I'm not sure what went wrong yesterday but today my cervix was 2.2 cm - that's longer than it's ever measured. Fetal fibronectin was negative! This has made me immeasurably calmer.

The dr I saw today I'll call Dr. Cheer because he is a a one-man cheering section. At the same time he gives me the information, but man, do I feel better and better looking leaving that office.

So afterward my ever-loving husband took me out for a Five Guys burger, a boatload of fries and I came home and passed out.

So, why the short measurement yesterday? Dr. Cheer notes that the cervix is angled, so it can sometimes appear shorter. Here are my theories:

1. The ultrasound tech I had yesterday was young and very inexperienced. So she may not have been holding the wand correctly for the right angle Dr. Cheer mentioned. She didn't have that confident air some sono techs do. Interesting side note while we are talking about the wand. She always says "sorry" when inserting it. Which makes me feel guilty somehow for hardly noticing the whole wand thing.
I guess, anyway... This brings to mind another funny sono tech comment while wielding the wand. During the pregnancy I miscarried earlier this year, I was going to another ob office and they had (I hope) a temp (I never saw her again anyway) who said, upon insertion "Is that the right hole?" I see several problems with that question right off the bat. 1. Was she too shy to look at vaginas? Because if so, this is not the right career for her. 2. If she did insert it in the wrong place, don't you think I'd say something pretty much right away? 3. I'm pretty sure hole isn't the term in Grey's Anatomy (not the show, the anatomy tome).

I felt like I'd made that sitcom massage therapist-massage parlor mistake and had wandered into entirely the wrong kind of sono suite.

But back to my cervix,

2. The baby was kicking my cervix the entire time. My husband wonders if in 15 years we'll still be talking about her self-defeating behaviors and harkening back to this as the first example. Every picture included a tiny (but freakishly strong) foot pushing down on it like a gas pedal at a drag race.

It turns out my fear of the doctor's office was not misplaced. Yesterday I woke up with some spotting - very, very light - but I called the peri's office and they had me come in right away. My cervix was shorter. This time measuring between 16-18 mm. Last time (2 weeks ago) it was about 21. I'm going back in today after a day of laying completely horizontal except for potty breaks. My husband was good enough to order me the cable movie package which has already helped dull the stabs of fear.

Today I go in for another measurement and the all-important fetal fibronectin test. It's now 11:15. We leave in about 45 minutes. I've been shaking for 2 hours. If the measurement is shorter than 15mm, they will put in a cerclage. If not - well then we have to choose. Not an easy choice since for "low risk" (everything is relative) women with shortened cervices over 15 mm, there is no evidence cerclage makes any difference in outcomes. And there are some risk associated with having it placed. On the other hand - doing nothing might feel so empty. Back home to the couch to worry out another (hopefully) 4 weeks.

So I'm not sure if this afternoon or tomorrow will find me blogging obsessively or ignoring my blog so that I can focus on HBO and the mind-boggling array of other movie channel choices I now have (and bursting into uncontrollable sobs, but of course).

Well, I made it to the "practically 24 weeks" mark! I have an appointment with my regular ob today to mark the occasion and I think I've developed a fear of doctor's appointments. Last night before one I didn't sleep well, I woke up worrying throughout the night and my stomach got upset. Even my dreams, though not baby-related, were stressful. I was in an Iron Chef-type competition, but was given too few sous chefs, showed up late, and never had any idea where I was in my own recipe or where the ingredients were. But I'm sure there's no deeper meaning to all that. Meanwhile, until I went to sleep, my conscious brain was blissfully unaware that I was so nervous. It comes as quite a shock to find that my sub-conscious was wringing its hands about this, when consciously I was excited just to check off the days and appointments. I feel very out of touch with my feelings now.

I think I will give in to the urge to take a nap here an hour into my waking day.

I have a little schedule each day and this really seems to be working for me. It's a really lame schedule, but I've had to tweak it a few times to get it just right so that the days go by relatively quickly.

