(This may be a little too much information for some [or all] of you but feel it’s important for the permanent record since I would have written about this in a baby book so I might as well write about it here. )
Last Friday was 11 weeks. I had a test on Thursday to check chromosomal things – so now we start another two-week-wait for those results. The doctor who did the procedure was the same one who delivered Mallory and I love him to death (Dr VDV). He is also the same doctor who sprung my triplet-bearing friend Jennifer from her hospital bedrest (and she thanked him with some Sam Adams!). So before he did the procedure on Thursday, I made sure he didn’t indulge in any of Jen’s gift the night before. He giggled & laughed and said “oh, that has been long gone…last night was whiskey!”. We were all cracking up. But then I made sure we all calmed down before he got to work. Arlo looked GREAT both before & after the test and the doctor let me come get a hearttone check on Arlo on Friday just to make sure all was well 24-hours after the test.
I think at this point I’ll start at the beginning of this quest for Arlo.
Rick & I originally started trying back in December 2007 – and found out New Years Day that we had success the first month again but the pregnancy didn’t stick (technically called a “chemical pregnancy”). The doctor I’d seen while pregnant with Mallory (Dr B) had taken a leave to do a fellowship so I didn’t have a doctor to call to ask what to do. I was able to ask a friend who worked in Dr B’s office to work some magic to get me in to see one of the other doctor’s in Dr B’s practice and they set me up with a consultation with nurse but that got changed to an appointment with the fellows a month later in May 2008. They wouldn’t promise me that I’d get to see Dr B so I didn’t get my hopes up. By the time this appointment came around, I’d suffered my second chemical pregnancy and was very sad and wondering what in the hell was going on. We had such quick success with Mallory – why weren’t we able to get and STAY pregnant this time?
On the way to my appointment with the Fellows, I ran into Mallory’s pediatrician outside the hospital. We LOVE her pediatrician so I quickly wondered if maybe this a good sign that I will be to see my other favorite doctor next…
In the exam room, the nurse took my blood pressure and quick history and as she left, she said “Dr B will be right in”. I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly but a few minutes later, in walked Dr B. I started to cry and she immediately gave me a huge hug.
I guess I have to back up some more. When I got pregnant with Mallory, we were referred to Dr B by some friends of mine who were able to get me in with her even though she was only supposed to see high-risk patients. At our first appointment I realized that she was the most awesomest doctor ever. She had been an athlete at Michigan so she “got” Michigan athletics and was sensitive to my concerns about being due during football season. Even though at only 12 weeks along there was no way she could promise me that I wouldn’t deliver on a football Saturday, she said the exact right things that made me not worry about it. She also told me that I could have the occasional glass of wine (to which I responded “so I can have O’Doul’s?” and she said back “shoot – have the real thing, it tastes better!”). I never did indulge in real beer during the pregnancy but her laid back attitude was just what I needed to help this notorious over-worrier be as un-stressed out as possible. Every pregnant woman knows the ginormous long list of things you can’t eat and my doctor told me everything was OK in moderation. Dr B is awesome.
Anyway, back to May 20, 2008 when Dr B showed up in the exam room. She reviewed my chart and told me she didn’t think there was anything wrong but because of my age she thought it would be worthwhile to do some easy tests to rule out more serious issues. She said if we didn’t figure it out quickly, I would be 39 at delivery and if it took even longer, I would be 39 and trying to get pregnant – both of which would decrease my chances of getting pregnant and having a safe pregnancy & delivery. Dr B was not interested in just telling us to try for another six months (which was my greatest fear, since we’d really only been “trying” this time for 5-6 months). So she referred us to a reproductive endocrinologist (RE) in Brighton that she highly recommended and we were off.
So that month was full of blood tests and an ultrasound. All of my levels came back normal and my uterus and tubes were perfectly clear. Since we were not having problems GETTING pregnant, these results were exactly as the RE expected.
Her recommendation was to try three months of Femara and progesterone. Femara is generally used to induce ovulation in women who don’t ovulate (and it’s main use is actually as a breast cancer drug). But since I was ovulating and doing that on a very regular basis, the Femara would increase my chances of pregnancy through “superovulation” – the goal of which is to stimulate the development of 2-3 follicles. So we did the Femara and then started progesterone three days after I ovulated. Rick & I were nervous about the possibility of multiples (a risk you take with any fertility drug) and I was weirded out with the “try this for three months and call us if you get a positive pregnancy test or after three months of no success”. After all the tests everyone was so anxious to run I thought they would do a little more monitoring.
I also have to mention the great pharmacist we use. When I walked up to the window to pick up my prescription (she wasn’t there when I dropped it off the day before), she dropped this HUGE bag on the counter and said “do we have big things in store for you!” since I was getting a large brown paper grocery bag full of progesterone supplements. It was so funny!!
Anyway – who knows if it was the Femara or the progesterone or the fact that my body finally wanted to follow through but we ended up getting pregnant on our seventh cycle. I got a positive pregnancy test on a Monday – only 10 days past ovulation (which is SUPER early) so I immediately freaked out that it was twins. I called the REs office right away and they told me to go get a blood test and that we’d repeat it at least two more times and that then if the numbers were good enough, they’d just see me for a 6-week ultrasound.
That Friday, the third (and supposed to be final) set of numbers came back great and I was supposed to be all done with the blood tests. I’d been still peeing on sticks all week to make sure they were getting darker, since that was the problem the other two times…the tests would get lighter & lighter and then my monthly visitor would show a few days late. SO I asked the nurse when I could stop peeing on sticks and she said to stop right then and that the doctor said I could get another blood test on Monday. When the nurse called Monday with my result, they said it was great again but that I could get ONE LAST test on Wednesday. When they called with THOSE results, they offered one last test for Friday and that would be the final one. I would be five weeks then and would have my ultrasound the following Friday. Those Friday numbers were great again but I still didn’t feel we were in the clear. My previous “losses” had occurred between four & five weeks so this was a super-nervous time for us.
At my 6-week ultrasound the next Friday, the doctor was able to tell that I had in fact ovulated from both sides – meaning that we had a chance at twins but luckily there was just one heartbeat. One very STRONG heartbeat. Mallory was with us for the ultrasound and we asked her if she could see the baby and she kept looking around the room trying to figure out what in the world we were talking about.
The doctor scheduled us for an 8-week ultrasound and at that appointment it was CRAZY to see little Arlo with moving limbs and another super-strong heartbeat.
I think that brings us up to where I started really blogging here so I’ll stop now!