No Surgery Today

Thank you to everyone who reached out to me over the last few days with words of encouragement, support and love. You can't possibly know how much that means to me.

And for those who don't know already, I'm sorry for the late update but I am not having my cerclage placed this morning.

A nurse practitioner, but more importantly, dear friend of ours, called me Monday morning and gave me some insight into the risks of having the cerclage placed by an inexperienced OB. I, unfortunately, had no clue that there was a likelihood that the cerclage could be ineffective if placed improperly. I had been led to believe by the OB I saw last week that a cerclage is a cerclage and as long as no complications occurred during the surgery it would be all that it could be. Kind of like the Army.

But my friend has some personal experience with ineffective cerclages placed in a friend's cervix, resulting in the tragic loss of one baby in the second trimester and, bless her heart, even another in the third. As you can imagine, that little bit of information just put me over the edge.

I called Caleb immediately and explained my conversation with our friend. He was quick to say he was happy I was going to seek alternatives because he had a "bad feeling" about the other OB. Poor guy knows how stressed out I am and probably weighed the added stress of insisting I find another option against his bad feeling and decided it better to keep quiet. Sorry, hon.

So the search for an alternative began. And it was a full day of phone calls on Monday that finally resulted in my appointment yesterday morning with the intake nurse at Scott & White's Round Rock clinic. I wasn't expecting much from them, considering my other experience with S/W so far, and was really concerned about further delaying the procedure that was already 5 days and counting behind the "ideal placement for optimum effectiveness" as per the perinatologist I'd seen at North Austin Maternal Fetal Medicine. But I felt I had little other option and hadn't actually canceled my procedure or pre-op yet.

The nurse blew me away. Maybe it was because I told her Bryce's birth story and then showed her two pictures of him - one of the night he was born and one of him eating a push pop last week with the sweetest grin he could possibly muster for a mother constantly taking pictures of him. Who could resist this sweet face?

And remember this?  {Seems like just yesterday and a million years ago all at once.}

She immediately left the office and asked every nurse and OB available in the office what the best thing to do was. She genuinely cared and clearly understood my concern for the situation. I know that there are distinct limitations to what people can do, especially when it comes to doctors and specialists and surgery scheduling. But I just wanted someone to try and she did. Thank you, Laurie!

And so did the OB's in the office - they told her they wouldn't touch my cervix with ... I don't know, something you don't touch a cervix with....until that cerclage was safely placed by a perinatologist. I knew they didn't have one here and I had come to terms with the fact that I would likely be driving to Temple. But the peri. they suggested is, of course, on vacation this entire week. Laurie promised me she would call his nurse, send my records and plead my case first thing this morning when she was scheduled to be back, in an effort to get me on his surgery schedule Monday.

And so I left the office equally uneasy and relieved. And not one hour later Laurie called to say that she found another peri. office at the S/W clinic in Temple who could get me in on Friday. So to Temple I go on Friday.

I'm still waiting to hear back if I need to have someone drive me Friday because we could be in surgery or if I can go alone. Since my appointment isn't until 1:20 p.m. I'm assuming the latter but my gut feeling about this whole waiting game is getting increasingly bad.

That could be a result of my intense mom desire to do everything possible for this baby, to make no mistake and have no regrets. Or it could be that same sixth sense that regularly woke me in the night the weeks and months after Bryce was born and was fighting so hard to survive.

I've been trying with all my might to stop weighing pros and cons, stop second guessing my decision to cancel the cerclage today and stop wondering how I'll deal with it if it turns out that waiting was the wrong decision. I went to work yesterday after the appointment, I got up early and cleaned the kitchen today, I am going to tackle laundry and meet Bryce's new occupational therapist and do my best to distract my whirling mind from the omnipresent questioning that is plaguing it.

Freaking Out

I started this post on Wednesday, just after my appointment with the new OB.  Here is where I was emotionally at that point:

For the most part, I try to save my freak outs for the privacy of our home and the likes of my poor husband. But today is just not one of those days.

Sorry.

I just left the new OB, whom I had to pick randomly from a list of 12 on Scott & White's website. She was nice enough - but she said that SW won't pay for my perinatologist to do the cerclage because she can. She's done 2 before so she'll admittedly be nervous but I shouldn't worry too much. Ha.

