Why I keep blogging about this

So, my newest bet is that in actuality, Sarah Palin is trying to be the new Michelle Duggar.

Frankly, I think that she has confused the Vice-Presidency of the United States with the Jerry Springer Show, or maybe she thinks it's some sort of new reality series?

So now that we know that Bristol is the one who is pregnant right now, I'm left with a couple of conclusions to choose from.

Either:
1) Irish Twins: Bristol is the mother of both, and got pregnant very very quickly after having Trig. So what about the 5 months pregnant? We all know that the 2ww means that she is really 4.5 months along, and the way teenagers ovulate she could have conceived no problem right away. A week leeway here and there---and who knows what the truth is. Maybe the family started the fake pregnancy because Bristol and her boyfriend have no health insurance and so the baby would have no health insurance if she was the mom. And the last thing on earth anyone wants is for a kid with Down's Syndrome to have no health insurance in the United States.

So the possibility exists that a current Governor of the US and possibly the next Vice President of the United States has committed insurance fraud and faked a birth certificate.

Or:
2) Bristol is pregnant now, but is not the mother of Trig, meaning that abstinence education really is a terrible idea. And her mother is an ass for accepting the Veep nomination under these circumstances and exposing her to this hell. If Sarah is the mother of Trig, then I go back to my original post on this subject, and she took extremely dangerous risks with her baby when she travelled 22 hours back to Alaska while in preterm labour with broken water.

And that leads to the conclusion that either Sarah Palins is an utterly incompetent mother who didn't take care of her pregnancy, or that even after four pregnancies she is too stupid to know that broken water and preterm labour mean that she should immediately go to a hospital. If her Doctor told her it was okay to fly, then he/she should be sued for malpractice, since so far, I can't find one perinatologist who thinks that is anything but insane. (And fwiw, I asked my own Doc, who laughed and wondered aloud if Palin was trying to take the roundabout way out and end the baby's life without getting an official abortion, because really, what she did---is that medically ludicrous.)

So the US is left with a VP candidate who is either a crook or an idiot. Lovely.

Obama's response was not only to be expected, but in my opinion, totally appropriate. Not because his mom was 18 when she had him, but because he has daughters himself, and they may be small now, but they are about to grow up and be teens in the middle of his White House term. You just know that since TV reporters began noticing the kids of Presidents the single biggest nightmare of every political strategist is a First Daughter getting into trouble, whether that means drugs, or pregnancy, or bad boyfriends, or God only knows what.

Patti Davis gave Reagan's advisors ulcers, and Chelsea scared the crap out of everyone, not to mention the Bush twins. So yeah, Obama is right to worry. The Secret Service has their jobs cut out for them.

So why do I keep going on about Palin?

Because this woman and her pro-life buddies think that women like Cecily and I should be dead, and have told me so, in comments and by email. I respect Sarah Palin's choice to not have an abortion, but she sure doesn't respect my choice to have one.

She thinks live women should just have died. So fuck her, the gloves are off.

Tomorrow is the ten year anniversary of Matthew's death, and this week is very difficult for me. Next week on the 7th, it is the fourth anniversary of Georgia's death. I admit it, I'm sensitive. I just can't help but contrast the care I took with my pregnancy with him, even when we didn't know if we were going to terminate, with her casual disregard for her baby's welfare. I was told to never be further away than 15 minutes from a hospital that could handle a high-risk pregnancy and had a level 3 NICU. And I did that, even when it meant cancelling work obligations and being unable to take care of my older son.

We in the infertililty/baby loss community have sacrificed so so much to have our families and she, a woman who condemns me and trumpets her pro-life beliefs, can't do the same? And I'm supposed to hold my tongue and not jump on the scandal?

No way.

you'll never believe this one.....

For the record, I am supportive if anyone chooses to carry a pregnancy to term after receiving a bad diagnosis, their choice, their body, and frankly, I'll gladly contribute tax dollars to help them raise their disabled kid to be hale and hearty. But considering all the moral condemnation that they like to heap on my head for making my choice, it's hypocritical for them to do anything less than take perfect care of a pregnancy. You can bet your ass that if Palins was a crack addict instead of an upper middle class Governor they'd be all over her.

