Why is Sophie so tired?

Why is Sophie so tired?

Maybe it has something to do with this.

Or this.

Or this.

I know - it must be because she's been packing all day!

No wait, that was me.

P.S. Yes, we're moving in one week to Maryland. Anyone live in the Free State* that wants to be my friend?
P.P.S. I'm not joking about the friend thing. I don't know anyone in Maryland!

*As in, should secede from the Union rather than prohibit the sale of liquor during the Prohibition.

Random. Thoughts. On. A. Friday.

- Training. Hungry. Never 5 seconds to eat or relax. Silly working hard guy... Leave me alone!
- Wow, this is post number 170 - I guess I'll have to figure out soon what to do for number 200.
- Moving in t-minus eight days. So excited, but so sad at the same time.
- We picked out our diploma frames yesterday and are planning to hang them on the wall where they will be the most conspicuous. Why, yes, we went to MIT. BOW TO US NOW. Oh, you don't know what MIT is? Oh well.
- June 1 is Monday - new blog look then. Not so bright; not too depressing. I hope.
- By the way, I know I said I wouldn't mention this again, but I want closest to 10000 that's over 10000, 9999 doesn't count! (Sad, but true.) Don't forget or I will be very sad. This will be me ---> :(

Almost "not pregnant"

Wow, I'm really almost not pregnant any more. My hCG level is down to 48, 9 days after miscarriage. That's even lower than my first level, on March 31. Just pray that I don't get stuck in that land of "almost not pregnant" that I've seen some women stuck in for weeks. I'm ready for my body to move on.

It's weird, I can really, really feel the difference in hormone levels from last week to today. Even when I cry, it's not a crying of hopelessness and despair, but just an "I'm grieving" cry.

36 weeks, 12 weeks

Max would have been 36 weeks today - can you even believe it? His due date is coming up quickly here. I wonder if the size of my stomach would have blown my mind away. I wonder if he would have been long and lean like his daddy or small like his mommy. I wonder what it would be like to be unbelievable uncomfortable right now, with little feet pushing into my ribs.

Olivia would have been 12 weeks yesterday, according to my original due date - I can't believe it's only been 8 weeks since I found out about her, it seems like a lifetime. I can't believe my first trimester would have been just about over now. I wish I could get to see her one more time.

I also wonder - when Olivia's due date in December comes around, will I be mourning or rejoicing?

Not much here.

I want my baby back. Is that so much to ask? Why did God take her away from me? I'm her mommy, I'm supposed to take care of her and now she's so far away. I want to be with my baby. Please.

I'm still losing pieces of her sac. Do you really need to rub this in my face, God? I know that she's dead. I KNOW ALREADY.

And the bad news...

I knew something had to go wrong, because that's how my life goes... There was no fetal tissue, just as I had suspected. Everything I got was "from the maternal side" (don't ask me what that means), so I must have missed the baby (as I was pretty sure I had, since I couldn't find anything that looked like a baby in what I gave them). *Insert long string of curse words here, although I won't subject you to reading them.*

Contest: one for me, one for you

Okay, this is too good to pass up: I actually won a contest today on Profoundly Seth, a blog that I read (in case you're wondering, the prize was a $10 Target gift card). I love the irony... Hey, Fate, that does not make up for losing my baby!

But here's a contest for you all: if you are the 10,000th hit on my blog, or the closest to it (with picture proof!) I will send you a prize. We're around 9000 right now and I'm not going to remind you, so we'll see who's paying the most attention.

Some good news

Good news #1: My quant hCG is down to 2319 as of Monday morning at 11. That's great because the last time we checked it was April 21 when it was over 8000, and I was pregnant for several weeks after that, so it should have been even higher when I miscarried. I must say, my body doesn't carry babies well, but it sure loses them well. I guess that's something... I have to go in for weekly tests until my quant is less than 5 (a negative result). I will only be here for two more Mondays, so hopefully the numbers will go down as quickly as last time.

