Today I am about 17 weeks 5 days pregnant with baby #2. About 10 weeks ago I got sick, very sick. It was the kind of sick I haven't talked about or experienced in about two years. I was exhausted and stayed in bed for days. I was so sick I could not eat or drink. The headaches were out of control. I made two trips to my primary care practitioner who told me it was most likely allergies. After the second time of being told to continue taking my allergy medicine I decided to reach out to my Lupus doctor. I knew something was not right but I didn't know what.
The following day at work, I ate my normal oatmeal for breakfast and promptly ran to the bathroom and threw it up. A first for me. That is when it started to click. On the way home I stopped by the local grocery store and bought a pregnancy test. I was less than surprised when it came back positive. My husband was in disbelief.
After I had my son and was diagnosed with Lupus, I was told the only birth control I could be prescribed was the Mirena IUD due to the hormones used. Today I still have that Mirena IUD. Epic Fail. What are the odds that someone with a IUD and Lupus gets pregnant? About .02%. My Lupus doctor told us she has never had this happen in her 32 years of practicing medicine. My OB told me my case was so rare she would be discussing with the other doctors in her practice and I was promptly set up with a high risk specialist.
What is the hardest secret you have had to keep? Not discussing this with my friends/family was very difficult however the odds of a miscarriage for pregnancy with Lupus is high and that is even more elevated when you throw in a faulty IUD which cannot be removed or you would abort your fetus.
The decision to have a second child was taken away for my husband and myself and this was forced upon us. We are so grateful. This was a decision we could not agree on or decide what to do. The complications were scary and the risks didn't always seem worth it. Now that we do not have a choice (and I know that some people think we still had a choice to make but in our eyes we did not. Not going through with this pregnancy was not an option) its been a relief. The hard part was decided for us by a greater power. Now we just have to roll with the punches.
Those punches include routine doctor visits with 3 doctors every 4 weeks until they increase to once a week. The good thing being I get lots of special attention and lots of testing and sonograms. So far so good. No signs of that pesky Lupus. Now that I am out of my first trimester, I am feeling great. Less tired, only 1 lbs of weight gain and no more vomiting.
And so my journey with Lupus and Sprout(s) continues. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.
