The Shirodkar Cerclage in 2 days

So here we go again... it's time to stitch this baby up! Let me take a step back before I get to this. So we saw the OB today and got a final OK for the cerclage. Our baby boy (yeah he thinks we're having one too ), is holding on nice and strong. So here's something interesting - he said my cervix is 6 cm!! I have to admit that's ridiculously long. I don't think mine reached over 4 cm last time. But I guess this is a good thing. Of course I've been Dr. Googling to see if it's an indication of perhaps reduced cervical incompetence but I can't find anything.  I even wondered if having only one ovary has reduced my PCOS and therefore my body's ability to suppress my progesterone? Anyway - I'm just glad he has plenty of cervix to work with.
So I'm scheduled to do my cerclage on Monday.  One thing that stands out is how much cheaper medical care is here. This whole procedure is coming to $1400 on the high end. My ultrasounds used to cost $1200 in the states...  and my cerclage came to $9000 in the states. Oh well! So the doctor is doing a Shirodkar stitch. I had a McDonald stitch last time. I had to ask the nurse 3 times to confirm that this wasn't a permanent. Doctors out here LOVE c-sections - so I wanted to make sure he wasn't setting me up for one. Anyway - from what I've Dr. Googled, the two are pretty equivalent and both can be taken out in a doctor's office - however, the Shirodkar is placed higher up and is harder to remove. Sometimes you have to get a spinal to remove it  ... and sometimes it's done in an operating theater. The idea of doing a second surgery to remove this stitch does not appeal to me. However, that's roughly 15 weeks from now - so we'll cross that bridge when it comes to it. Oh how I envy women who can have normal pregnancies. Instead ours is filled with endless online research about medical procedures, risk factors, and constantly watching for signs of negative changes. Anyway that's all I have for tonight. I'm still battling pregnancy insomnia - can't wait for this to pass!

Team Blue ... NT Scans .... Pre-Cerclage Thoughts

Yep - we are Team Blue - with a 96 % accuracy caveat - guessed at 13 weeks + 2 days! We just had our NT scan yesterday and it went great. Being 35 and having PCOS - I won't pretend like I have any confidence in my reproductive system. So I was mentally preparing myself for less than stellar numbers. However, we saw no defects and our combined bloodwork + ultrasound risk was set at 1 out of 4775 - which is just fine in my books! The tech also said my cervix was long and closed - which was comforting. I know cerclages are most successful when done between weeks 12 and 14 - so as I'm approaching the start of week 14 next week - I'm eager to get stitched up so I can calm down! Needless to say DH is beaming from ear to ear. I'm kind of excited. It makes me wonder about the whole thing of different genders affecting you differently pregnancy. I doubt there's any truth to it - but I will say that the morning sickness this time was simply insane. I'm still not out of the woods- but at least I don't feel miserable anymore!

Who gave my baby an ice pick?

So once you get to 8 months pregnant - you get cocky. You start thinking you have a pretty good handle on the pregnancy symptoms and discomforts. I survived the first trimester morning sickness blues. I've dry heaved, been nauseas, suffered through cravings, been bloated, peed every 10 minutes, etc. I just discovered a new blessing. As my little one gets bigger (I'm 33 weeks), when she shifts or punches - I get a stabbing sensation in my cervix at the top of my "cooch". It literally feels like she has an ice pick and is trying to poke her way free. It's so bad sometimes it stops me dead in my tracks or makes me gasp. My poor husband has to watch me randomly wince in pain.

Of course both my perinatologist and my obgyn swear that it's normal. They say it can be more intense with a cerclage. I totally hear them but my instinct just isn't buying it. It doesn't seem normal to have such a strong sharp pain and for there to be nothing wrong! That being said... I'm only 2.5 weeks away from having my cerclage removed. Then the labor watch begins! How crazy is that!!!

A friend asked me yesterday why I sound like I have no fear about the labor. I don't know why - but I explained that maybe it's because I've been through hell already. I've already delivered a 20 week old baby that didn't make it. I know what labor is all about. I've gone through IVF cycles, a cerclage surgery, weekly injections in my back side, watching 2 nurses fight to put an IV In my arm (4 failed attempts ), cramps from ovarian over stimulation, and crippling sciatic pain from 17p shots. Could labor really be any worse than that?? I'm just ready to meet this little one!

Phew - another good cervical measurement - well kind of

So I had another Perinatologist appointment today. My DH totally had me freaked out. He's been to so many of these things, he can read my measurements from the ultrasound creen while the tech is taking my measurements. Well today he got them a little wrong. He thought it was a LOT lower than it was - like 1.34 instead of the 2 cm that it has always been. Well.... it turned out that my measurement was only like 1.97. That's a trivial difference in length! I was just happy that DH was wrong - but he did freak me out.

Our baby girl is actually growing nicely. They checked her amniotic fluid levels and they were all normal. She measured 2 pounds 14 ounces - almost 3 pounds! They struggled to catch her heart beat because she didn't want to keep still. She even kicked the ultrasound machine as the doctor was trying to scan my stomach! That was funny. All in all it was a good appointment.

I just realized that I have only 3 appointments with my peri and then it's time for my cerclage to come out. He told me to expect to deliver within a week or a week and a half of my cerclage coming out. That means she might come at 37 or so weeks. Could it be that I'll be having a June baby instead of a July one? Wow! I'm starting to get nervous about this baby coming. In a weird way it's sort of like... OMG what have I gotten myself into! What are we going to do. But I just can't wait to meet this little baby. I'm also beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by all the stuff we need for the baby. It seems like so much.

