One more pregnancy update

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone,

and Carmel inspired me to update folks on my pregnancy, too. I haven't

been very active on the list (other than keeping my eye out as a moderator)

because we recently moved into a different house and, as many of you know, I'm a

writer and have a book deadline with a literary agent in January: my baby is

due Feb. 14!!! So things have been very, very very busy, to put it mildly (we

also already have two children, ages four and six).

For those of you new to the list or thinking about becomign pregnant, I truly

despaired when I was initially diagnosed at nine months post-partum with my now

four year old. While I had never been particularly bent on parenthood prior to

having my first (sort of a 'why not?' baby), once I had one I wanted three !!!

I had enough complications and eye problems that I thougth I might never have

another child. For me, the key factor was time: I really would've risked some

health problems had I plunged ahead and had a baby right away but I gave my

recovery a full two and a half years or so before getting pregnant. It was hard

to abandon my sense of what was 'right' and wait, but clearly, having a baby

before my thyroid was regulated would not have been as smooth as this current

pregnancy. Waiting ws indeed a real issue for me because of my age -- I was 35

when I had my now four year old.

I was hypothyroid and on a stable armour dose for over a year before I became

pregnant this time. Since then, things have gone incredibly well -- I recently

upped my armour a bit, but my TSH has remained around .5, with the exception of

a few weeks where it bounced up to 2.1 and we had to increase my dose a tiny bit

each time to get my FT3 higher and TSH lower. That said, the tinkering was all

wtihin the normal range and the physical effects of the higher TSH were minimal

annoyances, rather than the full fledged hypo onset that I tend to get even at

that level.

Anyway, I now have eight more weeks to go and am feeling really great. We don't

know if it's a boy or a girl -- we knew with boht others and are going to be

suprrised. No names yet, either. I haven't a single name that has grabbed me

as the 'right' one.

That's it! I do hope the pregnancies on the list are helpful to people who are

being diagnosed in the midst of their childbearing years -- I once read a

comment by a doctor who said that she thought autoimmune diseases were

particularly cruel to women because they often came at a crucial time in women's

reproductive lives. For me, personally, that was one more psychological layer

to cope with at the time of my diagnosis, as well as a real logistic issue. If

I had not developed Graves disease, I would've gone ahead and had a third baby

at 37, instead of waiting till age of 39 to conceive (riskier in that the odds

of being able to conceive with ease keep getting smaller -- although I got pg.

easily -- and chance of abnormalities increase).

Best - B