Kat Dancing

A week or two ago many of you saw announcements from Dan and I on Facebook, LiveJournal, and my comic that we were going to have a baby. Some of you may have seen Dan's followup post also. Now that I'm feeling a bit better I'm going to explain things a bit better and give people a place to respond. I'm sorry for the slowness and the seeming rudeness, but it's been a difficult week for both of us.

On Wednesday, I went in for my first ultrasound. I was about ten weeks into the pregnancy. The nurse doing the ultrasound knew me from my previous, cystic visits, and was chatty and cheerful; but once the ultrasound started she grew suddenly quieter, and grimmer. My nurse-practitioner came in, and she turned to her and said something I couldn't catch.

"Honey," my nurse-practitioner said, turning to me. "I'm so sorry. There's a problem."

"Is it bad?"

"Oh honey, it's really bad. Your baby has no heartbeat."

The child had, by their estimation, stopped developing about a week previous. There were no signs of physical damage; it was pretty near impossible, they repeatedly reassured me, that it was anything I had done, and very unlikely that it was a sign of real problems. Just chromosomal mismatch, random chance, the sort of error that happens in something as complicated as making a baby.

I knew from the beginning that it was a possibility. The estimates for first-trimester miscarriage have been put as high as 40%, and I am too much of a realist, and too familiar with tragedy from my farming career, to ever think it couldn't happen to me. I had repeatedly told myself that the thing growing inside of me needed to stay a thing, a precious but fragile collection of cells, until I was out of that dangerous first trimester. So the blow was cushioned; but it was, nevertheless, a blow. One grows used to thinking of oneself as pregnant, even in so short a time as a month, and it's impossible not to form a certain amount of plans, expectations, and dreams around the potential life. It was a dream I lost, not a baby. But dreams hurt in the dying too.

So that is where I stand. Introvert that I am, I am dealing with the upset largely by retreating, which is why I haven't been online or around of late; I apologize for that, but this is how I best regrow my skin, in isolation and quiet. There has been a lot of comfort reading. I'd been feeling ill and tired a great deal, due to the pregnancy, and that will probably continue until I actually miscarry, which my nurse-practitioner tells me could be weeks, or even a month. I was offered the surgical option of a D&C, a physical removal of the pregnancy, and though I'm generally leery of surgery and doctors I'm seriously considering it. There is some danger, as with any operation, and I'd be under a general; but on the other hand, carrying a non-viable pregnancy around for a month is more emotional strain than I care for. I'm balancing the physical vs. emotional risk as carefully as I can.

So that is probably as many details as anyone wants. I want to reassure everyone that I'm doing, overall, pretty well. It was a disappointment, and I'm still a bit fragile, but I am coping, and eternally thankful that the blow came now and not later in pregnancy when it would have been much more physically and emotionally difficult. My doctor's office has been extremely supportive (even if my nurse-practitioner was sniffling and blinking suspiciously often), as has my family, and of course Dan has been amazingly good to me through the whole thing. I am being petted and cosseted as much as anyone could wish, and I find I have merely to suggest something would help me to have everyone falling all over themselves to get it for me. It's all very kind.

My doctor has advised me to wait through one or two normal cycles before I try getting pregnant again, and the current plan is to try again once that waiting period is up. Hopefully it'll be as easy for me to catch then as this time; but next time I think I'll hold off on announcements until the first trimester is safely past. It will save a lot of unnecessary pain to people who care about me, and reasonable, educated human being that I am, on this one topic I think I may stay a bit superstitious.