Mamalicious in the City

E was sick last week.  At four am, he woke me up and needed more medicine and water.  I started to think about what I would do if anything ever happened to him.  I would just lie down and die.  That would be it. 

I mean, part of me feels like, my God, how amazing is it that there are any healthy children in this world.    How does that happen?

Last week I had my follow up doctor’s appointment.  It went well actually.  Trisomy 18 is very rare, and while there is a type that can be passed genetically, that’s even more rare.  I believe they are testing the fetal tissue to confirm that it is not that type.  Anyway, he felt strongly that lightening doesn’t strike twice and that we should just try dinner and a movie.  Weird, ’cause I thought sex had to be involved.  Ba dum dum! 

The doctor told me to make a preconception appointment with my regular OB  in a few months.  For some reason I bristled at the suggestion of a pre-conception appointment.  I was in the happy go lucky pregnancy club!  That was me!  That was us!  But I got kicked out.  Now I’m someone who talks about trying with what seems like the whole world.  Well, I’m 35.  Life carries on.  What can you do?  That’s the least of our worries, of course.  We just want everything to go well next time. 

In the meantime, weirdly, I’m nesting.  This morning I made apple pancakes.  Last week I made apple cider slow-cooked pork shoulder with carmelized onions, and apple bread pudding (yes, we do have a lot of apples).  I’m going to make banana cupcakes with E later today. 

It’s snowing outside.  Cleaning, cooking, rinse and repeat.

I’m doing ok. I just feel very emotional and fragile, which is normal, but weird for me since it’s been so long that I felt like this.  I’m hormonal, and the loss feels like a blow that has turned everything upside down.  I assume I will feel more like myself in time.

On the other hand, after an experience like this, I do think it’s normal to think about what’s really important in life.  Based on my admittedly limited sample, I don’t have easy pregnancies. There is a huge hormonal impact to me from pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, etc. Not that I need or want to lie in bed for 9 months. I think I just need to make a few adjustments next time around, and hopefully there will be a next time around.

I guess the conventional wisdom is that there is no need to do genetic testing, unless it happens again. That seems ass-backwards to me. Why not do a blood test first to rule anything out? 

And what if we get pregnant, do a cvs at 10 weeks and it’s normal, and then something totally unrelated goes wrong?  I realize that these outcomes are rare, but it’s easy to feel cursed once you’ve already had something go wrong. 

I keep thinking about our conversation with the genetic counselor. You’re beautiful people! You’re going to have beautiful babies!  I’m not sure what I find more strange.  The suggested connection between good looks and a healthy baby or the fact that she called us beautiful.  Don’t get me wrong.  We’re not exactly hideous.  But I feel like either she should get out more, or perhaps my suspicion that there are less hot people in DC than in other major metropolitan areas may be correct.  That’s fine.  For you, DC, I will accept my role as part of the beautiful people.  But I should probably wash my hair more often. 

In her defense, a fucking fire alarm was blaring in her ear at that moment. Yes, a fire alarm went off when we got our diagnosis, so we couldn’t even have a full discussion with her. See? More bad luck!

Maybe I should believe in yin and yang, although all of what I know about yin and yang comes from a Seinfeld episode. A friend of mine said yesterday that I’d had two crappy pregnancies so I was due a really easy one. Maybe it will work that way. Wouldn’t that be nice?

I just don’t know what to think at this point.  I want to believe that everything will be fine, but it feels like that would be tempting fate.  Not that I believe in fate, but I don’t know what to believe in when the doctors tell you you’ve had a case of bad luck. 

So this would be a great time for the universe to fill me in on its meaning.  I’m listening.  I’m ready.  I’ll take that information anytime now.

It’s slightly bizarre to blog about my pregnancy loss in this schizophrenic blog, but I suppose this is as good a place as any.  At about 16 weeks, my quad screen came back with an elevated risk for Trisomy 18.  I won’t explain what Trisomy 18 is here, except to say that there is a very short life expectancy for a baby with Trisomy 18.  We hoped the ultrasound would tell us that the screening teset was nothing.  But it was something.  So we left the hospital last Friday, no longer pregnant. 

This pregnancy started out so promising.  I felt good.  I thought it would be easy this time.  But I soon felt tired, sick and generally crappy.  I’m clearly terrible at being pregnant.  Was this my body warning me that something was wrong?  Wouldn’t that be a somewhat comforting answer.  But there is no evidence that’s the case.  It’s just as likely that I’m terrible at pregnancy, regardless of the outcome. 

I am afraid to do this again.  To feel sick.  To risk a repeat of what we just went through.  To not feel well enough to play with my child.  To develop pre-eclampsia.  For things to go wrong in some new way I haven’t even imagined.