It's Official!

I am officially more pregnant than I've ever been. Actually, I reached this milestone on Friday but I'm just now blogging about it. It feels good, but I still don't feel like I'm "safe" yet.

Thursday night was a little tough for me. I was 17w1d, which is when we lost Sam. I remember going to bed at 2am, with a back ache and cramping. I soaked in the tub and felt better so tried to get past it. I didn't realize at the time it was contractions- now I do. At promptly 4am, I woke up with the worst cramps of my life, which I thought was gas. I tried to use the bathroom to relieve myself but it didn't work. I rocked back and forth for a few minutes, then my water broke and the toilet filled with blood. That was the beginning of my worst nightmare.

That was 4 1/2 years ago and a lot has changed since then. Obviously, the transabdominal cerclage (TAC) is working and holding up well, which is why I'm still pregnant today. But I couldn't help but think back on what happened that night, this past Thursday. I didn't want to go to sleep, so I stayed up til 4 am in bed watching Sex & The City 2. It was a good distraction. A friend of mine says I should try hard and not associate all the bad things that happened with Sam. And she's right. But that night, I wasn't thinking of Sam. Yes, I missed him- I miss him all the time, but I was thinking more of my own personal trauma and all that I went through- it just happens to be on the same day Sam was born. Does that make sense?

The next day, after a good night's rest, I was able to reflect on how far I've come. And to know that I am more pregnant than I've ever been before, made me smile. It makes me feel like this baby actually has a real chance of being born ALIVE into this world. I'm hopeful and feeling good. I've been going to the OB every couple weeks and baby is growing as it should and doing well. Seeing him/her on the screen and hearing the heart beating at 170 bpm is such a relief for me.

Starting this Wednesday I'll be getting progesterone injections. I'll be 18 weeks and will take them until I reach 36 weeks gestation. I think they're called P-17 shots, but they help in preventing pre-term labor. My doctor told me that once you go into labor there isn't really any good medications that stop it and the one that works better than the others, affects the baby's heart rate so it can't be given for very long. So basically, if I go into PTL, I'm SOL. And my insurance has already said that they won't cover a loss having if I go into pre-term labor. Nice huh? So getting these weekly injections is just a precaution, it's being proactive. My OB didn't think I really needed them, but the perinatologist recommended I start them since it couldn't hurt anything. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to bring this baby safely into this world.

That's all for now, bathroom is still taken apart but the walls are getting put back up slowly but surely. Still haven't had the plumber out because 2 of them were out of town and another had car issues. Hopefully someone can come out this week to fix the damn plumbing. We picked out some really nice travertine and glass tiles and the tile setter came out today to give us an estimate. Hopefully it will all be completed within a couple weeks. I miss my shower!