Good news #2: They were able to send the baby for karyotyping, so we will hopefully be able to get an answer as to whether the baby was a boy or a girl (I'll be so embarrassed if I was wrong and sad if I have to change Olivia's name!) and more importantly whether the baby was normal (a sign of a problem with me) or had (an) extra chromosome(s) than one or was missing one or more (probably random chance) or if the chromosomes were abnormal (could be random chance or a problem with Jonathan or myself, which they could test us for).

I'm quite happy about both of those pieces of news. The former means that my body will return back to normal more quickly, which means that we can try again sooner, rather than later. The latter means we will have (slightly) more guidance for knowing where to test, or if to test at all.

I hate statistics.

I have always hated to hear statistics because I always come out on the bottom. What? I have a 1 in 10 chance of winning that prize? Yeah, right, I don't win contests. Whenever we play Settlers of Catan, if I place my towns on one or more 8's you can bet that an 8 will be rolled only once the entire game. Those people you see on TV who have won the lottery and never have to work again? I will never be one of them, which is why I'm not stupid enough to buy lottery tickets.

After a fetal heartbeat is detected, your chances of miscarriage drop to around 5%. That on top of the fact that I had just had a baby with seeming random chromosomal problems made me feel safe (what are the odds of two in a row?)... But that was just stupid. Of course I'm going to come out on the bottom.

Can you tell I haven't left the anger stage yet?

Scared question of the day: if Max wasn't a SAB (spontaneous abortion), does that disqualify me from possible treatments? On one site talking about recurrent pregnancy loss, they said that you should see a doctor for testing after two SAB. I've only had one of those...

Grief stage 2: anger

How did this happen? Can anyone please fill me in? One day I am pregnant and we see the baby on the ultrasound screen, moving around with a heartbeat. The next day I'm bleeding, even though I had awful morning sickness most of that day. The next day I'm cramping. The next day my baby is gone. I'm now in that bitter wasteland between random chance and recurrent pregnancy loss - I haven't lost enough babies to be treated by most doctors as higher risk, and yet my chances of having two non-recurrent problem miscarriages in a row is only 4%. May I ask why I have to loose three babies for anyone to pay attention to me? Isn't two enough?

My first order of business after we get our new insurance is to call them and see if they'll pay for testing after two pregnancy losses. If they will (and maybe even if they won't), my second order of business is to find an Ob/Gyn in Maryland who treats two losses as a problem.

I gave them my baby today and asked them to karyotype her. My nurse said she would check with a doctor to make sure they could do that (insurance-wise), and then as long as they had enough fetal tissue they would do so. I'm hoping that everything works out with that so that I can know one way or the other: if she was normal, I'm going to demand testing, of course; if not, okay, fine, it was just random chance and we'll try again.

On another note, do you realize how hard it is to give your baby's little body away, even if she might help you save your future babies? I wanted to take her out of there and run far away. My poor little girl is going to be cut into pieces and tested on, and then burned. I'm so sorry, Livvie; I wish I could have kept you to myself. Mama loves you so much, baby girl.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Olivia Faith Burnham was born into heaven
on Sunday, May 17, 2009 at 9:45 pm.
Her parents are happy to know that
she is safe in the arms of Jesus
alongside her big brother, Max.

We love you, Max and Olivia. Mommy and daddy will be up there in just the blink of an eye, okay?

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
And naked shall I return there.
The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away;
Blessed be the name of the LORD.”
-Job 1:21

9w, 4d: Keep praying, we haven't lost Thumper yet.

Yesterday afternoon I updated my post saying that I was having red bleeding, but no cramping. However, last night the cramping started around 9 pm and carried on until around 4 am with an awful climax that almost made me cave and take my one remaining oxycontin from my last miscarriage. I just couldn't do it, though, because I don't know that the baby is dead. Even through the horrendous cramping, there wasn't increased blood flow, still only about a teaspoon every two or three hours. I must say, that cramping signalled what I thought was the end of Thumper; we asked our friend to step in for Jonathan at Sunday School today so that he could stay home with me to make sure I didn't bleed to death.

