8w3d and a major panic attack

On Friday night, I started getting cramps. I have felt many twinges, pulls, and the odd pain here and there, but these cramps alarmed me. A shooting pain that felt like my uterus contracting, occurring every few minutes, which continued for most of the night. I cried myself to sleep, thinking it was over.

On Saturday, I felt so nauseous that I managed to convince myself everything was ok. On Sunday morning I threw up. But after that, I started to feel better, my nausea abating to the point I started to fret again. As I felt better and better as the day went on, the knot in my stomach and dread I was feeling got worse and worse. By nighttime, I was convinced. Between the cramps I felt on Friday and the loss of my symptoms, I went into a total spiral of despair. I was 100%, without a doubt convinced it was over. I laid in bed with my husband and cried. “This is bad. I really think this is bad. I’m not nauseous!! Why aren’t I nauseous?!” I couldn’t believe I ever had the audacity to complain about the morning sickness. It was such a beautiful thing! And I desperately wanted it back. 

My husband took my face in his hands. “Avocados. Scrambled eggs. The smell of the refrigerator…” He continued listing all the things that had turned my stomach and sent my running for the toilet the past few weeks. I laughed at first, which quickly turned to more tears. “It’s not working!!” I said in total despair. 

On Monday morning I woke at 5:30am to use the bathroom, realized I still didn’t feel nauseous, and continued panicking. I cried in bed and couldn’t fall back asleep. I felt crippled with dread; I couldn’t imagine going through another loss. I had come so far in my healing in the last year and I didn’t want to start over, having to face all those complicated feelings again, having my heart ripped out, having to start the grieving process all over again. Incredibly quickly I slipped into a dark place, unable to even think about having to function or face my day. I called my RE as soon as the office was open and begged to move my Wednesday ultrasound to as soon as possible.

By 10:15am I was in the ultrasound room holding my husband’s hand, heart pounding, stomach in knots. I believed with everything I had that our little babe’s heart had stopped beating. That Friday night’s cramps was a harbinger of its demise, and the lessening of the nausea was just confirmation. I tried to prepare myself for when I had to hear those horrible words come out of my doctors mouth: I’m sorry, but there is no heartbeat.

But by 10:30am, we heard that beautiful thumping sound again. Our little one’s heart was still beating. I felt shock and relief wash over me, and then I just cried. I couldn’t believe what I had just put myself through. I had never felt so insane, so damaged. My sweet RE has probably seen this over and over in patients with a history of loss, as she seemed to almost expect it. Even with her packed schedule, she told me she knew she had to squeeze us in. “You’ve been through a lot,” she told us, and gave me a hug.

Our babe measured 8 weeks, 2 days (according to my LMP I should be 8w1d) with a heart rate of 164. And our baby is finally starting to look human-like, with a giant head and two tiny feet, somewhat resembling a misshapen sour patch kid. My husband and I couldn’t stop giggling at how cute it was. We are so used to only seeing a lentil-sized blob on our ultrasounds, and never had anything develop beyond that. Seeing it actually look like a baby blew our minds. “OUR BABY HAS A F*CKING HEAD!!” my husband texted me later, “I need some time to process this” he joked.

I realized too, that on Thursday I started taking B6 to help with the nausea. I had low expectations of it actually working, but thought I would try it first before moving on to other drugs. I have no idea if that is why my nausea has subsided, but if it is that means that I basically begged my doctor for something to help my nausea, and then when it worked I went into a tailspin thinking I was miscarrying. Which again, makes me feel like a crazy person. 

As I thought back on my meltdown, I realized that with my first two pregnancies, this is when they ended.  We’ve never really made it past 8 weeks. I hadn’t been thinking consciously about that, because even with our first ultrasound we measured larger than we ever had before, so I feel like we’ve already surpassed the first two. But somewhere within, I was aware, and the timing signaled to me that this one was coming to its own end.

But nope, not yet. Our little one is a fighter.