ANOTHER PREGNANCY, YET NEVER FORGETTING MY INFERTILE YEARS (FIRST TRIMESTRE)
After a surgery, many fertility treatments and a miscarriage I finally gave birth to my amazing twin boys, Alejandro and Moises. 6 months later I had the biggest surprise of my life, I got pregnant naturally. At 15 weeks into the pregnancy I had my second miscarriage, this time of a baby girl. But I was lucky enough to get pregnant 2 months after that tragic event, again naturally, and gave birth to my third boy, Jack.
I always liked the idea of having a big family, and my husband and I knew that at some point we would like to have a fourth child.
By the end of last year, after analyzing our situation, we decided that it was time to expand our family. So in January of this year I stopped birth control and started trying to get pregnant the old fashion way.
At this point I could not stop wondering, how this process was going to be this time around, I started thinking what I went through to get pregnant for the first time, all of the emotions I felt, and my anxiety started to kick in. What if I can't get pregnant again? Would I do another IVF after already having 3 kids? Will I be able to handle all of that?
I understand some of you reading this might be thinking, how can she be so crazy? She already has 3 kids! But secondary infertility, third one for me, is veryemotional and depressing. Just the fact of you wanting another child and not having the opportunity to have it is devastating.
We tried one month and nothing happened, of course when I got my period that month I got a little sad and scared, but I was able to control my feelings by telling myself that it was only the first try.
A month later, as I was taking the kids to school, I realized that my period hadn't come and got very excited, but immediately told myself not to get my hopes up because I wasn't sure if I was pregnant or not. I ran home, where I had an old pregnancy test, and called a friend to chat a bit while waiting, she had no idea I was waiting to get the results of the pregnancy test, and in the middle of the conversation I saw that the stick had a YES on it, so I told her I was going to call her later, hung up the phone and started screaming of joy!
The announcement to my husband
I put the pregnancy stick inside a pen box, and wrote inside the box “Are you ready for #4”. I got in the car and drove to my husband’s office.
On my way over I started thinking, what if this is a false positive, what if I have another miscarriage, should I get excited if I don’t know what is going to happen. I wanted to be excited but I started feeling so scared!!! At that moment I realized that I had no control on the outcome of that pregnancy but I surely wanted to embrace what was growing inside of me by getting very excited and telling my husband the amazing news.
I got to his office and gave him the “pen”, he opened it up all excited thinking it was a present and looked at me in awe and said, “OMG, so fast???” and hugged me. I understood at that moment that he also had thought about the possibility of having trouble getting pregnant again, and that he may have been scared too.
The first few doctors appointments
Since I have had two miscarriages in the past, my doctor wanted me to go see him ASAP. A few days later I went to his office and did an ultrasound, we could not see anything, not a sack, nothing. Of course I started worrying even though the doctor told me that it was normal because it was way too early. But the negative side of me took over and the anxiety got huge. They did a blood test and the next morning confirmed that in fact I was pregnant. My HCG level was 834, he instructed me to start taking baby aspirin, because I have a blood clouting issue that could have been the reason of my past miscarriages.
As the days passed I was so scared, I could not think about anything other than if this baby was going to be ok or not? Maybe it was an ectopic pregnancy or something else was going to go wrong. I went in for a second ultrasound, filled with nerves and anxiety, and as the doctor was starting to get ready to perform the ultrasound I couldn’t stop praying that everything would be ok. As I turned around to see the screen there it was a little sac right in the uterus, exactly were it should be, a new baby growing inside of me. I was so relieved. There was no heartbeat yet but at least I saw that the baby was growing were it should be.
Weeks 6 to 12
At week 6 I was starting to feel very tired, I started to feel that my friends were suspecting something because my face looked tired all the time, but I was not ready to tell anyone since I was still very scared.
By this time everything I felt or saw made me think it could be a bad sign. At week 7 I went to the doctor's office and saw the little heart flicking, it was such a relieve, I was so happy.
Week 8 and 9 all the signs really started to get intense, nausea, weakness, heightened sense of smell, some days I could not get up from my bed. I didn't remember feeling this way in my previous pregnancies. But all this bad feelings gave me such relive that things were going normal, that my body was reacting to a normal pregnancy and that made me feel awesome.
From weeks 9 to 11 my pregnancy signs were big, and my fears did not go away, even though I felt everything was going well, I couldn't help feeling so nervous.
So I went online and bought a baby heart rate monitor. I had one with the twins and Jack but had lended it to a friend and didn't want to ask for it back to avoid giving hints. This monitor really gave me so much relieve since I could hear the baby’s heartbeat anytime. I know that for some people it’s hard to hear it so early on, but after a lot of practice I've gotten good at it.
At 11 weeks I went for my first perinatal visit. This is my favorite part, since they really take the time to measure the baby and give you al the details. Everything was amazing thank G-D. We also had the Integrated Screening for Chromosomal Abnormalities, which can evaluate the chances of your baby developing down syndrome. Since it's done by a blood test and an ultrasound, the results take from 1 to 2 weeks, and you can also find out the sex of the baby.
So, at week 12….More to come in a next post!
