Hi everyone,
It's with great sadness that I write this post...
For the third time, my unborn baby has gone...
Today was supposed to be my 2nd trimester detailed scan... at 20weeks 2 days (as of Tues)..
The sonographer at KKH scanned... think she might have been able to tell from the get-go that the heartbeat was missing, but proceeded to measure the diameter and circumference of the head before asking me if there was any discomfort or bleeding, to which I replied 'no'.
This of course raised some concern at first, but I didn't expect the worst. Then she scanned further, and texted something on the scan.. 'no fh', to which I surmised 'fh' to perhaps represent fetal heartbeat, plus she did a sort of like scanning for the heartbeat (the kind where we will see the up & down chart of the heartbeat usually, but this time there was no movement, no sound. So I suspected, and asked if everything was fine. She didn't reply. She said, 'later the doctor will explain', then she revealed there was no heartbeat.
I froze.
I came out of the room with dh, went back to the waiting area to see the doc (scan was scheduled at 8am, seeing doc at 9am, but we had the scan around 8:30)... Went to do all the standard and urine test before going to wait for the doc..
He was late today, came at around 10am.. the 1.5hr wait was as tortorous as you could imagine. I was already sobbing and in disbelief, and also praying and asking God to restore, and to make the impossible happen..
Doctor came, I went in, he looked at the report, saw the words, 'no fh', and repeated what the sonographer had said, that there was no heartbeat.. he looked disappointed and sad too..
I replied, 'can't be right? How can this happen?' I was still in semi disbelief... really... how could this happen... I had had no signs or symptoms whatsoever...
He said he would do another brief scan, (i think he was already accepting of the fact, just wanted to show me one last time...) and sure enough, no heartbeat. But I just still couldn't really digest it..
I asked him how it was possible. I had had no bleeding, no pains out of the ordinary (only round ligament aches/pains)... no symptom of danger whatsoever. He said it was because I was not able to really feel the baby at this stage(20weeks), so may not know it.. Also, the baby had passed on perhaps 2 weeks ago, that was at 18weeks plus, or slightly after.. That was the time when I was at the cruise, or slightly after..
I asked him if it could be because of some physical activity I had undertaken the last week, due to the renovation stuff I've been doing.. He said it was v unlikely and told me it's v impt not to blame myself or let guilt eat me. Which i agree cos I really feel bad enough as it is. I am thankful that he said that and didn't think it was the renovation that caused it, cos older generations (mom & FIL included) have been trying to dissuade me and dh from doing the renovations, but we sort of insisted that I would not exert myself, and we would move out during the renovation, so we won't be unduely affected..
Anyways, whatever it is, the bb has left this world, hopefully with God in heaven already. Doctor says usually in such situations, the labour will take place within 4 weeks from the death, meaning that if the death had taken place 2 weeks ago, it will be within the next two weeks that I will experience labour.
I will have to admit myself upon experiencing labour pains or upon having blood discharge. So now I can only pray and ask for sisters in Christ around me to pray for a relatively painless labour. If there is no labour till then, doctor will have to inject me to induce. Before that, he suggests that I do it the natural way. I am sorry to share this news with all of you.
I really hope from the bottom of my heart that you lovely gals all go on to have a wonderful and smooth pregnancy.
As for me and my hubby, we will just have to trust God and walk this road together and go through this first, before we talk about other things in future.
I have told my parents today, but kept it from my FIL first. We decided to keep it from him first cos he has again been in poor health... very unstable breathing (he has a lot of health probs n history) , and plus just a week back a close elderly relative of his suddenly passed away,and we all went for the funeral, almost on a daily basis from wed to sunday.. so he has already sort of a sad period to go through, plus he was quite 'superstitious' even tho he's also a christian, was suggesting to me to maybe not go for the funeral, but my hubby and i decided it's fine.. Anyways we can both imagine the things he would think and the conclusions in his mind he would make if he were to know the truth now...
