It's been a while

I have a few Christmas items I want to share, but right now, I want to wish you a Happy New Year.

For some, it's been the best year on record. For others, it's been less than perfect. For all, it's an opportunity to live this next year to its fullest.

Here's to a blessed 2010 filled with happiness, love and lots of learning. (and hopefully a little Burkey baby)

Cheers!

So-so ultrasound news

First things first -- Merry Christmas Eve! Here's to work going quickly, the sleet holding off and a blessed holiday with friends and family.

Well, Brent and I made it to the 9 a.m. appointment. Right before we walked in, we sat in the Tracker. I muttered a few prayers under my breath, trying to calm my anxiety. I'm still convinced my heart was trying to escape.

Ultrasound technician Tim took us back almost immediately, even though we were 10 minutes early. He asked how I was feeling, if there were any changes. I smiled and said not really. "I'm hoping for good news from you, Tim."

"Well, from your smile, I'm hoping to give that to you," he replied.

I sat in the reclined chair contraption, he squirted on the jelly and there was the baby.
With a heartbeat of 167 bpm. (Oh, thank you, God, I whispered.)

Now for the slightly disheartening part. The ugly clot is still there; it's just a radically different shape. Instead of being clumped together around the gestational sac, it's now an hourglass shape. Part is down below, which is good because it's slowly spotting out. The part is still next to the baby.

No one can tell us what that means, really. And the things it could be are endless -- more active bleeding, no extra bleeding, it's coming out, it's staying the same, etc. -- and annoying. We're still considered a high-risk pregnancy, and we're still on the wait-and-see plan. Comforting, huh?

We're about 10-and-a-half weeks right now. Our next appointment Jan. 6 -- 9:20 a.m. ultrasound, 9:45 a.m. regular ob appointment that was previously scheduled. Tim said either the clot will disappear over the next two weeks, or I will bleed out and miscarry. That's at least what usually happens.

Then again, "usual" percentages haven't been on our side in 2009, which could be a good thing. As Brent said, at least our next appointment is in 2010 and it just has to be a better year.

Twelve more hours

I've lost count of how many ultrasounds we've had so far with this pregnancy. But each is never as important as the looming one, that's for sure.

Our next one is at 9 a.m. tomorrow, Christmas Eve.

I'm prepared for the clot getting a little bigger.
I'm expecting to see that little flickering heartbeat.
I'm praying to see no clot at all.

In my heart, I know I have to be ready for the worst. We've been through it before.
But I don't know anyone in his or her right mind who can mentally plan for the death of their child.
And, so, I refuse to.

Merry Christmas, everybody

Since I'm pretty much bound to the house, Brent and I have been able to get a lot of Christmas decorations up.
It's amazing how a little bit of garland and the smell of pine can make the whole house cheery.

How great was that snowstorm?

I must admit that I didn't believe the weatherpeople. They've been wrong before, and they'll be wrong again.

Not this time! With inches of snow falling, hubby and I snuggled in for a snowday. We watched movies, baked cookies and played with puppy in the snow. She L-O-V-E-D the snowbanks. While Brent did all the heavy lifting clearing our walkway, Lucy ran up and down the streets licking the snow and plowing into snowbanks. She'd disappear, and then her little head would pop out of the pristine snow. Hilarious/

The part that knocked my boots off? We awoke Sunday morning to our next-door neighbors snowblowing our sidewalk and driveway! What wonderful neighbors we have! We're so blessed to have them.

I jumped out of bed before Mass, and quickly baked banana bread for them. It was the least I could do as they braved the wind and below-freezing temperatures!

Take a peek

The ultrasound two weeks ago was nearly perfect. (Nearly, because we still have the dumb clot.)

I am kicking myself for not asking for a printout picture, though. The baby was lying on its back, squirming away. While still in black and white, the profile of the little guy or gal was perfect. We could see the heart fluttering, the legs kicking and the hands waving.

