26 weeks

How Far Along: 26 Weeks 3 days

Size of baby: According to Babycenter, Frank Salvatore should be the length of an english hothouse cucumber (14 inches) and weigh about 1 and 2/3 pounds but he was above average weight at the ultrasound and doc is predicting an eight pound baby.

Total Weight Gain/Loss: Gained 12 lbs

Maternity Clothes: I can still wear regular leggings and a few longer shirts but most of my clothes are maternity at this point.

Gender: It's a boy.

Movement: Alot- he seems to be on a schedule though.

Sleep: I sleep pretty well but tend to have a period of wakefulness between 4am and 6 am.

What I miss: being able to paint my own toenails but it's a good excuse to get a professional pedicure.

Cravings:Coffee- I've been drinking a cup of half caf a day for the last couple of weeks.

Symptoms: Round ligament pain, some heartburn, peach fuzz on the belly (eww) and definite pregnancy brain. The other day I heated up my lunch and then had to search the apartment for it for 10 min. I had gotten distracted by a plant the cat knocked over and had placed my meal on the bookshelf.

It's A...

Good anatomy scan!  Joe and I went in last Monday for the anatomy scan aka "the big ultrasound."  My placenta   is in a good position.  The doctor said my cervix is nice and long, which I was relieved to hear.  I was worried for awhile we got through first trimester just to come across some major hurdle in second trimester like an incompetent cervix but fortunately that does not seem to be the case. My amniotic fluid level was normal, too.

The baby is also looking good.  There were no facial or leg and arm abnormalities as far as the tech could tell. The three veins in the spine that are so important are present.  There is no excess fluid on the spine.  Baby was swallowing and moving around alot. The heart has four chambers and the skull is normal.. The tech reassured us that the dark spot on the baby's head was just a shadow and not a huge gaping hole. Oh yeah, there are also testicles and a penis. WE HAVE A SON!

I think he already looks like his daddy,here.

Showing off his muscles, lol.

The Toll

I was ten and a half weeks pregnant when we received our at home doppler. I knew there was a chance I would not be able to find the heart beat so soon. The doctors don't even try that early. Joe and I attempted to find the baby's heartbeat that night but to no avail. I was not discouraged. It was really early to expect to find a heartbeat.  The next morning, after Joe had gone to work, I had a hunch. So I brought out the Babybeat Doppler. Sure enough, I didn't even have to fish around, there was that beautiful galloping sound at 176 bpm. And then I doubted it.

I doubted I had heard what I heard. Even though, I had heard it for awhile. Even though, I looked up fetal heart tones on the Internet and the sound I downloaded was the same that had come from my at home Doppler. Even though, if anything in my body had a pulse of 176 bpm besides a baby, I'd probably be dead. And I knew I was crazy to be doubting what I had heard when there had been no mistaking it, but then again part of me wondered if I had made it up because I had wanted to hear it so badly. If hysterical pregnancies exist, couldn't hysterical hearing?

When your body keeps betraying you, ( and I don't care if a miscarriage is "nature's way") you stop trusting it. When you look for blood on the toilet paper and twice the absence of it doesn't mean a damn thing because your baby is dead anyway, you start to doubt your own experience. When you're in the midst of your first miscarriage, and are still having morning sickness, symptoms mean shit.  When you go through five packs of pregnancy tests with mixed results because  the egg was fertilized but didn't implant, you start to hate your body for reasons that have nothing to do with image.

I am sixteen and a half weeks pregnant now. Part of me is still waiting for the other shoe to drop. I am too familiar with the baby and pregnancy loss community to ever think there is a safe point. It annoys me when people ask me when I have the ultrasound to find out the sex. That ultrasound is the ultrasound that is going to let me know if my baby is healthy so far. Some women go to that ultrasound and are not so lucky.  Every night I go to bed and pray for a full term, healthy, live birth. I hope I am covering all my bases. I know more than any pregnant woman should about all the crappy things that can happen. And I no longer have the luxury of thinking they won't happen to me because some of them already have.