But wait---something has happened. hahahahahahahaha

It turns out that Sarah Palins is not quite what the McCain camp thought she was, and that there is a good explanation for her doing that insane thing where she flew all over the damn place while supposedly in labour and with leaking amniotic fluid. Turns out that...drumroll please---she was NEVER in labour at all.

She was never pregnant. It was her daughter's baby!

Poor kid, her own mom steals her baby, calls it hers and carts the kid all over the world using him as a political prop, and all she gets to do is secretly hug him in the background. Meanwhile, my question is, who faked the birth certificate? Why lie to the press about this? When you are as well-known as this woman was, how could you ever think that you would get away with this? And when are criminal charges going to be laid?

I knew something was wrong....I just knew it. And for the record, one of those links has an opinion from an OB who agrees with my last post, lock stock and barrel. (And I never saw his quote, until I arrived back from Wonderland tonight.)

I was right. Mother's intuition I guess. You know, unlike grandmother's intuition.....hehe

So do you think that when John McCain's head explodes, it will go out his ears, or straight up?

Living Coffins

Apologies for the lateness of this post, but I've had a slight crisis around here. Owning a home is like burning money sometimes. But I digress...

Today is Blogging for Choice Day in Canada. Yes we're using the A-word today people. Antonia Zerbisias started it in honour of the 20th Aniversary of R.v.Morgentaler. I've always admired Dr.Morgentaler because he truly was willing to risk jail to protect a woman's right to choose, and how many doctors do you know honour a woman's medical wishes to that extent?

Not many, in my experience.

Now, technically this case was the first and most historic....but the case that came just a short while later, Tremblay v. Daigle was a hundred times more important IMO. You see, the Morgentaler case made it clear that the government could not interfere with decisions between a woman and her Doctor. This resembled the mushy Roe v. Wade in the US and as such is a decision more easily overturned. Sort of like when SCOTUS screwed up royally recently.

Daigle v. Tremblay on the other hand, was definitive. A fetus is not a life in Canada until it is born live, and the sole person who may decide it's fate is the woman who is pregnant and best able to make that decision. Chantal Daigle for those of you who have never heard of the case, was a woman who tried to get an abortion after her boyfriend beat and abused her. (Most women who are abused by spouses are beaten for the first time while pregnant.)

She knew that if she had the child, it would never stop. Wife-beaters don't do it just once and repent. Is she ran, he would find her, stalk her, and eventually kill her. If he couldn't find her, he would sue for visitation and custody, and then, as now, a man guilty of spousal abuse is not considered to be bad parenting material. You know, until after he beats the child a few times. Sometimes he kills the kid before authorities are willing to step in.

After all, they have to be sure he really is a violent person before they save the kid. (I guess the bruises and broken bones on the woman don't count as evidence for that----eyeroll.) The solution of locking him up for life, well, I'd vote for it in a second, but since convicting a man of beating or killing a woman is unheard of in this country, or just about any other country on the planet---fat chance of getting a sentence longer than pre-trial custody.

You can read the whole story on the link above, but in the end, the Court closed off any avenues for a future abortion law. Most Canadians are quite content with that since they assume that most abortions are first trimester, and 90% of them are. A few go over that limit to the second trimester, women like Ms.Daigle who are beaten and abused but can't get one before then.

And then there's the women like me, the Bitches with the scarlet A on our chest. The ones no member of the public ever wants to discuss, the women who get a fatal or severely disabling prenatal diagnosis and make the hard decision to end the pregnancy of a very much wanted and loved child. We make that decision for the same reason that people decide to stop life support on the elderly, on the fatally ill, on those suffering in agony. Doctors like to pretend that they can save everyone, but sadly, they have limits too. The Catholic Church even recognizes this and allows live born people to decline extraordinary medical measures and simply die in peace, without tubes and machines in every orifice of their body.

But for some odd reason, this kindness and logical acceptance of a dignified death all stops at the door to the womb. Women like me are supposed to become living coffins waiting for the moment when the wrecked and barely functioning hearts of our babies stop. We are supposed to risk dying from preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome to birth dying micropreemies. We are supposed to risk our future fertility and our future children's lives to give birth to chromosomally damaged ones who be stillborn or die shortly after birth.

