Progress

/ Isaac's Mom

Going through pregnancy I was always counting down the days until my next pregnancy related doctor’s appointment.  While I always got anxious that something would be wrong at the next appointment, this approach made time pass.  I think this is because it was a goal-oriented approach.  Instead of counting down to the ultimate goal (having a baby), I broke it into mini targets.  Sometimes I only had to make it a few days, but it was never more than 4 weeks at a time.  For some reason, making it to 4 weeks ten times was a lot more manageable than making it to forty weeks once.  Yes – they are both the same thing in the end, but time feels more manageable when broken down into smaller segments.

I didn’t make it to the ultimate goal in this case (that date will hit in about 12 days and I am intensely aware of it looming over me).  Now we find ourselves starting over.  We’re starting over with an unknown timeline.  We don’t know when we could be expecting to have another baby.  No one can promise a certain date at which we will be pregnant again.  We still miss Isaac and we are still coming to terms with our loss and our grief.  However, my husband and I agree that the thing that lets us keep going every day is that we are going to try again.  We have the diapers, the crib, and the cute little outfits along with every other trendy baby gadget.  We just don’t have our baby.  If we wait for our grief to end to start trying again, we will be waiting our entire lives.  Losing Isaac will hurt forever.

So, to pass the time faster, we are already starting the never-ending schedule of doctors’ appointments that will lead up to trying again.  We have a ton of information flowing in about our loss.  In terms of a future pregnancy (both getting pregnant and being pregnant), we have a ton of concerns to manage including Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, blood clotting genes, an autoimmune disease, and now Preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome.  Because we lost Isaac, we need a plan to manage all of this before we even begin trying to get pregnant.   This Thursday we are going to see our fertility specialist.  In a few weeks, when we have our final pathology report from Dartmouth, we’ll hopefully meet with a Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist.  Then we’ll find a high-risk OB to help come up with a treatment plan for a future pregnancy.  Once all of that happens, it will be almost time to try again.  I hope.

Truth be told, I am terrified.  I am scared that someone is going to tell me that we have to wait longer than we’re expecting (4 months or so).  I am scared we won’t get pregnant nearly as quickly as we did the first time (first round of treatment).  I am scared that we won’t get pregnant at all.  I am scared that something will go wrong again.  However, I know Isaac would have wanted a sibling – lots of siblings. We want him to have siblings.  Being scared or paralyzed by our grief isn’t going to make that a reality.

12 thoughts on “Progress”

  1. I felt like waiting to try again would have prolonged the pain of grief. A new pregnancy doesn’t take away the pain, but it does bring hope back into your life. I’m glad we were able to conceive again so quickly. Although at times through this pregnancy I wish that maybe we should have sought out more answers before doing so, but we had been given the all clear from the doctor.
    Do something fun on your due date that you would have wanted to experience with Isaac. My parents took us to Disney that weekend. It was a perfect distraction. It was bittersweet, but I’m thankful we have those memories to look back on now.

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    • Glad I’m not the only one who feels this way. We are expecting our final autopsy/pathology report within a few weeks now, but have been told that the preliminary findings (significant placental abruption due to hypertension) is very unlikely to change.

      We sort of have two concerning dates looming. September 3rd was our likely induction date because of the blood thinners I was on. September 10th was our due date. I’m torn about what to do on either date, because my grief therapist strongly recommended not going on a trip. She said I may be too upset to appreciate any trip.

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      • You have to do what feels right for you. For me, sitting at home thinking all day about what was ‘supposed to happen’ around May 21 would have been a horribly depressing day. I probably would have just moped around the house all day instead of caring to do any of my normal chores. It was weird to go on a trip that we weren’t ‘supposed to’ be able to go on, but I’m glad that we did and that we were able to enjoy it.
        I just found out Monday that I’ll have to be induced for this baby because of the Lovanox. I’m having a hard time accepting it, or even understanding how that decreases my risk of bleeding versus a spontaneous labor.

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      • Ah I can maybe help on the lovenox front – if you’re induced they will schedule you going off the lovenox which is in your system for 24 hours plus the one it takes for the build up in your system to clear (although I was going to be switching to heparin at 36 weeks which has a 12 hour effective period vs 24 and unlike lovenox it is reversible). You aren’t supposed to have the blood thinners in you when you deliver. If you needed a c section or had any bleeding during labor or delivery it could be dangerous. My perinatologist explained it as having a 5% chance of developing a clot spread from the moment you conceive to 6 weeks after delivery. The risk of developing a clot on any given day is very small and a safe bet vs delivery on blood thinners. Induction lets them control that.