So Far, So Good

The day before Thankgiving, I went in for a second ultrasound. (The doctor originally wanted me to wait for four weeks until I saw him again. Yeah right. Like I was  going to let that happen.) Everything is looking good. Baby measured right on target and the heart beat was 176 bpm. We got to it hear it, which was a new experience for us.

We had a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. First and foremost the baby doing well. This was also the first Thanksgiving we got to spend with family in two years. Last year, it was just the two of us. I cooked a twenty pound turkey. It was thirteen dollars. It was a steal. We got at least six other meals out of it.

My next appointment is Dec. 21. I should be twelve weeks, two days. Having all these important appointments around the holidays is really scary. We rented a doppler and although, in all likelihood, I won't be able to hear the heartbeat this early, it gives me a sense of control that tends to be hard to come by when you have recurrent losses.

Because Holding My Breath Would Be Bad for the Baby

It was 4am Oct. 29, and I had to pee. Since, I was awake and I did not want to have to wake up again in an hour before Joe (my husband said I can use his real name, so no more J.D.) went to work ( he likes me to test when he's around),  I  figured I'd POAS. Mind you it was not a mind fetus type of testing being done. It was more of a wouldn't it just suck if I was pregnant and went off the progesterone and screwed things up type of test. We didn't even try that month. But there it was a positive test. Another positive pregnancy test. The first words out of my mouth were,"Oh Crap!"

So here we go again. I went in to confirm the pregnancy the first day of my missed period. I had to make an appointment with a doctor other than the one I just started seeing. His name was Dr. Ohm. Which is nice because "Ohm" was kind of neccessary at that point. In fact, the nurse couldn't even take my blood pressure that day. We did a progesterone check and a beta check. Both came back looking good. My doctor actually said my progesterone was a bit high and asked if I wanted to take a lower dose but I said I'd rather not. We didn't do a series beta because my betas always double and if they weren't there isn't anything they could do anyway. So I didn't see the point in having to make another doctors's appoinment and get stuck with another needle when it wouldn't provide me with any peace of mind.

Our first ultrasound showed me further along than we had thought by five days. I was six weeks four days. The baby had a heart beat of 133 bpm. Everything looks really good so far, but it has before. Even my doctor expressed the sentiment that she wished I was just 30 weeks already.  But I'm not. So I fall asleep at night with my fingers crossed and praying. And I try to remember to breathe.

Remembering Our Babies

This is for Squirt, Chicken Little, Snowflake, and Rocky, and all the other angel babies. 
J.D. wore the PAIL rubber bracelet and ribbon to work today. I will wear mine today too.

Two More

While we attended Westborn Market's "Taste of Michigan" Sunday, I turned to J.D. and said "I'm only doing this two more times, and then we are considering adoption for real."  Two more miscarriages.  This whole resolve to be willing to go through two more losses strikes me as funny.

 First off, I have already done "two more."  I had told J.D. that it would be "one more" after we lost Chicken Little, the second baby. Now a chemical pregnancy and another miscarriage later, I am willing to have six losses before we seriously start to consider adoption.  Partially, this is because adoption is expensive so while we save for it, I am not willing to do nothing in the meantime. Also, I am still refusing to accept the idea that I may never give birth to a healthy baby.

The other thing I find funny about this "two more" is that it means I have fully accepted the possibility of me actually miscarrying two more times. I'm not sure if this expresses lack of faith that my next pregnancy will be successful or insane hopefulness that after so many pregnancies, one of them will eventually stick. 

And that's the thing. I keep hearing these stories of women who went through 6,8,10 miscarriages and then had a healthy baby.  These stories give me hope. Yet, another part of me thinks, "I don't want to have to go  through that many." How much more can I emotionally and physically handle? How many more nicknames will not turn into real names?  How many more surgeries do I want to undergo to have my dead child taken from me? How many more times can I "untell"? Today, its two more.