This time, it was still a miracle to see that little bean wriggling around. However, the baby was on the side, looking inside out through my belly. We could see one arms underneath the head, and the other arm was rubbing his or her face. So sweet!

For the past bit, I've tried to scan in the photo. It's not working. Grr... I'll keep trying and hopefully post the photo later.

Delayed reaction

So, it's Sunday night, and waaaay past Thursday when we had the ultrasound. Sorry for the delay.

Tim, the ultrasound technician, greeted us with his coke-bottle glasses and weary smile, as he walked us back to the room. He squeezed the cold jelly on my tummy, and placed the doppler on top.

He found a heartbeat. A heartbeat with 171 beats per minute, which is the same as a week ago.
(VICTORY!)

But, he also found the hematoma. And a bigger hematoma at that. Turns out, it grew a centimeter.
(CRAP)

Tim told us that he's seen women with hematomas this large before. Some have made it to term, so have not. He asked if we wanted to come back in a week to check on the mass again or wait two weeks.

Brent fielded that question for me. "Next week. I don't care if it's Christmas Eve."

So ... 9 a.m. Dec. 24 it is. Praying that this little miracle continues to fight for his or her life. Praying that this stupid blood clot starts receding. Praying that we make it to July.

Going crazy much?

Multitasking. It's a beautiful art that not only lets us live life to the fullest, but also drives us crazy. The more you multitask, the more you think. The more you think, the harder your brain works. I truly think around the holidays that our brains double, even triple in size.

With all of the work, shopping, wrapping, budgeting and other verbings I'm forgetting, I believe it.

Now, hubby and I have added a baby. My body has added a subchorionic hematoma. And now my baby and hematoma are sharing my uterus. Let's just hope that ultrasound shows a smaller or no blood clot on Thursday. (Fingers, toes, legs, arns and eyeballs are crossed.)

In the meantime, I'm celebrating all of the good pregnancy symptoms (nausea, tenderness, growing pains) and cringing at the bad (crampiness). I think I'm one of the only people right now who gets excited when I feel like I'm going to vomit my jelly toast. And I'm OK with that.

The rant about the neighbor

You'll read this and go, "yeah, that's Laura." I'm not sure if that's a good thing, though.

I wanted to bring you up to speed on a past promised blog post. So, our neighbor. He's one of two people I loathe (not hate, but loathe). The German has a thick accent and has his property all buttoned up complete with lots of fences, blinds and no one ever (and I mean ever) goes outside. Another neighbor has told me that he doesn't allow his wife to drive, too. Although, that's just hearsay.

On that note, though: He has five cars. Five. And do you think they all fit in his driveway? No. 


That same neighbor who I mentioned earlier has a few bird feeders in their front yard. It's quite nice to hear the chirping, but not so nice to see blobs of white and blue poo all over my black car. Except, I don't really let that bother me.

Our German friend across the street, however, does. So, he parks three cars in his driveway, one in front of our driveway across the street and the other in front of our house. Just typing that last clause raised my blood pressure by a few ticks. He thinks he owns the neighborhood, so he can do whatever his big pot-bellied, hair-chested brain wants. (And trust me, this is no Santa Claus.)

Well, it happened. I backed out of our driveway, slid on the ice and gently tapped his disgusting Volvo. Then, panicked, I drove away. As I caught my breath, I called my husband to own up to what happened. It appeared that I had woken the cops reporter in him, and he got upset.

"Do you know you could be charged with a hit and run?"

Whoops. Luckily, he quickly scribbled a note and ran outside to drop the note at the scene of the crime. (Phew, disaster and jail time averted.)

Now, I just wait for our rates to go up. In the meantime, I'm parking in his spot.

Our ultrasound that melted my heart

We only got to see Morgan alive at six weeks, four days. When we saw this child, he or she is about nine weeks and so much bigger! It was unreal. When Brent and I headed to the ultrasound room, the tech zoomed in on our little one.

