Sarah Laughed

All about the fun world of infertility and assisted reproduction.

[sarahlaughed]

Isaac Was Here

Our beloved son, Isaac James Houston, was born and died on Friday, at 27 weeks 4 days gestation. We are devastated beyond words.

[sarahlaughed]

My waters broke on Thursday around noon. I'm on bed rest.

Wi-fi at the hospital is not great, so several previous attempts at this post have failed.

Baby is still alive and inside, has had the full course of steroids for its lungs in case I go into labour, and now it's just a waiting game. Hoping for no contractions, no infection, no foetal distress.

I'll keep you all posted.

Nothing comes easy to us, does it??

[sarahlaughed]

wishing4baby said: “My uterus is tilted and my placenta placed so that feeling any movement was guesswork until about week 22 or something. I’m now at 30 weeks and the baby’s aerobics keep me awake at night. So, I know it’s hard but just trust that the baby’s there!”

Yup, I first felt movement around 19 weeks - my uterus is tilted, and the placenta placed on the side/front.  I just worry if the baby does aerobics for a few days and then goes quiet for a few days, even though this is a pattern that’s already repeated several times over the last seven weeks.  I have anxiety issues already, and pregnancy after infertility just gives me an outlet for them ...

[sarahlaughed]

26w2d

I’m having some pretty awful pain in my lower abdomen, which my Circle Of Wise Ladies tells me is probably the return of round ligament pain (Round Ligament Pain 2: the return of round ligament pain! IT’S BACK! IT’S BIGGER! AND IT’S *ANGRY*!!).  But it’s been pretty much non-stop for the last two days - a constant sore ache just above my pubic bone (TMI?), which makes it really hard to go from sitting to standing, to roll over in bed, or, frankly, to walk.

Which is tons of fun, because the next two weeks, I have to somehow lead Holiday Clubs at work!  Yay!  I honestly have NO idea how I’m going to physically do this.

It also means it’s harder to feel the baby move - the baby seems to have dropped a bit into my pelvis (which my mum says is what it does around now) and that means most of the movements are lower down, and so it’s hard to differentiate movement from the twinges caused by the ligament pain. Which means I spend about 90% of my time freaking out because I’m not sure if and when the baby is moving.

[sarahlaughed]

This is why pregnancy takes so long.

I think nature’s goal is to make you so sick of it that you WELCOME labour and delivery.

I mean, FFS, I’m Officially Done With Being Pregnant and I’ve still got the whole damn third trimester to go.

[sarahlaughed]

26 weeks

From the NCT today: “You are approaching the end of your second trimester. This is often the time people enjoy most as your bump is obviously showing, you can feel your baby kicking and your bump is not at an uncomfortable size yet.”

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

On the other hand, my fundal height measurement is 28 cm, so I’m on the large side of normal here.

26-week checkup was fine, but baby was lying transverse and behind the placenta, so it took them a while to find the heartbeat. So even though the midwife wasn’t at all concerned, and said, “sometimes it takes a while to find the heartbeat now they’re bigger,” DH and I were sitting there having minor heart attacks for a minute or so, because infertility teaches you never to believe that good news will last.

[sarahlaughed]

More stuff they don’t tell you about pregnancy.

The tightness in your skin. How you’ll feel the way you do after eating too much, only it will be CONSTANT. And how even a small meal will make it SO much worse.

I’ve booked myself a pregnancy massage that I can’t really afford, because I hurt everywhere and the deep muscles in my legs are killing me, and there’s a lot of other stressful shit going on that I’m not going to talk about on Tumblr. I got a 50% off deal on Wahanda (whose adverts I hate with the fire of a thousand suns, so I feel bad giving them my money), but it’s still £35, which at the moment is kind of a lot. But fuck it, I’m in pain.

The good news is I’m VERY close to the third trimester (how did that happen?), and the baby has opened its eyes by now!!

[sarahlaughed]

That’s really quite rude, actually.

Let’s be honest, baby, this behaviour is really not on.

I’m providing you with vitamins, minerals, temperature regulation, and the proper hormonal environment you require in order to develop successfully and survive in the outside world. And I’m providing this all from my OWN BODY.

And in return, what are you doing?  Jumping on my bladder at 3:00 in the morning.

You’ve been taking lessons from the cats, haven’t you?

[sarahlaughed]

Might as well start lowering my expectations now, and save disappointment later.

Yesterday I organized some of the clothes - we have little cloth baskets, which are going to go on the shelves of the changing table.  So I put all the cloth nappies in one, and the pads in another, and the plastic pants and liners in another, and set them out on the dresser because we don't have a changing table yet.

And felt all organized and on top of things and like a good mother-to-be.

