round ligament pain

Boring pregnancy details here. But I meant to be documenting more of it.. so here's a little update.

I woke up this afternoon with terrible abdominal pain... so bad that I had to call out of work. It was in my upper and lower stomach area so I didnt know if this was GI related or uterine. It was difficult to walk, which really sucks when you think you're going to vomit. (I never did though, thank goodness). So I went back to sleep hoping it would go away.

14 hours later, it hasn't. It isn't GI related, and the pain has lessened in my upper stomach. Eating doesn't change anything, and fluids have only helped with the matching headache I had. I did take a hot bath (semi-hot, since you're not really allowed) and that helped. After talking to one of my maternity nurse friends and being reassured by the doppler a whopping 5 times in 10 hours, I have self diagnosed this as round ligament pain. Usually I feel that when I change positions after sitting or laying for a long time, but this is constant. It feels like muscular tightness rather than cramping. Who's had a pregnancy after a c-section? was your round ligament pain worse? do you think it's because the muscle is sore? or does the 2nd pregnancy just result in faster growth, so therefore worse RLP?

I dont like it at all. The baby's heart rate has been up slightly.. not much... but I would think the all day pain and maybe the hot water (after the bath was the fastest) has affected my poor little bird :( I'd rather know it's high than wonder if it's there at all. If I didn't have my doppler, I'd definitely have been in triage last night.


I cant miss work again tonight.. I dont have very much paid time off and every hour that I miss basically translates to less time of guaranteed maternity leave. I guess I'm just gonna be moving slowly at work if/when I go, because although right now the pain is steady, it still causes those worse twinges if I move too much.

I wish pain could just be pain, a nusiance, and not be horrifying worry.

I'm sorry baby.. I dont mean to stress. I hope this pain just means that your nest is growing bigger for a healthier you!

Six days until anatomy scan!

doppler

for those of you in the "doppler is a bad idea" camp, i had a needless scare just now. couldn't find the heartbeat. turns out, my bladder was in the way. the instant i came out of the bathroom and put the wand on my stomach, there it was, 141. daddy even heard it from the other room. we laughed.. my poor squished organs. we love you baby bird!

8 more days until we find out the health status and gender of our birdie!

dreams

.i dreamed of kathlyn last night. this is about the 4th or the 5th time i've dreamed of her. each time, she has been dead, or alive but i knew she was about to die. my brain wont allow, even for a second of my unconscious, for my heart to think she's alive. my brain knows my heart would shatter once again to have to wake back up from that. so even in my dreams, she's still dead. despite that, the feel of her 7 pounds in my arms was a temporary cure for my grief. i wish i could hold her like that every night.



the details of the dream are too strange to share. all my dreams lately are very strange; i guess those are "pregnancy dreams". but in the dream, even though she was dead, she cried, stretched, and spit up. it's not really that strange that she spit up, because the whole time i was holding her in real life on july 30, i was afraid her meconium would expel (what a thing to be thinking of when bonding for the one and only time with your daughter).



i heard her cry... i have never, ever heard that before, not for real, not in my imagination or my dreams. and, i saw her eyes. since i never saw them in real life, my dreams have never showed them to me. my dreams have even teased me before, where i was about to see her eyes and at the last second she closes them. but there they were... such a shining, sparkly, icy blue. they were amazing. i put a new diaper on her. and a pair of green and pink kitty cat pajamas. and swaddled her in a pink, white, and yellow flower blanket. and held her. i remember thinking in my real conscious (i knew i was dreaming) what a gift it was to hear those cries, see her stretch and get an idea of her body movements, see her eyes, and dress her.. things i never got to do. and i just wanted to hold her to my chest, heart to heart, baby blue eyes on my shoulder, and never let go.



i close my eyes.. only for a moment and the moment's gone..

raw truth

my instant karma punishment for allowing myself to watch "baby diaries" is the narrator saying "and the 6lb 14oz baby's two vessel cord turned out to be of no concern at all." he was born at 38+6, just like kathlyn, and was only 3oz different. im not begruding them. just sad for me. they are also repeatedly showing ...a march of dimes commercial about how 60,000 american newborns a year never see their own room.

Question for rainbow mommies...