The baby was furiously kicking her legs and moving her arms, almost like she was waving to us! Then, all of a sudden, the baby bounced. I kid you not. The baby scrunched up and bounded upward.

What a miracle. What an incredible site to see this child doing this. (I think she gets her moves from me.)

When I was talking to a friend about this, she goes, "Well, you have a fighter in there." She couldn't be more correct. After all, this baby is a Randisi/Burkey. Did I expect anything less? And this baby is fighting for his or her life, so there's no way in hell I'm giving up on him.

No more sadness. No more downtrodden, what-if thoughts. God will take care of this child. And we will greet him or her with open arms in July 2010.

The midwife steps up

"Hi, I'm Felicia, and I'll be your midwife today."

Stealing a look toward Brent, I rolled my eyes. I don't want to see a midwife. I want a D-O-C-T-O-R. I turned off my disgruntled expression, as she looked up from my chart. She asked me to explain what happened the night before in detail, asked if I was still bleeding (yes) and then walked over to me.

She took a look and explained that my cervix was never indeed open, and I was never dilated. It's a common mistake that ER doctors make in their hasty peek since they're not used to that sort of thing everyday. (great)

Felicia explained a little about what happened, what a subchorionic hematoma is and reassuringly said that my uterus felt the right size for around nine weeks! (The hematoma is when blood vessels break when the baby is implanting. If it blocks the area where the baby switches from the yolk sac and grabs onto the placenta, a miscarriage occurs.)

Then, Felicia said she'd make a deal with me. Using a doppler, she thought she'd be able to find the baby's heartbeat. BUT, if she was unable, I had to promise not to get distraught. I hesitantly looked at her and said, "I'm a little fragile to say the least right now. But I'd like you to try."

Brent shot me an incredulous glance. We had previously decided not to listen only because we didn't want to add more worry to the situation than already existed. I just had a feeling that she'd find it though.

Within 10 seconds, we heard the glorious lub-dubs coming from my belly. It was in the 170s. Perfect. I grabbed for Brent's hand, and we tearfully smiled at each other. Soon after I was dressed, we were sent downstairs to the ultrasound room. The technician, Tim, wanted to get a baseline for the hematoma. (He didn't trust the ER's reports, and that was fine by me.)

The unfortunate part was that the hematoma had gotten bigger from the night before, so it's a little more worrisome now. He said if it gets any bigger, a miscarriage is most likely imminent. So, now it's bed rest for me. No lifting, no walking, no running, no nothing. And that's fine by me because it's about our baby now.

And now we're officially considered a high-risk pregnancy. So, we will need weekly ultrasounds to monitor things. On the up side, we'll get to see our little one more than ever now! Every Thursday, we'll make sure that heart is fluttering away.

We arrived to the official appointment

On Thursday morning, we arrived at the doctor's office still bleary-eyed and depressed about the night before. The nurse cheerfully brought us into her office to give us the rundown on prenatal care, the cost and jot down our family histories. She said congratulations and asked us if this was planned.

I looked at Brent, eyes wider than my face. As the nurse waited for an answer, I turned back to her overly happy face and her lipstick-stained teeth.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. "What is going on? We were in the ER last night, and now we're having a conversation about a baby that might or might not still be alive inside of me. I need you to help me!"

Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I started shaking all over again. (Then, I just felt badly for the unsuspecting victim of my stress.) She fumbled for the mouse and clicked away trying to find my charts from the emergency room.

"Looks like everything is fine," she cautiously said, as she looked up from her keyboard. "You have a subchorionic hematoma, but the baby is OK."

Then, Brent teared up. WHAT?  (OK, breathe.)

She finished up the paperwork with us, threw a bunch of freebies into a canvas bag and ushered us into the officially appointment. At the end, all she good stammer was a "good luck."

Luck? After this crappy year, we're going to need more than luck.

