Judecorp.

1. Jen and I went downtown to meet up with freedumryde today. We had some delicious beverages at Haymarket and then late lunch at Viva Fresh Pasta. My food (cheese tortellini with a sauce of 1/2 tomato, 1/2 alfredo) was the serious YOM. Good times.

2. Jen and I set out on the tedious task of finding me something to wear to (don't laugh) a black-tie wedding reception in two weeks. I thought I was going to die, for real. But I ended up finding this sparkly freaking GOWN and it's quite nice... and stretchy enough and the waist is high enough that unless something really wacky happens should still fit fine in two weeks. Best of all? That bad boy is a size 10!

3. But I still hate the mall.

4. Totally had sex today for the first time since I was about 6w pregnant. Which was NINE WEEKS AGO, people! *dies*

5. This means, of course, that it's been about a week and a half with no bleeding or spotting to speak of. Still scared to jinx anything, but it seems over after that major bleed-out at 12w.

6. Jen got a new shirt for the wedding, too... and she's going to wear her fancy black suit and she will look teh sexxxxxxxxy. Hot.

7. Former coworkers come tomorrow, stacy will be in town tomorrow, catching up with Eryn & Amy for a bit on Monday, and best of all, NO WORK! Awesome.

Wow, I never expected to have this type of journal.

The bleeding kind of ebbed and flowed (HA HA, get it?) throughout yesterday and into the night. I attempted to go to bed because I was feeling pretty good at the time and just wanted to get the night over with. As soon as I laid down I started to get hit with monster cramps and heavy bleeding. When Jen came to bed a little over an hour later, I told her what was going on, and after about a half hour more, she insisted that I go to the ER because she was worried I was bleeding too much. I didn't really want to go to the ER because I didn't think they could/would do anything, but she was really concerned and hey, maybe they would have an answer.

It was a total waste of time. They took a million vials of blood from me and told me to strip down to a gown and wait so I could have an internal exam. I was bleeding like a stuck pig and was not able to wear anything! It was the most disgusting experience of my life. About two hours later, the doctor came in with my lab results (everything fine except an elevated white count which he thought was due to stress). Then the proceeded to do the worst internal exam of my life - it was obvious that he doesn't have a lot of experience with such things because he didn't give any warning. He was like, "Okay, you will feel my hands on the outside," (or whatever) and the next thing I knew he was jamming in the speculum with /no/ warning. Awful.

Anyway, I don't know what the point of the internal was. He didn't tell me if my cervix was open, only that I had quite a lot of blood up there (DUH) and some clotting but no evidence of any fetal tissue. Then he told me they didn't have an ultrasound person there in the middle of the night but he would get a nurse to try a doppler.

The nurse could not find a heartbeat on the doppler, but kept making sure to say it could just be too early to hear the heartbeat on the outside. But with everything else going on, we are not holding on to much hope. The doctor called the on call at my practice and the doctor on call told my doctor to have me call in a few hours and they would have me in for an ultrasound. I knew this was bogus because I know the sonographer is out today.

But I called this morning a little after 10:00 (we got some sleep after getting in at 5:00) and at 11:45, no one had called me back. I called AGAIN and they transferred me to someone immediately who told me I could come in at 4:00 and one of the OBs could give me an ultrasound. So that's the plan.

The odd thing is that since I got home at 5:00, I haven't had any bleeding. This is seriously the most surreal thing that has ever happened to me. How could I be gushing blood and having cramps for hours and then... nothing?

And then my mom called today, ostensibly to thank us for our Christmas gift (Omaha Steaks) but of course she called while I was waiting for the nurse to call back. I called her back after and she spent at least 20 minutes crying about how she didn't want me to hemorrhage and die because I was her baby and asking if I wanted her to fly out here. The sentiment was nice but all the effort of trying to convince her that I was not dying did nothing to help my stress level.

So I guess it all comes down to 4:00. I just want to know if we have a baby or not. And if not, I am going to see if I can get this all taken care of. And if so, I am going to see if I can get some answers.

1. We have GOT to stop getting phone calls from AT&T Long Distance for some dude Stephen. They called FOUR TIMES yesterday and on the fourth time, I actually pushed buttons until I got a person and told her that this isn't Stephen's number anymore and they need to stop calling. She sounded so dubious and said they had LD service on this number and I assured them that they absolutely did NOT. They called again this morning. Grr.

2. It is so nice to be in our big bed again. I never realized there was so much difference between a Queen and King bed. Jen and I were practically on top of each other on the guest bed and with the cats, it was a nightmare. Now I can streeeeetch out. With cats. Yay.

3. Jeff and Melis are coming over tonight and bringing us dinner. How cool is that! Melis told me not to, but I am going to at least moderately clean the bathroom sink area because it is disgusting. Jen told me not to also, but I can't handle being a dirty host.

4. Jen's work thing was really awkward. She doesn't know too many people at work yet so everyone was standing up and chit-chatting and we were sitting. There were appetizers on the tables and I wanted to eat So! Badly! but everyone else was standing and that would have been weird. So I kept sending psychic signals to people to sit down. (It did not work. I need to work on my psychic powers.) Also, we sat with one of her work friends, who is very nice, and her boyfriend, who was kind of an ass. I think he outdid himself when he asked us, "So do you guys eat nuts?" and kept yuk-yukking. Douchebag.

