Dawn D: Welcoming Sydney Faith... this is a REAL long one...Sorry this got so long ... I'm a sucker for detail :) How Sydney came to be ... 6 mos old today ... DH and I met at work back in Chicago & dated for a short time before he was transferred down to Louisiana. We dated long distance for another couple years (though not exclusively) until I took a promotion that brought me to Alabama …. Since we were finally at least driving distance, we took our relationship to another level, and got married about 1 year later and dh moved to Alabama. We decided that we’d wait for a year and I’d go off the pill on our 1 year anniversary (we were 26 & 30 when we got married, and knew we wanted to have kids while we were still relatively young). So, in March 1998 I went off the pill, and we were going to “play it safe” for a couple months and then start ttc. Well, needless to say, I didn’t know anything about charting back then, and figured that everybody O’d around CD14 or so, and my first AF came around CD32, and the next one never came ... well, as it turns out, I O’d much later in my cycle than I though, and low and behold when I ended up going to buy a HPT it was positive. Well, 2 weeks later, I was in New Jersey on business and started spotting. I went to the hospital (hadn’t even been to my OB yet) and all they would do was a pg test (not even bloodwork – just pee on the stick) and they sent me off ….. needless to say, I was furious with the hospital, and couldn’t get in with my OB for 5 days, so I just went back home, and was on bedrest until my OB appt. She said all looked fairly normal … cervix was fine & my uterus was the size it should be, but that I could have an u/s since it was too early to hear the hb with the doppler if that would make me feel better. Well, the u/s showed a healthy little hb, and a large spot of blood where the baby implanted, and they let me know that I may do some more spotting as the rest of that blood expels. Well, a few weeks later I was at a meeting in Chicago, and I started spotting again …. buit was dark red, and so I figured it was the spotting they told me would probably happen. Well, at my 10wk appt, they couldn’t find the hb, but said it was still early so it was no big deal. Well, when I hit 12.5 wks, I started spotting again, but the blood was brighter this time & I was having some cramping as well. I called the OB and went to the office – she couldn’t pick up the hp on doppler so sent me for an u/s … low and behold there was no hb and we were told the baby had probably died around 9wks, but my body didn’t know it. I was crushed and couldn’t even make the decision if I wanted to m/c naturally or if I wanted a D&C. After a day of miserable pain, I make the appt for a D&C and called in to work to let them know that I wouldn’t be into the office for a few days. All pathology reports came back normal … “it was just one of those things” so I was told to wait 3 cycles before trying again. By the time those 3 cycles had passed, we were ready to try again, and low and behold, I was a few days late that month, and figured we were pg again, but when I got a hpt it was neg. I waited a few more days, and still no real AF, but some spotting that was similar to my m/c, so I went to the OB and got my beta drawn … it was over 300 but my P4 was only 11. I was given progesterone supplements and I used them until I got another beta drawn 2 days later, and since my beta was going down and the bleeding was increasing I stopped. I m/c my 2nd little angel naturally, and decided that it was time to take some action. My first run of bloodwork & the HSG were normal except for my thyroid & I was prescribed Synthroid to treat my Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. After 6mos to unsuccessful ttc, I decided to call the RE to see if we could do more extensive testing (my other testing was done by my OB). More bloodwork with them and going over the charting I’d learn to do, and they decided that I O’d too late in my cycle, and my leutal phase was too short, so they put me on clomid. Well, after 4 mos of that, they decided maybe we’d check out the cm & sperm, so did the post-coital and all still looked fine. Another round of clomid & I started getting irritable, so we went ahead and had dh go in for an SA (never thought we’d need to since we’d gotten pg twice). Well, come to find out dh has low count & low morphology. Onto one more cycle of Clomid, this time with an IUI and low and behold I finally saw another + hpt. That brought us our daughter Kayla, born in May 2000, by induction 4 days after her due date. When Kayla was almost a year, we decided that maybe we should start trying again since all in all it took us over 2 years to get Kayla. Well, I started to see what my cycle was doing … not really charting, but paying more attention. Then dh got sick with Guillian-Barre’ Syndrom and was pretty much incapacitated for a momth (in the hospital for some being treated, and home on the couch for the rest of the time). When he got to feeling better, I drove the 3 of us down to our boat to get away for the weekend and to try to cure dh’s cabin fever. Well, we both needed a release of sorts that night, so after Kayla went to bed, we visited with our friends & had “a few drinks.” Well, I had some serious O pain the next day, and low and behold, a few weeks later I was a couple days late, and got a + hpt. I called the RE and had my beta & P4 tested. Both looked great, but once you’ve been followed with weekly u/s in early pg, you can’t really stay sane with future pg’s without them (you girls will know what I mean -- LOL). The RE was sweet enough to give me weekly u/s to check progress from wks 6-9 ... then I graduated back to my OB. That pg was very different than my first, but still pretty uneventful ...and at 39.5wks I went into labor at 2am, made it to the hospital around 4:30 and Sydney Faith was born at 8:22am. Our family is now complete … I have two wonderful little girls and a great dh. I couldn’t hope for more. - Dawn |