I've always said that the only thing worse than having a dead baby is not knowing you have a dead baby. Well, even worse---knowing you have a dying child in your uterus and being forced to sit in limbo wondering which day, which hour, which moment the death knell will sound. The psychological torture of that is incomprehensible.

And what about the children with serious birth defects who might make it, who might live, who might have a chance if we expend every ounce of our energy and time and money on them? Well, we have a universal hospital care in this country. But we don't have income replacement insurance, or daycare coverage for the pre-existing kids. And to paraphrase one doctor in Walker's story, "We spend a million dollars saving these babies, and then we abandon them and their families."

There is little or no social service supports for the parents of the seriously disabled in Canada. Compared to someone uninsured in the US, perhaps we have a better deal, but quite honestly, not by much. Home care is a joke, OT, PT, travel to appointments, nursing, psychologist coverage, special schools, are only basically covered, even for those of us who live in Toronto and have the access to the best care. And socially? Parents of highly disabled children live very lonely lives, society pretending they put them on a pedestal, but practically speaking, treating them like pariahs.

I'm well-off these days, a fact I'm grateful for every single second I breathe. I'm articulate, well-connected, and smart enough to research what I'd need to know. I have a husband who is supportive and kind and am surrounded by a wonderful community of friends and family, but even I'm not sure I could make it through the 24/7 rollercoaster of raising a severely disabled kid. Could a single mother? A couple living on miminum wage? An immigrant family without much english? A rural family who have to drive 6 hours each way to Toronto for check-ups with special clinics?

If it makes me scared, I can't imagine trying to walk a mile in their shoes.

So, our choice is a sad one at best. Society judges us, no one ever hears our side, and the medical profession tries to help us with the only tool they have.

I pray they always can.

A few answers

In the previous post, I has asked if anyone knew how the Papp-A numbers might affect my placenta. And I've discovered that when in doubt you should definitely ask the internet!

Oh and to those of you on the planet who think that prenatal diagnosis numbers are all about ending a pregnancy, read on. It's also predicting IUGR, or FGR (pick your term, same thing) and miscarriages, and stillbirths, and preeclampsia. And if you can predict those things at twelve weeks, then maybe you can change drug treatments or get monitored differently, or save a baby that otherwise might not have made it.

About my numbers, one doctor told me it was fine....and technically he's right, since it is, sort of, but I get pretty nervous about these things, so I like more exact numbers. The genetics counselor said it was a bit low, but she really only deals with genetics & chromosomes and not bad placentas on healthy babies so much, so she really wasn't able to tell me much.

So, Rachel sent me a link to an article in a comment and explained that in this ratio 1 is the mean, and so .66 is low. Fortunately, not very low, just slightly. (Sometimes I've seen 0 be the mean, in other non-science areas so this is clearer! Also, the way they calculate the Mom number and the reason they use it instead of raw numbers is because they take into account maternal weight, so on the raw numbers (IU/litres) for my last post, they only apply to women who are around 130-135 pounds. Circulating blood hormone levels look different on small vs. larger women.) Yes, I'm skinny, but I'm pretty flabby and short; I wonder if height or muscle vs. fat ratio affects it? Hmmmmm....

Compared to Georgia, in 2004 who had a Papp-A of .50 MoMs, .66 MoMs this time around doesn't seem so much better, but apparently it is. "Women with PAPP-A 0.50 MoM also had significantly higher rates of FGR (RR = 3.30) and spontaneous miscarriage (RR = 3.78)." So, she was definitely in the low range potential for miscarriage. And this baby isn't.

The worst results though are reserved for those who fall into the bottom 5%. And that doesn't even start until .415, and the woman at genetics said they don't see serious problems until it goes as low as .30, so I tend to think---maybe I can get away with this. And as Wabi has reminded me, it's only a possibility of miscarriage, my risk has gone up slightly, but that's not for sure, and full 14 week anatomical scan we are having tomorrow morning will tell me a lot more about my placenta and the blood flow to it.

I'm definitely going to keep injecting the heparin though, and taking the progesterone and baby aspirin. I didn't do it last time, and now I now I have some numbers to show it's helping. Proof enough for me.

They'll have to pry that needle out of my cold dead hand to stop me from shooting up.

Not enough RAM

So many sad news stories this week, I'm not sure I can read them. I am positive I simply do not have the ability to mentally process them all. As Bruno Gianelli on The West Wing once said, "My brain just doesn't have enough RAM to do it all. Some things just have to fall away."