Catching up since the last post

I just re-read the last blog post about our first appointment. Unfortunately, a lot happened 12 hours before we even got there.

It all started with a snow/ice storm that led to me sliding into our jerk neighbor's Volvo, which he parks in front of our driveway. (More of a rant on that later. Trust me, I have lots to say.)

A half-hour into a friend's birthday celebration at a local restaurant, I realized I was bleeding. I won't go into the horrid details, but I began hemorrhaging. I (in hindsight stupidly) drove myself to the hospital with Brent on the cell phone trying to calm me down. That's all we'd need is me getting into an accident on top of everything.

After tests and taking blood and more tests, I was wheeled into an ultrasound room for a sonagram. Expecting that I had lost our child, the technician suddenly told us we had a fetus with a heart beating at 174 beats per minute.

What?

You have a baby with a heartbeat.

After six hours in the emergency room, the ER doctor gave me discharge papers. Confused? Yeah, so were we. He told me to go home, relax and go the scheduled appointment the next morning. This was after that same man told us I passed the baby, I was dilated and hemorrhaging. You can imagine our disbelief.

In bed that night, all we could do was pray.

The first doctor appointment

Thursday morning we head to the doctor for the same appointment that we actually made it to with Morgan. It's the one where the nurse practitioner asks a million and one questions in her cushy office.

Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you have depression? Do any of these 3,000 diseases listed here run in your family?

Then comes the fun part, though. We get all sorts of baby magazines, freebies, products to try and a ton of paperwork. Thank goodness they give you a canvas tote bag to bring it all home. Now, we did receive all of this with Morgan, but I threw all of the freebies and information out in a fit of fury. (Whoops)

After the chat, the doctor takes a look and so begins the question-and-answer session. This poor doctor has no idea what's going hit her when I get in there. Couple being a naturally inquisitive journalist with a past of a miscarriage ...

It's arrived!

We are officially grown-ups.

No, graduating from college,
moving out on my own to another state,
heading to the altar and
now pregnancy has not achieved this status.

Our queen-sized headboard makes us grown-ups.

After waiting five weeks and logging plenty of phone calls to Sleep Mattress (don't go there), it came in! I'll put up another photo of it actually on the bed, but here is what it looks like.

It's Chester Heaboard in Creme Brulee Finish. Maybe we were just hungry when we bought it.

Something in common

After the doctor said to take it easy until we make it to 12 weeks, I've (unfortunately) been sucked into reality television. I know, I know. I should be reading ("The Man Who Was Thursday," for example), but sometimes it's more fun to lose yourself in trashy TV.

Enter the Real Housewives of New Jersey. As soon as I wrote that hour of my life as lost forever, one of the women talked about having five miscarriages.

Since that episode, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Read about it here.

(And please tell me I'm not the only Bravo fan here.)

Turning the focus to hubby

Lately, hubby has been more than sick. We're still not sure if it was a really mean bug or if it's stress-related. (Although, I have a feeling it's the latter.)

As he sat on the table, the doctor asked him to talk a little about what's going on. Where to start? Could it be all of the breaking news on the manufacturing beat? Or the miscarriage in September? Maybe the situation we're in right now with our second child?

Nah, it's probably the just the impending holidays.

Sending feel-better vibes Brent's way.

Losing my mind

I knew having  -- or better trying for -- a baby would be an anxiety-ridden experience. But, I didn't know I signed for all that has happened. I am ready now. I'm prepared for the worst, I'm praying for the best and I know I'll survive. What's that saying? What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Back to my point -- the doctor put me on restrictions. He didn't necessarily say I'm a high-risk patient, but that I'm "somebody to watch." What does this mean?

No shopping.
No carrying heavy bags.
No lifting.
No running.
No excessive movement.
No working out.

And now, folks, I am losing my mind. I literally think my arm fat has doubled. And, I am not known to exaggerate.(I don't think.)

Looks like Brent has Lucy-walking duties, and presents will be bought online this year.