At this point, I think it's safe to say that I'm at best having a threatened miscarriage and at worst an attempted miscarriage. The only difference? A closed cervix. If that little piece of skin is holding fast, it could mean the difference between joy in seven months or sorrow in the next few days or maybe weeks. I guess Thumper would still have to be alive, too, but I really don't think that fetal demise is what set this all off. I can't see him/her having died that quickly after our ultrasound that it triggered bleeding less than 24 hours later. I am a bit concerned, though, that all of this cramping could have shaken the placenta loose. Can that happen?

One question I still have is, how quickly do miscarriages usually progress? We're working on almost 48 hours now, and I haven't seen much progression. I thought that if things were going to happen, it would have been over more quickly than this. I haven't had a regular miscarriage before, Max's was initiated by Misoprostol, and I'm not sure if a medicated miscarriage is in the same time frame as a spontaneous one.

Also, I had morning sickness today still. Good sign, I think.

9w, 3d: Such a hard wait

I haven't had much spotting since yesterday afternoon and have had no cramping whatsoever. I am in bed and staying put, at least for today, with my sweet husband running around and getting me everything I need. :) I haven't figured out about our last Sunday School class tomorrow... I don't think running around after 3 year olds is a good idea, but I really want to see them one last time! Plus, there's the walking there and back, about 20 minutes each way. I just don't think it's a good idea, but I don't see much of a way around it that doesn't cost mucho dollars (like a taxi or Zipcar). So we'll have to see...

From my limited knowledge, I just don't see how this could be a miscarriage, since we saw a live baby on Thursday afternoon and less than 24 hours later I'm bleeding? Can a baby die and then a body already begin rejecting it that quickly? It just doesn't make sense to me. Unless the baby didn't die and my body is rejecting it for some other reason...

This is probably TMI, but we haven't had sex since Tuesday, my pap smear was three weeks ago, and they didn't use a vaginal probe for the ultrasound... I did walk back home from the ultrasound, about 20 minutes. Could that have set it off?

Anyhow, thank you girls for praying... I really appreciate it. I'm not feeling so scared right now and I really feel like we're going to see a live baby on Monday. But I agree with Staci, Thumper, you have got to stop scaring me like this!

Update at 4:45 pm:
I've had some red spotting today, but no cramps yet. It's weird, it feels like I'm bleeding heavier than I am... I keep thinking, oh, that must have been it, but not much has come out. I'm staying in bed today and tomorrow for sure and I'll take Monday off, too, with just the appointment that will get me up. And I guess we'll see Monday what the doctor says.

I'm not sure why I'm so calm right now, but probably because you are all praying for me. Six weeks ago when I first had spotting and I was on the way to the doctor's office, God told me "Olivia Faith," and at first I just thought that that would be the name that I would give the baby if it died (I have a different name in mind for our first living daughter), but since then I have realized that one meaning of Olivia is "peace" and perhaps he was telling me to be at peace and have faith. It's strange to me that I am so at peace right now, but maybe it shouldn't be. The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

9w, 2d: Belly Book (interrupted)

This post was supposed to be a happy post about filling in my pregnancy book...

...but I think I jinxed myself by filling it in last night. I'm bleeding brown blood right now, not heavily, but it's definitely more than spotting. Please pray for Thumper. We have an ultrasound on Monday morning at 10:45 am to see if he or she is still alive.

9w, 1d: Wiggly baby!

I have to apologize right off the bat. I don't have a picture! I know I promised to come back with one, but I didn't, and I'll let you know why in my story. I'm gonna throw a picture on here of someone else's ultrasound (from babycenter.com!), with what the baby looked like (except less clear because the ultrasound machine at my Ob/Gyn's office is really that bad):

(Note: this is not my baby!)
Okay, story time. Today my appointment was with a different midwife than I've had before, Janna. She was nice, but a bit rushed, probably because she was running late and it was the end of the day! I don't think that anyone informed her about the ultrasound that was the entire point of the visit, which was part of our problem.

