Twinklie12
Mom to DD#1, TTC#2
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- Oct 7, 2013
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Hi all, had sort of a rough 8 week appointment. Here is from my journal:
My appointment on Monday didn't go exactly as I hoped. Baby is fine, had a bedside ultrasound and by little blob looked good, with a 140 heart beat. They decided my due date will be May 10th - my mom's birthday!
So after meeting with the nurse practitioner, she said the doctor wanted to come in and talk to me about something himself. So, back in January, I had an abnormal pap smear, so in late February I had a colposcopy, where they take tiny little biopsies of your cervix where it looks abnormal. Apparently 2 out of 3 spots came back fine, but one spot came back with cancer. Adinocarcinoma in situ. This is a rare cancer, not the kind typically detected in pap smears (squamous). It luckily is stage 0, so some consider it pre-cancer, and it's a very slow moving cancer. However, the doctor's office somehow forgot to notify me... until now. And now I am pregnant. Normally the treatment would be to do a LEEP, which is when in the office they take an electrical loop type instrument that goes in and takes out the bad parts of the cervix. They do not recommend those on pregnant woman, not safe for the baby.
So, the doctor referred me to a gynecological oncologist. He didn't know if she would recommend just monitoring the cancer with lots of colposcopies during the pregnancy, or if she'd want to treat it. She came back and said she'd like to do a cone biopsy at 14 weeks. This is done with basically a scalpel instead of anything electric, so ok for the baby. However, it is a big part of my cervix being cut into, so there are concerns with bleeding and cervix incompetence after, so my cervix will get sown shut during the surgery. It's a real surgery with general anesthesia and everything so they can't do it until 14 weeks pregnancy, as they don't like to do general anesthesia in the first trimester. That would be around Nov 9th. So... this is all a lot to take in. Of course I had told my husband not to come to the appointment that day since we had just gone the week before for the ultrasound, and this appointment is generally really long and I knew he was busy at work. So, once the doctor left me alone for a bit I was crying all by myself, and eventually went home and called my hubby. He came home from work and brought us lunch and we hugged and talked. He is most worried about doing whatever is best for my long term health. And is hoping for another test/look since the previous test is over 6 months old. I think I am worried about that but also really wanting to carry this baby to term.
The other hard thing is that with this type of cervical cancer, they recommend a hysterectomy once the woman decides she is done bearing children. So I think we only want 2 kids, but we will really need to figure that out, and I don't know exactly when they recommend doing that surgery, but that is another major surgery for me down the line.
So although baby is doing well, and that makes me happy, this has been a tough week. The specialist will call me once her pathologist looks at my old biopsy and schedule an appointment with me (might not be for 2 weeks), then the surgery. We have a lot of questions as well. So, now we are in limbo, waiting to get the call, with no more answers really.
Obviously I am also very upset that they forgot to tell me that I have cancer for 7 months! The doctor was very apologetic and has been calling me with updates since and staying on top of the specialist for me. I'm sure it was someone in his office just dropped the ball. But that has led to me being in this predicament of being pregnant with a form of cancer. Not how I imagined things going, ever.
This also has made us really think about how to announce. I may decide to tell my Mom sooner... but I also really, really don't want to worry her and I know she will be so upset and stressed out. Especially now where I don't really have any answers to give her, and we might not know more for 6 weeks! Right now we are leaning towards still doing our announcement plans right before Halloween with our immediate family, but holding off on telling "the rest of the world" and Facebook and stuff. Where the surgery isn't until 14 weeks, we won't know if the cancer has progressed or how I will react to the surgery until then. But then I will probably definitely be showing so... ugh.
We are still getting the typical genetic testing and ultrasound done at 12 weeks, scheduled for October 27th. The next day we hope to still try to have a happy announcement to family. Trying to stay positive. They caught this early, it's slow moving, and treatable. Just have to hope it's all ok for me and my new little one.
Thanks for any prayers you can send my way.
My appointment on Monday didn't go exactly as I hoped. Baby is fine, had a bedside ultrasound and by little blob looked good, with a 140 heart beat. They decided my due date will be May 10th - my mom's birthday!
