Callahan’s Birth Story: Part 1

Callahan’s birth story begins a few months after Steve and I were married. I always thought I wanted to wait a few years before trying to have children. Then we were married and I had baby fever. We started trying for a baby 5 months after our wedding. It was May and I got pregnant the first month we tried. I was so excited. It was the first week of June, the last week of the school year and I just found out I was pregnant. I downloaded all of the apps to see how my baby would grow over the next 9 months. I bought the “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” book. I was a little nervous because I felt like the line wasn’t super dark, but everywhere I read said a line means pregnant. Strength of lines on pregnancy tests do not relate to the viability of the pregnancy. I reminded myself of this anytime I was nervous. I called the doctor to schedule a blood draw to confirm the pregnancy. They drew blood a few days later and they called me to let me know I was pregnant but looked to be very early on in the pregnancy since my numbers were low. They suggested I return in 48 hours for another blood draw to confirm that the numbers were rising appropriately. I never made it to this appointment. I began to bleed the next day, and I kept bleeding for several days after. A week after I celebrated my pregnancy, I grieved the loss of it.

I read a lot about the high percentage of first pregnancies that end in early miscarriage or chemical pregnancy, as it’s often referred to. There are likely a lot of women who don’t realize they were even pregnant, if they aren’t obsessively testing like I was. I was sad about our loss but also excited for what the future could hold. I figured we would try again the next month and if we timed it right, we’d be pregnant again. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Over the next few months I became quite obsessive, especially during the “two week wait” periods. I would scour blogs and message boards trying to find symptoms that matched mine. Every little twinge or soreness I swore was something related to pregnancy. I was temping, I was tracking cycles, I was doing everything under the sun to try to get pregnant. June, July, and August all went by without any luck. I was beginning to feel like something was wrong with my cycles. My cycles were now irregular and something seemed off. I went to an OBGYN (a new one, since I had moved). She did some blood work and told me I wasn’t ovulating, so I would need to go to a fertility specialist. I remember getting into the car after that appointment and crying. I had gotten pregnant so easily that first month, and now I have fertility issues? It didn’t add up.

I went with Steve to our first fertility appointment. Overwhelmed is an understatement. They were great, but it was just so much information about all of the different things that could be wrong with us. To sum it up they said all of my numbers from the blood draw look great so they’re not sure why I wasn’t ovulating. However, before they put me on an ovulation drug they needed to rule out any other issues. This included a full blood panel the next time I got my period, testing for Steve, and a Hysterosalpingography (a test to see if my tubes were blocked). I had heard horror stories about the Hysterosalpingography and asked the doctor if it was actually necessary at this point, especially given that I had already been pregnant. He countered my argument by reminding me how infuriated I would be if we started the meds and nothing worked for months because the whole time I had a blockage. I agreed, but just felt like I knew by body well enough to know that wasn’t the issue. At this point Steve and I were so exhausted by the whole process that we decided to put trying to get pregnant on hold until after the testing came back. So, I waited to get my period because that’s when we could start the testing. I waited and waited, my cycles were super long at this point so I wasn’t surprised. But one morning I woke up and something in my brain told me to take a pregnancy test. I did and almost immediately 2 lines popped up. I was pregnant. I called the fertility clinic to let them know that I would not need my next appointment because I was pregnant. They told me they could actually follow my pregnancy for the first 9 weeks to perform some early blood tests and ultrasounds to make sure everything was on track. I excitedly accepted this plan. I went in for my first blood draw and found out that my hcg levels looked good. They wanted me to return in 48 hours to make sure they doubled. Later that day I started to bleed. I called Steve at work, crying telling him it was happening all over again. I continued to bleed a little the next day and then it abruptly stopped. There was a good amount of blood, but I thought maybe it could be the implantation bleeding I heard about through all my reading and research. My next blood test confirmed my numbers had more than doubled. It was implantation bleeding. Small note on this. No one ever mentioned that implantation bleeding can be more than spotting. Mine was a good amount of blood, definitely not my definition of “spotting,” but it did only last a day or two.

My first ultrasound was at 6 weeks and the doctor warned me that we likely wouldn’t be able to see/hear a heartbeat yet. They were just looking to see if the gestational sac was in the right place and was the right size. Thankfully it was and we were even able to see the heartbeat! I won’t bore you with a long description of my pregnancy, because for the most part it was pretty great. The only small hiccups were my low lying placenta (which moved out of the way), my positive CF carrier test, and my persistent feeling that the baby was HUGE. I tested positive as a CF carrier, so we then had to wait 2 weeks to get the results of my husband’s blood test back. It was the longest two weeks of my life, but thankfully it was negative. Once the 3rd trimester hit, I was SURE this baby was oversized, but at all of my appointments my clinicians assured me I was measuring right on track. As you can see by the picture, I was quite large, and this was a full month before I delivered. I credit staying active and my weekly chiropractor appointments with keeping me feeling great and super mobile even after gaining 70 pounds.