Abigail Pregnant

[Confused_by_religion]

Thanks so much for all the information - it's interesting that there are so many different medical opinions out there. I checked for Germany, it seems that there is one ultrasound routinely scheduled from week 9 to 12 and then one from week 20 to 22 or so.

Anyway, Abigail is still hanging on, it seems. I sincerely wish her all the best, even though I don't see eye to eye with the pope (or Abigail) on birth control (and I'm sure he minds terribly, lol).

[chaotic life]

12 and 14 week miscarriages is so NOT, NOT, NOT "two second trimester loses"!!!!!!!!!!

Uh-uhn, nope, doesn't count as second trimester loses medically. I argued with my MFM that one of my loses was second trimester because it happened at 14 weeks and she countered that since the pregnancy was threatened in the first trimester, losing it after crossing that 12/13 week line was merely a technicality. It was still a first trimester loss because it's based upon more than the gestation at the point you expel it.

Leo was lost before 14 weeks. She just carried him longer. She's had two late first trimester loses and likely both are related to age.

CF doesn't increase the risk of miscarriages but she's damn lucky she hasn't had a child with CF yet.

My kid should be turning 12 this month. I'm having a hard time not being anger at this woman who keeps rolling this dice to deliberately put a child through what my kid went through.

And her constant comments about being 'in recovery' does she even understand what the flip that means? She's got as much clue what it means to be in recovery as she has at what it means to have PTSD because her family members had OCD and wanted a clean house. Whatever. She's just a selfish twit.

[Coconut Flan]

Yes trying to up the ante to second trimester is grating on me also. The fetuses died in the first trimester and that is that. It was pretty much on her that "Leo" wasn't expelled until 14 weeks. She had other options.

[singsingsing]

The thing is, if all life is of the same value from the moment of conception, it should be all the same to her whether she miscarried at six days or six months.

[blackkatya]

Yes trying to up the ante to second trimester is grating on me also. The fetuses died in the first trimester and that is that. It was pretty much on her that "Leo" wasn't expelled until 14 weeks. She had other options.

I'm not familiar with the Leo miscarriage. Did she refuse a D&C or something?

[Coconut Flan]

If I understood correctly she insisted on having an "induction" so she could have the products of conception to bury. She was in the hospital on an IV with Pitocin to rid herself of a first trimester missed miscarriage.

[anjulibai]

Yeah, I think she had found out there was no heartbeat about 3 weeks before. She claimed the doctor wanted her to wait.

[Curious]

When I was pregnant with my first, I had some things happen that required me to get genetic testing and some other kind of counseling that I can't recall the name of now (everything turned out fine), but I was told that the majority of miscarriages that happen before 12 weeks are due to the embryo being "incompatible with life." They basically told me, if I made it to the 12 week mark, things would be fine (this did not stop me from worrying about everything the whole time, mind you, but I did stop worrying about a miscarriage for the most part.).

Things can happen with development later on and you can not miscarry an embryo that will have a catastrophic disability, of course, but from what all the specialists told me, very early miscarriages happen for a reason and there is nothing you can really do about them.

I didn't tell anyone, including my parents, until I was past the 12 week mark. I had been sick for quite some time so people already thought I had some kind of plague, so the throwing up was easy to explain away ;)

[GeoBQn]

Abigail writes a post entitled, "Top Twelve Ways to Piss Off Your OB as a Pro-Life Catholic Woman." Note that some of these are details specific to a different blogger that she follows.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-twelve-ways-to-piss-off-your-ob-as.html

[Stephanie66]

The thing is, if all life is of the same value from the moment of conception, it should be all the same to her whether she miscarried at six days or six months.

Or her husband or her father or her other children.

[LucySnowe]

I closed the comments to better focus on prayer and writing. How long is this going to last? I dunno. Jesus is in charge of this ship, not me.

Jesus is controlling whether she turns the comments feature on and off? Ohhhkay.

[Confused_by_religion]

Abigail writes a post entitled, "Top Twelve Ways to Piss Off Your OB as a Pro-Life Catholic Woman." Note that some of these are details specific to a different blogger that she follows.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-twelve-ways-to-piss-off-your-ob-as.html

Dear god. Some of these points make me feel sorry for the OB. It's so speshul-snowflakey, look at me, I am so different and so much better than all the other pregnant Heathen women out there, and especially you OB sinner!

