21 weeks

I am writing a letter to the Infertile OB to tell her how much I appreciated being in her care for those first few prenatal visits.  How do you break up with a medical provider whom you really like?

When I first started looking for prenatal care (last minute, at 9 weeks, after being released from the RE, because I couldn't imagine this pregnancy graduating from the RE), I went with the recommendation from my RE.  After meeting with the recommended OB the very next week, I found out that she was actually a patient of my RE and had conceived through IVF. The transition from the RE to the Infertile OB was perfect, and exactly what I needed at the time.  She understood where I had been, what I was going through and the RE practice I came from.  But now, as my confidence grows and everything about this pregnancy continues to look normal and healthy, I am finally able to think about what kind of birth experience I really want.

It's what I have always wanted, until infertility seemed to rob me of any dreams or ideals I had about childbirth.  It has just taken me a while to get to the point where I believe that this is really going to happen, and that despite infertility or IVF or even fear of loss, I deserve the normal and natural birthing experience I have always imagined for myself and my child.

I don't know if any of you (I should say with singletons because of course with multiples, I imagine OB monitoring is a bit different and your options for delivery more limited) struggled with this after IVF, this idea that because you have been in a strict medical setting for so long, it is difficult to imagine yourself leaving that place for an environment where "normal" is the norm.  You don't feel normal, you don't think of your pregnancy as normal, you even *want* all of those interventions because, what if.....?  Emotionally, I couldn't have jumped from my RE to a CNM practice, even though after visiting the birth center at 15 weeks and talking with a midwife about my history, I knew immediately that was where I wanted to be for the remainder of my pregnancy.  I decided to make the switch as long as everything looked normal at the anatomy scan.

Well, that scan was 3 weeks ago.  In one week I have my first appointment at the birth center with one of the midwives and I am so excited to make the switch (though I do feel sad to part with the Infertile OB because I really like her, and most of all, she's one of us!).

I feel movement pretty consistently now.  F can even feel the movement from the outside.  It is truly overwhelming.

20 Weeks

Thank you for allowing me to release some dark thoughts from my mind in my last post.  Amazingly, since getting them out, they have not returned once.  I was so done with feeling those thoughts and fears that it took me the entire week to return to read the comments.  It turned out to be a very cleansing post.

I think a large part of my reluctance to return to that post is that I want so badly and am so ready to divorce the experience of infertility from this pregnancy and just be pregnant.  I know that's not possible, nor fair.  It is also irresponsible to the community that is my support system.  But I also can't wallow in my infertility and fear with each post.  Infertility has consumed me for much of the past 3-4 years, it is very much a part of this pregnancy, my psyche and the story we will tell our child about his making.  Writing now about pregnancy becomes a matter of balancing the joy I feel with the difficult experiences that brought me here.

So I want my last post to be a turning point.  Just as 20 weeks is a milestone in gestation, I want it to be a transition away from fear and thoughts of miscarriage or stillbirth.

I know that rare complications can occur.  Rare.  I am submerged in uncharted territory.  I come from the land of early losses.  I have no reason or past experience to make me think that something rare would happen now.

And this is where I am at 20 weeks.   Officially halfway and ready to move full speed ahead.  Like I said, the thoughts from my last post have not returned since I wrote them out.  In fact, recent accomplishments include: no longer inspecting the toilet paper for pink or brown, buying my own maternity pants, starting a registry, and perhaps the most encouraging of them all: calling this baby a baby, or the baby, or best of all, our baby.

19w2d

I am writing out this fear in the hopes that by getting it out, it will no longer plague me.  Note: I've been reading many posts about the "Pain Olympics." You may notice that the way I end this post may engage in this practice a bit.  I just want to say that I have every effing right to express my fears in this way.



My nerves have really calmed since the anatomy scan. Every day or moment that I feel movement reassures me.  Even so, I can still recite tragic stories that have occurred after 20 weeks, both in this community and not, I come across them in google searches, but I have been very good about ignoring them and learning to enjoy this pregnancy (finally buying maternity pants!  switching care to a birth center! almost buying a baby outfit! telling long distance colleagues! and many more normal behaviors for being halfway through pregnancy).

There is a haunting milestone about making it this far: to have a loss at this point would be considered a stillbirth and not a miscarriage. Now that I have made it this far, this pregnancy is the only chance I have left.  This is my last shot.  We signed up for IVF under a shared risk or refund plan with our clinic.  The contract states that we qualify for 3 IVF cycles.  The contract can end in a few different ways.  We can back out at any time (refund), we complete 3 cycles without success (refund), or we (I) can deliver a baby past 20 weeks (we are done). 

As I approach the 20 week milestone, each week I have the same horrible thought:  At 17 weeks, "I only have 3 more weeks to have a miscarriage before our contract ends."  At 18 weeks, "...only 2 more weeks..." and so on.  I have these thoughts because we have one IVF cycle left in our contract.  If I have a miscarriage we get to try again (though the thought of trying again is too overwhelming to bear), but if anything were to happen after 20 weeks and before viability we would be left with nothing, no refund, and not able to try again.

I don't know that we would even want to try again after such a loss, but having our options run out is the scariest possibility I have encountered with infertility thus far.  It's also not fair of me to put this kind of pressure on my unborn child.  I already feel like a bad parent.

Pregnancy loss and stillbirth is awful.  Awful, awful.  I cry for anyone who has suffered a late loss.  There are many blogs to prove that it can happen to anyone.  Many of those women go on to have another pregnancy and birth children.  But when you can't get pregnant on your own and have gone through infertility and loss already, that enormous loss could very well be how your journey ends.

I just can't end like that.  This baby will be my happy ending.