The Duchess

Welcome

Born on Wednesday March 3rd at 9:01am weighing 6.14 lbs and 18.75 inches long:

Claire Elizabeth

welcomed with love

 

*birth story to come as soon as I am not nursing around the clock and chasing Sasha - so you know sometime in the next five years *

 

39 weeks and the last night as a family of three

Tomorrow morning is the big morning, I can't believe this is already over and the next chapter is starting. I am scheduled for a repeat c-section. While my posting has been spotty I have so much to say but for now I say see you on the flip side.

Free...kind of.

Quick update from yesterday...

BP was down slightly

135/83

172/68

130/75

My urine was out of whack...usually I would have grilled Doc Bowtie for the exact information I know it was 30- so that told me no protein but he did mention I am swollen...DUH. So no Idea what the 30 is if you know please enlighten me I was just so relieved to hear I could roam free (but no more work) and that I could go two weeks (unless BP goes way up or I hit that wall we don't talk about) that I didn't pay attention to the rest of the stuff. Except that glorious heartbeat, that I could listen to for hours.

Bedtime

Wow, my third post this week, somebody give me a medal! This is just a quick update...from my bed.

On Thursday I was feeling very - off. My head hurt and I was feeling gross and nauseated and my eye floaters seemed worse. I have had these black eye floaters for awhile and my doctor has been more than aware of them (I also had them when I was pregnant with S.) but since everything else has been mostly in check there has been little cause for concern. I chalked feeling like crap up to the fact that I'm not sleeping well and let's face it nothing feels great at almost 34 weeks pregnant.

After spending some time on Skype with my sister and chatting with two of the most hilarious people ever, I was preparing to hit the hay when I was hit with the worst pain ever under my ribs (right side) I called my sister, NP extraordinaire (3am her time - oops) and asked her what I should do, first things first she wanted to know my BP, which has been hovering around 115-120 over 60-70, so I dusted off machine and replaced the batteries (I had checked it on Monday and somehow left the thing on) and waited the 90 or so seconds for the readout.

140-95

Uh-Oh. I called Doc Bowtie the next morning and spent most of yesterday afternoon early evening being evaluated. I had another u/s to rule out gallbladder issues and my BP checked repeatedly and PIH blood-work and then he told me modified bed rest, heavy on the actual bed part for the weekend and I will be re-evaluated on Tuesday. That being said if I hit a wall between now and then I am to go straight to L&D.

I had PIH with Sasha although it didn't hit until closer to 37 weeks, I want to hit 37 weeks with this baby so I am in bed today, staring at the ceiling bored with TV finding it unfair that shape magazine had the audacity to send my subscription to me, don't they know that the only shape I am in is round these days?

Anyhow, that is all from these parts for now, perhaps my boredom will get the best of me and I will add a spiffy photo update later.

I thought I needed distance

I had thought I would take a week and let a little of the fear subside that was at 27 weeks and tomorrow I will be 33w. Every time I try and sit down to write this I think to myself what is the point, the outcome was good, why dwell? Oh and how I do dwell in the dark hours when my stomach is silent and feels almost vacant.

I went to work as normal on week 27 day 3 and felt just awful, but then again what else is new when I am pregnant, the difference being that my legs were round swollen tree trunks and my head was stuck in a vice. I could hardly concentrate on anything going on because my head hurt so badly but I remember thinking when was the last time this baby moved? After I dragged my ass home and to bed nothing improved and by morning I realized it had been almost 12 hours since she had kicked, rolled, danced...moved. I called the doctor (around 9 in the morning) knowing they would send me for an NST, I had the same problem with S. and to be honest I figured I would go in they would roll their eyes and I would be on my way in an 45 minutes an hour tops.

If your new here (thanks twitter) you may not know but I had NSTs for the last 10 weeks of my pregnancy first do to lack of fetal movement and then for possible PIH, this is good and bad; good in that I know almost every nurse in L&D, bad that I know when things are going downhill (or maybe that comes for being on the IF block) It started off as always with awesome nurse S. (a 20yr vet of L&D) coming in and getting the info and getting the monitor up and running and then she couldn't get the baby on the monitor.

It was silent in my stomach, sure a bowel tone here and maybe one there but it just sounded vacant, she tried for almost 10 minutes straight moving me this way that way, at this point I was calm, babies hide, 27 weekers are not always predictable on monitors I was running every story, fact, tale over and over in my head. After 12 minutes (yes I was keeping track what the hell else should I have done) she said she was going to call for ultrasound and I saw it. It was brief and just a flicker but it was pure fear on her face and then it was gone. Enter awesome nurse D. (30yr vet of L&D) and the doppler, I immediately relaxed, doppler would find the heartbeat faster than ultrasound could get off their ass and roll down the hall. D. and I were chatting as she got the goop out to put on my stomach, she had been my nurse the day I was put on modified rest during my last pregnancy so we had spent some time together, we chatted about the holidays and she fired up the dop (as I like to call it) and nothing.