It revolves around a few things. The top priority is finding baby and pregnancy-free entertainment. In the course of this pursuit I have stumbled across an interesting sociological observation. Americans are fairly obsessed with babies - despite the fact that they are not particularly tolerant of kids. There are shows on all day that are all about watching woman after woman be pregnant, go into labor, and show off her baby. The plot is so unbelievably predictable I can't believe anyone watches - but apparently it's popular enough to have spawned spin-offs. There are shows about high-risk deliveries, people having multiples and even, God help us, models having babies. And avoiding baby-centered shows doesn't keep one safe. Today Ellen will be have some juicy bit of pregnancy advice from Ricki Lake apparently. Now we can add her advice to the best-selling (again, god help us) books by a not one, but two former Playboy playmates. Shew, I thought a daytime talk show host would never give up some reproductive wisdom to complete the trifecta.

So here are my fairly safe baby-free viewing choices if you are so inclined:
1. Wedding shows. These are great for getting my mind off the high risk pregnancy bit, but they often offer some cheap drama too. What? The caterer delivered 72" round tables instead of 64" oblongs! Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion...
2. What Not to Wear. In my opinion the best makeover show of them all. The hosts aren't as funny as the hosts of the BBC version (mostly because they aren't allowed to says "tits" as much and to such great effect), but they win me over every time by taking regular women and telling them they are beautiful and them showing them how to look beautiful in great (and not always astronomically expensive) clothes. To my knowledge they have never dressed a pregnant woman.
3. The Barefoot Contessa. Great recipes, great ideas, babies and Cuisinearts don't mix, so you are safe here.
4. Old movies. When people didn't talk about you-know-what or you-know-where. Remember Lucille Ball appearing pregnant on TV was a big deal and a watershed moment so you are safe with anything before then. Lucy - you got some splainin' to do...
Hitchcock movies are a good bet.
5. The Closer, Monk, Psych, Burn Notice. I love these shows, they always suck me in, and they don't do many baby-related story lines. Give those writers more money I say.

It's not that I'm trying to forget I'm pregnant, but I'd like to get sucked into something completely different for 30 minute or an hour. Here are some shows I generally avoid for potential not only for a baby-related storyline, but for tragic pregnancy story lines:

1. Oprah. Lord, those montages with the vasoline-lens-effect and the sappy music about tragic stories could send someone into pre-term labor.
2. Grey's Anatomy. Sniff. (sidenote: the spin-off which I think is called Private Practice, deals regularly with a main-character OB's feelings about being infertile and although the entire thing is full of the sort of thing I generally avoid, this balance makes it ok for me). Horrible, horrible things happen to pregnant women on that show. Ferries fall on them, they get massive tumors, they are in car accidents, it's a blood bath - don't watch.
3. Morning shows like The Today Show. Currently almost every segment is about gifts or holiday recipes, but when the holidays are over they'll be looking for people who had quadruplets in the middle of a wedding on top of a mountain.

My best accomplice in all this is my DVR (also known as Tivo). I can pause and then fast-forward through anything I don't want to watch, or delete a whole show.

stats for today:
days until I'm 24 weeks: 10.
days until I can say I'm "practically 24 weeks": 7!
weeks on bedrest so far: 4
gifts yet to wrap: >4
days since I left the house: 3

The login to blogger.com suddenly didn't happen automatically. So it took some doing to figure out how to log back in to leave more scintillating details of my sedentary days.

This weekend I had a bit of doubt and worry again. I read some blogs by women who are pregnant after infertility and was reassured that I am relatively normal. A lot of bloggers have covered this - and probably more eloquently than I could. But I must say, for those who have not read any of these - infertility doesn't stop being difficult with a positive test. Because should we lose this pregnancy, we of course know that it wouldn't necessarily be easy to get pregnant again. So we worry, and have trouble looking too far into the future.

I have moments when I feel almost normal in my excitement, but then I am forced to sit home all day and it's hard not to notice what your uterus is up to under those circumstances.

I realized today that the reason that I am not more relaxed being so close to my first big goal of 24 weeks is that each day leading up to it is so vital now to finally having what we longed for and worked toward for 4 years - and that losing out would probably mean the end of the infertility saga for us. Well, that's a lot of pressure on 2 little weeks isn't it?

