Our Week

The last couple days for our little family have been kind of a whirlwind. Things just came and went so fast, even though the days themselves went slowly. Since this blog is about our family life, I feel it important to include what we've been through, even though it's been difficult.

First, I want to make sure I thank everyone that was so kind and helpful during the last couple days. We have great friends here in Baton Rouge that were so willing to help and family that provided us with support, prayers, and fasting. We can't thank you all enough. For our family and close friends who didn't know anything was going on, please don't feel bad. Everything went so quickly and we really didn't have any answers to give anyone, so we only told our immediate families.

Mike and I have been hoping that we'd be blessed with another little one soon, since Oliver is getting to the age where he really loves playing with other kids. We'd love for him to have a brother or sister to play with. This Saturday I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. We were excited, but a little worried since I'd been spotting for about a week. My cycle has been off, so we had no idea I could be pregnant until I looked down to find a definite bump on Saturday evening. Many of you may not know that Oliver is actually our fourth pregnancy, we had three miscarriages before we were blessed with him. The first was at about 7 weeks and the following two at about 4 or 5 weeks.
We decided I should just take it easy until Monday and then get in to a doctor as soon as possible. First thing Monday morning I started calling around, but due to weather and insurance difficulties I couldn't get in to anyone. A woman on the nurse's hotline told me I needed to see someone within four hours since my spotting had now turned into bleeding. She suggested we go to the ER at a women's hospital in town. I called Mike, we dropped Oliver off with a friend, and headed for the ER. There they did a blood test to measure my Beta HCG, the hormone that is released when you're pregnant. During the first of your pregnancy it doubles every 48 hours, so this would allow them to determine if the pregnancy was continuing or miscarrying, but they first needed to take my blood again in 48 hours. At this point my HCG level was 800. They also checked me and said everything looked fine, but I was bleeding more than they'd like. They said I had a threatened miscarriage and sent me home on bed rest. I was to come back for the second blood test on Wednesday.
I took it easy on Monday. This seemed to be working, until I started having some pains and increased bleeding in the evening. This part was much like my previous miscarriages, so I started to wonder if I would lose the baby in the night. Things calmed back down and by morning the pains were gone and the bleeding had almost stopped, so we got our hopes back up that it could be ok. I took it easy again on Tuesday.
Tuesday evening I started having the pains again and the bleeding became the worst it had been. The pains increased until they were much like labor pains, which is what I remembered having happened before, so I was prepared. Then they became more intense and I was bleeding more. Mike got Oliver ready for bed, and I was literally on the floor in so much pain I could barely move. We decided something could be wrong, like an ectopic pregnancy or perhaps my body wasn't opening the way it needed to, since that's the reason I had to have a C-Section with Oliver. Due to the weather and road closures we knew we couldn't get to the ER we had gone to before and we didn't know where else they could help me. We also weren't sure if we could get there in time since the pains were continuing to worsen, so we called the ambulance and they came and got me. Oliver was sad when they took me, poor little guy, he was scared. Mike dropped him off with some friends and followed me to the hospital. We were blessed that he could find an open route to the hospital they took me to.
Once there they did an ultrasound and pelvic exam and found that I was having a normal miscarriage. After the ultrasound I passed the tissue and the pains subsided. They did another blood test while I was there and my levels were 6700, much higher than they should have been, especially for someone who was miscarrying. They sent us home and I need to rest for a couple days and see another doctor for a follow-up ultrasound and blood test. The ultrasound will make sure everything passed so I don't require a procedure and the blood test will hopefully tell us a little more about the spike in my levels. We're hoping this time we can come up with some answers as to why this has happened to us so many times now. There aren't very many answers they can give us since it's the first trimester, but they can look into it a little more.
Thank you for all your support and prayers, they're greatly appreciated! We're recovering well, just drained and exhausted. Poor little Oliver hasn't had much Mama time the last couple days, so today was just he and I. We read, we danced, we played, and we snuggled, it was the best medicine for a sad Mama. Mike and I have noticed that miscarriage isn't always talked about, which sometimes makes those who face it feel that they are alone. We're hoping that by writing about ours, it will open up the subject a little more. If this has happened to you, please know you're not alone and we'd be happy to talk about it if you'd like or if you have any questions.