Our roller coaster so far.

10-30-09
DH and I went to Dallas the day before Halloween. That night, we went to see a Dallas Stars hockey game and stayed at a beautiful hotel. As we were getting ready for bed, I was getting these little stretching sensations. DH asked what was wrong, and I told him I just had this feeling that that meant I was pregnant. In fact, I actually said "I'm 100% sure that's what going on." I just knew. When we went to bed, DH was coughing, and I told him not to get me sick. He responded "Yeah, I don't want you to get sick. And I don't want my baby sick!" We just felt so sure. It felt right. I took a test the next morning, and sure enough, BFP! We were over the moon.

11-3-09
My first appointment! Not very eventful, just a lot of papers. But they did do a test to confirm, and hearing it from the Dr. just made everything seem real. That was when the real excitement kicked in for DH I think. We set up an appointment for a few weeks later, and our journey started!

11-16-09
DH was in the field for the week during my first appointment, so a good friend came with me instead. I was nervous, but excited to get my first ultrasound at such an early date. By my LMP and O date, I should have been 6w1d along. Baby measured between 5w3d and 5w5d and we were only able to see the gestational sac and the start of a yolk sac. Dr. didn't seem worried at all, and said that Pumpkin could have implanted late, or is just taking her time growing. We set up another u/s for 2 weeks later, which would give plenty of time to let the heart beat start. I took it easy, and tried to be patient in my wait.

11-26-09
Thanksgiving. Each year, my dad's entire side of the family gets together for the holiday. We lost my grandmother last October, and the event was moved from NC to VA. I had to miss it last year, because they wouldn't give my husband the day off of work. We had just gotten married that August, and I couldn't leave him to come home to an empty house on our first married Thanksgiving. This year, we had to miss it again, as DH joined the Army in january of this year, and we were assigned to our first duty station at Fort Hood Texas, reporting in September. Everything had been going so well. No pain, so spotting, lots of oh so fun symptoms. So I wanted to take advantage of having my family all together. We made announcement cards for each individual family, and as they opened it, my mom took a picture of their reactions. Everyone was so excited for us, and they are pictures I will always treasure.

11-29-09
The Sunday before my appointment (scheduled for 12-3) I woke up to some bleeding. No pain or cramps, but enough bright red blood to know something wasn't right. So to the hospital we went, and 5 hours later, we are able to be seen. They checked everything, and it seemed the bleeding wasn't coming from the baby, thank the Lord. They went ahead an did an ultrasound, which I was thrilled about, because their machine was state of the art. After the u/s was done, the Dr. came in to talk to me about everything. I should have been measuring 8 weeks exactly, and baby was measuring at 6 weeks 2 days. I knew that meant something bad, I knew my dates, and they sure as hell weren't off by that much. But they assured me that it was good that she had grown, and even better, we had a heartbeat. It was very low, only 50 bpm, but to them, that still meant there was hope. I didn't know what to think. She was trying to grow and trying to get stronger. We just prayed and prayed that out Pumpkin was a fighter, and went home to wait on pins and needles for our Thursday appointment.

12-3-09
Our long awaited appointment. We were hoping for a miracle, and a stronger heartbeat. We didn't get such luck. Dr. still was trying to be optimistic, but at 8w4d, baby still measured around 6 weeks. I broke down crying in the middle of the ultrasound, and didn't stop until we were leaving the office. I just had this intuition that something was wrong. We rescheduled, yet again, for a follow up. It was set for 12-10, and were starting to lose hope, but trying to be positive for our Pumpkin, even though I knew in my heart it was over. And looking back, it pisses me off that my Dr. was so optimistic about that I was just wrong about my dates. It was cruel to fill me with hope when there was no chance.

12-10-09
At 9w4d, Pumpkin still measured 6w1d. She just wasn't growing. Worse news, like something from a nightmare, I was diagnosed with a partial molar pregnancy. Now I had never of this, and neither had anyone I talked to. I was explained that grape-like cysts grow inside my uterus, that were aggressive in their growth, like a cancer. That is was a chromosomal 'mix-up' so to speak. A partial molar is generally supposed to be twins, but instead of the chromosomes splitting equally, the baby never splits, but it gets twice the chromosomes from the daddy. The baby can't survive, and the pregnancy must be ended. As if that wasn't heartbreaking enough, those aggressive growths, they can lead to cancer after the termination. Because of that, I would have to have weekly blood draws with an oncologist until my Beta numbers reached 0. If they didn't do so on their own, or at any point they started to rise, it would require chemotherapy. Once I hit 0 in my Betas, I would move to monthly blood draws for 6 months to a year, and we couldn't TTC again during that time. DH was set to deploy in that time frame. Not only we were we so upset over the loss of the baby - but we were terrified about my health after the D&C. We cried after the Dr. left the room. We went home, cried more, researched all weekend, and prayed for a miracle to come on Tuesday at my next appointment.

12-15-09
The dreaded appointment to see how much more aggressive the molar tissue had become, and to schedule my D&C. I've had melanoma scares a few times in the last 10 years, and I was so scared to see all those terrifying growths on the u/s screen again. Those horrible abnormal cysts in there with my poor little baby. We braced ourselves for the worst, and got worries when the Dr. looked confused. After a lot of moving the u/s around, he told us something that we weren't expecting. All signs of the molar pregnancy, all the growths... were gone. I broke down crying, sure I was dreaming. I had just said to my husband that morning "Is it naive to be hoping for a miracle that I know isn't coming?" And God, full or surprises as always, gave us a miracle after all. However, at 10w2d, baby still hadn't grown, and they couldn't find a heartbeat. Because we had the molar pregnancy scare, we decided to keep the D&C surgery scheduled, so that pathology could still be run and we would know for certain that there was nothing abnormal about the miscarriage. We were still beyond devastated over the loss of our little Pumpkin, but at least we had the hope of my better health, and being able to try again sooner. DH and I went home to spend the last 2 days of having our baby "with" us. The D&C was set for 12-17.

That's about all I can get through right now. I'll update about everything else soon. My heart just can't take anymore right now.