I just told my mother-in-law all this. She has reason to understand my sense of worry and, at times, panic. So we talked about this- the knowledge of what it's like to live that moment when you realize something really is going wrong. That you are probably going to lose this pregnancy. And then you never forget the moment just before it you knew. That last moment of thinking all was well. So in subsequent pregnancies each moment that all is going well one has to wonder - is this that last moment before I find out something terrible is happening?

So I've put it out there and I am trying to reframe it into a non-negative. The stats help me because I'm an irrepressible nerd.

Days to 24 weeks: 12
Days until I can say I'm "practically 24 weeks": 9
Days until I'm in single-digit days: 2!
Days until my fetal fibronectin test: 10

Hmmm... 2 days doesn't seem so bad. I'll shoot for that one.

Well, Christmas is coming and it's hard to ignore it any longer. My husband and I have an odd relationship with this holiday.

It started with the year my husband (then boyfriend) and I nearly broke up just beforehand but decided to visit my husband's family together anyway. It really couldn't have been more awkward at first, but somehow during that trip all turned out well.

A few years later we went to visit my husband's grandmother, who, it turned out, had a nasty stomach flu. We ended up having to take her to the hospital for fluids. The rural Georgia ER had been decorated a bit for the holiday, which only made the scene more sad. The tree was a fake, the kind that looks like a giant green toilet brush stood up in the corner and decorated in gaudy lights like a janitorial Eliza Doolittle. A girl fight broke out in the waiting area around 10PM. Jonah and I ate dinner at the Waffle House. If you aren't familiar with this establishment, it's a chain of very greasy and very smoky diners that make great waffles and terrible coffee. We laughed until tears ran down our faces.

A year later we spent Christmas with my family. My mother brought a surprise gift - another flu. She ended up in the emergency room too on Christmas. This ER is an hour's drive away. I caught the same flu and woke up a few days later with a fever of 103. Jonah only had a fever of 100, so he drove us back to Boston (10 hours) where we spent the next week on our futon watching movies and vomiting.

A few years after that my brother and sister-in-law were visiting us for the holiday and I was watching my boss' dog (how do you say no?). By this time the emergency room on Christmas was a joke we tossed around. Jonah made wonderful cornish game hens for dinner. They cook in a very hot oven (500 degrees) for this particular recipe. The heat gives them a very crispy, brown finish. He left the handle of the pot pointing out into the room and I compulsively grabbed it to turn it in. 3rd degree burns on my palm. First I went into shock. Then I passed out. I woke up to a circle of concerned faces peering down at me and my brother-in-law shouting over and over "Face is pale, raise the tail! Face is pale, raise the tail!..." Apparently this is a Boy Scout thing to remind one what to do in case of a loss of consciousness (if the face is pale, you raise the feet - I know tail rhymes but I wonder how often someone has woken up to find their bottom hoisted in the air and ever-after wondered what happened in those lost moments - luckily for me, my feet were elevated when I awoke). Another Christmas in the ER. This time I got oxycodone, which brought back a lot of my holiday cheer. I'm not sure what the rest of them did, but I had a lovely slow-motion dinner and wandered off to bed. Later, my boss's dog would have anal sac problems and rub his bum all over our floors, spreading whatever is in anal sacs around the house. My sister-in-law (a former vet tech), had to express the sacs (don't ask) while she fought a migraine.

Also, that year we had first started trying to get pregnant. In fact, I was pregnant when I burned my hand. I'd find out soon thereafter and have a miscarriage on New Year's Eve. My husband and I are RH incompatible so guess where I spent much of New Year's Eve? They had run out of Rhogam at my doctors office, but weren't telling me. Directly. I could hear them in the stock room next door saying "She needs Rhogam! I thought there was some in here! Where could we get Rhogam at this time on New Years Eve?" They did eventually find some and I got a giant shot in the rear and was sent on my way.

The next year I had just delivered my daughter in early November but was continuing to have bleeding right through Christmas. Finally the midwife ordered an ultrasound, which found retained placenta (8 weeks post partum) and I was admitted to surgery at about 10PM the night before we had an early morning coast-to-coast flight to introduce my daughter to the family. I woke up from anesthesia with all the nurses and doctors laughing. Apparently I was tellling jokes in my semi-conscious state - and I was killing.