But this really hurts; it really has taken my breath away.

Today is my son's seventh birthday. I usually refer to him as the little guy, but he's big enough to have a name on the blog now, so we'll call him Mac, okay? Mac is sweet and kind and sensitive. He's never hurt a soul. Mac is going to change the world someday, or at least make it a better place for a few of us.

So WTF is SCOTUS to imply he should never have been born? I get that they want me dead...I'm a real live feminist, and we all know they hate actual women, so as repugnant as it is, I can understand why they decreed that I deserve to die. I mean c'mon---Western modern society says domestic violence isn't a crime, and stalking is no big deal, and then they all stand around surprised when there are consequences. *eyeroll*

So back to me and Mac. If you look on my sidebar at pregnancy#2, you will see the story before Mac was born. Or you could just read this post and know why it was so medically necessary that I end that pregnancy, save my life, and keep my uterus. Besides the whole fond-of-womb-thing, I could not have given birth to Mac without that precious organ.

In my case I was induced, but I had the luxury of time, I wasn't dying from preeclampsia, or urgently bleeding to death, AKA the nightmare for every woman who has ever faced the possibility of dying in childbirth. (I could have bled to death imminently, but I didn't wait to find out.) I know I was blessed to have great Doctors and live in a country that respects my right to make adult informed choices.

But still, the precedent is terrible. If you look at the oral arguments the court heard, you will note that an important reason the procedure is practiced is so that women can see their babies afterwards in one piece, and take pictures, mourn, & have a funeral. Intact D&E or D&X is reserved done for wanted pregnancies when the child is terminally ill or the mother is dying. D&E where the child is removed in pieces, is done for late term procedures, on women who have non-medical reasons to end the pregnancy (think Chantal Daigle - beaten and abused by her boyfriend in the late second trimester) or in emergencies, it all depends on what happens in the OR, or how sick the woman is.

What's worse is that the US court did not seem to understand the medical arguments presented to it. They did not comprehend the life threatening danger. It's like we've insulated ourselves from reality with technology, convinced that women don't die in childbirth. That everything can be "cured". That our future yet-to-exist children will still magically be born alive and healthy even if our fertility is damaged by previous reproductive disasters.

Happy Birthday Mac. I'm sorry those people don't get it, Mommy promises you that she will defeat them, somehow, someday.

I'll make them see that you have a right to exist to.

Can't give in to the dark side

Nooobooody loves me, eeeverybooody hates me----gonna go out and eat worms...sigh

I am so sick that I am incapable of seeing the good side of ANYTHING right now. I'm really trying, I swear. I told my Doctor yesterday that I have never actually felt this bad with a cold, cause usually I get a little symptom relief from the over the counter stuff, like m0trin or tylen0l, or pse*doephedr!ne...(BTW, did you know that you can no longer buy that stuff without DM, even though DM doesn't work...apparently it's because they think all of us boring middle class moms are going to sell it to crooks, never mind that the volume needed to cook m3th is impossible to get from like even a zillion visits to pharmacies, gahhh. And yes, all the crooks would NEVER keep DM in their m3th, they only want high quality for their customers...*eyeroll* apologies for siderant.)

So I'm ignoring a certain post, and comments which sent me into a good long cry yesterday. I know it wasn't intended that way...but it's just not funny to me. I'm sure all the adoptees and birth moms will get why I'd be sad over it. I know the rest of you won't understand why, I'm sorry, it's just how I feel, I can't lie about it on my own blog.

*Edited to add, basically as an adoptee, I believe it is never a good choice to donate embryos for someone else to adopt. Melt or donate to research is fine. I just can't deal with the whole anonymous thing when adoptees everywhere have been trying to find their parents for years. IMHO, no difference, sorry guys, you don't have to agree with me, just know it's how I PERSONALLY feel.*

And I'm trying to ignore this hideous poorly researched nightmare commentary by a woman named Margaret Somerville. (She thinks she is the cat's meow of ethics in Canada, but really she's just a pro-life bigot who hates gays. But worse, than that, she pretends to know "science." Google her name, you won't believe it.) The accompanying Globe article isn't bad except for the part where they say prenatal diagnosis is all about Down's. And according to them Down's isn't a problem, easy peasy...that whole 90% death rate prior to birth...ehh, an inconvenient thing they ignored. And Trisomy 18? Gah...what's that? Or how about all of the other hundreds of lethal birth defects, that endanger women's lives during pregnancy from the deformed placentas? Nope, not bothering to mention them... Much more convenient to judge me and kick me and every other woman who has had to make that difficult decision.

