Adding On

One year after losing our precious son, we decided to try again. I remember my sitting down with my doctor for my post-partum check up, asking her when we could try again. Her response was "after three regular periods, you are free to start trying again." I remember sitting in the room thinking "three months, I have to wait three months?! 3 months, plus 9 months is one year (yeah I went to school for that) and I cannot wait a year until I have a child in my arms." And then later on my mom and I spoke and she told me to wait a year. HA! I couldn't imagine waiting three months, how could I wait a year?! Somehow we did, and in November we decided to start trying for our second child together.
Due to my mad math skills I knew we would probably find out if I was pregnant when we were on our honeymoon in Cancun the first week of December. I packed 5 pregnancy tests with me, because I knew I would not want to wait, and would probably start peeing on sticks before I could get an accurate result. As many of you know, my luggage arrived a few days late to Cancun. Ughhhh! I wanted to take a test so bad and couldn't, so Jeremy and I went to a drugstore where we tried to ask for a pregnancy test. It was very amusing watching Jeremy simulate having a baby bump and peeing on a stick! After she the lady tried to give us a pill that she described as "this make no baby" we eventually got a test. It was false :(. Eventually my luggage came, and every test I took was negative. What a bummer!! I guess getting pregnant would be harder than I thought. We got home, and my mom asks "so, are you pregnant?" Through the wonderful world of facebook she picked up on the subtle hints from my pprom sisters (who knew we were trying) and had to ask. It wasn't fun telling her no, but she had hope because she knew we were tyring. That night Jeremy and I went to get some groceries, and I picked up one last test "just in case." It was positive! After so many negatives this was such a surprise. It was such a surprise that Jeremy made me go out and get another test before telling anyone.
So my first task was to get a doctor. Someone who took my pregnancy very seriously, considered me high risk, and knew all about pprom. After a frustrating exploration and getting paired with a midwife, I switched practices. I am now going to an amazing doctor, the man that actually delivered me! My first appointment went great, my doctor ordered several extra tests for me and was very thorough. My mom and I got to see the baby via ultrasound and got a due date of August 18th.
About a week after my appointment I got a call from my doctor about my labs. He explained to me that I have a genetic defect called Methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase aka MTHFR. I am also homozygous which means that I inherited a gene from both of my parents. This basically means that my blood clots more easily and I do not process folic acid normally. If untreated, I have a high risk of miscarriage. I am now on baby aspirin to thin my blood and Folgard to get this baby the proper amount of folic acid. I also asked the doctor if this is why I pprom'd to which he replied "it could definitely be a reason why you had the abruption." Immediately after receiving this news I googled MTHFR. The first site I got to put me into a panic (pregnancy-info.net/mthfr). I wrote my pprom group and thankfully Dana put me at ease informing me that its no big deal when treated. phew!
A few weeks later I (along with my mom)met with one of the high risk doctors at Toledo. I got another ultrasound and was able to see the little one wiggling around, it was wonderful to see! It was amazing to see the difference in a matter of weeks. Then it was on to meet with the doctor. I was terrified. I was about to meet with the same doctor that told me the horrible news about Brody, and advised me to terminate. He was the bearer of my bad news and I had so much resentment built up against him. My appointment with him went well. He told me the chances of this being a successful pregnancy are "excellent." What a relief! He also believes that MTHFR is nothing to worry about, it didn't even seem to phase him. He also explained his rationale with advising termination. He knew Brody wasn't going to make it, and now I have a scar across my stomach when there never had to be one there. But then I look at Suki, a pprom sister's miracle: she pprom'd at 14 weeks and delivered at 27 (shortly after I had Brody).. I absolutely love looking at the pictures of this little girl. I would have always wondered "what if...." but now I don"t have to.
So far I am 11 weeks, and everything is looking great! I have had three calls from the doctors so far that go "We got your results back and everything looks great except..." but everything is always fixable! I am getting amazing care, and am so elated about this little one!!
Also, to all those that are asking me the sex of the baby: The sex of a baby is not determined until 16 weeks. Rarely will a doctor schedule and ultrasound to determine the sex, since it is not crucial to the baby's health. The high risk doc wants to do ultrasounds at 13 weeks and 22 weeks, so that means I probably wont find out until April, sorry! Believe me, we are very curious...I think it will be a boy, Jeremy thinks girl, and the high risk doc thinks girl because I am "beautiful." I really don't care though, as long as my baby gets here healthy :)