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  2. I had all those same fears and defiantly try not to put any expectations on yourself during the TTC process. I think I beat myself up way to much during the months that passed and I didn’t fall pregnant. I do believe though that it happens when the timing is right. One thing that always helped me was to write in a journal every morning exactly what I pictured happening in my life as well as what I was grateful for. I look back at it a year later and it’s all happening. It’s hard to always think of what could go right instead of what could go wrong but it makes a world of difference. I agree with Rebekah about what to do on Issac’s due date. Do something that celebrates him! Sending you love ❤️

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    • Thanks, Crystal. I want to say I won’t place any expectations while TTC. I know logically that we’re unlikely to get pregnant first try again, but it’s definitely going to be hard not to. Even when we tried for Isaac I was hard on myself. My tests took longer than I expected to turn positive and so I was quite certain I wasn’t pregnant for a week. It made me so upset.

      Right now I’m focusing on eating well and getting myself back in great shape again. I think that probably helped the first time around.

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      • Good idea focus on eating well and getting in shape that’s exactly what I did! I think that gives you another outlet so you aren’t constantly thinking about TTC all the time and it gets you in the place you’ll want to be when the time comes! It’s all such a hard process that nobody ever prepares you for, but how could they? Just remember though you are doing the best you can, and that’s all any of us can ever do 🙂

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  3. I ran into this blog on my weekly search for new articles on HELLP. My daugther lost her baby at 24.5 weeks on May 7th. Her due date is quickly approaching, Sept. 7th. She also had HELLP, it came on quickly and she was rushed from her small town hospital to a major hospital due to the potential for blood transfusions. She went in to the Dr. after repeated calls about pain in her chest that week. They found her baby no longer had a heartbeat and induced her. The second saddest event I have experienced with her (she lost her dad suddenly in 2009). Autopsy results on the baby showed he was perfect, however there were clots in the placenta. She was tested and found she has autoimmune disorder APS and if pregnant will need to give herself shots every day of heparin. Her and her husband also want to get started on trying again very soon as she is also older at 35. They have met with a maternal fetal specialist and meeting with a great ob on September 12 for a preconception consult.
    We have read that she has a 75% change of having a succesful pregnancy with the help of the Heparin shots. Since you were on the heparin shots, do you know yet why you developed HELLP syndrome? Did the knot in the baby’s cord cause his passing? So many questions and I just pray she can successfully have a healthy baby, as I also wish for all mother’s who lose their baby. When I read you were on the shots already and lost your baby, it made me have a little more fear for her next pregnancy. And I do worry about getting through each day of that, if it happens. Thinking about you….you were further along but similar story with having a baby that was still. Her baby was only 15 ounces, tiny, but he looked so perfect. Thank you. Vicki

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    • Hi Vicki,

      I’m sorry for your family’s loss. I’m not a doctor, but I think there is still a lot of speculation about what causes Preeclampsia and HELLP Syndrome. I’ve heard doctors say that the current prevailing theory is that it has to do with how the placenta attaches to the uterus and an immune response. I was on a prophylactic dose of lovenox to protect Isaac and me from a clotting risk that we knew I had. I have two different genes and a family history that made me high risk of clotting, and so I was put on the blood thinners. I had been told that the dose of blood thinners I was on would have been one of the things the doctors would use to try to prevent someone from getting preeclampsia. I know there are other things they are studying, but I also have to hope that I don’t have it happen again in the first place (1 in 4 chance stinks but it isn’t a guarantee). If I get preeclampsia again, there are things they can do to help baby along before delivery. They’ve mentioned bed rest and other things as options to us. No one can promise me I won’t have preeclampsia or HELLP Syndrome again. Next time, though, we will have more information and watch out for warning signs. I didn’t know what was happening to me until it was too late, but had we caught it sooner, Isaac could have been delivered earlier and been just fine. We don’t have our final results, but a doctor did mention to us that the knot could have formed when Isaac struggled during the abruption. The OB at the hospital and the preliminary autopsy seemed to indicate the abruption was responsible. I hope that your daughter has found a good team of doctors. I know HELLP Syndrome can impact women who never had Preeclampsia as a warning sign. My thoughts are with you and your family. I hope everything goes well.

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      • Thank you. I am putting a link in here to a study that was done in UK (it also has been done in other places based on research I did). This study used Pravastatin to alleviate the symptoms of preclampsia (or stop it entirely) when they appeared in women. It is very promising. One can only hope that it may be an answer. I did tell my daughter to let her OB and MFS know about this study and see if there are any being done in the US. Or, if she would show severe preclampsia/HELLP early as she did before, it is something they could try? Promising.

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