A is for Beautiful

I have to say that one of the hardest things about dealing with this miscarriage was coping with the doctor’s order to not have sex for four weeks post-surgery. Ordinarily, this would only be minimally difficult. However, you probably remember that I spent 2.5 weeks at the beach without my husband prior to the surgery. When you add those two together you get SIX AND A HALF WEEKS, PEOPLE! That’s six and a half long, long weeks without sex.

Six and a half weeks is the time it takes for you to be able to take a puppy away from his mother. Six and a half weeks is the time it takes to drive from NC to California AND BACK no less than FOUR TIMES. It’s the time it takes to lose 15 - 20 pounds. You can reverse osteoporosis in six and a half weeks. And it’s the amount of time you need to get an online master’s degree. (I’m kidding about that last one.)

But in just six weeks you can have sex post-partum. That’s after delivering a real live baby that you get to see and hold afterwards. A baby the size of a small watermelon. I couldn’t have sex in more weeks than that and I didn’t even really deliver a baby. At least it wasn’t a real, live baby then. And it certainly wasn’t the size of any melon I’ve seen. It was probably only the size of a fig. And I definitely didn’t get to see it or hold it afterwards. :(

And I didn’t even WANT to have sex at six weeks post-partum after Julianna!

But I get it. My cervix was fully dilated. With any teensy-tiny opening bacteria can get in and cause a nasty infection. “Nothing in the vagina!” the doctor told me at every chance she got. She even told my husband in the hospital waiting room that morning. Yes, six and a half weeks, we got it.

But no sex. For Six Point Five Weeks. Did I mention that? It just SUCKS.

My poor husband.

So I just wanted to point all of that out to those of you who may not know about sex after miscarriage. I apologize to those members of my family who are reading this. I apologize to anyone who finds this the least bit crass. I just wanted to whine and complain a little about the reality of my horrible, unfair situation on this very fine morning. And it is indeed a very fine morning this morning. Honey, you better come home early tonight.

To the vast majority of you who voted in yesterday’s poll, you were absolutely correct. I’ve seen Batman, The Mummy, and Wall-E all within the last month and in my opinion Wall-E was by far the best of the three.

The Mummy was absolutely terrible. Seriously, awful bad. Batman was so-so. Dark? Definitely. Action packed? For sure. Left open for the sequel? Of course. But in my opinion, Heath’s excellent acting wasn’t enough to keep me on the edge of my seat and make me ignore the roll-your-eyes ending.

Wall-E on the other hand, I was expecting very little out of. As Sarahsouth would say, it was AB FAB. It was predictable and cute, which normally would not make for a good movie in my mind. But the fact remains that Wall-E kept me pondering for days and that’s my family’s criteria for a good movie. We still walk around my house saying, “Waaaalllll-EEEEE” and “Eeeeee-vaaaa” in funny robot voices and we saw that movie a month ago. Plus, we got to take Julianna with us and that was fun.

Now that that’s settled, let’s talk about some other stuff.

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Well, I went to the doctor yesterday and while I didn’t see my OB I did see a brand-spankin’ new doctor at that practice (as in Monday was his first day). It was my first check-up since the D&C and my first check-up at home. Everything checked out fine and the routine pregnancy test I took was negative so that was good. So what’s the problem? The problem was that at first he told me that I would have to wait 6 months before trying for another baby.

When I heard six months my jaw probably hit the floor. I was expecting him to say something like 2 to 3 cycles since I have known MANY people that were able to start trying again after 2 or 3 cycles. He explained that if I were 40 then he would say go ahead and try after 3 months because of the affect of age on fertility, but since I’m only 30 years old the standard textbook directions say wait 6 months and that’s what he advised.

Then! Then, he started talking to me about contraceptives and needing a prescription for the next six months and I was all, Whoa-slow-down-there-buddy-and-wait-just-a-minute. He said something about was this pregnancy planned…? So, yeah, after talking to him about this pregnancy and how long we tried and how regular my normal cycle is, etc he agreed that we could start “trying” again after three months. Phew!

He did say that if I were to get pregnant earlier than what was recommened then we would obviously just take it as it came, but that in order to lower the risk of having a miscarriage again he would still wait at least 3 months.

You all know I’m a little impatient, right? Can you imagine my family having to deal with me over the next six months if he had stuck with the textbook?!

Anyway, the bottom line is that it was a good visit. Everything is fine and we’re going to start trying again in about 3 months. Yay!

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Today, I have accomplished a ton. Well, I’m sure when I make the list it won’t seem like it, but at least it feels like I did a lot.

• I finished unpacking.
• I finished the laundry.
• Loaded and unloaded the dishwaser and then loaded it again.
• Hung up all of Julianna’s clothes, including the ones that were just sitting in her closet before we left.
• Wrapped a present.
• Cleaned Julianna’s bedroom.
• Caught up on all of the message board posts from when I was gone and cleared out my google reader. (*Not important I know, but NOT an easy task.)

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Ugh! I’ve started a diet again. I figure if I have 3 months in which I can’t get pregnant then I might as well lose all I can before then. I’m down four pounds since Monday. I still have about 30 to go. :( Wish me luck you guys!

First and foremost I want to say thank you to all the people that have called, emailed, and posted comments over the last few days. They have been so helpful and I can say with certainty that the last few days would not have been so easy without the love and support of you all.

I am doing very well. I went in for surgery yesterday morning at 6:45 and was “home” by 11. Everything was very simple and I was lucky to have my parents to keep Julianna, my husband waiting for me in the waiting room, and a very sweet doctor and nurse to take care of me in the hospital. I have a prescription for pain killers that I really haven’t needed and have already quit taking. Although I can’t swim for the next two weeks, I still managed to spend the afternoon with family resting on the beach and seeing a matinee showing of Batman followed by dinner at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants. Life is good.

