria that has enough space to accommodate an addition to our family (and isn't completely unaffordable, rental vacancy is Victoria is not 0.5%, so lower than Vancouver's 0.7% rate now), so I feel totally trapped and hopeless. Just because I'm pregnant again and MIGHT have a baby, it does not take away what happened this year. I may move on, but I'll never forget this year (and that miscarriage is pretty much the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me (and those who know me well will know that I've had some trauma in my life before that, so that's saying something) and it was less than 6 months ago, so it's going to take time for me to recover from it). But go ahead and judge my year for yourself. I don't care what anyone else's opinion is, because it's mine that matters to me.

Now enough about this year from hell. First, how have I been feeling this week? Physically, I've been struggling with nausea and dizziness still. Friday, I spent the entire day in bed because I was so nauseous and dizzy. I waited until my husband came home to have a shower that day because I was so afraid of falling and hitting my head in the shower. Low blood pressure remains somewhat of a problem still, seeing stars at times and feeling lightheaded. I have had constipation again on and off and some stomach upset. The headaches are not as bad now as they were during IVF treatments and the beginning of the pregnancy. My neck and back are very stiff along with my hips as my body expands and shift around with the pregnancy. I'm sleeping slightly better than I was, but still having trouble falling asleep, mostly due to not liking be in the house alone without my husband at night and going to bed far, far too late. I feel exhausted most of the time and have only been taking some short walks. I feel guilty that I'm not exercising more, but I honestly just can't deal right now. My mild eczema is starting to plague me again and I don't want to use any corticosteroids unless I absolutely have to, so I've been trying rose water and coconut oil- they are not as effective as prescription drugs. Mostly though, it is my mood that has been utterly distressing. I have been so down most of this week. My thoughts have scared even dark old me. And my constant companion, anxiety, continues to accompany me everywhere, whispering to me about everything that could go wrong and how it will go wrong and how I should just stay at home and hide.

Spending the day in bed with the cat didn't seem to bother the cat. He's always down to hang out in bed.

Monday, I had three sets of blood tests, lithium level, thyroid levels, and the first set of blood tests required for IPS (to test for genetic abnormalities). My ultrasound for IPS is coming up on December 19th. I'll be going to that ultrasound alone too as my husband will be out of town.

My eyes were still really swollen Monday morning from all the crying that I did on Sunday.

The cat was not impressed by my blood test bandage or my bandaid over my acupuncture tack.)

Later on Monday, I went to the chiropractor to get another adjustment. My neck and back have been torturously stiff and it's taking some time for things to go back to where they should be and for my body to settle down (I was away from the chiropractor for 3 months while I had IVF and my ovaries were swollen to freak size and it was too dangerous for me to have adjustments).

Tuesday, I drove out to VGH hospital to see my perinatal psychiatrist. We reviewed my blood serum level of lithium and as it was below the therapeutic level, she raised my dose of lithium to the next dose up. Hopefully, this will help with my feelings of depression and anxiety. However, as she said, anyone experiencing the stress that I've been experiencing with the miscarriage, undergoing IVF, having family strife, and worrying about having another miscarriage, would be feeling like this, so she's not going to raise my medication level too much too fast because that won't help.

Hospital lighting is always awesome.

Wednesday, I had an appointment with my endocrinologist to review my thyroid levels and of course my weight. He is of the opinion that I should not gain a single pound during my pregnancy. I know that I was heavy to begin with when I became pregnant, but I don't think it's realistic to expect that I won't gain a single pound over the ENTIRE pregnancy. So far, I haven't gained a signed pound (in fact I'm down 0.2 pounds in the last almost 3.5 months) and I'm three months pregnant, but the second and third trimesters are usually a heavier weight gain time, so I feel anxious about what's going to happen. He says that my thyroid levels are currently perfect and there's no need to change my does of either liothyronine or levothyroxine. He will see me again in four weeks to review my levels again (after I have another blood test of course). He says that during my pregnancy there may be be times when we can go as long as six weeks without meeting, but likely it will be every four weeks for the entire pregnancy (who wouldn't want to be weighed by multiple people and scrutinized every month?). He says that my dose of thyroid medications may double during the pregnancy! I am lucky to have someone who is so competent and experienced with thyroids, because they make a big difference in pregnancy. The slightest level being off can lead to miscarriages (this risk ends at about 12 weeks) and brain damage (the child being born with a low normal IQ- this risk continues into later pregnancy).

It snowed Monday night and I admired the raccoon prints in our driveway.

It's unusual to have snow in Victoria or for it to stay for a few days.

Thursday, I went for acupuncture with Stephanie at Elements of Health Centre. She told me that after 12-13 weeks, the sessions usually go down from weekly to once a month. This is good news to me as my coverage ran out weeks ago and $85.00 a session is quite a lot to pay every week.

Before acupuncture.

With chest and head needles in at acupuncture.

Today, I had massage therapy in the morning to work on my neck and back and hips which are all very stiff and sore. My neck keeps spasming and my back is so tight, it's just exacerbating the problem. I'm feeling it all the way up into my right jaw.

As Christmas approaches, I feel increasingly gloomy. I'll get about a week with my husband around Christmas, which will be lovely, but I find that no matter where I go at this time of the year, I feel empty and sad. Perhaps it's true that once you have children you get to see Christmas through their eyes and it brings you a joy that you may have never had or may have lost, but right now I don't have a child to brighten my Christmas and all I can think about is Christmases past and how much I hate this time of the year. No matter how much my husband has tried to make Christmas a happy time of year for me (including proposing to me on Christmas day nine years ago), I just haven't been able to fully shake my past. Maybe if this pregnancy continues and I have a child next year, next Christmas I'll discover the joy of a holiday that's brought me so much pain over the years. I can only wait and hope. . . .