I recently scanned a mom who was early in her pregnancy.  She had miscarried previously and wanted to see this tiny baby for the first time and get some reassurance.  We saw baby wiggling, saw baby’s heartbeat and mom and dad were greatly relieved.  

This mom remarked that she had morning sickness almost daily.  It was actually comforting to her to feel that nausea, because that reassured her that the pregnancy was moving along.  And on days when she felt good, she felt bad – worried that the absence of morning sickness was an indicator of another lost pregnancy.

Our conversation reminded me of a similar conversation I had with a mom several weeks ago.  She had conceived with the help of in vitro.  In vitro takes all of the mystery out of baby-making.  Starting on day one of their monthly cycle moms give themselves daily injections.  They know the status of their pregnancy on just about every day thanks to frequent blood draws to monitor pregnancy hormone levels.  In vitro moms are hyper aware of everything their eggs/embryos go through every step of the way – from follicle counting to egg harvesting to fertilization to choosing which embryo(s) get transferred to waiting for a heartbeat to gender ultrasounds and anatomy ultrasounds and on and on till birth. 

That is all background for the conversation I had with my in vitro mom-client.  We both commented that when it came time to stop the progesterone injections, it was very scary.  Let me explain.  A pregnant woman secretes progesterone, this is the hormone that helps to maintain pregnancy.  An in vitro mom supplements her progesterone with daily injections of progesterone in oil.  Oil is too thick to go through a thin needle so a very thick needle is required.  If you sew, think upholstery needle.  Up until the point of embryo transfer, the daily hormone injections are taken subcutaneously, which means just under the skin, and use a very small needle.  Progesterone injections are taken intramuscularly – into a muscle.  But now that you are potentially pregnant, you don’t care what you have to do to take care of that baby.  My injection site was my thigh.  I was told to ice it first to lessen the pain.  7:00 PM was my injection time.  I started out hating 7:00 PM because those injections hurt.  After a few weeks, the injections sites (I think I had one on each thigh, but it’s been a few years) grew numb.  It actually took several years for all of the feeling in one of my thighs to return .  Then you get to the other side of the progesterone injections – when your doctor says you don’t need the supplemental progesterone any more.  Panic!  What?  What if that is the only thing keeping me pregnant?  And honestly at this point, all the feeling at my injection sites is gone, so it really doesn’t even hurt that much.  You just want that baby so bad and after all you have done to get this far in your pregnancy you don’t want to do anything that is going to cause you to lose your little guy/gal.

This is when it’s time to let go and let God.  Trust your doctor’s experience and training, trust that your body knows what to do, and trust that God, with some earthly assistance, has made that life inside of you possible and if you are meant to hold that baby, it will happen.   Personally I had one failed frozen embryo transfer, two IVF cycles that ended in early miscarriage, and two successful IVF cycles that gave us triplets plus one.  Loss and disappointment are very painful and it’s easy to fall into depression and self pity.  You can’t let those feelings take over.  Stay positive, stay busy and pamper yourself with healthy pastimes – for me it was yoga and good old fashioned work.  Get sweaty and worn out.