The unexpected 2WW

Thanks for all the good vibes for the results of the amnio. However, some people had suggested to me that only waiting a week for the results seemed like a short amount of time.

Indeed, it is. One of the doctors in the room told me that we could expect an early result in one day and the definitive result in a week. Noooo.......not really. After about a week (this past Tuesday) I called the office and asked about my results. The nice nurse on the phone told me that she did have the early test results, but the final results would take, yes, at least two weeks. So that doctor was obviously not a research scientist; I am, however, and I feel that I should have figured something was up. Nevermind that I work with yeast and not humans....

Anywho, the results of the early test were very encouraging. Both babies have the normal # of chromosomes at first glance (yay for 46 chromosomes). [Just to show you how non-human-centric I am: I had to look that up. at first I was going to write 16 (# of chromsomes in budding yeast) and my next guess was 3 (number of chromosomes in fission yeast) and worse than that, these numbers are for hapliod yeast--double sigh.] Next week we should get the final results on the actual human babies I am carrying and not on what I stare at every day.

In other mind-blowing news, my mind is blown. I swear I can actually FEEL my brain cells withering up and dying. Sometimes getting an intellegent sentence out of my mouth is more effort than it is worth. I am considering communicating strictly through grunting now.

This comes at a bad time, as I have quite a lot on my plate work-wise. It seems that this miracle of a pregnancy will come to an end (I hope) right about at the time that my fellowship runs out at work. This fellowship I have pays for my salary (and my health insurance). I am very fortunate to have it. But when it ends, there is no guarantee of a job. The funding in my lab is quite tight right now, and I have had to have a few uncomfortable conversations with my boss. The conversations go along the line of : " Um, yeah, so my fellowship will be running out at the end of August. I was wondering if you were in a position to keep me on for a while afterwards." Well, I guess that is just my side of the conversation. The answer from my boss is that he just doesn't know right now. We may have a better idea in mid-March when we will meet with a funding agency to see if they think we have made enough progress on our current reasearch to apply for a larger grant which can fund a salary.

To be honest, it is time for me to move on in my career. My post-doc (what you do after grad school when there are no jobs available) will be at the 4 year mark in August (rather typical for a life science post-doc). However, now is not the best time to be searching for a job, what with my scattered brain and this lovey economy. This morning at breakfast, hubby and I had a talk about different options if I cannot stay in my current lab after the babies are born. He brought up getting a job in a bank or mall. I was pretty fabbergasted, I have to say. Not that I have a problem with the work; I've just spent, um, the last 18 (OHMYGOSH) years of my life persuing a career as a research scientist (college + lab tech + grad school +post doc). Well, we'll just have to see what happens in the next few weeks/months....

And here we are

Nothing too much to report here.

I had the amnio last Tuesday, the 17th, not the most painful thing I had been through, but still I wouldn't do it on a whim. I have also decided that I am not a "piercer." I have heard that some people get a real thrill from having piercings or tattoos. I have had more than my fair share of injections and needle pokes to know that I most certainly do not get a thrill from being pierced or poked.

We did have one humorous moment during the amino. I had two doctors in the room with me:one male and one female. The female was guiding the ultrasound to a place where the baby was not, while the male doctor was doing the poking. After the amnio for baby one, I mentioned that I was not surprised by the needle stick, but by the cramping that occured when the needle when into my uterus. The male doctor said that baby one was low in my uterus and that there tended to be more "feeling" there and it could be more painful. The female doctor turned to look straight at me and said, "I have had a few of these, and I don't care where you put the needle, it still cramps." I don't know why I thought that was so funny, but I had to supress my laughter.

No word yet on the results (we are specifically interested in baby 2 as s/he was on the upper end of normal of the nuchal lucency test (sp?). The same male doctor told us that we should have some results the next day. Again, we haven't heard anything yet. So now I refer to the the unborn as "our mutant babies" to my husband. So hopefully we have resuts soon....

Still here

...and still getting over this monster of a cold. This nasty thing has been going around the lab where I work...no one is safe!

But I am getting better and my appetite is increasing, so that is good. In fact, after I finish typing this up, it's time for a snack!