I went to my appointment with a very, VERY full bladder. The last time we had had an ultrasound they ended up having to use the vaginal probe because my bladder was so empty, and I was not about to let that happen this time. I also ate some cookies about an hour before the appointment, because I've heard that infuses the baby with sugar and helps get him/her moving around for the ultrasound. We were admitted by a nurse pretty quickly, and got my blood pressure (still pretty low at 90/58) and weight (88 lbs., so down 1.5 from the last visit). After the nurse left was awful. We waited for probably 20 minutes in the room, and all I could think about was my exploding bladder. It was probably worse just because I was thinking about it, but it was really driving me crazy!

After the 20 minute wait, Janna came in and introduced herself. She talked to me about the losing weight (which is probably because I'm eating less because I'm nauseous fairly often + spicy foods make me sick to my stomach), and instructed me to eat high fat content foods so that I would gain more weight! She also told me I could take some extra vitamin B6 (50mg) or try some ginger to help me with the nausea. And she said I should never stop eating all day long because that will help, too. How about that? Permission from a doctor to eat whatever I want, whenever I want?!? Woohoo! Jonathan is making it his personal mission to get me to eat more fatty things, which, of course, involves his eating more fatty things, since he won't make me eat alone! (Janna is probably his favorite midwife ever now.)

After "discussion time" Janna suggested that she try the doppler, since I'm so skinny she figured she might be able to hear something. It didn't work! (This was the only time during the appointment that I was actually nervous for!) It was probably a combination of their probe being only 2 Mhz (3 Mhz is supposed to be able to hear a heartbeat earlier) and the baby being in a turned around position (I've heard that even if they're facing backwards when you're this early, that can stop you from being able to hear it).

At this point, I realized that she probably was not thinking about doing an ultrasound, so I brought it up, since I really, really wanted this (especially after not being able to hear the heartbeat!). She acquiesed to my "demand" and brought in the dinosaur. She found the baby right away and it looked just like the picture up above - except that she was having a really hard time keeping the baby in the picture! I think he/she was moving around a lot, probably because I was shivering (it's cold here today!) and all of the sugar I infused him/her with. :) Hehe, whoops. We saw the baby and she pointed out the heartbeat, although I couldn't see it very well because I couldn't move even a centimeter without jiggling the baby off the screen... Then she promptly wiped me off and turned off the machine! I was in a state of shock - I really thought she was going to freeze the baby's picture and measure the heartbeat, which is what they did last time, and I didn't even get a second to ask for a picture! So no picture, folks. :( But now I know for next time that I am going to start the ultrasound by asking for a picture, and then if they forget I will not feel bad asking for it if they start to turn things off. Also, since our next ultrasound is the nuchal transluceny scan, that picture will probably be much clearer, any way.

I'm going to order a doppler sometime today or tomorrow, I hope, and I'm going to try to get one that I can record onto the computer with! I'm really looking forward to hearing our baby's heartbeat for the first time!

9w, 0d: one inch long!

Here is a picture of what Thumper should look like right about now... His/her tail is all gone and he/she is already moving around, with more muscles forming every day. Jonathan is finally admitting that the baby *may* be a girl, although he still thinks it's a boy. Everyone else I've talked to says girl, as do I!

Tomorrow at 4:15 pm is our 9 week ultrasound, after which point my nerves will be considerably relaxed. I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow, since this lovely morning sickness is leaving me much more reassured than at my past ultrasounds.

Also, if the appointment goes well tomorrow, I'm going to look into renting or buying a doppler. I found a new one on Ebay for $95, although I'm a little nervous to buy one without a prescription...

Stay tuned for a belly picture. Sorry about missing last week!

