Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Birth of the Walnut Part 1

I know, I know, I've been away from this little blog of mine for a while.  If you only know me here, you didn't even know I was knocked up again and here I am telling you about a birth that happened 10 months ago.  Crazy right?
Well, I've been a little busy.  We've been homeschooling, the Tyke is in preschool now, my list of activities for the kids has expanded far faster than I thought possible and I still haven't figured out how to clone myself.  What can you do?
In August 2011, on the first day of vacation in Gloucester, MA with Dilberts entire family, we found out we were expecting again.  Dilbert wouldn't let me tell anyone even when people raised eyebrows when I refused wine.  We were both pretty happy to be pregnant again but there was that seed of doubt and fear in the back of my mind that just wouldn't let me fully enjoy that moment.
Fast forward about 10 weeks and I was just starting to look at my maternity clothes with longing.  On a Saturday afternoon we'd decided to go play with the emotions of Realtors by checking out model homes.  Everybody need a hobby, this is one of ours. We checked out quite a few of them and I found myself feeling really tired and kind of achy and campy   When we pulled into our driveway I had that feeling, like you don't really know whats going on by you really need to be in the bathroom NOW.
I got to the bathroom and realized I was spotting pretty heavily.  I started sobbing and yelling at God almost immediately.  I kept saying, "No, you can't take this one, I get to keep this on." over and over. I called to the Pudding and told her to get Dilbert.  She couldn't help but see some blood and still remembers it to this day (nearly 2 years ago as I write this). She got Dilbert and he brought my phone so I could call the midwives.  Kim talked me down off the ceiling and told me to get myself to the ER to get things checked out for my own peace of mind.
We got to the ER and got checked in and I have to do the whole "Explaining the legality of Midwifery and no, I'm really not in the care of an OB/Gyn" thing to the ER docs.  They then give me an IV, I still don't understand why that one was necessary.  About an hour after we got there, I'm finally wheeled back for an ultrasound where I'm told that everything looks fine but I have placenta previa which means that the placenta is lying over the opening to the cervix.  The placenta is this very bloody organ and it is most likely that a small clot simply passed through the cervix and that is what caused the spotting.  Previa at this stage of pregnancy isn't all that uncommon and it usually resolves itself during the second trimester which I was just about to enter.
We delayed announcing things to our Church or anyone else for another week.  We had a 12 week ultrasound and I grilled the tech on normalness of this baby's head and made her go back again and again to check it.
I really didn't want to have the ultrasound just to check things out but this was a concession to Dilbert.  I really felt that my biggest problem with Joel's pregnancy was the knowing.  If I hadn't known that he wouldn't survive, I would have had a happy pregnancy and when he started to come, we would have dealt with the grief then.  I felt like the early knowing ruined the rest of the time I had with him because I had to make that choice, I didn't ever want to make a choice like that again.  This may not make sense, my husband doesn't understand it, but perhaps I'll elaborate on that one later.
So, we've now had two ultrasounds, the one in the ER and the regular one, both telling us that this baby is as OK as they can tell.  We were now at about 14 weeks and it was time to tell everyone else about it.  As I recall, we sent out a very brief mass email and posted the text of the same email on Facebook. We were both happy to be expecting but afraid for the challenges ahead.

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