Next week, actually next Tues I go in for the amnio. Am I nervous? Kind of. At this point I'm actually settling into the idea that I'm REALLY pregnant with two babies (and not just getting fat and irritable).

To let you know what leap this is for me, I'll let you know a little secret. I've actually given nicknames to the babies: bit and bot. Not that original, but that is just what keeps coming up in my mind. "Naming" them is a scary proposition for me. Up until this point in my life, I would have always told you I was an optimist. And I am: FOR YOU. Everything WILL work out well for you. Just not for me. Dang, that sounds harsh....

I guess I am still waiting for the proverbial "other shoe to drop." I was hoping that this would cease when I actually got pregnant. Then when I reached the 3 month milestone. Now, I am not sure that it ever will, but I am doing my best not to dwell on it. But I still realize that I keep a "healthy(??)"distance from the pregnancy.
In fact, some baby update-thingy suggested that at 15 weeks you should start talking to the baby to help strengthen the bond between the two of you. I almost passed out. I have only just gotten the courage to give them nicknames, let alone have a conversation with them.

I've always been a late bloomer, perhaps we'll start our "conversations" at little bit later :)

Colds suck

So I've been home for the past two days with a nasty cold. I hardly ever come down with a cold and when I do, its not usually so bad. This one sucks giant donkey ba.lls. Seriously.

I made my first "I'm a silly pregnant woman and don't know what meds I can take" call to the new high risk OB that I went to on Monday. The nurse who took my call gave me some idea of the meds I can take and then pointed me to the packet of info that they gave me at my visit. I almost started laughing when she told me there was ACTUAL information in that packet.

See, I've gotten 3 packets already in this journey of pregnancy. The first one was from the IVF clinic after my positive pregnancy test. The second came from my first OB at the local practice. I was very diligent and read them as soon as I could. Put them in a safe place should I need to refer to them later. This one, not so much. I put it in my backpack (I KNOW, I'm 35 I should not still be wearing a backpack, but with my computer in it, it is just too heavy to carry on one shoulder.) I told myself that I would read it when I had some time. Unfortunately, I left it at work when I came home with the sickness and haven't been back to work to pick it up.

Besides all the coughing, sneezing, stuffy nose, etc. that has been going on, I have to say I like my new OB. (I really liked my other OB, but this guy specializes in premature births, women with multiples, and difficult cesarean sections.) After doing an initial workup with a nurse and her asst., I met with the Dr. He was exceptionally non-plussed at my medical history. In fact, he wondered why the IVF doctor would recommend a reduction when, in his words, "I have had patients that have had their uterus dismantled and completely reconstructed and they didn't have a problem with pregnancy." Nice to hear. Sorry that someone had to go through that, though.

I next meet with him after our amnio on the 17th. Hubby will be there to meet him as well.

Ugh, I would write more, but in that last paragraph, I sneezed 10 times (I counted)! I'm going to bury my head under some pillows now.

what the doctors said (pt 2)

So, as I mentioned, like, a year ago. We were able to meet with our RE, but the surgeon was running late. So we decided to contact him later. My hubby then began communications with him via email.


This is an excerpt of my hubby's email to the surgeon:

...And while the situation did seem delicate to us, the truth is that we were
given information that was taken completely out of context. We knew it was your
recommendation to only carry one child to term. I also knew that it would
be your opinion that, if we had the option, reducing Brenda to bearing only
one child to term would be the greatest reduction of risk. However, our RE's
nurse presented your recommendation to Brenda as if it was the end all, be all,
final word on the matter and that something terrible was definitely going to
happen if she didn't reduce. Your letter, while factual, was presented to us as
something that was without option, hence...we freaked out.

While we don't consider this a "simple" matter of miscommunication, we do
not hold you responsible for that miscommunication. If anything, you are the
only one (besides our RE) in all of this that, when asked, gave us a learned
opinion on how to proceed.

And the reply from the surgeon:

You are very nice to convey your thoughts on the matter in this way. And I
must say that your interpretation is absolutely correct. When I was asked to
give my opinion on the matter (i.e. when I wrote the note last week) I made the
wrong assumption that all options were open and I felt compelled to recommend
the safest one for Brenda. You also must know that SINCE writing the note I
have polled several colleagues and they all feel that my concerns are extreme
because there is no data showing a prohibitively high risk of rupture in Brenda's
case.

