Check in - week of Oct 6

[danib]

Hey I figured we could get a check-in started. I'll put a basic format but feel free to add whatever you want.

Weeks/Due Date -

Symptoms -

The Good -

The Bad -

Milestones/Appointments -

To Do List -

[danib]

Weeks/Due Date - 4w3d / June 11

Symptoms - bloating, fatigue, insane dreams

The Good - I'm still super early so there's nothing much to say just yet, other than I'm excited and hopeful

The Bad - I have to tell my employer basically immediately, even though I was hoping to wait at least a few weeks. I was in a situation at work today that made me incredibly nervous for my safety (on that is something I deal with in my type of work, but I'm not comfortable with the risks while pregnant), and I'm going to need to be accommodated/switched to other (safer) locations.

Milestones/Appointments - First appointment isn't until the end of the month.

To Do List - I need to make some freezer meals and muffins etc for my boys. I had really severe sickness when I was pregnant with each of them, so I want to be proactive and have some meals/lunch items ready for them.

[sdlaura]

danib, what do you do for work?

[sdlaura]

Weeks/Due Date - 4 weeks 5 days/June 9

Symptoms - not much. Maybe a little more tired and bloated than usual.

The Good - I had two beta tests this week and they were good.

The Bad - Just anxiety given my age and complicated pregnancy history. If this sticks, I totally plan to pretend this was unplanned for career purposes/because everyone will think we’re insane for having a 4th

Milestones/Appointments - My OB also said I can get an US right at 6 weeks so I can see whether there’s a heartbeat.

To Do List - I need to do some major sorting of kid clothes. I know I must have a 2T fall/winter hand-me-down stuff for DS2 but need to organize better. We just ordered a Murphy bed/desk for our guest room. Hopefully we will need that room for a future baby, but even if this doesn’t work out, it will be nice to not have a queen bed that we rarely use take up space.

[danib]

Oct 6, 2019 16:14:19 GMT -6 sdlaura said:

danib, what do you do for work?

I work in group homes taking care of teenagers who are removed from their homes. Many of our houses are really great to work at, but some (like the one today) have kids who can become really aggressive.

[sdlaura]

danib I can see that being a difficult job while pregnant!

[danib]

Oct 6, 2019 17:33:53 GMT -6 sdlaura said:

danib I can see that being a difficult job while pregnant!

It can be. 99% of the time I wouldn't worry, but you get the wrong mix of kids and things can get out of control pretty quickly.

You mentioned having complications pregnancies? Do you mind me asking how so? I'm high risk also, so just being curious.

[magaroni]

Weeks/Due Date - 5 + 2, June 5th

Symptoms - fatigue, that’s about all so far

The Good - I had early betas last week that doubled appropriately. My OBs office called Friday and wanted to recheck a beta that day as well. They said once it was over 1500 they could do an ultrasound. My beta Friday was almost 3300! I’m waiting for them to call me to schedule an ultrasound but will probably ask to wait until next week just to be sure it’s far enough along to see a heartbeat.

The Bad - PGAL brain sucks. I’m feeling much better after seeing my betas.

Milestones/Appointments - I’m still pregnant! I’m waiting for my OB office to call back to schedule my first US and appointment.

To Do List - survive the week....does that count?! I worked all weekend and still have a 12 hour shift to get through tomorrow.

sdlaura this will be our 4th as well. I do worry a tiny bit about what other people will think because I feel like 4 kids officially puts you in the “big family” category.

[sdlaura]

danib it’s a long story. TL; DR heart defects in two babies and an ectopic pregnancy

The longer story - my first pregnancy ended for medical reasons at 21 weeks. We went to the 18 week anatomy scan and found out the baby’s heart wasn’t correctly formed. We had an amino and other testing but weren’t able to identify any chromosomal cause. We had second, third, fourth opinions and talked to all kind of experts, racing the clock to make a decision while we still could. All told us the same - that the only way baby would survive was with a heart transplant, and you can’t perform a transplant on a newborn. We ultimately made the incredibly difficult decision to end the pregnancy to spare the baby pain/death after birth. It was the worst time in DH’s and my lives.

