2022-2023 Plot Twist: Part 3

Happy New Year! 
Kicking this New Year off with a reflection on 2022 and looking forward to 2023 with hopefully a much much calmer year (weird to say that knowing that ideally I still will have 5-6 months of pregnancy and .... Labor... ) Lets hope the big events of 2023 are a bit more.... predictable. 

Yesterday my husband and I talked about 2022 and despite the fact that he was along for the ride with me he and I did not seem like we had the same view! "Hear me out... but...2022 was actually a really good year for you"... Major eye roll.... His positivity is sometimes nauseating but given my natural pessimism ... or sarcastic "fake it till ya make it" positivity.... it's good to have him in my life. I knew exactly what he meant. Despite my complaining about 2022, I wouldn't call the year bad... I'm just still on the rollercoaster and can't really make an assessment about how I feel until it comes to a stop. The first half of year was a pretty positive upward trajectory! but In June of 2022 I got on a rollercoaster that I didn't want to be on that completely negated all of the progress made in the first half. Blindfolded without a seatbelt the ride just took off and I while I'm still trying to tighten the seatbelt, at least now... I feel somewhat more secure. Each passing week the ride gets a bit easier to tolerate and I feel a little safer on it... but... again... I wouldn't call it bad but I'm still on it, so my full assessment of 2022 is going to be postponed until the ride stops. 

Backing up to appreciate the first half of 2022.... 

• 2019 I drove a nail in the coffin of my own legs by doing "the impossible" and running a Boston Qualifier with Popliteal Artery Entrapment Syndrome (which I didn't know I had at the time). My slowest marathon by around 20 minutes (at the time! haha! Got a couple hours slower recently!).
  
• 2020 my legs were very bad. I knew this was well beyond anything in my control and well beyond an "injury" something was really wrong but hospitals were prioritizing Covid patients (as they should have been) and so progress was almost non-existent other than getting referrals and future appointments on the books. slow.
  
• 2021 I saw a Vascular Doctor who found bulging in my arteries all over my body but especially in my illiac arteries. He suspected Fibromuscular Dysplasia. I was advised to make sure I did not get pregnant as this condition can be really dangerous pregnant, especially if I had Brain Aneurisms... which is what he suspected.  

In 2019 Maebel was Two. The two years after having her I spent trying to get fit enough to Qualify for the Olympic Trials- a goal that I know would have been attainable for me if my body allowed me to do the training it required (and now the qualifying time has dropped 7 minutes so that goal is Wayyyyyy off even my most delusional radar for a million reasons now) I knew Matt didn't want any other kids but he knew I wanted to keep the door open. I needed time to process that myself before we made any changes that would be hard to reverse. In my head if I got really fit again I probably wouldn't want another baby and my husband and I could be on the same page regarding this... but no matter how hard I tried to return to what I considered "too fit to get pregnant again" ... My legs weren't allowing it. I'd joke throughout the years "well I should just have another baby, then!" of course this made it a hell of a lot easier for my husband to let me throw any money at the problem hoping it would stick. My legs, as expensive as they have been, are cheaper than another kid! ...... but in 2021 when I was misdiagnosed with Fibromuscular Dysplasia, I was really forced to take a hard look at this. Maebel was now 4.... the gap between kids was getting too big. No diapers, independence, both kids going to school was right around the corner. I mourned the loss of the child I never had when I got that diagnosis.... 

Then of course, in November of 2021, I had my brain and heart examined closer and there was no sign of a problem there... I was referred to a different Vascular doctor who specialized in FMD in Boston and he looked more carefully and said that the bulging in my arteries was "just" bulging... No twisting, no stenosis... no blood flow restrictions (**at rest**). He put fPAES back in the differential and wanted me to get all the testing done again but in a different clinic that was more for higher performing athletes... but Covid surged again and my appointment was pushed to May. In the meantime I found Doctor McGinley... who was able to explain the bulging (From what I understood, there's a mismatch of blood flow, arteries are bulging because the blood isn't moving efficiently in the popliteal fossa and it backs up in other areas)... and fortunately, he had a solution (that didn't involve multiple surgeries with giant scars and long recovery)

Back to believing that if I get my "too fit to get pregnant again" self back, I can **officially** close the chapter on having another baby. My first round of botox didn't go well. Second round devastating... As it turns out I likely had entrapped my nerves and they were just so hypersensitive that I'd have really bad pain even though nothing was entrapped anymore. The pain was real, the nerves responded and that effected my muscles... but they were responding (at least to my understanding) to memory of pain. I read it took up to a year for nerves to heal so I knew I needed to just keep getting the treatment to keep my nerves as chill as possible. A year after my first treatment, I ran the Boston Marathon. This was going to work. It was really going to work. Yes, I wanted another baby but I also really really wanted to be me again.... Overtime my desire for a baby weakened and I just made peace with how things went. Obviously I'd love to have it all but I have two beautiful kids and a husband that supported the most insane thing in the world without hesitation. We spent nearly $30,000 on my legs for just the McGinley stuff (hotels, flights, car rental etc. included) and who knows how much more leading up to it ($500 deductible here, $500 deductible there for all the previous diagnostics... Weekly to bi-weekly massages just to survive life... Every single recovery tool on the planet.... all which obviously failed. Alter G appointments, My own treadmill and body weight suspension system, orthotics,... all things that would never have been possible without Matt's really hard work...) 

