Excitement and fear – 4w 4d

I probably don’t even need to elaborate on the title of this post and most women who have been pregnant before would be able to imply exactly how I’m feeling.

Mostly, I’m excited. For one, how lucky am I that I got pregnant on our first try?! I mean, seriously, I had some things working against me, between my thyroid issues, my age, and the gastro virus I had last month - I’m shocked that it “worked”. What a miracle. I’m always astounded when I think about how conception happens. It seems like an impossible feat for that one sperm, to swim all the way from the vaginal cavity, through the cervix, uterus and fallopian tubes to find that one egg and then together travel back down into the uterus and find a comfy spot to implant. Did you know the ovaries aren’t even attached to the fallopian tubes? Somehow the egg floats towards/gets sucked into the tubes. Consider my mind blown.

I would say that I’m probably even more excited this time around than I was last time. Don’t get me wrong, my first pregnancy was planned and I was excited, but I didn’t understand yet what it meant to be a Mom. Now that I have my DS, I KNOW what I’m getting (hopefully) at the end of these 9 months. The love, laughter, pride, and happiness isn’t something that can be understood until you experience it. Now that I have, I can’t wait to do it again.

Of course, I’m cautious and trying to manage my excitement because of the fear. I think because I’m SO excited, I’m also more fearful than I was last time. Right now, it’s mostly related to miscarriage, which I guess is normal for someone who is barely pregnant. Last pregnancy at this time my doctor was telling me that the odds of miscarriage is 1/6. My hypothyroidism is also causing me to be more anxious. Hypothyroidism has been known to cause miscarriage, very preterm labour and can impact the baby’s brain development. The normal range for TSH is somewhere around .3-3 or 4, depending on where you live. Mine was 5.22 at the beginning of May. My doctor put me on very low dose levothyroxine to try to bring it back down because I wanted to try to get pregnant and I am supposed to test again 6 weeks after having started the meds because by that point my TSH should have stabilized based on the treatment. When I found out I was pregnant, a doctor in my family suggested that the objective is to keep pregnant women’s TSH levels below 2.5 and that most women 4-6 weeks pregnant with thyroid disease need to increase their dosage of levothyroxine, sometimes by as much as 50% to stay within the normal range. Of course I called my doctor and, she is a bit laissez faire about it for my liking, and suggested I should just wait until 6 weeks (which will also be when I’m 6 weeks pregnant) to test again. So, I’m waiting, but not very patiently. Yesterday I was crampy and of course that made me worry a bit even though I know it’s not uncommon. It wasn’t painful, just a dull ache. While I wait, I’m trying to take comfort in the fact that I am generally healthy, at a healthy weight, eating well (at least so far!) and that things must be working pretty well if I was able to conceive so quickly. Fingers crossed for a sticky baby!