Nothing.

S. came back in to say U/S was on their way and then they exchanged a look I will never forget and S. stopped mid-sentence and left the room. D. tried for 11 minutes with the doppler. 660 seconds and by second 480 when she asked if there was someone she could call to be with me I lost my shit.

It was doing the silent ugly cry where you are trying to hold it in and your whole body turns red and according to D. if I didn't start breathing I was going to be in trouble, my own heart rate was in the 180's as though if I could just make mine beat harder hers would be found.

The next thing I knew my doctor (Doc Bowtie) was in the room and seconds later the u/s machine showed up, I was trying to calm down telling myself there was nothing I could do falling apart at this moment wasn't going to change the outcome. There was nothing I could do, I must have repeated that a hundred times over in my head.

DocBowtie found her but could not locate the heartbeat, she was turned all weird D. and S. were holding hands, it was another seven or so minutes before he was able to (thanks old u/s machine may you be taken outside and put down office space style) actually see the heartbeat and at one point he actually yelled at me to look the arm was moving, couldn't I see the arm moving, he was holding still did I see it now? then he turned to S. and said get me the high res. machine NOW.

It ended well, she is fine, I am fine, S. cried but I have no doubt that she too will be okay and D. asked if she could spank the baby when she is born. I spent the next eight hours being monitored, most of it with S. holding the monitor in place because this baby would just not cooperate with anyone. I had a bio-feedback done and it was perfect, I was evaluated by Doc No-Personality (mat.fetal spec.) and after all that I was sent home, changed but fine. I pray those are the longest 30 minutes I ever feel; I know there are no guarantees. I had been skeptical and at arms distance this whole pregnancy until that day. It was only then I understood that no matter how hard I tried to be logical about everything my heart was in deep.

I could want all the distance in the world but there is no space in parenting and that is more than fine with me. 

31 weeks

You have all been so patient I feel you deserve some pictures of my ever widening girth. These were taken on New Year's Eve and yes I dressed like a disco ball on purpose.

Happy New Year!

 
 

To clarify again:

I used the wrong terms in my last post, what I suffered from was really more of a postpartum anxiety than depression. I have had anxiety for many years and the characteristics I displayed after the birth of my first child fell more into that of anxiety. Postpartum anxiety is the lesser known cousin to PPD, I was so tired of trying to explain to my family and friends what was wrong with me (anxiety? huh? isn't it just depression women suffer from post birth? NO) that I just let them think it was mild PPD when really it was raging anxiety. I am sorry I was not clear about this in my first post or even in the update that followed. I have anxiety, not depression, I am not on medication, I did take medication when I was 18 after I was attacked for PTSD. I have a great team of doctors, friends and family who are here for me. I am not a doctor, please consult your physician.

Also please quit sending me mean email, this is exactly why I said nothing for over a year and why other women suffer in silence, if you want to disagree with me then fine but do so in the comments don't be a coward and hide behind email. I am not advocating or putting down medication I am simply telling the story of my life.

Silly Girl *Updated*

"This is the biggest thing you are going to do for awhile"

Famous last words spoken to me by my doctor at my six week post-partum appointment, I was sitting there crying telling him I must have made a huge mistake, I am so not cut out for this new "lifestyle" which by the way is crap at that point there was no life let alone one with style.

I wanted a baby so badly, more than I wanted anything it was a craving that ran so deep and it only increased with every passing negative cycle or loss. The more the universe seemed to resist the more I shoved right back demanding to have it my way. When I finally won and had my positive beta I thought to myself, ahhhh the hard part is over.

Silly girl.

I had a very long and rough pregnancy with S. filled with the highest of highs and lowest of lows I kept telling myself I just had to make it through one more week and then the next week I would tell myself one more, I could do it I had to do it because in my heart of hearts I knew all I had to do was cross the finish line, as soon as that placenta was out of me the pregnancy was over and I could relax, the hard part would be over.

Silly girl.

I hadn't worried to much about post-partum depression, which seems downright foolish to me given the fact that I have like six of the five (yes you are reading that correctly, I believe that neurotic should be on the list as well) warning signs. My second night in the hospital was so bad I had to be mildly sedated; I was beside myself with panic and fear. Every time my eyes would shut I would have these horrific dreams that they took my baby and my husband had left and I was all alone in the same place where I had been alone one year and fifty weeks earlier. I called my mother hysterical beginning her to come telling her I hated her for not being there, how could she choose C. over me (a side note: my sister was undergoing experimental chemo at the time my mother had used the last of her vacation to be with her during her treatment, something I had told everyone I was fine with because I had really thought I would be fine with it, also we discovered that I cannot take the drug perc*et as it cause these horrible nightmare hallucinations) she promised me she would get in the car first thing in the morning and drive here, she would be here. Even as she said it I knew it was a lie to calm me down I knew she wouldn't be able to be there but I didn't care it was what I needed to hear and so it was said.