My favourite quote from Somerville, "We're going to be able to detect genes for manic depression, but many of our great artists are manic depressives. It's linked to creativity." Really Marg, I thought it was called bipolar illness, and that the fabled link to artistic endevours had been disproven. Never mind that bipolar illness is easily controlled and treatable, and finding just one gene for it, like someday, say 30 years from now, is highly unlikely.

Never mind that women who terminate pregnancies are almost always dealing with FATAL birth defects, not treatable, fixable issues. Why not muddy the waters with a gratuitous throwaway line? I think it's because it will make all the women who terminate pregnancies the bitches with the scarlet A on their chest.

Nothing like waking up and being called a eugenicist to really get your crank going in the morning, huh?

But I can't.think.about.that, lalalalalala, must take more cold medicine and watch stupid TV shows....I know I will feel better when this cold lifts.

The proof I didn't want to know

This post describes the events that happened shortly after Matthew died. It's also going to double as my Blogging for Choice contribution.





The day of the funeral, I started having cramps and bleeding, more than I should've. I called the OB/Gyn, Dr. C , who performed the termination and he got me into an ultrasound clinic across from the hospital that morning. The radiologist told me that I had retained placenta. We went over to see the OB/Gyn who gave me a prescription for Cytotec again and told me to take some more that night and not worry, it would probably come out.The thought of having anything still inside me completely freaked me out, since I was worried it might be a part of the baby. (Which of course was impossible, we'd seen him with all his fingers and toes, but still...)

My poor husband on the other hand, was terrified we'd miss the funeral. I guess the part about his wife hemorraging went right over his head. His Dad was coming to the funeral and he was freaked out about being late to meet his father. The things that go through your head when you are grief-stricken---hmm?

We got to the funeral on time, and the cemetary as I mentioned before. About a week later, I realized I was still bleeding to heavily and went back to Dr. C. He was mystified, but sent me for another ultrasound, and lo and behold that little tiny piece of placenta was still hanging around. More Cytotec, and antibiotics this time, just in case. He told me he didn't want to risk a D&C because I was so far along in the pregnancy that my uterine walls were very thin and there was a risk of perforation. I know many people get 2nd trimester D&Cs but the further you go into the pregnancy the riskier they get especially with a damaged placenta, and the risk was manageable until 4-6 weeks after the pregnancy when the risk goes back to normal. In my case, we ended up waiting for 2 and 1/2 months, while we kept trying round after round of Cytotec.

I eventually got my D&C and it turned out to be the tiniest little piece of placenta ever, but as Dr. C noted, it was more firmly attached than anything he had ever seen, even a placenta accreta. And then we had the talk...when I asked what this would have meant if I had carried Matthew to term. It turns out that my placenta was coming apart as I gave birth to him, and parts of it were stuck, and that would've meant not just a hemorrhage, but also in all probability a hysterectomy after a radical c-section to deliver a dead or dying child with hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus which would've swelled his head and prevented a vaginal birth or a regular c-section. This surgery would've taken place after I had already experienced severe blood loss.

It's been very hard to publish this post all day, because I'm having trouble facing what might've happened, & not just to me. My little son, my darling 6 year old who loves gorillas and art and wants to save endangered animals, wouldn't exist. I needed a uterus to have him, and God help me I can't contemplate a world without him. This proof of the risk to all our lives is the worst part, the final word, the end to my hope.

Protecting choice isn't just about women, or our current family when we make our choice, it's about protecting our future fertility, about making sure our future children get to exist.

Thank God I live in Canada, where my right to choose to end a pregnancy is protected at this point. And I hope someday ALL women around the world get to choose to have children, or not, get to stay pregnant, or not.

