The past month has been tough on me. It started on June 4th when I left work, went to the store and had a grand-mal seizure. An ambulance took me to the hospital where nothing happened because, well, I have Epilepsy and seizures are just part of it… or are they? I knew something was different about this one. On the 5th after much sleep and no longer in a post-ictal state I decided to take a pregnancy test and despite the fact that my period wasnt due for several more days I was treated to the sight of a blue line… once again, I am pregnant.

My last pregnancy started with a seizure and as you may know from reading previous posts, it ended in a miscarriage. Right from the start I was petrified of this pregnancy. I contacted my OB immediately. She ordered blood work which seemed to go well, my HCG was definitely rising but not at the rate they’d like. So on the 16th I had my first ultrasound. Keep in mind that before this my last ultrasound ended with the words “I’m sorry but I don’t see a heartbeat” so going in I was experiencing anxiety like none i’d felt before. When the tech started looking she saw a gestational sac, a yolk sac but no fetal pole. I wept right there. My doctor said that my ovulation dates might just be off and that we needed to start a course of progesterone and wait 10 days to have another ultrasound before we could know what was really happening, but all hope was not lost.

Those 10 days felt like eternity. I used my progesterone each night and read up on any and all tips to help a pregnancy “stick”. One mistake I made was asking the great minds of the internet if anyone else has experienced this. I did receive some positive words, some anecdotal evidence that it could turn out alright… but one woman really stood out. She was insistent that at my stage of pregnancy there should have been a fetal pole and if there wasn’t at that ultrasound there wasn’t going to be one on the 26th. It was sickening how badly she wanted to be right about something so grim, but i suppose you find that type  n every circle.

Luckily for me she was wrong. As I held Rich’s hand and looked at him rather than the screen I heard the ultrasound tech say “and there is the fetus”. I turned my head to see this tiny jelly bean with a little flickering heart and once again, I wept. I was so happy to see that the baby was there but that was when I was hit with the downside. Even though we could see the fetus and a heartbeat, the fetus was measuring roughly a week behind and the heartbeat wasn’t strong enough to measure. That is when I was told that we needed to wait another 10 days before we would really know if this was a viable pregnancy.

I started to panic at the thought of losing another baby. My doctor made me promise not to over analyze every ache or pain. She said that unless I saw blood I should assume that my baby was safe in my womb, alive with a beating heart, as that was what we saw and what we knew to be fact at that moment. I asked for advice. Is there anything that I might be doing wrong that will cause a miscarriage. Is there anything thing that I need to do to prevent a miscarriage. She stopped me and said that by watching my diet, taking prenatal vitamins, extra folic acid and using progesterone each night I was doing everything I could. She told me that what was going to happen was already in motion and that it was “in God’s hands now”.

I left the office feeling severe anxiety and every day since has been more of the same. I have been randomly crying. I have been constantly asking Rich for reassurance that everything will be okay. I have had difficult sleeping and when I finally do drift off I have been having nightmares so vivid that I woke in a cold sweat. Everyone in my life is so sure that it is going to be fine. I want to believe them so badly. I would give anything to just relax and feel confident that my body is protecting the baby but I am not sure that after losing my baby in October 2016 I will ever feel confidence like I did with my first pregnancy.

So now it is 2:14 am on July 6 and by the end of the day I will know if my baby is growing properly, measuring to match my dates and most importantly, alive. I certainly don’t believe that the life of my baby is in God’s hands… but I think that concept might be easier to accept than the reality that it also is not in mine. This helpless feeling that there isn’t anything left for me to do except wait is pure torture. All I want is a healthy pregnancy like I had with Arabella. The chance to enjoy all of those special moments that lead up to bringing a beautiful life into the world. Will I get that chance or will I suffer another loss. For the past 10 days all I have felt is my heart pounding in my chest and now all I want to hear is the beating heart of my baby.