THE PREGNANCY

After trying what seemed like forever to get pregnant after losing our son in April of 96 (a web page in memory of George to come soon..) we were finally pregnant in October of 97. It took two rounds of clomid to conceive because I was not ovulating. I strongly believe you can stress yourself out into not ovulating... the month I got pregnant, was the first month in a long time that getting pregnant was not my obsession...

Anyhow, because I was so early when I did the test, the dr decided to check my HCG. They told us it was dropping and to expect to miscarry. It was upsetting, but we felt we could deal with it -- Al said it best -- AT LEAST WE GOT PREGNANT. Before scheduling a D&C, the dr wanted to test the HCG one more time to be sure what was going on... Well, this time it jumped up to 16,000. They didn't know what was going on and called me in for an ultrasound. At a 16,000 level, the dr explained we should see a heartbeat. All we saw was the yolk sak. We tested the HCG again and waited and waited for another ultrasound a week later. Well, the HCG doubled again in two days. They didn't know what was going on AGAIN. At the 7 week ultrasound, we saw her heartbeat The NP and doctor seemed as happy as we were. It was the most beautiful thing I think I ever saw. The dr. said the only thing she could guess was that I conceived twice and one didn't implant properly and Amanda did. I think she's right, my temp jumped a 2nd time late in that cycle. I think that makes it even more amazing that Amanda was so big and healthy at 33 weeks.

The evening after we saw her heartbeat, I was driving home from work. I can't explain it, but all of a sudden, I felt so connected to this baby, I really felt I was carrying a girl. I didn't just suspect it, I FELT it. Does that make sense?

We made it through that first hurdle and enjoyed Thanksgiving. We knew that because of my incompetent cervix, that shortly after Christmas, I would have to have a cerclage put in. I think it was Jan 12th that I had it done. Aside from nerves about everything going wrong, it went fairly well. (Let me tell you, I can understand why people get hooked on morphine....I didn't even know the dr had started and she was done :-) ) I spent 4 days on full and then partial bed rest. I don't know how people do it for months and months. It was awful.

Throughout the pregnancy, I was convinced every little ache and pain was a contraction (I hadn't felt them before, why would I feel them now?) I spent a lot of time at the drs office. I think they got sick of me, but I don't think they treated me as a high-risk pregnancy. It may have been routine to them, but not to me. About 90% of the time, a cerclage works to get a baby to full term, but not always, and I'm a good example.

Somewhere around my 19th week, I started having really bad gallbladder-like pains. Of course, I don't have a gallbladder, so it couldn't be that. I was tested for everything, and nothing came back positive. I'm sure the dr and NP just rolled their eyes, but it was very really and painful... I had the same pain in my first pregnancy from about 17 weeks until George was born at 21 weeks. I was sure that that pain had something to do with me losing him... It felt good knowing the pain didn't have anything to do with me losing George, but I wanted them to put a name to it, so everyone would know how real it was. Around 29 weeks, the every day pain subsided gradually. We both finally relaxed and started to enjoy planning for the baby.