Then we tried again for a long time and had an ectopic pregnancy and then an early miscarriage, then had our healthy DD. Everyone thought the heart problems were likely a fluke/accident of development. When DD was 8 months I got pregnant with DS1 - a bit unexpected since we had to try so long before. We had the anatomy scan at 18 weeks and a fetal echocardiogram of the heart at our children’s hospital at 21 weeks and were told baby’s heart was normal. Then I was at an unrelated ultrasound at 26 weeks and they told us baby had heart defects - our follow ups with other experts resulted in a diagnosis of Tetralogy of Fallot, 4 related heart defects. These defects were surgically repairable, though we had to wait for him to arrive to find out for sure how serious they were. When he was born his defects ended up being on the less serious side and he was able to go home with us like normal and have one open heart surgery at 5 months, and his doctors expect that’s all he’ll need. Then DS2 has a healthy heart.

So the complications aren’t really with me (besides the one ectopic), but with the babies’ health. We’ve met with genetic counselors and they say there’s got to be some genetic component but since it’s not linked with a syndrome - luckily the issue seems to be only physical and not developmental - there’s nothing to test for.

Sorry this is so long! What causes you to be high risk?

[sdlaura]

magaroni it will be fun if we both stick around as fourth time moms . Your four will be even closer than mine!

[danib]

Oh wow sdlaura I'm so sorry for your losses and everything you've been through.

I'm high risk due to my own health conditions. I have multiple autoimmune diseases. One of them would require some extra monitoring because it can effect the amniotic fluid which can potentially lead to baby how growing well. The other more serious one Involves an antibody I have that can cross the placenta and can cause heart issues, specifically affecting one of the main valves ability to close properly. I get a LOT of monitoring because of it, I had 25 ultrasounds on DS2.
Luckily my boys have been born healthy. DS2 does have an issue with one of his valves, but it is a minor one and doesn't require treatment as it would only cause a real issue with extreme altitude (like he can't be an astronaut or a deep-sea diver, but regular flying is fine).

[sdlaura]

danib I'm so glad your boys are healthy and that your DS2's valve issue isn't serious. Part of my DS1's in utero diagnosis was for him to possibly also have a valve issue, in terms of it needing to be removed/replaced. I guess once someone has an artificial valve, they have to have another open heart surgery every 10 years or so for the rest of their life to replace it. We felt really lucky that DS1's valves seemed to be fine after birth. I'm also glad that my child with heart issues is a boy, since I guess a female with any heart issue could have her heart stressed too much during her own future pregnancy.

Fingers crossed that both of us have healthy pregnancies and babies this time!

[wasabi]

Hi guys 👋

Weeks/Due Date - 4+2/June 13

Symptoms - not too many yet. Sore boobs, I’ve felt twinges of nausea here and there but nothing crazy, cramping. I’m worried about the fatigue and possible acne. My skin was so annoying when I was pregnant with my DD, I’m hoping my body skips that this time around.

The Good - just happy to be pregnant, I shared on GD that SO may be on board with my girl name I’ve loved for years 👍 lol but it is still very early for that so who knows if he’ll change his mind.

The Bad - nothing bad to report

Milestones/Appointments - Nothing yet

To Do List - I still haven’t made an ob appt 😬 not that they’d see me this early anyway. I moved recently and am still trying to figure out where to go.

[danib]

wasabi DH agreed to my boys name that I had wanted for DS2 but he wouldn't agree to at the time. Now that he's agreed he's not allowed to change his mind lol.

[wasabi]

Oct 7, 2019 12:58:14 GMT -6 danib said:

wasabi DH agreed to my boys name that I had wanted for DS2 but he wouldn't agree to at the time. Now that he's agreed he's not allowed to change his mind lol.

Lol, maybe I should get his acceptance of it in writing

[magaroni]

We couldn’t agree on a girls name for DD2 but we were team green so we didn’t worry about until she was born. I totally pulled the “I just birthed her” card and got my name. I told him if we had another he could name it. Hopefully he won’t remember

[danib]

Oct 7, 2019 17:09:21 GMT -6 magaroni said:

We couldn’t agree on a girls name for DD2 but we were team green so we didn’t worry about until she was born. I totally pulled the “I just birthed her” card and got my name. I told him if we had another he could name it. Hopefully he won’t remember

Haha good line!