If you read Part 1 and Part 2 I got into a little bit of our previous financial crisis's from our first surprise pregnancy.  Now we aren't "Rolling in it" right now... but we get approved for much better credit cards and loans these days and are actually able to *mostly* pay them off instead of just add more and more debt in order to eat. But I knew pretty early into training with my third botox treatment that I was going to need a 4th for optimal training (for day to day life I was significantly better!) and money was still tight. We still hadn't paid off the last two yet and I'm already needing another.... But I am sure this is going to work and at some point I wont need more. Now that my nerves aren't pissed, it's happening exactly as McGinley said it would... One more treatment might be all I need, but how?....... and then Matt got a huge promotion. 

After Boston, having another baby was not even anywhere on my radar anymore. I wouldn't say I closed the door but I would say the door was naturally closing and if I just kept on the path I was on I would naturally come to the point of accepting our family as "complete"... something I always envied of other women.... Knowing that phase of their life was over. I never felt like I had closure. My desire to have a third baby never necessarily went away... but it was being out-competed. Our life with two school aged kids was just around the corner, they take their own baths and showers, can change themselves, make their own cereal and I can sleep in on the weekends... Soon I'll be able to run again, hike mountains again and they can do it too!... I was 37. I wasn't really thinking about another baby even though I hadn't ruled it out.......

but then...
June happened (I'm pregnant) , and then July happened (I'm miscarrying)... and then August happened (I'm pregnant again)... and then September happened (I'm miscarrying again).. and then October happened (I'm pregnant again...) ....

Lack of trust in what would happen next was an understatement... but fresh off two pregnancies and two losses I felt dangerously armed with information for better or worse... I had an appropriate therapist... I knew what triggered me last time so we could avoid those things as best we could... but my test lines off the bat were better so after a few days I told Matt to hide them on me. My first draw of HCG was much better than my first one with my previous loss and it was taken a few days earlier post ovulation so I was already feeling a little relief. Two days later it didn't double... it tripled! The anxiety relief I had hoped for when I checked my phone at the red light was happening this time. Don't get me wrong. My anxiety was dangerously bad but each step offered relief. I opted to not have HCG tracked further beyond those first two since the numbers were good. They needed me to do one though so that they could confirm that it had risen high enough to schedule an ultrasound... and my numbers were consistently on the higher end. Of course I googled that and hate myself for it "High HCG could be an indicator of Down Syndrome"... Back to locking my phone. 

Of all the panicking I did during all of the the greatest panic came from ultrasounds. At this point I had only had negative experiences in recent memory. I was shaking in the waiting room, couldn't breathe... was going over all the possible outcomes and what they might mean "what if it has a heartbeat but it's slow (of course I already knew exactly what it should be)? What if it's measuring 4 or 5 days behind but still has a heartbeat? What then? I can't do this" But the measurements were perfect and to the exact day of gestation I expected (based on my ovulation) and heartbeat was perfect range... RELIEF! But only temporarily... because I got covid for the first time shortly after and I was sickkkk.... but then we had an appointment and heard the heartbeat... and then we had our NT to check for soft markers for Down Syndrome and it went perfect. No concerns so far…. so I'm trying not to worry about my dumb googling too much. Nothing we can do Anyway… I’m trying not to worry before there is a reason because so far Part 3 we have had relief every step of the way. The 13 week NT scan gave me enough confidence to finally share the news with friends and family. I was especially happy to finally share good news with the girls. Raea said "is it really growing?" and man did it feel good to say YES.

I'm 14.5 weeks today. I have an anterior placenta so I've been told I'll feel the baby a bit later... but I can literally feel the blood in my own veins at this point having been hyper analytical of every weird sensation in my body for years.. I'm quite certain I'm feeling the baby at this point. I wouldn't say I had bad morning sickness... but I would say I'm feeling better now, starting to workout again, but getting impatient for that "second trimester magic"... Hopefully soon. 

So was 2022 bad? ... 
No. But it was an unexpected rollercoaster... one that I buckled up for while it was already upside down and moving at full speed... and my adrenaline and cortisol is still through the roof. I'm still catching my breath straight into 2023 ... and it's terrifying....  But at the end of it all, I might end up with everything I wanted.  Not only do I know what is wrong with my legs and feel confident in the solution (even if I can't access it again until after I'm done breastfeeding) I may also finally have that closure I never thought I'd get. I hesitate (out of fear) to say this but our family will finally be complete and I will, at least eventually, get to be *me* again.