I have a right to my anger and so do you

This weekend all hell broke loose in the female blogosphere. Trainwrecks has apparently closed, (we'll see) supposedly through the efforts of various other people who were furious about the way that many bloggers had been treated. When I say bloggers, I use the term loosely, since most of the attacked were women who went online and spoke the truth about their lives.

Yes, some of them were mommybloggers and some were nice people whose comments had gotten out of control after an offhand remark by someone. A lot of them were grieving angry women who did not fit society's idea of how a woman should act when her child dies. One idea I remember, "Grief is messy. Not all of us are going to sob quietly & crumple gently at your feet. "
And then yesterday, Manuela at Thin Pink Line decided she couldn't take the hatred others were spewing at her for now, and she has gone password protect. I have it, and some others. The only way to get it, is to email her at seekingpinkline@gmail.com or email me and I'll forward it to her. And no there are no guarantees she will give permission to anyone. I love Manuela and I am sickened by what has happened, not just because my friend has been hurt, but because she said many things out loud that women aren't supposed to say. She described her anger and her hurt and her bitterness over the loss of Shoelet and the people who never understood her feelings about being an adoptee.

The best blog in Canada is no longer open for the viewing public. On the best blogs in the female blogosphere can't be seen, because when women don't act the way they are "supposed to" God knows society has to put her in her place, and crush her underfoot. I know this all to well, since I've lost children and been crapped on IRL and out here in blogworld when I've tried to talk about it.

So, in solidarity with Manuela, here is how I reacted when Matthew died. I know that the preceding posts have sounded like I was calm and accepting, but really, I wasn't.

I was filled with rage, utterly incoherent. From the moment of our first ultrasound, I was crying and screaming, staying up until all hours of the night, unable to sleep and unable to figure out who to blame. The problem is there is NO ONE to blame or be truly angry with, but that didn't stop me from trying to find someone.

I'm short and tiny, delicate boned with no muscles at all and I took an entire wall down in our basement with a crowbar. A foundation wall. It wasn't pretty.

I blamed myself for popping out an old defective egg, I blamed my midwife, my doctors, my husband.

I blamed myself for my "choice" to terminate, I blamed the world for telling me to hide and be ashamed. I blamed my workplace for being shitty to me in a time of crisis.

I blamed God, the asshole motherfucker who decided to let THAT egg out of my ovary that month. He let it meet that sperm. Why couldn't the stupid sperm just swim by? It had every other time.

I was filled with rage, but there was no one to rage at, so I raged at myself and people passing by in my life. I raged at my "so-called" friends who were too busy to attend the funeral. I raged at the ones who came to the funeral because they didn't know what to say. I raged at Doctors who couldn't "fix" him. At government agencies who couldn't show me tiniest piece of compassion and let me be called a mother in a passing conversation. At bureaucrats who called my son's death minutiae, too small to matter.

And eight years later I like to pretend it's "all better", but it's not. I will never be over it. I will not fit society's straightjacket for grieving mothers, or good adoptees, or impersonal robotic political junkies. I will talk about my dead children and you will not get to dismiss me as a rare exception or crazy, or "depressed." (The label de jour whenever a woman expresses a socially unacceptable thought, both denigrating our legitimate emotions, and the real life sufferers of mental illness.)

All women get to be angry and show it. I don't have to be a good girl or a bad one, I don't have to smile, or shut up and sing the song you want me too.

And neither do you my friends.

Matthew - Part Two

Originally posted July 14, 2006, and deleted, and rewritten, and now reposted.

After we got the final definitive diagnosis, my husband and I tried to find information on Trisomy 18, but back then, the internet was pretty empty. Hard to believe, but I swear to God, Dr. Google didn't exist yet and Netscape couldn't come up with anything helpful at all. Most of what we found related to infants and children with hydrocephalus, or adults who had hydrocephalus and had gotten a shunt. They seemed fine, or at least a plan could be made to help them. There was nothing that could be done for in utero hydrocephalus. This is still true to this day, especially for a baby with a chromosome defect, because they can't survive the in utero surgery. In the future, who knows?

So I met with the specialist, and signed the papers.

I started at home, using Cytotec intravaginally. A big mistake, emotionally. Very easy, from a physical perspective. A few minor cramps and when we went to the hospital the next morning, I was already dilating. I wish the doctor had put the medication in though, it would relieve some of my transient guilt. Why guilt? I would love to be able to answer but I waver all over the place on this. It's incredibly hard to match your emotions and your intellect on these things.

