So about all that cheery optimism

It's kind of not working.

For those of you who may be thinking that a positive pregnancy test means a live baby for me, and all I needed was to fix my non-existent ovulation, we need to talk.

I haven't posted about every pregnancy experience I've had, and I really ought to fix that. Urghhhhh. Basically, I have lost pregnancies at every stage. And the odds of this resulting in a live baby are so low, the high risk docs won't even give me a number.

Since I had a Trisomy 18 pregnancy at the age of 28, amniocentesis and a nuchal scan isn't even optional, it's mandatory. It's thought to be incredibly rare for a young woman to have a chromosomally damaged egg, (poorly gathered miscarriage evidence notwithstanding) that my odds of a good egg are crap. And honestly, I'm not sure what I'd do this time if I got a bad amnio result. After 9 years of guilt and judgement heaped on my head----fuck I can't even go there.

And it is pretty presumptuous of me to think I'll get to 18-21 weeks. Pregnancy #6 was lost a few days after the positive. And Mira and Georgia never got past 12 & 16 weeks.

I DO have two living children. They escaped from my crappy uterus before anything could go wrong, so I have to give the docs some credit. Even after Mac was born with lungs full of meconium and had an Apgar of 1 at one minute, hey, the docs suctioned him and he pinked up, and hell, he's alive and healthy.

You know, most bloggers who get pregnant seem to have a "safe point" where they no longer worry about the pregnancy, and start assuming they will get a live baby out of this adventure. I really don't have that point. So every moment of the next 35 weeks is going to be absolutely terrifying. And it seems to have made me even more nutty about my living kids.

But I'm not upset to see pregnant women or babies anymore. I've only felt that way during my worst moments to be honest. I'm more of a babyluster myself. I'm the crazy woman who looks at your newborn like I want to steal it. Not little kids, mind you. Just babies, and the smaller the better. I follow them around like an addict looking for a fix desperate to smell them or touch them.

Tomorrow I'm going to pack a bag for the hospital. It's not a bag for L&D. It's a bag of stuff I'll need if I'm miscarrying at any point. I'm tired of having to send my husband home to bring me hospital gear, and he returns with whatever he grabs because he's grief stricken and in shock and can only find my pantyhose and lipstick, but not maxipads. (And who the fuck needs pantyhose after a D&C? I never did understand that one. Poor sweet crazy man....)

And in more of the "getting ahead of myself" category....this next conversation is predicated on the fact that someone will need to take care of me if I miscarry at least.

The issue is that my hospital, the women's one in town, has been gutted over time and parcelled out amongst various hospitals. So it's still got the best NICU, and the best L&D, but if any other part of my body acts up, it's problematic. The only other decent high risk hospital I'd go to, I don't really like. They get so intervention happy that they turn every single birth into a high risk one. I've literally never met a woman in real life who gave birth there and didn't get an automatic unneeded pitocin drip and a crash vacuum or a crash c-section. No wait a minute, since they refuse to VBAC anyone, they do a lot of next birth scheduled c-sections. In fact, they have the highest rate in the province.

So you're asking, why wouldn't Aurelia want every damn intervention on earth? Don't interventions ALWAYS save babies?

Ummm, no, not always.

I don't want the wrong interventions just because they exist. I want the right treatment for me and the fetbryo and sometimes the right treatment is to turn off the pit drip, or to wait for the baby to descend slowly and not push it into distress with extra drugs or a vacuum. And some OBs who live for adrenaline or interventions are very very authoritarian towards patients. Sometimes listening to a Mom who tells you something is wrong, is critical. Every time something has gone really wrong, I've known it deep down. I can't always say what, but I know if something has changed and they need to do something help me.

I knew something was wrong just before Mira died, and before Matthew was diagnosed, and when Georgia died, weeks before. And now, I barely trust my intuition anymore. I don't want a Doc talking down to me as well. Every time I don't feel sick or gassy or tired or well, pregnant, I start to lose faith. And I can't do that. It won't help.

The question is, how do I find that magical perfect Doc?

In my world of magical thinking, Dr.J. is the only reason my babies made it. Every time I've had a live baby, she was there, and every time I had a dead baby, I had another doctor. Completely illogical, I mean she was my GP when Matthew was conceived, and all the others, but still, I can't stand the fact that she isn't delivering babies anymore. And I have no idea how to clone her.

I'm truly blathering now, and it's late. I need to go to sleep.

So, if some of my fellow IFer's can't read me all the time for the next while I get it, it might be too painful to read, just please please please don't assume my attempts at joking and optimism are anything but a defense mechanism.

I will never be the happy innocent preggo ever again. I AM trying to fake it 'til I make it, one day at a time.