Diagnosed with Increta: 21 weeks

21 weeks pregnant

I am currently pregnant with my fifth baby. Thats right folks, number 5! I am young, but would like to clarify that NO, I was not a teen mom. I have had my kids pretty much one on top of another. In fact, in the nearly 7 years of Jonathan and my marriage, I have been pregnant for 41 months. He has known me officially more pregnant and breastfeeding than not. So hey, I must not be a complete crazy person when I'm pregnant ;) Our beautiful kids are 6, 5, 4 (in a few months) and 1 1/2. We are thrilled that our littlest one is  going to have a little buddy to play with and found out that she will in fact have a sister to keep her company. We wanted a baseball team ;) Well, not necessarily. But we wanted to keep on having kids. Our plan in life was to trust God for the spacing and timing of our children and to keep on having them until we got to the point where we could not or were not coping with it. We both feel as though this is our greatest calling in life and each new baby has brought so much joy for both Jonathan and I, I guess you could say we are a bit addicted.

How could we NOT be addicted, look at these little monkeys! 

But alas, my addiction to babies is being called into an intervention of sorts. With my last two pregnancies I had problems with retained placenta after the birth and difficulty removing it. So this time we decided to go down to Vancouver and get some more detailed tests done. On Monday, August 26th we found out that we have placenta increta as well as notching along one side of my uterine arteries. These are two completely seperate conditions and both dangerous in their own way. Placenta increta was a bit of a shock, I was prepared for accreta, but not expecting to already be hearing such bad news. Placenta accreta is a condition in which the placenta adheres to the uterine lining. In a normal pregnancy, the placenta and uterus are like velcro. They are separate, but stuck together. With accreta, you can imagine that the velcro gets overheated and glues together. The natural barrier between the placenta and uterus is nonexistent. This is what they think I had with the last two pregnancies. This time, I am diagnosed with increta. This is where the placenta grows INto the uterine wall. It can grow in just a small area or large. It can grow deeply or not. It varies greatly in severity and although it can get worse as my pregnancy progresses, it cannot reverse or get better. In my case, a very large portion of my placenta has grown into the wall and they are concerned that it will continue to grow. At this point my placenta is is high and at the back of my uterus. If it continues to grow, it will grow through my wall and begin attaching to my intestines. You can imagine that this would put the "danger level" of my pregnancy much higher. As it stands now, it is more than likely that the only way to save my life will be to remove my uterus as soon as the baby is out. The risk is still there that I could bleed out or haemorrhage while they try to get my uterus out and so they would be using as many interventions as possible in order to minimize the bleeding and keep me stable. Including putting balloons through my arteries in my legs towards my uterus to inflate and cut off the blood while they preform the surgery. It SUCKS.

I am sitting in this appointment by myself, getting texts from Jonathan wondering what is happening (it was an hour of talking and me just trying to grab as much info as I could at the time). My head was REELING. "So, what your saying is... right now it is bad. There is a 5% chance I could die even if it doesn't get worse. You think it is going to get worse. I can't have any more kids. This is my last pregnancy. Oh, and wait... I have ANOTHER condition??!?!?!?!??!?!"

On top of all of this, I have uterine notching. There are two main arteries that supply blood to the uterus. One on either side. When you are pregnant the muscle wall that is around our arteries to constrict them when we are in shock or stressed dissolves. This is to protect the baby and ensure it ALWAYS receives what it needs, no matter what. On one of my arteries there is restricted blood flow, meaning the muscle has not completely dissolved. I have heard of one side being completely restricted and the baby still surviving through the other artery, but it is dangerous for me and the baby and needs to be closely monitored as my pregnancy progresses. The two main things they will watch for is that baby is growing, as it can cause IUGR (intrauterine growth restriction), as well as signs of preeclampsia (high blood pressure in pregnancy) as it is very closely linked to causing this condition. The fact that I have had preeclampsia in the past combined with this notching puts me at high risk of this condition. Which also puts the risk for the surgery and whole procedure, pregnancy in general, that much higher.

There is still TONS of information we need. I will be going back down to Vancouver in three weeks time to have another ultrasound to check in on the notching. I am not sure as it was one of the million questions I thought of AFTER my appointment, but I think it can get better and/or not get worse. In which case it might not cause anything, just be something to watch. But at this point, they want to see it again and see what is happening with it. In another month after that I will go back for an MRI, consults with all the doctors who will be doing my surgery, including the surgery to implant the balloons, the people that will be putting in my spinal and epidural, and the people that will be putting in my central line to take blood/monitor my blood pressure. We have a lot of decisions to make, a lot more tests to do, and a lot of waiting and praying in the meantime. I will definitely be delivering by C-section and most likely quite early in order to ensure I don't go into labor and the condition doesn't get worse.

And so it is that the girl who is afraid of going to the dentist is going to be sliced and diced every which way, have balloons and tubes inserted into her arteries, IV's, epidural and a spinal. Lets just say that I am dreading going through all of this and trying to process a lot right now. Including the risk to my life and what that means (preparing my will, slowing down my life, etc), the fact that this is my last pregnancy (heart wrenching), the risk to this little one and concern for her safety, and the sheer dread of going through all of this. Lets just say I would be thrilled to "bring on the pain" of a natural birth compared to all of this :(

I don't fully understand it. I am an anomoly in the medical community. "You can't get pre-ecmlampsia unless its your first baby or you've had it before..." um, I got it in my third after two healthy babies. "You don't get accreta unless it attaches to the front, your placenta is in the back so you're good" Third times a charm? But at the same time there is a peace that comes from knowing that after this, I don't have to worry or stress or be afraid of all this stuff again. Each pregnancy is so stressful wondering what will happen and worrying about the complications. Hopefully the interventions will be successful and everything doesn't worsen so I can be home for Christmas. That's my goal. Be alive, with a safe and healthy baby, and home for Christmas. And we will be praying every day to that end.

If you want to stay up to date on this condition and our journey through this pregnancy, please feel free to follow our blog. I will try to do an update each week through our appointments and tests.