At the hospital, I had a lovely room, filled with sunshine. Throughout this whole experience, the sun was shining, it was beautiful weather, which makes no sense. If my son was dying, shouldn't the whole world stop spinning, shouldn't the sky be filled with clouds and darkness?

My husband was by my side, with the camera at the ready and my dear friend S. to help. The Doctor broke my water, gave me some more Cytotec, and labour began in earnest. I had insisted on a walking epidural because labour at 21 weeks is still full labour, but most of the time epidurals are not standard for this kind of thing. Usually they hook you up to an I.V. pain pump and leave you to vomit and hallucinate from the morphine. I insisted on getting the same standard of care any women giving birth would, because I didn't want to be shoved away in a corner, as if my pain didn't matter, or as if something shameful was going on.

I actually made it through part of the labour without an epidural though. And because my back wasn't a mess this time, I was okay for a few hours, breathing through contractions. Sometimes I think that this part was a gift I was given, to make up for my unusual labour experience the first time around. Yes, I have tried to find gifts in this experience. Moments that were healing in some way. Very very hard to do.

Eventually I got the walking epidural. I gave birth about an hour later, no pushing required, he was too small to need it. He was tiny and perfect looking on the outside, unfortunately not so okay on the inside. If I hadn't seen the ultrasound closeups with the problems, I might not have believed it myself. We took dozens of pictures, and the nurse helped us make handprints and footprints in clay impressions. We baptized him, and after about 6 or 7 hours, I finally handed him over to the nurse, for weighing and measuring. Although he was 21 weeks in gestation, he weighed less than a pound, closer to a 19 weeker.

After they unhooked me from the IV and the epidural, I took some time to rest, and eventually I was discharged. I wanted to leave that night, because I knew that all the new moms and their live babies would be leaving in the morning. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing them. It was still a possibility that night, but two of my nurses, those wonderful blessed angels, went ahead of me, checking around every door and hallway to ensure I wouldn't see anyone I couldn't handle. They walked me right out to the door, making sure my husband had the car waiting.

A few days later, we held a funeral at our church, he was cremated and buried in a local cemetary near our house. We invited some family and friends and we all went out to a beautiful little restaurant nearby for some food, and to talk a little. Then we went home, without a baby, and tried to figure out what to tell our son about his little brother. At two, he couldn't understand what happened but he knew there had been a baby in mommy's tummy. And now, there wasn't.

Where was our midwife? Well, she disappeared soon after that first disastrous ultrasound. She told us she didn't know what to do because she "only takes care of normal babies."

Ouch

I guess all that emotional support midwives are famous for wasn't in her repetoire. Since then, I've discovered titles (like nurse, dr., ob/gyn, midwife, priest) are irrelevant and the heart is what matters. We all have the ability to be kind to others. We can choose to be gentle to our fellow human beings, or not. Compassion is the mark of a real professional, not a degree.

A few notes

-- I've been reluctant to post more about my losses in the last few days because after I posted Matthew Part One, someone unsubscribed from my feed. I know many of you understand about my decision, but obviously one person didn't. Just like in real life, sigh. I wish they had emailed me with the reason why, I don't know who it is, because it was a private subscription. I do feel sad over it. I knew why some people hide their pregnancy losses, and why some people hide their terminations and tell everyone they lost the baby instead, but this has been a sharp reminder.

-- And for a few of you who may remember the first time I put this post up, yes, originally I had told his story with a fake name, and altered a few details; I was so paranoid about privacy. But I realized it doesn't matter, so yes, his real name was Matthew, and this is the real story. If you can't handle it, I can't help that.

-- Yesterday, I went to the endocrinologist again about my thyroid. She hadn't read my history, didn't remember my case, and had no idea what to tell me. After I reminded her again of everything, she basically said that I should have the RAIU & scan done again to see what's happening, but why bother? She thinks my symptoms are hormonal, and barely agreed to blood tests.

Oh, and I should just get pregnant. That might solve everything.

No, I didn't freak on her, I was too floored. WTF is wrong with Doctors?

--This explains why I'm hungover today. I went out with some political friends from the campaign last night, and intended on having one glass of wine and coming home early.