She did another ultrasound and said that my cervix is definitely shortening already so we need to get this done ASAP but it doesn't have to be today. She also had to tell me that putting holes in my cervix means there is a chance that my water could break and we could lose the baby.

She said a lot of other stuff - like we'll do the surgery at St. David's in Georgetown, I'll be awake but numb from the waist down and draped like a c-section so I can't see anything, and I should expect to be able to leave a couple of hours after.  Mostly I heard the sounds of the Peanut's teachers, "wah wha wha...."

I've been trying to get back to finish the post, I know a lot of you are wondering what is going on but I've also been trying to wrap my head around everything.

I think I'm mostly there now though still freaking out about the fact that my cervix is shortening already, at only 14 weeks, about the risks with the cerclage and the chances of getting somewhere near full term with this baby. 

Not to mention, worried at the news from the OB that if I go into labor before 36 weeks and they can't stop the delivery that I'll have the baby at the Round Rock facility - NO NICU THERE - and they'll transfer the baby to TEMPLE.  But if they can stop the labor then they'll transfer us both to Temple.  I'm not sure which of those outcomes scares me more - having yet another baby sent to a NICU I've never seen without me or leaving Caleb and Bryce at home while I go to Temple by myself.

I have to just stop there because I'll get my anxiety levels all out of control if I let myself go down that road even a couple of steps.

It's funny though, not exactly ha ha funny but odd to think, at 14 weeks with Bryce we were talking names, planning his nursery and looking forward to finding out if he was a he or a she. 

We were blissfully naive. 

But I can't help but wonder if I'm already showing signs, maybe I was with him too.  Maybe if we'd gone to a traditional OB instead of a birthing center they would have done more ultrasounds and caught the changes in my cervix.  Maybe we could have prevented his preterm birth and therefore all of the challenges he faces on a daily basis would be nonexistent.  Maybe.

Please don't bother commenting about how I shouldn't go there, about how questioning the past and blaming myself are neither going to change anything nor help my own mental state.  I know this.  But I also know that if you were me, you'd do the same thing.  I know.

All questioning and blaming aside, I'm resolving to focus on resting, getting over this sinus infection before surgery day and distracting myself to the utmost until pre-op on Tuesday afternoon.

Wish me luck, ya'll - I'm gonna need it.

We're Officially Effective

As of late, I feel anything but effective. Bryce, and thanks to Bryce, I too have been sick twice in only three weeks. Getting normal, every day tasks done is a challenge but getting insurance and related issues dealt with is a whole other kind of challenge.

BUT, as of today we finally have maternity insurance. It's nothing great (aka HMO) but it's so much better than nothing! I had to pick a new OB from the plan and schedule an appointment so that they can try to submit an authorization for coverage of the perinatologist here in Austin. The earliest they could get me in is Wed. morning and hopefully they'll understand the situation and work with us to make that happen. If all goes smoothly we may be in the hospital before the end of the week getting a cerclage put in.

If not, well - I just don't know. As my dad says, "We'll burn that bridge when we get to it."

Thanks everyone for keeping up with us!

 

p/s We're also officially into the second trimester - 13 weeks, 3 days today!  YAY!

BOTW: 12 weeks, 4 days

Went back to the perinatologist this morning to finish up the nuchal translucency screen. She said everything looks good right now, with an extra emphasis on the "right now."

I'll take that.

Now we're just counting down the days until our effective date with Scott & White so we can start the appeal process to get preauthorization for the cerclage. Once that's in place, God willing, we'll schedule the procedure and likely get in immediately there after. Dr. DeStefano said they'll schedule it like an emergency so we should be able to get in within 24 hours.

And so the nervous waiting continues...

On the Lighter Side

Our lives may be a stressful, tangled web of insurance, therapy and doctors but fear not - we still know how to have a little fun.

If nothing else, our challenging life since Bryce's birth has taught me how to relish in the delights of every day life. Today that delight was spending a wonderfully nice afternoon with the sweetest, funniest, most handsomest boy around. {don't ya just love that most excellent display of grammar!?}

Here he is doing his best to feed himself his afternoon snack - yogurt: