This whole process has been a real whirlwind of emotion. I’m pregnant! I’ll probably miscarry! There’s a fetus! It has a slow heartbeat! No it doesn’t! I’ll probably find out there’s a birth defect! I don’t know how much more of this whipsawing I can take.
I had my appointment today. Based on my last menstrual period, I am 8w5d. Fetus is still measuring behind that day (which is fine), at 8w2d. Crown to rump is 17mm (hence the 8w2d measurement), gestational sac is 38mm, yolk sac is 4mm, heart rate is 170bpm.
Hold the phone, you say! That all sounds normal. Indeed it is. Indeed it is. From the information in my appointment today, I have absolutely nothing to worry about. Except for my history (9 pregnancy losses, 2 after 12 weeks from severe and devastating birth defects) and my age (39). And maybe the fact that I wasn’t trying to get pregnant and thus was not on any kind of prenatal vitamin, let alone high doses of folic acid in an attempt to avoid another NTD. But other than that everything is roses!
I don’t know what to think. I fully expected to go into this appointment hearing that there was no heartbeat, or that it remained catastrophically slow, or that the fetus was falling way behind on development. And I was going to accept that because I felt confident it was just a matter of time that things went south. I was not prepared to be told everything looks great!
So we continue to wait. I’m starting to feel just the tiniest bit of optimism, which means, of course, that it will be all the more crushing when things go wrong. But there’s nothing more I can do but wait, and try to keep my expectations in check.
In the meantime, I’ll have a lot of time to think about this when I’m running the Chicago marathon this weekend—a little slower than I was planning to.
P.S. I am in love with whoever created this miscarriage prediction website:https://datayze.com/miscarriage-chart.php It give you chances of miscarriage by day depending on mom’s age, height, weight, previous live births, and previous miscarriages. They even have a little thing “Nervous about miscarriage? Let us reassure you.” where they give you pep talk statistics. For me, this week, based on my age (geriatric), history (abysmal), and height/weight (sexy as hell), it claims I have about a 5% chance of miscarriage. (Obviously my concern is not miscarriage but birth defects, but still, that’s a nice statistic.) It says, “At 8 weeks, 2 days the probability of not miscarrying is 94.7%.” Still nervous? It tells you, “The probability of your pregnancy ending in miscarriage decreased 8.6% since yesterday, from 5.8% to 5.3%.” Still nervous? “Since becoming pregnant, your probability of miscarriage has decreased 87.3%, from 41.7% to 5.3%.” How fun is that??
P.P.S. Am I nervous about running a marathon at 9+ weeks pregnant? No. Exercise during pregnancy is (generally) good! See:
P.P.P.S. Do not mistake my temporary surprise/increased optimism with confusion about how precarious our situation is. I know our history and have not forgotten we had a slow heartbeat at the last appointment. And a slow heartbeat at the beginning leads to increased changes of miscarriage even if a later normal heartrate: http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/full/10.1148/radiol.2362040880 (“When a slow embryonic heart rate is detected at 6.0–7.0 weeks, the likelihood of subsequent first-trimester demise remains elevated (approximately 25%) even if the heart rate is normal at follow-up. In such pregnancies, at least one follow-up scan in late first trimester is warranted.”) There remains an increased risk of loss through the first trimester: http://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(04)00608-9/fulltext (“patients with slow fetal heart rate (<120 bpm) in first-trimester threatened abortion may eventually be at risk for pregnancy loss. If it survives the first trimester, the likelihood of subsequent death is low.”).
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