Two bandaids on my butt and a smile on my face!

Needless to say, my doctor's appointment went great. Well as good as can be for a woman in my condition. My cervix is holding strong at 2 cm. No sign of change so it means that the bedrest is working. Our little baby girl will slide into 24 weeks with no problems. She's changed position, from her head down position into a sort of transverse almost breech position. Her feet are bottom right and head is top and left! I saw her ribs today! That was just amazing!

Before I forget - so what's the deal with the bandaids on my butt? I got two shots today. My weekly 17p shot and a corticosteroid shot - Celestone (aka Betamethasone). Just for reference, the steroids are to help her lungs, brain and intestine grow faster in case of pre-term labor. The 17p shots are actually painless but the Celestone actually stung quite a bit. It had quite a burn to it. So I left there with a bandaid on each butt cheek. But I could care less about the inconvenience... my little baby is still inside of me alive and kicking - and my cerclage is still holding up.

Fresh cervix measurement tomorrow - excited and nervous

Tomorrow I head back to the perinatologist for another cervix measurement. I'm excited that I'll get to see my little one again. Even more so - she should be technically measuring more than 24 weeks flat tomorrow since she's always measured ahead. I'm hoping that my cervix is still nicely closed and at most - holding at 2cm. I won't be greedy and ask for it to be longer, but I'd be really happy if my cervix got a little bit longer. At this point - every millimeter counts. We get to discuss when we will be doing steroid treatments as well. I know they say Google is a pregnant woman's nemesis - but I've been googling steroid protocols so that I have an idea of what the process entails. So continues the baby baking!

Phew - We live to fight another week

Well... today's perinatologist appointment went well. Well as well as well can be considered in my situation. My cervix was pretty much the same length. The doctor was happy about that. In fact, he's even allowed me to go 2 weeks before my next appointment. We got another chance to see our baby and hear the heartbeat. Everything looked normal but they didn't do measurements of the baby. I also got my 17p shot today. I'm going to get my urine sample done and see if my UTI is really recurring or not!

So here I am 22 weeks tomorrow - just 15 days away from viability. I always anticipated getting to this point, but now that we're so close - I just want it to be over and I want to be there!! The doctor started to mention what will come next. Since I'll be 24 weeks at our next appointment, we can start to treat this pregnancy like a baby we need to keep in the womb as long as possible. The doc mentioned steroids to help the baby's lungs develop. He mentioned that we would do 2 regiments, an initial one and then a second one when pre-term labor is imminent. He mentioned the possibility of pre-term labor and hospitalization but I have a chance to get through this without all of that.

I'm happy with where we are - but it is still so nerve wracking. I want to be excited - I want to celebrate every victory - but I am not ready to celebrate until we get to the point of viability. If possible, I'd love to cook this baby to 38 or even 40 weeks, but we'll see what my body is willing to do. For now.... my sticky bean and I live to fight another week to finally meet each other!

Heading back to the Perinatologist to get my cervix measured again

For anyone who has dealt with incompetent cervix, it's so nerve wracking! It's been a week since I found out that my nicely stitched shut cervix has decided that it wants to shorten and open on its own anyway! I dropped from 3.3 cm down to 1.97 cm in just 2 weeks. Of course I was frustrated because just 2 weeks before my cervix had actually grown .4 cm. I was sticking to the partial rest schedule (not doctor ordered but personally ordered as a precaution) and I expected everything to be fine. What was more frustrating, was just as I was celebrating getting past the 20 week mark of my 1st miscarriage, my cervix decided it wanted to do a repeat performance.

Anyway - it's incredibly early - 5amish, I'm awake LOL. I go back today to get my cervix measured. For anyone who's new to the concept - this has been a pretty painless experience for me. The tech does a transvaginal ultrasound and takes some measurements. Then the tech does a transabdominal ultrasound and measures the baby. Then we just sit and wait for the doctor to review them, come into the room and tell us the news.

I also have a potential recurring UTI. The reason I say potentially recurring UTI is that my obgyn has told me at my last 3 monthly appointments that my urine culture came back positive for a UTI. So they gave me an antibiotic macrobid. I have had no symptoms all along. I took the antibiotics, saw my peri for my cervical measurements, and then went back to the OB in a month. Then again - your urine culture says UTI and it's responsive to macrobid. Same deal, I took the macrobid, and came back in a month. Guess what.... a month later.... you have  UTI, it shows itself as sensitive to macrobid, and they gave me the same meds. I asked the nurse who called me - is this normal? She said - yeah - the labwork says macrobid works. Now I'm thinking in my head, I don't care what the lab work says, is it normal to have the same UTI responsive to the same medication, reappearing at every tests in a 12 week period? Anyway - since (at that time) I saw my perinatologist every 2 weeks, I decided I'd ask them.

My peri said it's possible for a bacteria to show sensitive to a medication and still be resistant. They will be running fresh urine cultures on me today so I can get a definite answer. I wouldn't care so much except amongst my many factors for pre term labor (PCOS, mild insulin resistance, incompetent cervix, previous pre-term loss) I don't need to add recurrent UTIs to that list!!

Anyway - that's enough of a rant! I hope everything goes ok today with the doc!

I'll post an update when I get home