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The Path to Baby #4: Pt. 5

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Thursday, June 2, 2011

The Path to Baby #4: Pt. 5

Anything that could go wrong with that cycle, did. Tommy was in the same hospital that the IVF doctor was out of so when someone came to visit him, I could jump over to the office building and see my doctor. I got the go ahead to start taking the meds. After one of the blood tests and ultrasounds, the nurse forgot to leave my instructions of what I was supposed to do with my meds (continue the same dose or increase it) so on the way to the Tim McGraw concert, I had to have the nurse paged and then shoot myself up in the stall at the concert. Nico was on a tournament team so I had to sneak taking my meds when we went to a tournament out of state. It wasn't public knowledge what we were doing and I knew some wouldn't understand. In their defense, it did seem a little crazy to be starting all over again but I welcomed it. I couldn't wait! I didn't care if I was the "old one" with a baby. When you do IVF, two days before the egg retrieval, you have to do a "trigger" shot and it has to be at an exact time. Wouldn't it figure that Nico had a game and Leo wasn't going to be there and at that time, I couldn't stand to miss any of his games or at least have one of us there cheering for him (times have totally changed, by the way) so I had to shoot myself in the stomach in a "porta-potty". So gross. It was hard enough but I was gagging the whole time. Being at the game with friends made it very hard to not say anything and I figured, maybe if I tell a few of them, they would pray that it would work. We went through the same drill of waiting and this time when I got the call to go in for the transfer, I couldn't get in touch with Leo. I dropped off the kids at one of the friends I had confided in and the running joke was that if I got pregnant, I could say I did and he wasn't even in the room. When I got there, I learned that 3 of the 5 embryos had CF. I had little time to be upset about that because it meant that I could implant 2!

I was happy that I ended up telling my friends what was going on because when I was on the 3 day bedrest that my doctor required, they had a little party for me in my room. I knew there was a chance that it wasn't going to end well and that I wouldn't be pregnant but after breaking my nose with the twins, all of the mishaps with that cycle made me think that maybe...just maybe, it would happen the same way. Ten days later, I found out it did! I was pregnant! I was over the moon happy. So relieved that it worked again. So relieved that this baby wouldn't have CF, that we took the guess work out of it. We beat infertility and CF. We were going to have a baby! God was blessing us with a wonderful, beautiful gift of a baby to fill our hearts that were so heavy with sadness for so long. I couldn't wait. I remember that after we told the twins, Tommy couldn't contain himself. He told the mailman, every lady or man at the cash register at Target, Dominick's or Jewel and a few strangers at the pool that his "mom had a baby in her belly." I explained to him that we were not telling anyone yet and he needed to ask first before he told someone. We were at a football practice sitting on the sidelines with some neighbors that we were friends with and very loudly he asked, "Can I tell them about the baby in your belly?" My point is that I don't remember how we told people. I just remember that suddenly everyone knew.

I had to go to genetic counseling before my level 2 ultrasound. I HATE genetic counseling and if I never have to go again, I'd be okay with it. If you have never been, you have to answer a lot of questions and from there, they determine what tests you should have. After I was done answering the very perky genetic counselor's questions, she looked at me with wide eyes and said, "Your history is fascinating!" To be fascinating in some way is great. I'd love my writing to be fascinating. I'd love my parenting to be fascinating. What I do not enjoy is that my genetic make-up is fascinating. I felt like a freak with screwed up genes (which I have already mentioned took years of therapy to get past) and having that woman sit and gawk at me was setting me back some. Of course with that history, there were a lot of tests they wanted done. I put my foot down when they "highly recommended" an amniocentesis. I had a history of low fluid when I was pregnant with Nico and Tommy and didn't want to take the chance. I wasn't going to do anything about it with the information they were going to give me and I was still in the camp of "ignorance is bliss."

All of the tests for Down Syndrome came out normal so when we went for the level 2 ultrasound, I naively thought I'd only find out the sex of the baby and was so excited to get to see my baby for longer than 30 seconds. The ultrasound went okay. It is always uncomfortable to be flat on your back with a full bladder while the tech tries to get your baby to cooperate. I remember thinking, "Ouch" as she pushed harder and harder and I even asked her if that was hurting the baby because she was hurting me. I was watching my baby squirm and kick and I couldn't feel a thing. I asked why I couldn't feel any of that. I had felt the baby move and kick but not to the extent that it was moving on that screen. She said I had an anterior placenta so there was essentially a wall between the baby and feeling it. Once the baby got bigger, I'd feel it more. Then she announced that we were having a boy! I admit, one of the thoughts that ran through my brain was, "Oh, no! If this one was like his brothers, more travel sports!" Leo and I were happily discussing this new information when the doctor went into the room and said there was a shadow that she didn't like and did all of my Down Syndrome testing come out normal? I said yes, starting to panic. Well, he doesn't have any other markers but this shadow is a soft marker for Downs or Cystic Fibrosis. WHAT??? We did all the testing and it all came out normal. Were they wrong when they did the tests? Were they wrong now? What? What? What? She said not to worry, too late, and go back in two weeks. We walked out and immediately, Leo said, "Don't get upset. It is probably nothing." Too late.

2 Comments:

At May 16, 2012 at 9:47 AM , Blogger Kristen said...

Just checking in to say I've read about 20 posts so far. This part one part two stuff is killing me!!!!!

 
At May 16, 2012 at 10:45 AM , Blogger AnnMarie said...

See, now you are making my day! I know but can you imagine how long of a post it would be?

 

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