15 MONTHS... and life can be tough sometimes

I'm feeling a bit rusty due to my last post being nearly 5 months ago. A lot has happened in the last 5 months and I'm not to sure where I should start...

[Warning: Its going to be a long one!]

Life over the last 5 months...

21 Feb
In my last post I was 7.5 weeks pregnant and super excited about our little jelly bean. I wasn't getting much morning sickness if any at all and my skin was almost glowing... well as close as you can get to glowing while in TSW anyway.

16 March
I decided to take the job that I was offered as Senior Graphic Designer at a little studio in town. I'd told them that I was pregnant when they interviewed me and I'm so grateful that despite this they still wanted me as part of their team!!

26 March 
We went for our 12 week ultrasound to see that our little bean was growing as he should be. This was probably the first sign of trouble as the lady who did the ultrasound wanted us to come back the following week. So we did.

2 April
Had our next (3rd) ultrasound and this is when she voiced her concerns about him. He was much smaller than he should have been for 13 weeks.

The next 3 weeks were the hardest, most stressful and scary weeks of my entire life. We were referred to the hospital, had multiple scans and specialist visits. We found out our bean was a little boy and we also found out he had spina bifida among other problems and were told that he probably wouldn't survive much longer.

19 April
At 15 weeks and 3 days I started bleeding, we went up to the hospital, he miscarried at 11.45 in the morning. I can honestly say that this has been one of the hardest things I have ever experienced in my whole life. This was also my Grandpa's birthday (who passed away about 11 years ago) so we named him John after my Grandpa.

We took him home with us and I couldn't put the little box that he was in down for the next 2 days. Its the strangest thing loosing a baby. And its not something that many people talk about I've come to realise. So many people that I've talked to since then have either had it happen to themselves or know someone who has.

I figured that it was probably my fault that this had happened because at the end of December I'd run out of my Folate and B12 (which I was taking for my MTHFR gene mutation) so I wasn't taking this in the first 2 months of pregnancy which is the most critical time to be taking this supplement, which I thought had resulted in him having spina bifida. The doctor had agreed with me on this and thought that there wasn't any need for chromosome testing. We decided to get the testing done anyway.

After waiting 10 long weeks to get our results back, last Wednesday we went up to the hospital and the doctor told us that our baby boy had a chromosome defect called Triploidy. This is when 2 sperm enter the egg at the same time resulting in 3 sets of chromosomes instead of 2... he also said that most of these babies miscarry much earlier and all of the abnormalities that they told us about were because of this.. and that there was no increased risk of this happening next time.

All of this was a lot to take in. But long story short... in the beginning I felt like it was my fault and was pretty worried that there would be a likely chance that this would happen again.. but its not and there isn't!! Big weight off my shoulders. Our little boy was just a miracle baby who hung on a bit longer than most.

In between all this my Gran who I was really close to passed away as well.

Its been a hard year.

Amongst all this sadness I still feel so extremely grateful that I've got a loving, caring partner and family, I've got my job which has been great and all my new team mates are so supportive and that I've got a wedding to plan and keep my mind occupied.

So now I've got my roller coaster of a life update out of the way it's time to talk skin...

Jan, Feb and March my face/neck skin was pretty good condition (everywhere else is 100% normal). Not perfect but still a million times better than I was in Nov/Dec. After the 12 week scan I think my skin deteriorated a little which was probably stress related.

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MARCH

15 March

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APRIL

Immediately after we lost baby boy my skin improved again.. I'm not sure if they gave my anything at the hospital that they shouldn't have or what but by the end of the week it started going downhill again..

- Inflammation
- Shedding
- Itchy after showers
- Sores that wouldn't heal
- Red itchy spots that looked almost like pimples

This all lasted about 4 weeks.

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MAY

3 May - In the midst of my Anniversary Flare

12 May
Flare died down - I'm going to say that this was my anniversary flare as it finished 13 months TSW
- Spots gone
- Shedding gone
- Inflammation gone
- Itchyness after shower mostly gone
- Can smile normally without skin FEELING tight

Only trouble spots left were my knuckles on the two middle fingers of my right hand, as well as my TSW moustache and monobrow.


1 June
Started using zinc on my TSW moustache and monobrow everyday to try and heal these stubborn bits which today are pretty darn good.

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JULY - Today

So its been an interesting year so far. Some good some bad. I've learnt a lot about myself and whats important to me along the way. Hopefully the rest of the year will be better.