The birthday girl

Back to the world, after a 5 days internet crash!

I am now one year older and none the wiser. AND I got to go out for my birthday!! I went to check up on my beloved cervix on Thursday and lo and behold it measured a whooping 4cm! That's the best measurement so far. My cervix has suddenly become the king of cervixes. After seeing those wonderful numbers and the even more wonderful baby, my OB gave me permission to go out for lunch as long as I didn't walk to much and kept it under 1h. Which I did.

Oh the feeling of fresh air on my face. Friends sharing a meal with me, sitting at the table. Dumplings on the beach. Holding my hubby's hand. I don't think anyone can understand how wonderful it felt.
It was a good thing my outing was limited to one hour, because I very soon started to be sore all over. My body is not used to being upright anymore, or to carry the weight of my bump. I was kind of relieved to get back on to my couch: how sad is that? Friends came and went all day, and I received so many flowers my house now look like a funeral house (in a good way, if there is such a thing).

This delightful weekend was topped off by the victory at the Aussi Open of my fellow countryman, the one and only, the Master, the Genius: Roger Federer! The third set was so nerve-wracking I started having contractions and had to hide under the covers for the entire tie-break to avoid stress-contracting. Did I mention I was a total Federer fan? I am the ridiculous girl with a Swiss flag painted on her face at all games, waving a Swiss flag and ringing a Swiss cow bell. Yup, that's me.

Lil bro visiting

My little brother is over visiting from Europe for a week. It is his first time in Asia, and it's literally killing me not to be able to show him around. I love the city I live in, and I wish I could share all the wonders of this place with him, but no, I'm stuck on this couch, giving him subway directions. Bouh.
Luckily, I have the best husband in the world, and he is taking time to take my brother to all the cool places, the horse races, the bars, etc. Just wish I could be part of the fun! Oh well...

Another good thing about having my brother over, apart from his company, is all the wonderful Swiss chocolate he brought me. I had the brilliant idea of putting it (my husband calls it "hiding it") in a box under my daybed, and I can munch on it any time I'm a bit hungry. Unfortunately, it is a known side-effect of Swiss chocolate that you are always hungry when it's in the proximity of where you spend 14h a day. Another side-effect is that it makes me look like a baby walrus. I should probably stop going through half a bar in one go, twice a day. Or I should stop complaining about my bum being pregnant as well. Either one. I think I'll go for the latter, because you can't take another benefit of pregnancy away from me! It's bad enough that I can't show off my bump all over town, go to prenatal yoga classes, shop for maternity clothes (oh wait, I do that. Ok, scratch that one), go to antenatal classes and buy stuff for the upcoming baby: don't take stop me from stuffing my face! It's the last thing I've got. Oh don't I sound melodramatic...

The good news today is that I am reaching 25 weeks! That's my first milestone. So now everybody cross their fingers for my OB appointment tomorrow morning. If all looks good, I will ask him if I can go to the restaurant for my birthday on Saturday. So if I get permission from Dr. G, I'll walk from the car park, to the restaurant (35 steps, I counted last time), holding my husband's hand (which I haven't done in 3 months). Bliss...

Now go cervix, go! Make it happen! I'll give you more chocolate if you measure above 3.5cm!

Life on pause

The thing that people fail to understand with bedrest, is that we "bedresters" spend our lives waiting for everything.

Take now for instance: I am hungry and mouth-watering at the idea of a granola bar (don't ask me why). Well, the lady who helps around the house is out walking my dog and she won't be back before another 30 min. So, I wait for my granola bar. Or, it's getting dark now but no lights are on. No one is home, so I wait in the dark. Or I would need more little squares of fabric for the quilt I'm making for the Bean, but I need to wait until my sewing girlfriend comes over and can cut them for me. So, I wait for my little squares of fabric. Starting to get the picture?
And it's like that for literally everything! I need more of our pictures printed to finally finish the wedding album, I need stamps, I need to wrap the baby gifts for a friend, I need to get the nursery started, I need to look for a new apartment since the family is getting bigger, I need to sort out all the paperwork that's accumulating on my desk, I need to help organize a friend's baby shower, I need to get a new cartridge for the printer. I need, I need, I need.
See what I mean?

Before life on bedrest, I was the girl who always got everything done. My dear friend M. compares me to some mutant born of the union of Monica Geller and Bree Hodge-Van der Kamp. To-do lists were my lifeline and efficiency my second name. Now I'm just laying here, with my life on pause, and not getting anything done. Buhuhu.

Now I'm starting to see what Elizabeth I or Marie-Antoinette's lives were like: you can't do anything by yourself and get up to get that book if you bloody want to! But at least, they got to rule countries and live in Versailles.

One of these days...

Today is one of these days.
A day when grief grips you in its icy claws and won't let go. A day when I cannot overcome the violence of the loss, nor the overwhelming fear of losing again. The events from the night I gave birth to the twins and the two days of my son in the NICU come back to me with all their violence and sadness. The months of intense grief when all I could do was stare at the wall, numb with pain. I am afraid of reliving it all, with this baby. I know it could all happen again. I can't do anything else than crying today. Lack of sleep and bedrest make things even worse. Just one of these days...