In any case: I will be in Boston in ten days and will be happy to meet
with you.

We felt better. So our next appt was with the maternal fetal specialist this past Wednesday (the 21st). We had the nuchal translucency at the base of the babies' necks examined at our (nearly 12 week) ultrasound. One was well within the limits at 1.0mm. The other was just on the upper end of normal at 2.5 mm. Given that our donor was only 29 at the time of donation, the doctor is as confident as he can be that this is not an indication of a genetic abnormality.

But then......


My hubby and I had a long talk with the specialist. We went over all of my risk factors:

1. Two invasive uterine surgeries
2. A frozen pelvis (basically this means that I have so many endometiral adhesions that most of my internal organs are glued together). Thankfully, however, down near the base of my uterus where the doctor would perform a C section, there are few, and only "milky" adhesions--thus making surgery there much easier. The bad thing about all of these adhesions, is that IF something goes awry during the pregnancy (a uterine rupture) and it occurs in a place where all the adhesions are...it would be difficult for the doctors to get in there and make repairs...ie lose the babies and/or my uterus.
3. I still have 2 relatively large fibroids near my cervix. These were fibroids that the surgeon didn't want to touch, in order (I think), to maintain the structural integrity of my cervix.

The specialist said that because of all these risk factors that there was a greater chance than normal of a uterine rupture. However, he also mentioned that of all medical practices, OB has the fewest randomized trials in terms of studying outcomes of women with different risk factors (he noted that most women don't wan to be in the group not given the "tested" treatment"). Therefore, he had no statistics, no studies, just a gut feeling. His gut feeling? He "tilts" twords a reduction.

Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but this is becoming a common theme. "If all things were equal, we, the doctors, would feel more comfortable if you were only carrying one child."

However, in my hubby's and my world, all things are not created equal. There is no guarantee that we will be able to carry one child without complications, and there is no guarantee that we cannot carry two with few complications. I mean, when I think about it, my uterus has produced one 12cm fibroid that weighed over a pound and a second one that was 6+ cm, I think. I currently have two, 4.5 cm fibroids near my cervix (although they may have grown in the past 4 weeks....it was difficult to tell from the U/S report). I am beginning to think I have the most amazing uterus EVER. All I ask is that it stay put and just do it's job, instead it has to be an overachiever and add extra, rather large adornments on the outside. That sounds like incredible plasticity to me! :)

After meeting with the specialist, I initally agreed to have a CVS done on the fetus with the upper limit nuchal translucency. After reading more about it, I have changed my mind. Given that we know the donor's genetic makeup (we paid to find it out!), we are not at risk for a number of inherited chromosomal disorders. Thus, the only think that the test would be able to determine is if the child has Down's syndrome, Trisomy 18, or Trisomy 13. Both Trisomy 18 and Trisomy 13 are "mostly" incompatable with life--depending on the severity.

Instead, I think we are going to opt for and amniocentesis at 15 weeks. That's a little late in the game, but we can also tell other things from the amnio that will give us more information. At this point, we are only willing to reduce if one of the children has an abnormality that is incompatable with life or will cause them to suffer needlessly.

So, although we are still in a little bit of limbo. We have made our decision and are happy with it. Don't get me wrong, I am scared to death that something is going to happen at say, 6 or 7 months and we are going to lose the babies. Sometimes this fear grips me so hard, that I just sit in the bedroom crying.

But, we're moving forward. We have an appointment (dear Lord, all the appointments) with a high risk OB who specializes in women who are in need of complicated C-sections.

I actually went out and bought some maternity pants today. Squeezing into my regular jeans, although still possible, was increasingly less and less comfortable. In fact, when I put on the maternity pants they felt so good I almost starting crying. Then again, I am crying at just about everything these days. Either that or gagging. I'll be glad when that settles down, because, sheesh, my stomach muscles need a rest.

So here we are, wherever this is. The land of cautious optimism. The land of moving forward.