rainbow baby

Dean and I found out on veterans day we were expecting what was supposed to be our rainbow baby. 

My doctors immediately started closely following the pregnancy to be sure we weren't experiencing another ectopic. The first set of hormone levels looked great but then slowly we started realizing something wasn't right. My levels continued to rise but went from a 101% rise to a 65% rise in 72 hours then 50% rise then 35% and yesterday a rise of only 20% in 72 hours. A normal pregnancy should have a minimum of a 50% rise every 48 hours so we knew something was not quite right. I had an ultrasound last week and they couldn't find anything in my tubes or uterus but said maybe it's just too early. 

On thursday I started spotting and by friday the bleeding was pretty heavy, my doctors decided to run a progesterone test as a last ditch effort (I don't understand why this wasn't checked sooner and question if the pregnancy would have made it if we had caught it immediately) Progesterone in pregnancy should be between 11 and 90 mine was 1.79. They immediately started me on progesterone and scheduled me for a ultrasound today. 

This morning we went in and unfortunately the ultrasound still showed nothing and my doctor was concerned it was another ectopic pregnancy. She had me go do one more blood draw to see if my numbers were still rising which would point to a ectopic or if they were beginning to fall and my body was naturally losing the pregnancy. We went back for an appointment to schedule the treatment to remove the ectopic and I prayed so hard.

The treatment meant no nursing Mason for 3 days which I am working on weaning him anyways but between dean being gone 7 days a week right now and my family all working extra hours with the holidays the thought of not only having to go through the treatment and all of it's hard side effects but also having to cold turkey cut Mason off and deal with him begging and crying for a minimum of 3 days was overwhelming especially knowing it would be long days but even harder nights.

The treatment for miscarriage or early ectopic is a chemotherapy medication that includes bleeding and severe cramping along with other side effects so it was not something I was taking lightly and it has to be scheduled at a heart surgery center to make sure your body reacts well to it. It also isn't guaranteed to work so your tube can still rupture or you can need multiple doses and still end up having surgery. With my last ectopic by the time they found it, it had already ruptured and I was bleeding internally so surgery was the only option and that recovery was worse than my csections.

We were finishing up the paperwork to schedule treatment when my blood test came back and my numbers had dropped 60% and my body was naturally miscarrying the pregnancy so we do not have to proceed with treatment at this time but I will continue to be tested every 48 hrs to make sure the levels continue to drop and incase it is ectopic that it still does not rupture. 

We were so excited to welcome our rainbow baby and even took a fun picture with Santa to hopefully be able to announce the pregnancy but as hard as losing this pregnancy is I am thanking God that I don't need treatment at this time and that I didn't lose my only fallopian tube remaining which gives us the option to still try for another baby in the future.

We have no way of knowing if this pregnancy was ectopic or a miscarriage since it was never found on the scan but we do know that my progesterone was too low so it did not support the pregnancy which most likely caused the baby not to make it. 

I don't understand why doctors do not automatically test progesterone when testing HCG but I will be requesting it if God blesses us with the chance to carry another baby in the future and I highly encourage any women who may be going through a similar situation to ask if you can have your progesterone tested so you can hopefully start hormone supplements before it is too late. 

It has been an emotional week and I'm sure it will continue to be hard in the weeks to come but we know God has a plan for our family far greater than we can understand and even though we won't ever get to meet this baby it was so loved from the moment we found out we were pregnant. 💗