5. Daedalus digs his cat door. In our old apartment, he would go down the stairs to the doorway and "sing" in the staircase. (Better acoustics, I suppose.) Now he goes into the basement after breakfast for his singing. So cute.

6. And now your daily TMI, so you can "enjoy" this pregnancy along with me: ( Good times. )

So yesterday was such a good day. I had no spotting to speak of, and was a dynamo around the house. I tackled DAYS worth of dishes, received the box spring from the nice furniture people, and finally unpacked a bunch of my clothes into the dresser. I put a bunch of laundry away, found the sheets for the bed, etc. That evening, Jen and I went out for yummy dinner to kind of celebrate and then we had to run to the grocery store. I felt so good to be a normal person, walking around and puttering around the house. It was so nice.

This morning, I'm bleeding again. It's light, and I am trying not to stress about it. I mean, there's nothing I can do - either it's more of the hematoma draining or it's something worse, and I won't find out until something or nothing happens, you know? I go back for another ultrasound next week and I'll likely wait until then because really, what's the point? I can't keep running up to Greenfield all the time. Besides, two days ago we had a totally healthy baby and I know things can change in two days but I can't believe things would change that dramatically.

I'm trying to be very chill about all of this and just see what happens. Trying. It's mostly working - I didn't wake up Jen in the middle of the night, I went back to sleep - but of course I have that nervous feeling. Here's hoping it goes away.

I just want to be a normal, glowing pregnant lady or whatever.

They say that when you can see your baby's heartbeat on ultrasound, you have a 95% chance of making it to the second trimester. I don't know who "they" is and it could be an old wives' tale for all I know, but that's what they say.

We are in the 5%. We had an ultrasound this afternoon and Baby B had stopped growing and was dead, somewhere around 7w5d. That's only a couple of days after our first bleed and our last ultrasound.

Baby A looked positively awesome, measuring 9w5d, heartbeat of 183, moving its little limbs. We saw its beautiful head, arms and hands (even the fingers!), little chest and legs, and the neat loopy cord that links us together.

Then they told us that there's a significant chance that my body is realizing that I am carrying a dead baby and will start working to miscarry it. I asked for odds (because I definitely know people who have lost multiples and continued to term) and the midwife didn't really know - she said probably less than 50% to miscarry but she couldn't say it was, say 25%. And I'm sure she was extra guarded because I'm already having bleeding. She basically told us that I could start cramping tonight, or I could deliver a healthy baby in the summer, or anything in between.

On top of this, the subchorionic hematoma has grown, from about 1cm in area to about 2cm. It seems, on ultrasound, to be behind Baby A somewhere and she didn't expect it to get in the way, but of course couldn't say for sure. And I have a cyst on my left ovary that is now 5cm.

Why is this happening to us? It's like a triple whammy: dead baby, bigger hematoma, big cyst. At this point they're not sure where the bleeding is coming from - either from the hematoma or the baby. I sure hope it's the former. I just don't know why we have such rotten luck.

We are simply beside ourselves with worry and aren't really up for talking about it, even to each other. The plan is for me to spend at least through Tuesday (my next appointment) lying around and hope that there is no more bleeding and no cramping. Jen is working from home tomorrow to spend time with me, and she didn't go to work today. Lisa, I'm sorry this means we will miss your party tomorrow.

Please, even if you don't really believe it works, send some energy into the Universe that we are able to continue to grow our beautiful baby.

Things are a little less dramatic here today. No big gushes of blood, which is a nice change. Hopefully this trend will continue (*knocks wood*). I would feel a LOT better if so.

What was supposed to be dinner with a couple of coworkers apparently has become a big going-away party for me. I found this out because Coworker Javier doesn't understand the concept of 'secret' and said to me this morning, "I won't be able to come to the bar with you tonight!" Whoops. I hope it's not a BIG THING because I really don't intend to stay terribly long. The couch misses me when I'm away too long.

One of my families insisted that I take some fancy Somalian headscarves home as a gift. I tried not to take them (they don't have a lot of money and well, what am I going to do with them?) but she insisted and I did. I suppose it was very sweet but I always feel awkward when families that are struggling feel like they have to give me things.

Speaking of nice things, one of my coworkers bought me a pizza for lunch last week. It was really sweet! I was just about to go buy lunch and she came in with a pizza and said, "This is for you!" So sweet. <3 <3 <3 Also, today Coworker Krissie put a new note on my GI Joe man (Coworker Funk stuck him on my desk months ago with a note that said "Marry me") that said something about how I can't leave her. And Coworker Elaine brought me a newspaper article about Northampton. Elaine is about 60 years old and very nice, and I think she gets this parental pleasure working with us "young people."

I don't really want to leave my favorite coworkers. At all. I want to take them all with me!

One of my moms told me she loved me today. So cute! Of course, she is currently on vacation in Miami so she probably loves everyone. Ha ha.

And not in the greatest way possible.

( Cut for TMI and sensitive stuff )