But I didn't. I had 3 and a half.*

The taxi poured me out in front of my house at 2:30 am. There are some VERY strange pictures on my new camera. There is at least one national newspaper columnist and several political staffers who probably wish I had lost the damn thing.

But I didn't. hehe

And as soon as my headache dies down I have to get them online, methinks.

*Yes, I am a cheap drunk. After 10 years of pregnancy, breastfeeding, and IF treatment what did you expect?

Matthew - Part One

Originally posted July 14, 2006, and deleted, and rewritten, and now reposted.

My second pregnancy happened in 1998. This time I was going to have the perfect midwife birth, yeah, right....because all you need to have the perfect birth experience is a midwife. God I was so naive.

I had severe nausea and vomiting and some days could barely work. I remember lying on the bathroom floor with my face on the tile, praying for someone, anyone, to rescue me from this fresh new hell I was trapped in. I had a little nausea the first time around, and a strange aversion to certain scents and foods, but nothing like this nightmare. A whole lot of anti-nausea medication later, I could function. Diclectin is wonderful, and truly really a blessing. Motherisk reassured me it was safe, one of the most studied drugs in pregnancy, ever. (Incidentally, a wonderful resource for anyone from anywhere around the world, who wants to get some advice on drugs and pregnancy. Click, phone, email, they are the best of the best, anywhere.)

I didn't want an ultrasound, but the midwife was so worried she sent me to the hospital clinic at 18 weeks. And then the bad news began.

Our baby had hydrocephalus, which had crushed his developing brain, he had major problems with his digestive system, and he couldn't move very well. They kept referring to his poor posture. In my head I'm thinking, "He's not supposed to sit up straight, he's a baby. WTF is wrong with these Doctors?" I learned later "posture" refers to the general look a baby has in utero, movement, position, etc. The radiologist told us right there and then what she saw, but we didn't get the full scoop until we saw the entire high-risk team the next day.

Our baby had full Trisomy 18, Edwards Syndrome, a fatal chromosomal disorder. We could have a bunch of other tests to confirm but they were very sure, since his hands and feet had a typical sign, with the forefingers and baby fingers tucked under the rest of the hand. Stupid me, I asked, "Why don't you just fix his fingers?" Answer, "Because he has no brain. Fixing his fingers won't help."

"Oh"

But we wanted to be sure, so we had an amniocentesis, and a stack of blood tests, and a color doppler ultrasound of his heart. That showed more bad news, he had a major heart malformation. The placenta we shared was also very damaged, and after that test, the doctors made it clear that I couldn't be further than 15 minutes away from a level 3 NICU and a major OB hospital for the rest of the pregnancy. I didn't understand until later that this was because I could have died from bleeding after a placental abruption.

The amnio results 10 days later confirmed Trisomy 18 and that he was a boy. We named him Matthew. He was terminally ill, and it was made very clear to us that while the hospital would support whatever choice we made, the end result would always be the same. So we made the decision to terminate the pregnancy, or rather I did.

No matter what my husband thinks, really in this a woman is always alone. It was my signature on the consent form, and my body. I had another living child, and this baby was fatally ill. If he could've been saved, I swear I would've hung upside down by my ankles on bed rest and flown in the best surgeons on earth. But it wouldn't have made any difference. Termination at 21 weeks, or birth at 40 weeks, or after many futile operations in a NICU is still a dead child when Trisomy 18 with complications is the diagnosis.

There is a website here, that describes in very blunt "take no sides" scientific terms what chromosomal abnormalities are, and the odds of survival and complications of each variant from full to mosaic. I wish everyone who "thinks they know what they would do", could read this site, and discover why women terminate pregnancies after trying so hard to have the baby. I have a feeling they won't, since it is so much easier for them to assume, to hold onto their prejudices, than to learn the truth.

The truth is that every pregnancy with a diagnosis of a birth defect, small or large, is risky. Placentas and fetuses develop from the same cells, and a baby with a defect, means a placenta with a defect. Some problems are surmountable, some are not, and that is why the only person qualified to make the decision is the person taking the risk, the mother.

I wasn't going to take the risk of bleeding to death, and put my son through the futile torture of continuing the pregnancy, just to hold a funeral later.

Some decisions we make are done out of love and kindness, no matter what the world thinks.