2nd Trimester- The safe zone...except when it isn't...

On Monday of this last week I turned 13 weeks pregnant with #5.  13 weeks. 2nd trimester. That magical time when pregnant people everywhere breathe a sigh of relief and feel like they are pretty much guaranteed to bring home a baby 6 months later.

Except when you just lost your daughter at 17.5 weeks out of nowhere.  

There was definitely no sigh of relief here...not this time. 

Crossing into the 2nd trimester is weird this time. I'm definitely not relieved. I actually have a little more anxiety than I did very early in this pregnancy.  Part of that is because we are getting closer by the day to the point in the pregnancy that Aidiliy died and that is hard. And weird. Part of that is that because with each passing day of a pregnancy and each ultrasound you get more and more attached and in love with that baby, no matter how hard you try not to. Part of that is because I know we are going to have to tell the kids pretty soon.  And part of that is because when I first got pregnant with this baby I was pretty fully convinced it would be an early miscarriage. I kind of just put it in my head that we wouldn't make it out of the 1st trimester. A defense mechanism I'm sure, but that's what I was thinking....and I was thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that "at least it will just be a "regular" miscarriage this time". NOT that any loss is not totally and completely devastating (and I actually hesitated sharing these thoughts because I think it sounds like I am minimizing 1st trimester miscarriages and I am so, so not. A baby is a baby. Period.) but I was telling myself that at least it wouldn't be an actual labor and delivery and holding and saying goodbye to your baby experience...and now here we are....right back in the 2nd trimester again...if we lose #5 pretty much from this point on it is going to be a repeat of the horrors of last June. 

I think there may be some confusion from well meaning friends on what happened with Aidiliy.  I seem to get a lot of comments like "It will be fine this time" "Just relax" "It was probably just a horrible fluke" "I know tons of people who had miscarriages and then their next baby was fine" "Everything looks great so far so just enjoy the pregnancy". In our situation it was not a fluke.  As horrible as it was to order the autopsy that day, I am thankful we did...because what it showed was that her placenta had clotted...and that is what killed her.  Sometime in between my totally perfect pregnancy with Max and my pregnancy with Aidily, I, for whatever reason, developed some type of pregnancy clotting disorder. (Which is actually not that abnormal as you get older.) Without treatment, there is a VERY high likelyhood of it happening again. And even with treatment (the lovenox injections I take daily) there is still a chance of it happening again because the dosages are not always perfect. And it doesn't always work. Not to mention there are a ton of other totally unrelated things that could happen. (Pregnancy/infant loss support groups are great but you also start to realize all the different ways babies can and do die before birth...) Aidiliy died at 17 weeks, but a clotting disorder can kill a baby at 4 weeks, 10 weeks, 20 weeks, 40 weeks...there will be no relaxing here until they hand me a screaming baby...

All of that said, all we can do is pray, hope for the best and wait for June to get here. And try to stay positive!  This baby *DOES* look great so far, and they are keeping a very close eye on us. All early testing and growth checks have come back perfect; hopefully that trend continues and we bring home #5 safe and sound at the end of all of this 👍🙏🙏💪❤💛💚💙💜