Friday 29 June 2012

A Funny Thing About Odds

I think I worry a lot. No, I know I worry a lot. Despite my worries, I never took one minute of my pregnancy for granted and I'm happy about that.

When I found out about my pregnancy. I worried about the beta numbers and the doubling times. The betabase was a great way to obsess. You know just in case it was a chemical pregnancy or even worse an ectopic. Chances are high into week 4 of your pregnancy. But the betas were rising nicely.

I had minor complications that required increase monitoring but nothing serious. Before the first ultrasound, I was researching blighted ovums and molar pregnancies. Hugely nervous. But there she was with a yolk sac and all. The 6 week ultrasound, baby was measuring on track with a heart rate of 100 bpm. Wow, amazing  that Clara measuring about 0.6 mm at the time could have a heartbeat. Then I worried her heartbeat wasn't strong enough. I mean the risk of miscarriage in the first trimester are still pretty high.

Our 7 week ultrasound, in all her 0.88 mm glory had a heart rate of 119 bpm. The risk of miscarriage drops as soon as a heartbeat is detected. Phew, we made it through another milestone.

12 week ultrasound and IPS screening. Heart rate of 156 bpm, measuring 12w2d. Clara past her IPS with flying colours, 1/6500 risk of downs. She's truly my daughter, we're both a bunch of over achievers:) Now, we are past the first trimester, the riskiest part of pregnancy. Phew, another sigh of relief.

19 week anatomy scan. Again everything was perfect! My daughter was measuring right on track. Oh by the way, we are having a GIRL. I knew it in my heart, I had several dreams leading up to that ultrasound that confirmed it. Now, we are past the 20 week mark, 99% chance of taking home our daughter. We start calling our daughter by her name.

24 weeks, viability! I'm getting more accustomed to the idea, I'm bringing home my baby girl. We start cleaning out the nursery. We buy an overly extravagant stroller (Uppababy Vista). I obsess over 10 paint swatches of yellow and which etsy decals I'm going to buy. I'm geared up to have this baby!


25 weeks. If Clara was born premature at this point she has a 50% survival rate. One more week, it would be 50-80%. But we never made it that far. All this time, I was worried about premature labour. Never in a million years did I think that my daughter would have issues with her umbilical cord. The risk of an umbilical cord accident causing stillbirth is 1/1000 but is usually a result of nuchal cord or a true knot. In Clara's case, it seems to be even more rare.


In more support group, it seems like everyone has a story about how rare their situation is, 1/1000 or 1/10,000. If it's so rare, how are we all in the same room. Suffice it to say, I no longer believe in the odds. 

1 comment:

  1. Hi! Just stopping by from LFCA to lend some love and support! I think "the odds" are crap. Before having my rainbow baby last September I looked at only MY odds. I had two surviving children, 2 miscarriages, and one stillbirth. I didn't care about anyone else's odds. Just my own. By my thinking, they were not spectacular. Thankfully our 3rd little arrived safe and sound.

    Much love to you!

    xoxox

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