Thursday, December 13, 2007

A big week

Well, it has been a big week for us with all the follow up doctors appointments and meetings. Monday I had my post partum appointment with Dr. Grogan and everything looked good as far as my recovery. I decided to go ahead and have my "pow wow" meeting with Dr. Grogan at that time even though I knew we were all meeting on Wednesday. I knew in order for me to heal I had to let her know how disappointed I was in the way I was handled the two days prior to my delivery. Here is a recap... The Sunday before I called the on call number to tell them that my contractions were bad and hurting me, assuming I was going to go into the hospital, I had Katelyn ready to go to my moms, etc. The midwife called me back and I told her where it all hurt and what was going on - she told me to add some medicine and lay down and to call back in a few hours. I called back before bed and they never called me back. I woke up at 8am(Monday) and called the office, the nurse told me to increase my medicine for the day. I called back at 2pm (Monday) and told the nurse that something wasn't right, my contractions were really hurting. She called me in two prescriptions and told me they would help me till I went in on Tuesday - the medicine she called in was an anxiety pill and a sleeping pill - then I felt pretty stupid so I tried to chill out. By 5pm my contractions were 6 minutes apart and I told Jeff we had to go to the hospital, by the time we got to the highway (10 minutes) the contractions were 3 minutes apart and by the time we got to the hospital I was fully dilated...I had a lot to say to Dr. Grogan about all of this, as you can imagine. Dr. G was really compassionate, she told me that she has already been backtracking trying to determine why I wasn't brought in on Sunday when I called - of course everyone has a different story about what happened, the on call Dr said he told the midwife to tell me to come in, the midwife said I didn't want to come in...etc. etc. I wasn't wanting to beat a dead horse, I just wanted her to know how disappointed I was in everything. I realize that these babies weren't meant to be in my life and going in Sunday wasn't going to change the inevitable, but it didn't have to be such an emergency situation, maybe things could have gone a little slower - I don't know. Regardless, she knows how we feel now about that situation. I too have learned to listen to my body. After that we talked about what happened and what her take was on everything. I thought the meeting went well, we discussed the fact that three babies are a HUGE risk no matter what and she really believes I would be better/OK trying to carry one baby. I left there feeling better about things and feeling like I had her support should I want to try again versus moving back into surrogacy. Yesterdays appointment was the most eye opening for me though, I mean Dr. K is the specialist in high risk pregnancies, this is what he sees and what he deals with. Dr. K is also very direct and matter of fact so his thoughts were very clear. He does not believe I have an incompetent cervix which was great news for me. Not that anything is good in this situation but an incompetent cervix would mean that I would not ever be trying to carry a baby again (it would put me at too high a risk for this to happen again). Dr. K also said he didn't believe the chorio infection played a role, he said 90% of preterm labors/births show chorio in the pathology reports. So he truly believes that having the type of triplet pregnancy that I did with two identicals and one fraternal was too much for my body, he believes the identical twins (my sweet Emma and Kelsey) were the reason I went into labor. He said I had the hardest and scariest kind of triplet pregnancy with identicals in there. He continued to talk to us about his plan for us in another pregnancy, giving Jeff and myself the hope that we can still carry a baby of our own. We had a long, hard discussion about how you go through IVF and maximize your chance at one baby vs twins. Hard to believe that is even a concern when I spent four rounds of IVF never getting pregnant...should I get pregnant again, I will be considered high risk, I will see the high risk doctor every week, I will be on progesterone shots every week starting at 16 weeks and I will be tested frequently for strep B and other infections. There is a chance I will fly through a singleton pregnancy with no problems but they won't wait and see, they will be very proactive to make sure this doesn't happen again...I needed the hope that we can try again before doing surrogacy again. Surrogacy was amazing, I feel no differently about Katelyn then I did having carried the girls...however, it is a lot to go through, it is a lot to ask of Kristie and it is like someone waved a million dollars in my face - now I know I can get pregnant...I don't know.
Believe me this won't be any time soon so I don't need to worry right now. We need to heal, my body needs to heal, our hearts and souls need to heal. We need to be together, our little family - to enjoy life for awhile. There will be no jumping into anything. Jeff and I are going to attend a support group tonight for people who have lost their babies, I am looking forward to going, it will be good for both of us.
I just wanted to let you all know what transpired this week, it was a big week and in many ways it offered us a lot of closure.

3 comments:

arg0129 said...

I am so glad everyhting went the way you wanted and you got answers! We are all there for you!!

Aubryn

Bethany said...

Katie, I'm so happy that you're visits went well and that you're finding hope in the midst of everything. I hope that support group was also helpful.

Chris said...

I'm glad you got the chance to express all that to Dr. Grogan and have that sit down with both docs. I truly hope that you have been able to gain some closure from speaking with the doctors. That is also wonderful news about the hopeful future to carry another baby. No matter what you decide to do you have a BEAUTIFUL family and I know in time you'll be ready to make those decisions together.
Take care and Merry Christmas!