So after meeting with the nurse practitioner, she said the doctor wanted to come in and talk to me about something himself. So, back in January, I had an abnormal pap smear, so in late February I had a colposcopy, where they take tiny little biopsies of your cervix where it looks abnormal. Apparently 2 out of 3 spots came back fine, but one spot came back with cancer. Adinocarcinoma in situ. This is a rare cancer, not the kind typically detected in pap smears (squamous). It luckily is stage 0, so some consider it pre-cancer, and it's a very slow moving cancer. However, the doctor's office somehow forgot to notify me... until now. And now I am pregnant. Normally the treatment would be to do a LEEP, which is when in the office they take an electrical loop type instrument that goes in and takes out the bad parts of the cervix. They do not recommend those on pregnant woman, not safe for the baby.
So, the doctor referred me to a gynecological oncologist. He didn't know if she would recommend just monitoring the cancer with lots of colposcopies during the pregnancy, or if she'd want to treat it. She came back and said she'd like to do a cone biopsy at 14 weeks. This is done with basically a scalpel instead of anything electric, so ok for the baby. However, it is a big part of my cervix being cut into, so there are concerns with bleeding and cervix incompetence after, so my cervix will get sown shut during the surgery. It's a real surgery with general anesthesia and everything so they can't do it until 14 weeks pregnancy, as they don't like to do general anesthesia in the first trimester. That would be around Nov 9th. So... this is all a lot to take in. Of course I had told my husband not to come to the appointment that day since we had just gone the week before for the ultrasound, and this appointment is generally really long and I knew he was busy at work. So, once the doctor left me alone for a bit I was crying all by myself, and eventually went home and called my hubby. He came home from work and brought us lunch and we hugged and talked. He is most worried about doing whatever is best for my long term health. And is hoping for another test/look since the previous test is over 6 months old. I think I am worried about that but also really wanting to carry this baby to term.
The other hard thing is that with this type of cervical cancer, they recommend a hysterectomy once the woman decides she is done bearing children. So I think we only want 2 kids, but we will really need to figure that out, and I don't know exactly when they recommend doing that surgery, but that is another major surgery for me down the line.
So although baby is doing well, and that makes me happy, this has been a tough week. The specialist will call me once her pathologist looks at my old biopsy and schedule an appointment with me (might not be for 2 weeks), then the surgery. We have a lot of questions as well. So, now we are in limbo, waiting to get the call, with no more answers really.
Obviously I am also very upset that they forgot to tell me that I have cancer for 7 months! The doctor was very apologetic and has been calling me with updates since and staying on top of the specialist for me. I'm sure it was someone in his office just dropped the ball. But that has led to me being in this predicament of being pregnant with a form of cancer. Not how I imagined things going, ever.
This also has made us really think about how to announce. I may decide to tell my Mom sooner... but I also really, really don't want to worry her and I know she will be so upset and stressed out. Especially now where I don't really have any answers to give her, and we might not know more for 6 weeks! Right now we are leaning towards still doing our announcement plans right before Halloween with our immediate family, but holding off on telling "the rest of the world" and Facebook and stuff. Where the surgery isn't until 14 weeks, we won't know if the cancer has progressed or how I will react to the surgery until then. But then I will probably definitely be showing so... ugh.
We are still getting the typical genetic testing and ultrasound done at 12 weeks, scheduled for October 27th. The next day we hope to still try to have a happy announcement to family. Trying to stay positive. They caught this early, it's slow moving, and treatable. Just have to hope it's all ok for me and my new little one.
Thanks for any prayers you can send my way.
it seems pretty crazy that some of us are going to be nearing the end of first tri already! But I am also very excited, I can't wait to start feeling baby kicks and watch my belly grow
we had another ultrasound today and baby is measuring right on track with a lovely hb of 150
the tech even did a sneak peak in 4d for us! So it was pretty cool and I can't wait to go back in a few weeks
sorry that I'm popping in and out but we have been moving to our new house for the past few days and I've been working so it's been exhausting, I mainly came on here to check the thread and update the list