Since then we've had a good run of medically unremarkable Christmas holidays and I hope to count this next one among them, but you can see how this particular year would give me pause. We are staying home this year obviously, and my parents will be here to celebrate with us. The hospital is just 2 miles from my house.

The stats for today:
days until I am 24 weeks pregnant: 15
days until I am 28 weeks pregnant: 43

My perinatologist appointment went well, no change in the cervix. Shew. So I'm back to non-negative thinking. I think in the interest of not setting unreasonable goals I'll stop calling it "positive" thinking.

I found out today that my time at the perinatologist has a graduation date. At 34 weeks they will let me go, off all rest, to go into labor whenever I may. I'll be fantasizing about that day from now. I think if I get there I'll throw my paper lap blanket up the air like Mary Tyler Moore.

Tomorrow is the next perinatologist appointment. I don't mind saying that my positive thinking 12-step program has stalled out a bit as I wait for another result. When I first got this diagnosis I wanted to be checked every day - more than once a day if possible. Most doctors aren't amenable to that sort of thing so I settled for once a week. After a good pep talk from one of my doctors I agreed to drop back to every 2 weeks.

I really was feeling positive in the intervening time since I got the ob appointment monkey off my back, but now I find I dread going back. I wish I could go on a Benadryl bender and wake up 28 weeks pregnant.

I find myself envious of women who only find out they need bedrest when they are well past that magical 24 week mark. Every day saves 3 days in the NICU or some such motivating thing. Heaven. Heaven, it turns out, is relative because if I'm lucky I'm sure I'll be on here crabbing about the ups and downs of extended bedrest after 24 weeks, and I doubt I'll describe the experience as "heaven" or anything like it. But it looks like heaven from here.

Ok, so only 2 weeks until I can say that I'm "practically 24 weeks." That's 6 months pregnant by the way. That's pretty darn pregnant. Officially, it's only 4 weeks from the 3rd trimester. Honestly though, I feel more like I'm in my first trimester, probably because I've been dropped back into a time of nervous waiting and uncertainty.

Just before all this happened I had just become comfortable preparing for the baby. I superstitiously refrained from putting away regular clothes and tampons to ward off the evil spirits that will sense my comfort and let tragedy sneak in the back door. Slowly though, as the second trimester wore on, I let my guard down. Yes, I put the tampons away. We asked family for gifts for the baby rather than for ourselves for Christmas and we drug out all the old baby clothes. We sorted them and made up a registry.

But since my perinatologist pointed out that it would nice if I didn't look back at this pregnancy as a terrible, white-knuckle ride on the pregnancy roller coaster, I've decided to let go of my superstitions and get ready for the baby. Apparently this positive thinking thing is supposed to be a good approach. And I'll save a bundle on voodoo dolls and sage branches.

Today my mother-in-law will be cleaning up the room that will be the nursery (notice I didn't qualify that with an "if all goes well" - except in parentheses) and washing baby clothes that were literally gathering dust while we went through fertility treatment.

Here's to the power of non-negative thinking. Salude.

So today it's 19 days until I'm 24 weeks! The days have gone into the teens, which seems much more manageable. I usually shudder to think about this stat, but it's starting to seem less scary: 47 days to 28 weeks when the big sigh of relief can be breathed.

Just think of all the Food TV I can soak in by then.

I'm sure there is more to say, but I'm not feeling wordy today.

Well, today marks 21 weeks pregnant. By far not out of the danger zone, but getting there. It's already been a week since we were told that 24 weeks is an important benchmark. A week that was significantly easier thanks to something to look forward to each day.

A few ironies have occurred to me this week.

Irony number one - adoption is too expensive. Before we realized we were pregnant we sat for a few hours in an informational adoption seminar. Practically everyone in the room had failed infertility treatment and feeling of relief at having that behind us made the mood something like a homecoming. The end of a dark era in all our lives, no more giddy CD (cycle day) 1's. No more injections that made our abdomens look like Lite Brites. No more phone calls confirming another defeat.

