Try this again...

[cassie05]

I pray that things go good for you and your wife. It is so hard to lose a baby, I know I will be a nervous wreck if I get pregnant again. My daughters room is still decorated for her though she will never come home to us. I just cant bring myself to take it down, we were all prepared because our son was born 3 months early too(tons of clothes and everything), but now i just have a room dedicated to her memory. i really hope that things go well for you

[lorelei]

(((HUGS))) to anyone that's had to suffer the loss of a child...It's so not fair.....

[melissam]

Eddie,

I think you hit the nail on the head with your last sentence. I didn't know it was possible to miss somebody so much. Our little girl was with us just 2 short days, 30 hours of which I was on my back with Mag and wasn't able to even see her. I can certainly understand your fears. My loss was my second child. We hadn't really even gotten anything out or bought anything for her. I figured we had most of what we needed and by the time we were ready for her we could finish up. I am not expecting yet, but I can't imagine that I will run out and buy anything until I am really close to having the baby.

I am somewhat like your wife. I want to know everything. But I am afraid that I know so much about pre-eclampsia that I might even become my worst enemy in the next pregnancy. It is so hard after what most of us have been through.

I am glad to hear that things are going well at this point. I hope they continue to go smoothly for you. Good luck to you and your wife. My prayers are with you.

[eddie_k]

Thanks for the support. I wish I could get my wife to stop reading stuff online but she is in the medical profession and is a data addict. She feels the more she understands that better off she is. I don't know if that is true but I can't stop her from doing it. The funny thing is she feels pretty good. It seems like it is just the normal stuff as far as pregnancy goes. Unfortunately, it seems like most of the mild symptoms of PE can be just regular pregnancy stuff. We tell the doctors everything the happens when we go and let them decide if it is something to worry about (even though we still do). We have taken a leap of faith and just about finished the nursery. We put in about 15-20 weekends to finish it and all we need is to buy furniture. It is tough to deal with. I don't necessarily want to get it as I had to return it after Colleen was born. I think it calms her to see the room waiting for her and Molly to come home.

This is tough, I have talked to people who have dealt with this multiple times and I am just awed by them. I pray for everyone that has lost a child. It is amazing how much you can miss someone you only meet for a short time.

[akemt]

I just want to say congratulations on 23 weeks!

Here is a fairly recent link that might help:
What do you do to keep calm? http://www.preeclampsia.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10953

Best wishes!

[julie f]

So glad to hear this update and soooo happy to hear that all is still going well.

A suggestion that certainly helped me during our last pregnancy - hanging out here! I took such comfort and support from the women here, maybe your wife will feel up to posting a bit?

I pray that all continues to go well, please keep us posted.

[gordon k]

Thanks for the update and here's looking for continued success with this pregnancy.

For my wife and I the biggest thing that we did to keep ourselves calm was understand when we should "freak out". The basic answer from our doctor was to not worry unless they worried. That was a good answer. Additionally, our doctor and our nurse gave us very specific instructions to follow when we were at home. A lot of, "if you get a headache or see spots, call immediately" and " if the blood pressure goes above XX then call". If nothing else this gave us a sense of control and partnership in the process. We knew when to worry and when to stay calm.

I would ask your physician for very specific advice on when to be concerned with the home-readings and when are they acceptable. It will help with peace of mind.

Good luck!

[rachel a]

Wow! Wonderful advice! I too wish there was some magical "calm" button, but other than what Anathor mentioned...there's not much else. Just love and support from you!

I'm glad that things are going well - so far. I too will be praying that you guys get safely to 32 weeks and then beyond.

Thanks for the update and keep us posted on how the three of you are doing!

[anathor21]

Sure wish I had the magic solution to keeping my wife from worring to share... one thing we have done is keep her from reading the stories here. I do all the research and share the interesting tidbits with her - I like to say that her job is to grow our son, mine is to worry. So far it seems to work most of the time - but then again we have been far more fortunate than many others.

Our home monitoring routines have also helped a bit I think. We bought a BP monitor that she can operate herself (previously I checked it with a more traditional cuff). Keeping the log has helped us both to recognize the 'normal' dips and peaks. At least we have a sense that we'll recognize a spike if it does happen.

Doing kick counts or other monitoring of movement also seems to reassure her. We have not been very good at actually writing down how long it takes to get to 10 movements, but the relaxing and feeling movements for a while seems to generally help.

I am sure that my DW feeds off my anxiety levels so I have done everything I can to keep my irrational fears to myself and only share the real ones (i.e. things that she is feeling anyway most likely) and we've had several long chats about the fears - it seems to help both of us to speak a tiny bit about the unspeakable.

Glad that things are going well for you so far. Good luck in the days/weeks/months ahead. Let me know if you have any suggestions or find anything that seems to work for reducing her worry - I may be able to use it here too.

[melissam]

Thanks for the update. I am glad to hear that everything seems to be going much better this time around. I pray they will continue to do so. Congrats on a girl. They are so much fun.