[danib]

I can't seem to make it through my workouts this week, it's getting quite annoying. I was really hoping that being more active this pregnancy would help me to not get as sick. Just checked my blood pressure and it was 58/99, that probably explains why I was feeling light headed

[magaroni]

Oct 8, 2019 6:52:23 GMT -6 danib said:

I can't seem to make it through my workouts this week, it's getting quite annoying. I was really hoping that being more active this pregnancy would help me to not get as sick. Just checked my blood pressure and it was 58/99, that probably explains why I was feeling light headed

Good for you for trying to workout! I had been training for a half marathon but decided I wasn’t going to run it once I found out I was pregnant. I haven’t worked out since. I’m going to try to get in a short run or two this week.

[danib]

Oct 8, 2019 9:26:24 GMT -6 magaroni said:

Oct 8, 2019 6:52:23 GMT -6 danib said:

I can't seem to make it through my workouts this week, it's getting quite annoying. I was really hoping that being more active this pregnancy would help me to not get as sick. Just checked my blood pressure and it was 58/99, that probably explains why I was feeling light headed

Good for you for trying to workout! I had been training for a half marathon but decided I wasn’t going to run it once I found out I was pregnant. I haven’t worked out since. I’m going to try to get in a short run or two this week.

The childcare room at my gym is closing at the end of the month so I'll be finishing then. And it'll be getting into snow season so walks with the stroller won't work. I'm not sure what to do, but I want to try my best to stay active

[wasabi]

I’m hoping to stay active as well. Which, I hadn’t been doing so great with even pre-pregnancy lol. But I am on my way to the gym now just to do some light running/walking on the treadmill and then I’ll do some yoga hopefully. I had already gained like 7 lbs over the past couple years that I was trying to get rid of before I got KU so I really want to try to keep my weight gain to a minimum.

I can’t imagine running a marathon while pregnant. Superwomen.

[sdlaura]

I'm a 6/7 day a week exercise person (not that you'd know it by looking at my body - I'm just a bit of an endorphin addict). But because we don't know the cause of the kids' prior heart defects, I don't feel comfortable exercising really hard while pregnant. So now I try to keep my heart rate under 130 - don't ask me how I picked that, but it seems like under that is not really exerting myself too much. So I'm still light jogging and doing OrangeTheory, or my garage elliptical, just taking it really easy. Unfortunately, my frequent exercise doesn't seem to help a ton with pregnancy weight gain. I'd love to gain less this time than with my last pregnancy.

[ttcbabyj]

Hey Guys! I’m new around these parts!✋🏾

Weeks/Due Date - 4 weeks + 4 days/June 14th

Symptoms - I’m still taking my estrogen and progesterone injections so I know a lot of my symptoms are lated to the injection. Vivid dreams...I woke up this morning screaming “oh shit!” I felt like I forgot to do something... DH jumped up thinking something was wrong. 🤦🏽‍♀️

The Good - Pure excitement!

The Bad - Me worrying about my HCG and progesterone levels. Level was 128 yesterday and increase from first beta, which was 48. My progesterone was low yesterday, 16.9, RE likes it above 25. My PIO amount was increased and DH needs to massage injection site for 5 minutes after injections

My HCG levels are rising but not at the rate they did with DD. I hate that I’m already comparing my little guy to DD. But RE said male embryos produce lower HCG levels than females. Beta #3 is next week, but I’m probably going to go to an outside lab this weekend.

Milestones/Appointments - nothing yet

To Do List - Start sorting DD’s old baby toys.

[sdlaura]

Welcome ttcbabyj! Hopefully we will both have June 2017 and June 2020 babies

[danib]

Welcome ttcbabyj
Will your RE keep you on Progesterone throughout your pregnancy?

[ttcbabyj]

Oct 10, 2019 16:41:19 GMT -6 danib said:

Welcome ttcbabyj
Will your RE keep you on Progesterone throughout your pregnancy?

I have to keep taking all injections until I’m 10 weeks, once the placenta takes over the job of the injections. My butt is already very sore.