Pregnancy After Miscarriage Part VIII - Knicker Checkers and Pad Patrollers welcome

[YouKnowNothingoftheCrunch]

Is that ok?

Dh made it home in time for appointments. Poor ds2 is still very ill.

scarlotti I would say the non-engaging thing. That's what I was like. Didn't change any of my plans because when it all went wrong I didn't want to have nothing left. There's all the time in the world to bond with baby. Just look after yourself for now.

ashleigh that's a pain! Really sorry your DH won't be there to hold your hand, make sure your mum knows what you need from her. I've got a scan Thursday too (but I got 3 weeks' notice )

cornflake that's great news - although siding with DH doesn't bode well

lal hope the time flies for you.

bee hope you're ok. Sounds quite disconcerting . I really hope this brings storks a-flying though. Can't wait to hear your good news.

Right eyes are closing involuntarily so I'm going to snuggle in between ds2 and his sick bowl on the sofa.

One good thing in all this is that dh was really helpful and got back in time. It's a relief to have him here helping out

Maybe things are on the up.

hi guys,rang EPU this morning, because I didnt sleep a wink last night worrying,they told me to go in for a scan at 2.40,and it was the worst news possible,no fetal pole or heartbeat,still have all the pregnancy symptons.....can it be wrong???I know its not really,just dont feel right, havnt for a while, so very upset, and with this being unplanned and I'm 43, dont feel positive about conceiving again, sorry to bring the tone down,but feel so damn sad

Oh Jasmaxxy I'm so sorry to hear your sad news.

jasmaxxy so sorry to hear your news. Take good care of yourself.

crunch glad your dh got back in time. Fingers crossed this support is just the start of what's to come and all will move onwards and upwards.

jasmaxxy I am so sorry to hear your latest news, how disorientating for you. Sending you kindest thoughts.

ashleighbee Great news that you're 20 weeks but poo about the short notice on the scan!

crunch Glad you got your appointments in after all. Hope DS2 is better and back on the keyboard treating us all to a spot of Klingon before long.

cornflake great news! And thank you for reminding me not to think TOO hard about wanting to know the sex when my time comes shortly - little tykes already have plans of their own, which is just how it should be

scarlotti the swinging between excitement and despair is something I can completely relate to, I think crunch and you are right that it's a natural reluctance to engage with something delicate vs. the wish to be excited. Agree with crunch again that taking lots of care & time out for yourself is the most positive approach (and is actually something we should all do all the time - earlier on in this pg I kept saying to myself that if/when I did miscarry I would remember to be nice to myself because I deserved it, pregnant or not! Luckily haven't had to test that one yet...) Anyway back to you - good luck tomorrow evening!

grinningbee that sounds very pregnant but a bit concerning, how close to due date are you? Hope you get well looked after if you do stay in.

What's happening with me, well, we're looking to move somewhere cheaper to save some dosh and saw 3 houses today. One was too big, one too small, and the other had ceilings too low for giganto-husband. Still, we have made a start at looking and that feels great.

As you were ladies, I'm still here with bump.

Gentle I've gone beyond due date! I am 5 days over today.

Jasmaxxy So sorry to read your news. Take care of yourself.

Be back later to offer cakes around. I'm off to wallow in the bath.

jasmaxxy I am very sorry for your loss Make sure you look after yourself and give yourself lots of time to think. If you did decide to try for another (and 43 really isn't too old at all) make sure it is because it is actually what you choose and not a response to your very real grief. There is absolutely no hurry for you to make any decisions yet. I hope you have lots of people around you offering you support x

bee what are you doing back here?! Speaking of wallowing, ds2 now says I am a hippo I think he might be better

Gentle ooh I love house-hunting although moving when heavily pregnant is never fun (a good excuse not to lift boxes though )

scarlotti how are you doing today. Hope everything's looking a bit more positive.

Apparently I now get to throw up in surround son. DS stood behind me this morning, cheerily echoing all my vomiting noises: 'Bleaaagh! Yudduyuddubleeaaaagh!'

I suppose he thinks he's helping.

That should be 'surround sound'. Clearly, I threw up some brain cells this morning.

Tamlin how lovely. I think you were right first time with "surround son".

Hello all

Tamlin pmsl at your surround sound son!! Not what you need at the time but hopefully raises a smile now

crunch thanks for asking, am not sure how I feel today actually. Things at home seem a little better so hormones I presume are settling down. Think I'm just not thinking about it! Scan is at 5:30 so hopefully all will go well and I'll start to relax a little - yeah right, who am I kidding!

