13 Weeks in Inside My Head

Had my second ultrasound three days ago. The tech seemed bored and disinterested which is a bummer since this is sorta kinda a big deal for me. She forgot to take pictures so rushed quickly to give us two blurry shots that resembled a tumor rather than a clear-cut baby that we saw on the ultrasound. So that’s disappointing.

Sam threw a tantrum so Mike had to leave with him. After I was left alone in the exam room the doctor walks in and asks, “Did you get your labs done?” Cue confused look. She repeated her question. Confused look continues. She tells me that at my last appointment they supposedly gave me a prescription for lab work. I blamed it on pregnancy brain, but when I talked with Mike later we both agreed that no one gave us a prescription or told us about blood work at the last appointment. (Thanks crappy midwife who btw during my last pregnancy prescribed me a pregnancy category C medication. Asshat). The only thing that we were given was a prescription for was an ultrasound. I had to do at an outpatient radiology office instead of the OBGYN’s office because they could not give me an appointment with a reasonable time slot. It’s not like they’ve never heard of working mothers....

The office visit was essentially a waste. The doctor did tell me that the baby is measuring normally and that the nuchal measurements looked great. So maybe not a total waste. I have to wait 2 weeks for the triple screen to come back. Slightly nerve-wracking. Because I have slight anxiety issues I was on Google (always a trusted medical source) and tried to research the chance of having a baby with a trisomy with a normal nuchal scan.

I don’t know why I do this to myself…I think it’s because I experimented with medications and ended up pregnant. Now I feel that because I tried to play God the powers above will somehow do something to hurt this pregnancy. I have endometriosis. For months I have tried to conceive using ovulation predictor kits and nada. I read that some women with endometriosis have an immune dysfunction that causes the body to attack the developing embryo or making the pelvic environment so hostile that sperm can’t survive. Part of my future IVF protocol included steroids (which suppress the immune system). I took it upon myself as a last ditch desperate effort to prescribe myself a short course of high dose steroids during my fertile window. I did nothing else different than prior cycles. Voila I fell pregnant. Clearly this was not exactly ethical or entirely safe, but again I was desperate. And now I’m terrified that something is going to happen to this baby. This is what infertility does to you; it makes you crazy(er).

The original beta levels rose beautifully and on both ultrasounds the baby seemed fine bouncing around. I read some other pregnant PB’ers entries and one of my favorites listed miscarriage statistics week by week. It’s encouraging, and one of the things I hold onto when anxiety takes ahold of my heart.

I would love to have more children, but I don’t know if I can take the stress.

Also, I absolutely hate my job. I’m lobbying Michael to let me go per diem after the baby is born so we don’t have two kids in full-time daycare. That’ll run about 26k which is rigodamndiculous. So we’ll see.

Last updated August 12, 2016