During your pregnancy with your rainbow baby, were you afraid to do the things you did while pregnant the first time? (or whichever pregnancy it was that your baby died.) Did you feel that either it's a bad omen, or somehow that it would contribute to the baby's death again?



I know everyone will tell us that it wasn't our fault that the baby died. We'lll even reassure each other of that, and then in the next sentence be sure that we ourselves DID have something to do with our own baby's death. I'm the mother. Any mother would feel responsible for something bad happening to their child, especially under our own supervision, and even when not. It's the mother's job to protect the child. It's the female's body's job to carry and deliver offspring. And so far, I'm batting zero. If you don't understand how I could think it's partially or totally my fault (or my body's fault), then you obviously haven't been through it.



I'm very excited because my brother is coming to visit this weekend. He wanted to come this weekend instead of for Kathlyn's birthday so that he could have me all to himself :) We decided to go stay in a cabin in the mountains for the weekend for some beautiful views, cool breezes, and some light hiking. John and I took the same trip when I was 33 weeks pregnant with Kathlyn, and I never, ever thought I'd be able to go back there again. It would just be too sad. But I decided that instead of being too sad, it would be nice to go somewhere to experience a happy time we had with Kathlyn. Still sad, because everything is sad without her, but a bittersweet sad.



What was I thinking?!



The hikes were not very strenuous. I was so big, they couldn't be. But did I do too much?? Too much uphill?? If that was the case, wouldnt she have died right then and not 6 weeks later? I don't know! How can you know?!



We did some swimming. Not really "swimming", but we dipped in some knee and waist deep water to cool off. I even thought at the time "this can't be very clean" but I know my closed amniotic sac protects germs from entering the body and going near the baby.



But what if there WAS an infection from the water? What if it took 6 weeks to kill her, but by the time the autopsy was done, the infection had died down? Would I have been sick too?? I don't know! How can you know?!



And now I'm going to do this AGAIN!?



It's such a shame, because everything enjoyable I try to do causes me to question if it's going to cause me, or someone I love, to die. TO DIE. THIS IS MY WORRY. WHAT IF SOMEONE DIES?



Oh Dear God. I'm not using Your name in vain. I'm constantly talking to You. Please don't let anyone die, please not my new baby. I'm doing everything I can for this baby's safety. I want to enjoy my brother's visit and the beautiful scenery of Your Blue Ridge Mountains. That breeze... I love that cool fresh air breeze. I've been looking forward to that cool breeze. A cool breeze cannot make someone die. (can it?!)



It's exhausting.

i'm not normal.

article: "New Mom Body Bummers"



magazine: "American Baby"





"..Remember, though postpartum aches and pains may be frustrating, they're only temporary- and the fleeting souvenirs of bringing your amazing newborn into the world. And, thankfully, she's here to stay."



Well, that's an empty guarantee, eh?



I should know better than to read these magazines for normal pregnant people. I should be reading "Trying Again" and "Journeys: Stories of Pregnancy After Loss." Am I trying to be normal? To read the magazines that I so dreamily read through the first time? I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I've already named this baby. I've already bought things for this baby. I've already planned some things for March and April. I'm counting this baby.



And then I have this horrifying feeling that it's all too good to be true. Will this one be "here to stay?" Will this one plan my funeral in 60 years? I have practiced for 7 years as a policewife on just not thinking of all the bad things that could happen while my husband is at work. But you can never become "used to it." I didn't even get the chance to act as a real mother before every mother's biggest worry, worst nightmare, the one she tries not to think about, came true for me. I'm terrified. I don't want any more of my babies to die. Terrifed.



Screw "American Baby" for making promises they can't keep. I'm supposed to put my faith in my awesome God, not some stupid magazine for the society that denies that babies ever die. But faith in God doesn't protect me from the feelings, worries, and emotions that make me human. God understands what happened, but I don't, and I shouldn't be expected not to grieve for what I lost and worry for what I still have to come.


Anyway, my first trimester screen came back normal.. I use the doppler anywhere from 0-2 times per day, and it's always between 147 and 164. Everything looks healthy and on time. My next appointment is October 6... the anatomy scan ! Normal results for a totally non-normal feeling Mommy.