In the past 48 hours I have questioned so many things. I have wondered about my 8 ½ week appointment a month ago and how I wanted to push it back from Monday to Friday since I would be at the beach for the following month. If I had done that would we have known a month earlier? I have wondered if my experience with c diff somehow made me unhealthy enough to terminate a pregnancy. I have wondered what to do with the adorable “Big Sister” shirt I bought Julianna two weeks ago.

On the other hand, I have also wondered about the half marathon at the end of April 2009 that my sister has been asking me to commit to run with her and about the weight that I’ve been putting off losing. I have wondered if this is my opportunity. I have wondered if this is God’s plan for my job situation – to not have to go on maternity leave during the middle of the regular school year. And I have wondered about having a winter baby and how that would affect any PPD that I might have after Baby # 2 is born. Maybe I am just meant to have a summer baby. :)

I think the main thing that I have been thinking about is how much harder this would have been if it had been my first pregnancy. For all of you people out there who have gone through that, I am so sorry. I cannot even fathom how difficult that would be.

When we got pregnant with Julianna we didn’t tell anyone before the first trimester was over except our immediate family (and we even waited until 11 weeks to tell them). I was beyond excited about being pregnant, but I also was cautious enough to not want to make a mistake born out of excitement that I may have had to “un-tell” later. I am so glad that I made those decisions.

I am also so very glad that I made the decision to announce this pregnancy early on. If we had followed the same plan and not shared our news this time around until the “safe period,” then Jonathan and I would be suffering alone right now. Instead we have had an enormous amount of love and support from everyone who knows us. I have had people I don’t even know write me to share their experiences with me. I have had family members write me to tell me their personal experience that I had not even been aware of prior to sharing mine. I have had friends show genuine concern for me and it has without a doubt been the greatest blessing.

While I am sad that I won’t have a baby to play with in January, I am so satisfied that I have put this experience behind me and that we’ll be able to try again in the future. Thanks again for loving on me guys. I mean it.

And if anyone makes fun of me for wearing my maternity clothes for the next month or so I’m going to punch them in the face. Just kidding. But really, those things are just so darn comfy. :)

The baby stopped growing at 8 weeks 6 days. To me the irony is that I had my first ultrasound at 8 weeks 4 days. Just two days before the baby suppsedly died we saw the heartbeat. I knew right away on the ultrasound today as soon as the baby came into focus. You could see the baby and you could see the heart but no pulsing bright light, no heartbeat. I simply said, “there’s no heartbeat” and the ultrasound tech said, “You caught me. I’m going to have to do a vaginal ultrasound.” This was, I’m assuming, to get the clearer picture and measure the baby, but it was irritating to me that I was 95% positive that the baby had died and she wouldn’t say it. When she left the room for me to get undressed it took her forever to come back and then during the vaginal US the doctor came in to tell me.

It’s amazing to me that they can tell when the baby stopped growing exactly. It’s also amazing to me that although I had a very strong (bad) feeling about the baby a couple of weeks ago, other than that and the very light spotting I would not have known.

All kinds of thoughts keep going through my head. If I had been home I am convinced that things would be no different. My next OB appointment would have been yesterday and it would have shown the same thing. The only thing that could have helped is if I had had cramps or spotting earlier and had been home I could have had the earlier US. I am angry that the ER could not have done an US and given me answers like this on Friday. I am angry that the doctor’s office could not have seen me yesterday and given me answers a day earlier. I am glad to have my little girl.

I have a pre-op appointment tomorrow afternoon and go in for surgery the next morning at 9am. She did give me the option to go home, but after talking with her about what the surgery entails it does not seem important to me to be at home when I should be fully recovered by Thursday afternoon/evening. She stressed that I get the procedure done as early as possible and that is fine with me. Jonathan will be here Thursday night.

Overall, I really am fine so far. I am not worried about what I could have done differently and I am already looking past it to the future. Whether that is good or bad I don’t know and don’t really care at this point. Call me crazy, but I am mostly just worried about whether Jules will notice that we stop talking about a baby for several months. And of course, wondering about my bridesmaid’s dress for my sister’s wedding in 3 months.

I’m totally assuming that they’ll make me wait a few complete cycles before I start trying again and I question - Will Julianna be 4 years old when she gets a baby brother or sister? Will she be ten? Will she be the only one for us?

Any answer is fine although some are preferable to others. I am truly blessed to have my Doodlebug. Some people are not as lucky.

Thank you all for your prayers.

update number one:
I know I never posted the winner of Friday’s contest. That’s because when I used the random.org random number generator it chose #4. Of course it chose #4. You want to know why? Because #4 was my sister’s comment. She’s always a lucky duck. That and I think the random number generator just wanted to make me look bad like I was stacking the contest.

I promise I wasn’t. If I could prove it I would.

Anyway, I considered picking another number and then sending a small prize to both and all that jazz, but I think I’ve just decided to save this great priize for my sister and if you guys think I’m an unfair cheater then so be it. Hate me.

So I’m going to be photographing my sister’s prize and posting about it this afternoon. Congrats Whitter!

update number two:
Safire got her Pay It Forward package from me and now has posted her new Pay It Forward Contest. Should you wish to enter you can jump on over to her blog and leave a comment. Have fun!

update number three:
The OB office that I was referred to down here at the beach couldn’t work me in for a sonogram yesterday so I am going today at 2:15. For all of you with inquiring minds, I’ll have a post up after that to let you know how it goes. Thanks for all of the concern and prayers. It really helps to know that people care.