Packages

I might as well be honest with you all: I am, always have been and always will be a serial shopper. Try as he might, my lovely husband never managed to put a halt to it. A damper, yes. A halt, definitely not. As soon as the bedrest sentence fell, I could see the relief in his eyes, knowing I wouldn't be able to shop for the next 6 months. Little did he know what would happen... *evil laugh*

ONLINE SHOPPING! Ha! He thought he could take me out of the shops but he didn't see THAT coming! And it's all benefit is double for me: not only do I get to fulfill my need for shopping, but I get plenty of packages every week, delivered right to my door! It's like gifts! For me! By the time they get here, I've forgotten that I paid for all that, which makes it all the better. My favorite is buying books at The Book Depository: not only do they deliver worldwide for free, but they ship the books one at a time. So all I need to do is buy 10-15 books at a time, and I'm guaranteed 10-15 days of packages. How clever!

My only issue is that Chinese postmen are very scared of big, black dogs like mine. To be fair, the "Caution! Fierce dog inside!" sign I have on my gate might not be helping. So they either try to call out from the front gate of my house or better yet for them, just drop a notice in my mailbox. My poor cleaning lady is now making daily trips to the post office for me. Note to self: must give her a raise very soon.

A new kind of packages has begun to arrive. They don't have a receipt attached to it, and they are filled with love, gossip magazines and candies: my friends from all over the world are rallying to help me survive bedrest! I'm moved to tears every time I get a card or a package from them. Especially from the ones I've never met. You see, after we lost the twins, I joined a fantastic online support group for grieving mothers. There, I've made the best friends, who understand what I am going through and who've been at my side from day 1. They have never met me, live on the other side of the oceans, and they are helping me survive the bedrest and the anxiety of this pregnancy. And that, is worth a thousand packages from American Apparel.

24 weeks

Quick update: I finally managed to see my dear Dr. G. and all seems to be going well. I was complaining about all the aches and pains that come with strict bedrest and he started showing me all the exercises I could do when I got up to go to the bathroom. Hilarious to see this little Indian man wiggling his hips and standing on the tip of his toes! Oh, and I have the right to...wait for it...have a massage at home!! It may sound completely trivial to you, but to me, it sounds like Heaven. Aaaah, to have someone rub my back and my legs... Wait, does that mean I have to shave now? Right, first task will then be to find someone who can help me with that. Anyone?

When I got home, my dog was super excited to see me in a vertical position. She quickly put on a very annoyed, yet resigned look when I layed back on my daybed. She must think I'm the laziest human being ever.
Before my bedrest, she would tap at the door if she wanted/needed to go out. Then when I started laying on the couch all day, she would be very confused that I didn't react to her tapping. Now the poor thing walk to the door, looks at me, sighs, then goes back to her basket. I'm trying not to take it personally that my dog thinks I'm a looser.

Waiting on an old Indian man...

Once again, I am waiting. Every week, I have to see my high-risk OB and every week, he is about 3-4h late. Hmph... Don't get me wrong: I love my doctor. He is this old Indian man with a hilarious accent. Picture the Indian shopkeeper from the Simpson's with a lab coat.

He did a wonderful job with my cerclage and is like the superstar of OBs in Hong Kong. That's precisely where the problem lays: everyone wants to see him. The other problem is his trade: delivering babies. Babies have that annoying tendency of not respecting other people's doctor's appointment! They just show up whenever they feel like it, disrupting my entire schedule.
Now that I think about it, I don't recall a single time where he actually was on time for my appointment.

Now here's the thing about my weekly cervix check-ups: they are my only social outing of the week. It's the only time where I get to put makeup on, cute maternity clothes, shoes and to see people. You have no idea what a treat it is for me! I start thinking of what to wear days in advance, daydreaming about accessories and color-coordination. The morning of the appointment, I wake up as excited as a kid on Christmas day. You are probably thinking that I am a complete moron, but try living on your couch all week and you'll see what an outing will do to you.

So today, I have this new maternity top and I managed to squeeze myself and my big belly into a size 36 maternity trousers. This is probably the last time that'll happen, given that I am now happily gaining about 1kg (about 2 pounds, for my US readers) a week. Then I get to wear makeup, which I apply laying down in bed. It took me about a month to master this skill but I no longer look like a hooker or a sick person. And then I got the call..."Dr. G. has a patient in labor, we will call you when he gets into the office". AAARRRRGGGHHHH.

On my couch, all dolled up, super incomfortable in those pants but hey, you gotta suffer for fashion, waiting for an old Indian man...

About me

In January 2009, I was 21 weeks pregnant with twins. A boy and a girl. It was my first pregnancy, I was young, I was healthy and everything was going well. Right after New Year's, I went in for a routine check-up and was immediately put on strict hospital bedrest: I had a severe case of cervical incompetence and was about to lose the pregnancy. The doctors performed an emergency cerclage the day after. Basically, it's a stitch sewn around the cervix to prevent it from opening prematurely. It is usually performed much earlier in the pregnancy, before any changes occur in the cervix. Done this late in the pregnancy, the risk of infection is much higher.

After a month in the hospital, an infection made its way in the placentas. I went into labor and there was nothing to do to stop it. At 25 weeks, my babies were actually in the viability zone. But the infection was too much for them to fight: my daughter died after only 30 minutes and my son left us after 2 days in the NICU.

We were shattered, heart-broken and devastated. After much grieving, counselling, crying, doctor-shopping and talking, I got pregnant again. This time, we know what we are up against and although it is very scary, we are trying to keep the faith.

My cerclage was done at 14 weeks, and I was then immediately placed on full bedrest. I have the right to go from the couch to the bedroom, take one shower a day (sitting on a stool, like my GrandMa) and go to the bathroom. Other than that, I have to lay on my side. I have been doing this for nearly 10 weeks now, and I'm pleased to say that things are going well. My OB is happy and I am happy he's happy. I will be 24 weeks in 2 days, entering the viability zone.

This blog is about my journey through cervical incompetence, cerclage, grief, bedrest and hope.