Cerclage survival and coming out post

So, I survived yesterday's cerclage placement. The spinal was not bad at all. Honestly. It hurt less than the IV (which I'm pretty sure she put straight into my forearm muscle). Anyways, the spinal was way more mental. The anesthesiologist talked through the whole thing and I learned that it goes into some fluid that is a few layers away from my spinal cord, using a PIO sized needle (for real). During it, the lidocaine burned a little going in, but the nurse was a good talker so our chat distracted me. Then the actual medicine came next, and I could only feel pressure--like someone poking their finger into your back a bit hard. It was totally tolerable. Seriously.

The cerclage on the other hand...holey moley...that sucker hurt like hell. Yes, that was the point of the spinal, but we're thinking the doc rushed it a bit and it wasn't fully in affect (though all their "ready to go? test" areas were good and numb). So while I felt significant of pulling and tugging, but not needle inserting pain, like I was told to expect, about half way through I became totally distracted from the tugging by the worst deep internal cramping of my life (read: this is not normal...supposedly). Like pick me off the table, yell fuck really loud in the OR cramping. It was far worse than my first HSG ever thought of being (and that was horrible b/c they kept aiming wrong). So, at the last minute in the OR, I was given a dose of two other pain meds because keeping going halfway through stitching was a better idea than quitting, as the stitching part was going well. I wasn't sure if the cramping or the preg safe meds was worse for the kid, but the docs felt the meds route instead of the cramping, screaming, crawling off the table approach was better. Luckily, they were quickly done after that and the actual stitch part went very well. They didn't hit anything other than the cervix they were aiming for and I had next to no bleeding during the procedure. 

Afterwards, they ultrasounded me and the kid. That's when things got (even) scarier for me. Turns out these preg safe drugs they gave me half way through not only made me a little sleepy, they also made the kid a little sleepy. It's HB stayed fine the whole time, but it was moving wayyy less than at our NT scan right after the procedure. Begin complete and utter freak out melt down. The doc tried to reassure me it would wake back up as the very, very low dose of preg safe drugs wore off. I chose to ignore him and his 30 years of high risk pregnancy expertise and continue sobbing that I failed my DH by having such painful cramps and that I failed the kid in not protecting it already. 

They ultrasounded me again about five hours later before I went home (takes the spinal a while to wear off and takes the team a while to get you out of there), and the kid was moving more. Still not as much as at the NT scan in my opinion, but my smart DH said it was a less detailed machine and because it was different view--the NT scan when the kid was seen jumping was from the side so you could see it all, while this u/s was from head down, so jumping would be like the head getting near and farther from the screen--hard to tell for at leaste. We did see legs moving, and again a great HB, so maybe it was jumping and just much harder to tell. The doctors continued to reassure me all was great, all was well, and I am trying to remember that and stay calm. Anyways, a bit of expected red-brown discharge afterwards that has all but stopped today and no cramps since in the OR, and hopefully we are continuing on way to a healthy kiddo. Overall, the entire medical team took exceptional care of me (minus the maybe starting a bit quickly in the OR). I felt listened to, cared for, and hopeful to return in December for delivery. 

Oy. 

Today was also the day I decided to come out on fb too before we visit our former home city and in laws next week and someone does it for me. Thanks so much for your comments the other day on what I planned to write. I wanted to also let you all see another comment that didn't make it to the blog post b/c blogger sometimes sucks, but was so well put and exactly the reason I wanted to put an announcement on fb at all. This comes from the always insightful and sarcastic ~C~ from The Port of Indecision:

"You know, I'm okay with pg announcements on FB. I've said this before on other people's blogs, but I really do think that the refusal to announce becomes its own sort of attention whoring. One person WILL say something, and then everyone will be jumping in with "OMG :: squee!! :: I had NO IDEA, why are you holding back on us" and pretty soon your entire page will be full of people vomiting their pleasure at your pregnancy and how they think you're a naughty girl for not making an announcement. But when you do make the announcement, then everyone just "likes" it and comments right under that post. Smell what I'm steppin' in?

Honestly, I think only the first sentence is even necessary. If people feel they need to block you, they will whether you mention it or not. And your humble phrasing of the announcement itself conveys the fact that you won't go all Fertile Ho about your pregnancy on your FB page."

So, I emailed the very few IF fb friends I know I have (though I suspect I have more, but it's just a guess) to give them warning if they wanted to hide me, and then I posted this (please universe, don't hate me!): After four years of infertility, multiple treatments and a few lost heartbeats, I am grateful and humbled to be a third of the way through pregnancy. 

So, that's all the excitement from my slice of the world for now. And that's really plenty for me!