[Savoring Samsara]

Abigail writes a post entitled, "Top Twelve Ways to Piss Off Your OB as a Pro-Life Catholic Woman." Note that some of these are details specific to a different blogger that she follows.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/top-twelve-ways-to-piss-off-your-ob-as.html

If that's the way it really went down, Abigail, maybe you didn't piss the OB off because you were pro-life and pregnant for the umpteenth time. Maybe you pissed the OB off because you were really, incredibly condescending to them.

(oops, crossposted with confused_by_religion)

[singsingsing]

She's supposed to be having her second ultrasound today. I feel conflicted. I would never wish a miscarriage on anyone, but at the same time I would never wish yet another child to be brought into Abigail's circle of insanity, especially a child that supposedly has a 50/50 chance at CF.

[blackkatya]

Yeah...most of those sound like the OB had a problem with the woman's attitude, not her being pro-life and Catholic. I didn't know my conception date, don't use hormonal birth control, and declined first trimester screening. My OB didn't say a thing about any of that.

The only one that the OB might find problematic is the last one, since if you are having a hysterectomy there is clearly something medically wrong going on there.

[singsingsing]

Abigail wouldn't be satisfied unless she believed her OB was judging her. A supportive OB who takes her situation in stride wouldn't fit her life narrative of Abigail the Persecuted Catholic Martyr.

[MonkeyMomma]

Abigail wouldn't be satisfied unless she believed her OB was judging her. A supportive OB who takes her situation in stride wouldn't fit her life narrative of Abigail the Persecuted Catholic Martyr.

Yeah. I've had some legitimately awkward interactions with health care providers, some that I felt were really disrespectful to me. But asking someone if a pregnancy was planned (big risk for depression!) and standard questions about birth control (to which a simple "no, thanks" would suffice) actually aren't persecution against your anti-abortion beliefs, Abigail. Further, groaning and rolling one's eyes is not how a grown-up should behave in any situation. People being annoyed with your douchey behavior is not persecution.

[GeoBQn]

She also posted that she has started knitting again and she's teaching her daughters. I hope that knitting helps give her some peace of mind, though I had to laugh about how her husband is excited because it is a "sustainable" hobby. It's only sustainable if you are making yarn balls out of unravelled sweaters, or raising the sheep yourself.

[Oz1977]

Why would an ob get pissed if you get preg after 35? Why would an ob care if you refuse birth control at your 6 wk checkup? Some of those were really ridiculous.

[singsingsing]

Abigail's latest update:

So far the baby is okay. He grew appropriately in seven days and he has a normal heartbeat. My OB is still concerned. Twice in the past, I've had pregnancies with a rocky start that ended up as miscarriages after 12 weeks. My treatment plan is to have a normal pre-natal visit schedule only with more sonograms. My next visit is in two weeks. Thank you so much for your prayers.

[GeoBQn]

Abigail talks about the risk of Cystic Fibrosis here, and again makes her OB office seem like a threatening place where they just pressure her to get an abortion.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/assumption-of-risk.html

[GeoBQn]

Sweet zombie Jesus, the book she has been working on is about poverty.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/living-like-happy-graduate-student-with.html

[nausicaa]

Sweet zombie Jesus, the book she has been working on is about poverty.

abigails-alcove.blogspot.com/2014/03/living-like-happy-graduate-student-with.html

Is there any chance Abigail is just a performance artist pretending to be a bipolar, cognitively dissonant Catholic convert for our entertainment and we're just not hip enough to get it?

It's just all too much sometimes for me to really process that this is real.

[nausicaa]

Why would an ob get pissed if you get preg after 35? Why would an ob care if you refuse birth control at your 6 wk checkup? Some of those were really ridiculous.

I think for a lot of American women, advanced maternal age is more often due to having a career or delaying marriage (e.g., "liberal" priorities) than due to being a religious woman who eschews birth control (most conservative/traditional women I went to school with use birth control and were done having kids by their late twenties because they got married at 21/22). Especially where Abigail lives in the DC metro area.

Therefore wouldn't a close-minded liberal (as Abigail alludes to in her post) OB be less flummoxed by an older pregnant woman?

[anjulibai]

Well this is interesting:

Both Jon and I are carriers of the Cystic Fibrosis gene. (Cystic Fibrosis is basically a fatal, genetic lung disease). That generates a bit of buzz each pregnancy. I have to explain that we got diagnosed 11 years ago at the Genetics Department of Ohio State University. Jon has the really bad CF gene. I have this weird mutation of a CF gene that the experts don't think is active because of my negative family history. Basically even though it looks bad on paper, the experts don't think my kids are any increased risk for CF. All my babies will inherit either my totally good gene or my "basically good to go" CF mutation every time

Hasn't she been saying for a while that her kids are high risk?