Happy Mother's Day

To all of my friends out there who have lost a baby recently and who are probably not going to be told this on Sunday, I just wanted to say "Happy Mother's Day!" You women are the toughest mothers I know because you have to be mothers in secret. You don't get to hold and snuggle your baby this Mother's Day, you have to be separated from him or her by a gap larger than anyone can imagine. You won't get breakfast in bed, even though you have gone through a painful labor. You won't get the sweet kisses and hugs that erase any thought of how hard being a mother is.

Just know that I am thinking of you this weekend and praying for you. Like I said, you guys are the toughest moms I know.

Love with all of my heart,

8w, 2d: Cape Cod!

Tomorrow we are heading out with four good friends to Cape Cod. Jonathan and I have never been there before (except maybe I have when I was little... but I don't remember it), so we're super excited! It was a very long week here at work, and I am quite happy to be getting an extended weekend.

I'm sticking close to bland foods right now, as anything that actually tastes good gives me intestinal issues. I need to find more things that I can eat throughout the day as mini-meals; I'm too starving by the time dinner roles around, which makes me exhausted and sick. So far, I'm thinking about peanut butter crackers and yogurt as possibilities... Although at this moment I actually just gagged thinking about those. My my, my stomach is certainly a testy thing right now!

6 days left until we get to see Thumper again! Keep that little heart thumping, sweet baby of mine. Mommy loves you.

Maxie, I miss you so much as Mother's Day is approaching! I keep wishing you were here for my first official Mother's Day. But I'm so happy to know you are safe and sound; it makes mommy's heart happy! Keep putting in a good word for Thumper, okay? Mommy needs a little baby down here with her. I love you, sweet boy!

Will the real Abbie please stand up?

Okay, I'm done going crazy... I think. Maybe I'll write a real post tomorrow!

8w, 1d: *#$%&)(*&#

That is about all I have to say about the fact that I am still editing biosketches and publications. Apparently some people are USELESS at their jobs. Mood swinging Abbie is NOT HAPPY.

In better news, 1 week until we see Thumper again!

7w, 6d: So tired, tired of editing, tired of editing for youuuuu.

Almost done. Supposedly I have in my e-mail inbox the last 5 biosketches we have to edit for this grant... And then I'll be done! I've got 1.5 of them completed, so just 3.5 more to go!

The dentist appointment went great yesterday, no gags even, although my gums bled like nobody's business. Since I haven't had x rays of my teeth for a few years now (pregnancies getting in the way of that this visit and the last), I'm supposed to put off my next visit to the dentist until after this baby is born. But everything looked fine to my hygienist.

Alright, I'm back to work now. I think that I'll be more interesting soon... sorry.

7w, 5d: Small scare, but I think we're okay.

Yesterday I had a teensy eensy weensy spot of brown blood. It scared me for the moment, but it hasn't happened again since. I think I did too much physical activity this weekend (as always). This morning, however, I have been quite ensured that the baby is still doing okay. Most people lose their morning sickness by 14 weeks...so only 6 more to go? Yikes.

I have a dentist appointment today and I'm a bit worried about throwing up on my hygienist. Should I cancel? I'm thinking I might be okay since I'm going to go about an hour after lunch - my stomach will hopefully not be raging like it does immediately after eating, and I'm usually a lot better in the afternoon rather than the morning. Well, I'm going to see how I do and if I can't deal with the whole hand in my mouth thing then I'll just leave, I guess.

Lots to do at work today, so I'm off.

7w, 2d: This is one tired mama

This is what I look like after a really long day at work:

I'm sure that one day Thumper will ask me why I would post such an embarrassing thing for everyone in the world to see, and my response will be that I was tired and it amused me.

Now to get some food in the belly before it goes on strike.

By the way, you should all drop by Brooke's site and tell her congratulations! After a year and a half of trying, God miraculously gave her and her husband a baby! She is due January 1.

UPDATE:
New look for May:


I promised bright, and I pulled through, eh?