So we have decided to postpone letting him know until the labour happens & when I am in hospital.. and perhaps cook up a story, whatever the real truth may be.. e.g. maybe tell him the bb had a birth defect, so stopped growing... or something.. to make him not feel as terrible...
I don't know... haven't really thought that out in detail yet.. but anyway, that's the current plan for now..
As you may gather from my past posts.. I had already completed my packing by Monday morn, and had shifted in to my friend's place on Sunday night. The hacking started on Monday morn.. anyway we will be continuing to go through with the whole renovation process, tho it started off in the first place to prepare the house for the baby. Hubby says we will prepare for the next one. Anyway now the major works is in hte kitchen, master b/rm, living rm etc. The door that I wanted to have hacked out from master b/rm to lead to future bb rm has already been done up. So that will remain ,except for now, it will be empty ..
I guess my hubby n i will just focus on the renovation first, for now. Within these two weeks, I will be hospitalised.. Just earlier tonite, hubby and i at least finally confirmed with hte designer on the layout of the kitchen so tomorrow the guys can start on the wetworks/ build the base of the kitchen. Once the kitchen is more or less confirmed, at least i am not as vital to the whole renovation decision making process, cos the kitchen is my main domain.. i am less particular over the living room. we also made some decisions over the master bedroom already so that's fine too...
Anyways... sorry for writing so much... just my way of expressing my grief... and thanks for reading, and i'm sure as you are reading, for being there with me 'mentally/emotionally' in my loss n grief. I wish you girls go on to enjoy your pregnancy and pls know that cases like mine are probably far and few in between... Don't let this affect you ok?
of course you will be wondering if doc said what the probable causes are.. I did ask him and he said there were a few - 1) umbilical cord got entangled by itself, which is just really an unfortunate accident. 2) something wrong with the placenta 3) soemthing wrong with my blood e.g. clotting that made it tough for bb to receive nutrients from the blood. He said this third possibility is not likely but nonetheless we could do a postmortem analysis to try to find out what was the cause- 1, 2 ,3 or any others. We of course hope to be able to find out the cause.
That's about all I have to share for now.. I hope that you girls will not tell me it was because I went through with the renovation, did some packing, tired myself out, or went for the funeral etc. which caused this to happen, whatever you may truly think.. I do not want to think taht way.. plus my faith also teaches me not to link the loss to moving house, attending funerals etc. I had made a very conscious attempt to not tire myself during the packing, and was sitting down 90% of the time when helping hubby with the packing. I was only folding things into boxes, taping up boxes etc. I walked here and there in the house a bit, but i really consciously made myself take it as easy as possible and hubby was moving all the boxes.
So even if you think that was what caused this to happen, pls don't tell it to my face, cos I don't think that will help me at this point in time. Anyway the timing does not correlate, cos the doc said it prob happened two weeks ago, which was at the cruise. It's only last week that I really started the packing.
That's about all I have to share with you girls. Thanks for the company, the sharing, the friendship all this while. I will have to take a break from the site for sometime... of course I know you girls wish me the best, and I know in due time dh & i will recover. For now, I just wish to perhaps prepare mentally for the labour (i had a bad experience five years ago with a m/c at 16 weeks, now a bit of phobia of going thru natural delivery again .. so silly right, cos it's no where near full term, but for me, at that point in time it was painful enough for me to say yes to an epidural when the nurse asked. Just that the foetus came out before she could come back with the epidural) .. so now at 20weeks, even if the bb was 18+wks in size, i'm a bit scared of the labour.. but it's something that i'll have to brace myself for.
After that, i will just take a bit of time to recover.. perhaps have the cause uncovered, and work things out from there slowly.. then move back to the renovated place...
okies, shall not ramble on and on... take care girls! I give thanks to God that my dh is very supportive and sweet and he is with me in this. I count my blessings for him, and also for my parents in being understanding, as well as close friends around me, showing the support that i need. You girls can rest assured too that i am in good hands.
ciao for now
hope that in the not so far away future i can come back to this site to start the journey, when my dh n i are ready and able to
all the best!
luv,
rosegal