Off for a free lunch now - some corporate schmoozing - let's hope I can face it and not feel ill afterwards!!

Quiet today isn't it.

Maybe if I bring the goodies out you'll all turn up... I have on offer some choccy cup cakes, blueberry muffins, cadbury cream eggs or maple pecan icecream.

Time for a cuppa!

Oh, my dad told me today I can't have the baby on Friday as the turf for his lawn is being delivered...

Yum sounds great grinningbee. at your dad's priorities. Or did he think you might be planning on giving birth in the back garden and was worried things might get in the way????

grinningbee Any cakes left?

Your dad's comment did give me a giggle although I can imagine it must be disconcerting in real life. Did you ask him if the turf has arranged pain relief for the delivery?

Sorry about me.

Evening all. Apologies in advance for the "me" based post, having a little wobble...

But before I do I want to say GOOD LUCK to GB! I hope your bp is still behaving itself, I'm assuming it must have been ok for the hospital to let you home? Hopefully LO will arrive without any more dramas to scare mummy!

Crunchie (loving the new name ) I hope DS2 continues to improve, and that DH continues to behave! Fingers firmly crossed for you lovely.

Right. Me. ()

Some of you may remember me posting a while ago about the fact that I was thinking about hiring a doppler for a month (the shortest time you can hire one for) to take on holiday for 10 days. I wasn't sure what to do so I thought it might be a good idea to have a chat with my doula about it. Good plan, right? Wrong. She has basically put the fear of god into me, while all the time telling me it's entirely my decision and that she will support me whatever I decide. But botom line is she told me about a website I'll post a link to in a moment which has various articles on it, including one specifically talking about the risks of ultrasound, whether via a scan or via a doppler.

So far this time round I have had scans at 7, 9, 11, and 15 weeks. I am due another one at 20 weeks. In addidion I have heard the heartbeat at the doctor's 4 times between 13 weeks and 17+5 last week. So there we are, more than some, less than others I suspect. I have managed to stay relatiely sane during this pregnancy so far, and that has largely been due to the reassurance I have had from scans and from hearing the heartbeat, but now I'm worried that the very thing that has been reassuring me, and that reassures most of us here, is putting my baby at risk . She talked about an increased risk of autism, growth retardation and the article talks about an increased risk of still birth. Marvellous. I will talk to my consultant about it when I see him on monday, and I said that to my doula, but she said 'well of course you know he's going to say it's safe - the medical profession treat it as safe because it hasn't been proven not to be'.

I'm sorry for posting something on here that could potentially cause worry to others, but frankly I wasn't sure what else to do. The idea of going through the rest of this pregnancy (currently 18+3) with no more scans and no more listening in is terrifying to contemplate, but not as terrifying as the thought that I might be harming my baby by doing the very thing that reassures me

I know there are inherent risks to our every day life, and that just because we are pregnant we can't wrap ourselves in cotton wool completely, but we're all trying not to do things which might cause our babies harm... Aaarrgghhhh. I feel guilty about posting this, I hope you all understand.

This is the website she told me about, I don't think I can post a link to the articles, but if you want to read them (you have been warned!) then click on Articles (under Contents) then scroll down to AIMS Journal, Volume 16 No 4, 2005 and the articles are "Who says ultrasound is safe?" and "Ultrasound: good news (and bad)". The fact that these were written in 2005 and it's not 2009 has not escaped me by the way.

Thanks in advance for your wise words ladies. xx

Jasmaxxy I'm so sorry, I was so wrapped up in myself I forgot to post to you I'm so sorry to hear your sad news. How far should you be now? Should there definitely be a hb at your stage? If the worst does come to the worst then please take care of yourself and your DP/DH and be kind to yourselves. There are some great threads under the miscarriage section which I think a lot of people here have found helpful, I hope if you are in that sad position you find them helpful too. Take care xx

There's plenty of cakes left girls, don't worry. I haven't started on them as yet

Yes, my dads comments were interesting... his priorities seem to be a little different to mine!

I don't know if this is worth mentioning, but I've had a little bit of a show a couple of hours ago... nothing else happening, but I guess it's something!

Night night for now

And thank you Lola - you're still not off the hook for being asked if bump is here yet when it's you turn

I've heard this sort of thing about ultrasounds before - apparently your kid's chance of being left-handed increases with the number of ultrasounds you have, for example! The thing that I always wonder is if the relationship between multiple ultrasounds and these problems is causal or correlative - for example, if you've conceived via IVF then your chances of complications (including - hugely unfairly - miscarriage) go sharply up. You'll also probably have more scans than women who conceive 'normally'. So - do the scans cause any problems which occur, or are women who have lots of scans in a higher-risk group to begin with? I'm not sure that the studies cited in that article are enough to convince me (especially the one with the teeny sample size of 90, for Pete's sake.) Also, from a brief scan, this journal doesn't appear to be a peer-reviewed scientific journal, and I can't see what academic chops the author has - anyone feel like going off and digging into the Lancet archives..?