I cried everyday for the first two weeks, I was moody and irrational and I wanted to send back this beautiful baby, this baby I would have sold my soul to have, I wanted my old life back. I told my doctor these things and before I had finished he stopped me and said it wasn't my fault this is chemistry not the baby or Duke or myself that I really had no control over it. He wrote me a scrip and told me that I would have to stay on the drugs until spring. I was relieved anything to stop this feeling I was having, anything so that I could look at my daughter and not feel guilt and remorse. I took the first pill and figured that was that it was up to the pills and my brain to sort out this battle and all I could do was sit back and wait. Apparently I am one of the lucky people in this world who become manic on a certain set of anti-depressants, these pills made me so high so fast it was frightening - for everyone. I immediately quit taking them (under the advice of my doctor) the other drug option for me would have impacted my ability to breastfeed (which is a whole other post/topic/beast) so I chose to wait another two weeks until my post-op appointment. I was very closely monitored during this time between Duke and my doctor and my family. By six weeks I still felt on edge all the time but I had begun to at least miss S. when I was away from her, I felt less resentment at my life being so obliterated; don't get me wrong I was still overwhelmed and distracted and quiet crazy but I at least felt like I was going to make it somehow. This went on for the next five months and it wasn't really until I quit nursing (another story another time) that I felt a tiny part of myself even out and come back to life. It wasn't until nine months after giving birth that I started to feel true joy at the tiny moments, I appreciated them but the joy wasn't there. I have embraced all of these moments but now I do so with such overwhelming joy and gratitude that I find I have tears for a different reason.

I was quiet for so many months on this blog space, how do you say that the one thing you wanted more than anything you wanted to send back. This wasn't a sweater this was a human, my tiny beautiful daughter that I would do anything for; then and now. I was embarrassed and could never find the right words, even now they don't feel adequate to fully described how it was. I am choosing now to write about this because having S. was supposed to be the biggest thing I would do for a long while and as we all know this isn't the case, I am doing another big thing in 14 weeks and I am scared this time.

I have hope that it will be different, not as scary as the first time, but I have real and true fear that it will be the same only worse because I will now have S and this new baby. The difference is that I won't be quiet about it this time; I won't sweep it under the rug and pretend all is well. I will take the time to heal and if nothing else I will lean on you, my Internet family, because whether you have crossed the bridge from infertile hell or you are still stuck on the island we all know what that fear feels like and we all know it becomes a little less when we have each other.

Goodbye Silly Girl.

*Updated*

I just want to clarify that I did not/am not taking drugs for the post partum troubles I suffered, this in no way shape or form to imply that pharmaceuticals are not helpful to some people, they were not an option for me in my case. I repeat drugs rock but only if they help you and in my case there was more harm then good. As always I am not a doctor I just play one for my family on google please consult your physician before making any decision about your health or medications you may be on. I am not advocating in any way that people should just "tough it out" when it comes to PPD or even the baby blues as stated on my about page this is my story and mine alone, I'm selfish that way.

 

We are having a........19w2d Updated!

GIRL!!!!!

Everything looks perfect, perfect heart, perfect pinky, perfect nose. We are thrilled to bits to add a little more noise and whole lot of sunshine to our home come March. 

A Sea of Green

All is alive and well here.

I am 14w 3d and still am puking my brains out. I am on 8mg of Z*fran every six hours around the clock and I am having moments of over the moon excitement not only about the baby but about the fact that I will never have to be pregnant again. Julia wrote a very nice post about me a few weeks ago in which she talked about how stories like mine in general make people like me want to tear my hair out, if I had a dollar for every time I was told to relax, just adopt or relax some more I would be zany rich. Hell if I had a dollar for every person who has said, "See you just needed to relax this time" I could buy ammunition to take them out.

Your comments and emails have buoyed me over the last month and a half. You have made this easier to deal with and you have put my fears at ease. This pregnancy is very different from my one with S. less complications better overall placement and size, HR in the 160's, great results from the quad screen, less weight loss (which is a miracle considering I am still tossing my cookies 3-4 times a day- on the Z*fran).

I find this so surreal still, there is a small person the size of my fist growing and changing inside me everyday, a small person who has already defied every odd every doctor I have ever seen has set, a small person who is going to come careening into our lives and enrich them beyond our wildest dreams.

At 14 weeks things are sailing along, sure I am still seasick but my legs finally seem to be back under me.