But the adoption landscape has changed significantly since Jonah and I first considered it. A Hague treaty has gone into effect that stifles most adoption programs and has shut down others. Some countries have become a bit alarmed at the number of their children going abroad and have started domestic adoption programs aimed at removing the stigma associated with adoption in those countries. Interestingly, in one country the shut-down was due in large part to a careless comment by an American sportscaster during an Olympic games broadcast. He noted that one of this country's biggest exports to the US was babies. Good lord.

Very few dependable programs continue to operate on something like the schedule we'd hoped for. A year was fine with us to wait and we really weren't concerned about missing the newborn period. But the timeframes stretched out to years and the requirements increased until, as 2 working professionals, we decided we just couldn't afford international adoption. And we just didn't want to wait for domestic adoption - which could also take years. The gap between our children would be so large that we figured we'd essentially be raising two only children.

So we considered going back to fertility treatments, but dismissed that idea rather quickly. I like pain and disappointment as much as the next girl, but IVF takes a long time and time was just running out for us. Not because of our age, but because of our plans right up through retirement and the possibility that our daughter and the new baby would be connected in any meaningful way. So we decided to try on our own again. We got pregnant on our own in January, but lost the baby at 10 weeks. Low and behold we got pregnant again. How great was this? Pregnant, in a good timeframe and without the financial hardship of adoption. Now I'm on bedrest indefinitely. And here's an expense - 5 months minus my full-time salary. My employer offers disability after a one-year waiting period which will expire just about when all this should be over. There is no coverage for an illness in the first year. That ends up being quite a bit more than adoption in the end.

That said, we have faith and it will be ok, but it struck me as funny. Not funny "ha-ha" of course. Funny "eh, *&*$*(#".

Irony #2. We just need to slow down a bit.
This was something I was harped on a lot before being assigned to bedrest. We both have jobs we like, and I work for the schools, so I get a lot of vacation time. Yet we still find ourselves run ragged in the fall and winter. I had all manner of creative ideas for finding time as a family and a couple, but this wasn't one of them.

If anything, this affords us less time as a family and a couple. Jonah runs around doing, essentially, everything and I can't follow my daughter as her pretend play wends its way around the house. So I have slowed down. I've stopped. I'm pulled over at the side of the slow lane with my blinkers on.

So I try to appreciate it as much as I can. I have a lot more time to spend with friends in person, by phone and by email. I have time to write this blog which has no productive value whatsoever. If I weren't doing this I'd be cooking, cleaning or grocery shopping most likely. And that would certainly pass the time. A complaint before was that it passed the time a little too well. Weeks would fly by occupied mostly with filler. Errands, cleaning, working and things that make it possible to forget who you are outside of your daily duties for days on end. I'd give anything to lose a day now. Better yet a week. But I've learned my lesson and I won't focus on that and try to wish it away. I'll focus on making the most of this to best of my pitiful ability.

But I really wish someone would come wax my eyebrows.

Snow is enjoyed entirely differently - and is a nuisance in very different ways - when on bedrest. I work for the schools so usually snow means the chance for a snow day. On bedrest it means something to really look at out the window. One can watch the snow fall, admire the snow on the ground and trees, then the snow melts providing another show. It can be frustrating though if it delays or deters visitors and it can make a short step outside too dangerous.

It also means your kid may be home all day which is both wonderful and challenging (especially if she doesn't nap any more).

Well, the kid was home today but she is really an excellent helper for the most part. She gets herself dressed, gets herself a glass of water, and plays independently for hours on end reading to her stuffed animals.

My guests for the day were not delayed or deterred and we had a nice time. And another lunch brought right to me! Today has been so bucolic I've hardly thought about my statistics for the day.

Well, I've had a relatively exciting 2 days. Yesterday afternoon I went to the allergist for my yearly check-up (2 trips out in one day!) and today I went in to work in the morning to get things set for my substitute. It snowed today and when I left the morning all the reports said it would stop soon. Well, it never did stop so the principal of my school cleared my car off for me and pulled it around to the front door.