Within five minutes, one of the cats had taken up residence in the basket with the pads, and there was an enormous spider crawling over the cloth nappies themselves.  So now I feel less like "super-organized responsible mum" and more like "mum who covers her child in cat hair and spiders."

[sarahlaughed]

NHS vs private

We’ve had treatment both on the NHS and in a private clinic.

While we’re incredibly lucky to live in an area where the CCG provides three treatments of IVF on the NHS, and the staff in our NHS clinic were knowledgeable, competent, and emotionally supportive, there were some serious differences in how we were treated in the two different clinics that show the stark reality that those who can afford private treatment get better care than those who can’t.

I understand that the NHS has to ration care and do the best they can with limited resources. I’m not blaming them for that. I’m just saying it sucks that the NHS is being starved of cash and has to make these kinds of decisions in the first place.

NHS:

One counselling session included. Waiting list at least a month long. Only two or three sessions each week available, all of which are in the middle of the workday, requiring even more time off.

Private clinic:

Unlimited counselling sessions, included in the cost of your cycle.  Counsellor’s email address provided, so you can schedule appointments with her directly, even on very short notice in the case of sudden and unexpected bad news.  Evening and weekend appointments sometimes available.

NHS:

Respond to previous failed cycle by providing prednisolone during the second cycle and trying to get me into one of two clinical studies being run on methods to increase implantation rates.

Private clinic:

Respond to previous failed cycle by doing an aquascan to ensure uterine fibroids aren’t in a position where they’d interfere with implantation, doing womb scratching in the month before the cycle, and providing prednisolone and Clexane during the TWW.

Of course, it’s possible that the private clinic was piling on extras like womb scratching, aquascans, and Clexane in order to make more money off us, not because they thought it would be useful - but the total cost of these extras was less than £500, which is not much in the overall cost of an IVF cycle, so it strikes me as unlikely.

And honestly, there are some studies that suggest womb scratching alone can boost pregnancy rates by up to 50%, and it only costs about £150. If the NHS started doing that as STANDARD, I bet they’d be funding many fewer 2nd and 3rd cycles, and it would SAVE them money overall.

[sarahlaughed]

24 weeks. Holy crap, I feel big, and I've got 16 weeks to go.

[sarahlaughed]

More stellar public health advice for preggos.

An article in the Metro this morning reported that “between 15 and 70 percent” of pregnant women drink alcohol.

This was followed by a scoldy paragraph reminding women not to drink alcohol at all in their first trimester and probably not to drink after that.

I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS.

First of all, is it 15% or is it 70%? I know you may not have noticed this, since you were too busy telling pregnant women what we already know, but there’s a SLIGHT DIFFERENCE between those two figures.  JUST A TINY BIT.

Secondly, is there any breakdown on whether these women KNEW they were pregnant when they were drinking, or not?  Lots of women drink in the first few weeks of pregnancy BECAUSE THEY DON’T REALIZE THEY’RE PREGNANT.

Thirdly, this group of reckless harlots (who may number as many as 7 in 10 or maybe only 1.5 in 10, but really, what’s the diff??) - are we talking a small glass of wine once a week, or are we talking about sticking our faces in a bathtub full of gin?  Again, the former is probably okay even in the first trimester - the latter is generally not a good idea REGARDLESS of whether you’re pregnant or not.

[sarahlaughed]

24 weeks

This is a huge psychological milestone.

This baby is now considered viable for life outside the womb. Of course, survival rates for babies who actually ARE born at 24 weeks are still low, but 24 weeks is considered the cut-off point.

It’s now illegal to abort a pregnancy at this stage.

This baby is officially, medically, considered to be A Life now.

[sarahlaughed]

Preggo summer heatwave survival.

[sarahlaughed]

My pregnant feet in this weather:

[sarahlaughed]

Pregnancy heatwave survival guide.

Loose floaty dress? Check.

“Baby on Board” badge, so I don’t pass out on the Tube and squish some poor hapless tourist under my enormous belly? Check.

Improvised “anti-chafing device” consisting of an old compression sock from my sprained ankle a few years ago, wrapped around the gusset of my knickers and hanging down on each side to deal with the upper thigh area? Check.

Bottle of water, as recommended by multiple scolding Tube signs that imply that if you faint in their overheated packed carriages that exceed EU regulations for cattle transport, it’s YOUR fault for not having adequate overpriced environmentally-destructive hydration? Check.

LET’S DO THIS, LADIES.

[sarahlaughed]

Dear baby ...

You are getting bigger every day. In fact, yesterday, I felt the first above-the-belly-button movement from you.

So WHY, out of ALL the space you have to move around, are you SO DETERMINED to kick me in the BLADDER?