I know that some women go their whole pregnancy without a scan, but I always wonder about how I'd feel if I had placenta previa or a complicated breech presentation (which midwives can sometimes miss through palpation) and I HADN'T had a scan. To me, the possible risks of ultrasound scans are hugely outweighed by the risks of missing conditions in me or the baby which might benefit from medical treatment. When it comes to reassurance scans, I'm a bit more torn - I think it's something everyone's got to weigh up for themselves, like the caffeine-in-pregnancy thing.

Thanks Tamlin. How many scans have you had / do you plan to have with this pregnancy (all being well)? My scans have all been performed by my consultant, but I'm pretty sure that a couple of them were only deemed 'necessary' because he knew how worried I was and wanted to reassure me. I agree with you that for me NO scans wouldn't be an option, and there's no way I'm cancelling my anomoly scan on monday, but where I should go from here other than that I just don't know... suspect all this is unlikely to lead to a good night's sleep tonight...

None with this pregnancy yet, but I wound up having four with DS - two were growth scans because of the hyperemesis (they wanted to make sure that the baby was still growing since I measured under) and one was a private nuchal.

Lola, I think that when the baby gets bigger, a) they'll usually have their head jammed into your cervix or feet in your ribs so you'll feel every movement, and b) you'll get used to their routine - in the third trimester, even if DS was quiet for most of the day, he invariably woke up and partied at 1 am and 3 am every night. If I ever got paranoid about how still he was, a sugary or caffeinated icy cold drink usually woke him right up (shuddup). Also, my husband bellowing 'HULLO IN THERE! STOP SCARING YOUR MOTHER!' at my navel usually did the trick - I'd get startled arms and legs jamming in all directions.

If I were you, I'd do the anomaly scan, and then just start paying attention to baby's movements (which you're supposed to do from about seven months on anyway).

Morning ladies

Was babysitting last night so didn't get chance to post as home too late.

gbee a show?!! Do you think things are on the move now then? Very excited for you

lola I haven't had chance to read the articles, will do so later. Have to say I'm with Tamlin though in that there are lots of causes for birth problems, and it's hard to say which causes which. Am a bit at your doula actually - she's bound to be a little anti-establishment due to her work (i.e. you need her as the docs/mw's don't pay you enough attention) but she should keep opinions (which is what they are as they are not fact based) to herself if one of her clients has found herself in that situation. Her telling you this can only worry you - and who gains from that?
Scans have been around now since the 1960's. Go out today, walk around and look at how many people under 40 you see ... and how many of them are 'normal'. Remember our paranoia levels are higher from what we've been through - doesn't translate into problems, just means we worry a lot more.

Talking about scans .... I went for mine last night at 8+4 and there was bean waving about with a strong hb, measuring exactly 8+4 We even listened to the hb through the scanner - 174 beats per min (apparently they slow down as they grow)
I have now joined the ranks of the over 98% likely I'll take a baby home in 7 months. Had a little cry after, relief I think.

Anyway, have to go get ready for work so speak later.

Lola am going to read the articles now but am absolutely at your doula. What an utter prat. Please do not talk to her again! She hasn't got a clue what she is talking about!

As with most things in pregnancy (compared to at any other time) these days things have to be proven to not cause harm, rather than just "have not enough evidence of harm caused". Which is why every packet of anything medical that is actually safe for pregnancy says to check with your GP before taking or not recommended during pregnancy.

So she's talking out of her arse.

Secondly, as Tamlin points out, who do you think it is who has the most scans? Is it the woman who pops out babies without even thinking about it and has never has a problem ever? No. The women who have most ultrasound checks are the women most likely to have complications.

The link is tenuous and IMO entirely correlative rather than causative.

But the thing I am most bothered by is the fact that when you went to your doula with a concern about one thing, she gave you an enormous concern about another.

Grr!

Ok rant over

Sort of.

Please don't listen to her Lola. I hope you're feeling ok.

Scarlotti (on a much happier note ) congratulations! That's great news about your scan. 8 weeks is a really big milestone in LO's chances, so yay!

bee are you still here? Are there any blueberry muffins left?

The more I think about that doula the crosser I get And I'm not even the person she scared!