It was great to see everyone at work - even teachers I barely know were so nice and stopped to give me their best wishes. I love my school.

It was nice to have the entire morning speed by for once. Actually all the days in the near future promise some time that will speed by with friends coming tomorrow and Friday, the weekend, then my MIL to keep me company for a week.

And get this - I'm going all the way until next Thursday with no perinatologist appointment! If that isn't a sign of mental health I don't know what is.

Stats for today:
days until 24 weeks: 24
days until I can say I'm "practically 24 weeks": 19
days until I am 21 whole weeks: 3
days until I have a whole day by myself again (no visitors planned yet): >12!
days until Christmas: 20

Great thing about bed rest for the day:
never having to clean off my own car!


Kim

I just got back from the perinatologist. No change in the cervix (maybe a mm longer, but that could be normal various from measurement to measurement). Anyway, he says I really don't need to come in every week (read: you don't really need to come in every few days crazy lady) and talked a lot about trying to enjoy this pregnancy and not look back on it as a horrible experience. He has a point.

He also said I have an excellent chance of going well into my 3rd trimester. I need to hear that on a regular basis and my husband points out that 3 measurements all the same do seem to indicate that this is just how long the cervix is and it's not getting shorter (read: can we stop going to the perinatologist every few days?).

I had planned to review some movies I've been watching lately, but think I'll opt for a nap and leave that until tomorrow.

So the perinatologist told me to watch for "pelvic pressure." I'm not really sure what this means I now realize, but the bottom of my abdomen was feeling quite under pressure yesterday and my dr agreed I should probably go ahead and come in to have my cervix checked. So I'll be doing that at 10 rather than going in to work.
I'll update the blog later today with results. Anyhoo - one day down and now only 25 days to go to 24 weeks. That's almost 4% of the time since yesterday down (3.8%).

Ok, Here are the stats so far.

- Today is Day 14 of restricted activity/bedrest.
- It is Day 4 of limited activity when I was given some relief from bedrest due to a fairly good prognosis. Can't work more than a few hours here and there, but can go out to lunch here and there and don't have to be horizontal at all times.
- Right now we are shooting for 24 weeks. That will be on Saturday Dec 29th (26 short days from now). Then we'll shoot for 28, and so on. Baby steps.
- State of my sanity: variable.
- Time: 8:31 AM. Number of times I've checked for an imaginary contraction today: 1 .

The day before Thanksgiving we went to the Dr's office for a routine anatomy ultrasound and found out that my cervix was a little short. The Drs put me on bedrest, robbing me of my plans to go out of town, and told me to come back in a week to recheck. When I got home I immediately came down with the stomach flu on top of a nasty case of bronchitis. Vomiting all night is not a great way to avoid abdominal pressure.

The next week the same Dr's office called to tell me that my urine sample from - get this - 10 days ago! was positive for a UTI, but just barely and they needed another sample. Another week later when I'd called for another reason they said "Oh, we meant to call you and tell you you have a UTI that is resistant to Macrobid and you need to take Amoxocillan." Call me high maintenance, but I'd like to know about a positive 48 hr culture within oh, 72 hours.

Add to that Dr. Blunty, who upon finding that after a week of vomiting and coughing that my cervix had gotten shorter, said she couldn't predict what would happen and that if I went into labor "the baby would die" and told me to see a perinatologist in the next week.

She did recommend a lovely perinatologist who said the coughing and vomiting was almost certainly a part of the reason for the shortening and that my outlook is good - particularly if things remain stable (no more shortening). I nearly jumped off the table to hug him. Not figuratively, but literally and in a way that would have made him take a few steps back before giving me good news in the future.

So for the first few weeks I sat around, watched movies, took a visitor and some phone calls and tried not to worry. Big mistake. Sometimes you just need to go ahead and worry so that you can come back from that place. On the worst worry day I was left alone most of the day and was positive I'd be bruised on my entire abdomen and back from checking for contractions and kidney infection.

So now I'm down to one day at a time. And I need to share this and to get it out of me. If you have stories of successful bedrest, please feel free to chime in. I love those.

More tomorrow - or possibly today, we'll see how it goes...