The Consult

I appologize to all who care about my lack of information on my appointment! I've been so busy with work and such that I didn't even have time to update over the weekend!!

The appointment went amazingly well...

I was so nervous that I made myself physically ill in the hours leading up to it. When we got there, he greeted us warmly and made us feel like he understood why we were there. He explained the procedure and said that given the information that we knew with Dylan he would have proceeded with Riley's pregnancy the same as my regular OB did. That was comforting. He also said that he has a very high success rate, even with a history of PROM. He said that he did a study on women with a history of PROM, 3 of 4 carried to term with the TAC with no problems. One PROM'd at 18w but since the TAC was so tight it didn't allow the water to leak so she carried until 32 weeks and that child is now just over a year old. Along the same lines of the TAC being so tight, it does not allow infection to set in. Not that it couldn't, but in the 20 years he has been performing this operation he has not seen any problems.

Then he did the ultrasound. It showed that pre-pregnancy my cervix measures just around 2cm. The 'average' cervix is usually between 5-6cm and they consider 3 to be short. Granted, there are many women that have no cervix at all...so I'm a bit better off than them. However, he was able to put his finger through my cervix almost into my utuerus. That was worrisome...either it didn't close completely after delivery or it was never closed to begin with. We probably won't ever know. Probably has never closed after delivery. He said that knowing that he would prefer to place the stitch around 10w instead of the regular 12-13w. Not just because it's short, but leaving it open could let in a major infection...not just for a growing fetus but for me as well.

He is very, very confident that I will be able to carry not just one, but as many pregnancies as I want with the TAC in place!!

Derick and I over the moon ecstatic!! Now it's onto deciding when a good time to start trying is. Of course everyone in our lives has their own opinions and they aren't shy about voicing them. Particularly my family. So when we straighten out OUR lives we are going to move forward. We hope to be straight by November or December : )