16 January 2019

In a post written on 19 January 2019 I wrote about my past year, my previous losses. I wrote about a friend telling me about her pregnancy, that conversation took place on 12 January 2019. At that time, I thought that that month, I wasn't pregnant, that it hadn't worked. Two days later, I was in a conditioning class, working the core muscles in my back, by lying face down and tensing, so I was balanced on my stomach. I had gained a wee pot belly over Christmas, but I had thought it was gone, and that day I was just thinking that it was supposed to be going, not growing!! I started to get other pregnancy symptoms over the next couple of days, and on the Wednesday, confirmed it!

16 January 2019, finding out about pregnancy number six: Two years, minus one day, since I had my very first 12 week scan. The scan that came back as low risk for Downs Syndrome, the scan that I waited for before announcing I was pregnant that first time.

23 January 2019, I woke up and got into the shower. I was halfway through washing my hair when I started to feel a little pain in my abdomen, pain that got very worse very very quickly, and left me doubled over with it. I called the husband, a couple of times, before I was able to say it loud enough for him to hear me. He helped me out, helped me dress, helped me dry my hair (very fecking badly I might add!!!) and when I called the early pregnancy unit they asked me to come in as quickly as possible. The temperature dropped from -5 to -7 in the half hour drive south to Perth. I had an abdominal scan which I thought it was too early to have, I was fully expecting (but not necessarily prepared for) one of those dildo scans that you see in American shows. Gross. However, unnecessary. They confirmed an intra-uterine pregnancy, identified the gestational sac, and said they were 99% sure they saw a yolk sac. (Human embryos feed off yolks, who knew??) Anyway, it wasn't ectopic. They did see a bleed off the gestational sac, which was explained as implantation bleeding. I had blood tests to test for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (hCG) and had to wait until lunchtime for the results of that. It was explained that I might be asked to go in on Friday again to have more blood taken. Lunchtime rolled around, I called, and was told the results were in, but they needed to speak to my consultant, and to expect a call back. I called back a couple of hours later, to be told that my hCG levels were over 8000, and I wouldn't need to go in on Friday, but was asked to return the following Wednesday for another scan. Some googling told me that my levels worked for either 5 or 6 weeks pregnant, and they should double every two days. So that wasn't going to be helpful to date my pregnancy, which would be harder straight after a miscarriage. I thought I was 5 weeks and 4 days at that stage, although what they saw in the scan wouldn't have put it quite as far as that, which did concern me. Then I had the added stress of being asked back for another scan.

30 January 2019, I missed a full day of classes at uni, a couple of lectures, and a 4 hour tutorial, because my scan was in the middle of the day, and I knew I couldn't drive the two hours up there for the end of that tutorial.

I didn't sleep well the night before.

We arrived in plenty of time, waited for a bit, and met the same friendly nurse that had scanned me the week before. She had told me her name the week before, and that we had met before, obviously with my first, ill-fated pregnancy. I've forgotten her name!

She put the gel on my stomach, put the wand on, and announced quite happily that she had found the gestational sac. My first response was "I can't see anything in it!" She told me that she hadn't checked all sides, and then said that she could see baby, with a heartbeat. She pointed it out, and as I took a breath in to say "Oh, I can see it!" it disappeared, because breathing makes the belly move too much... oops!

So apparently at that scan I was somewhere between 5 and 6 weeks, so a little earlier than I thought, but baby had grown a lot in a week. She explained that because it's a high risk pregnancy I would get weekly scans, for now. However because of my timetable, I'll have them Fridays, the next one was scheduled for 8 February 2019. Baby measured 2.2mm, and had a heartbeat, that's crazy that they can see that level of detail in something that tiny!

Excited and nervous. Scared and hopeful. Looking forward to getting through this danger period. I can have chorionic villus sampling, which does carry a small risk of miscarriage, at 10 weeks at the earliest. Which is why it's so important that they figure out how far along I am. Pregnancy is dated from your last period, until you have a 12 week scan, when they change it based on baby's measurements. This is based on most women ovulating about 2 weeks into their cycle. It can change after a miscarriage, be later, or earlier. So even though my last miscarriage was very early, it could still have impacted on that, and why I was showing as earlier than I had expected. Chorionic Villus Sampling takes a sample of the villi - part of the placenta, because the baby transfers some of it's blood to the placenta, and they would be able to identify an unbalanced baby. My first miscarriage was at 14+4 weeks, the results of CVS take about 2 weeks I think. I might take this baby further, I don't know. We need to decide what we want to do with testing.

I'm just going to go to my weekly scans and hope to see typical growth, and hope for the best. I have lots of hopes and dreams and wishes. Lets hope they continue with this pregnancy.