Jinja and Shoga: Life in the Land of the Rising Sun

   I wrote the following post on March 9th, the day I began having complications with this pregnancy. (We're at 16 weeks and 5 days now, with everything looking good finally). I've been debating sharing, seeing as it's been a rather personal experience for me, but I also want to make sure that one day our baby can read about all that's been happening while he/she is being formed. So here it is. Oh, and the baby will, until further notice, be called Sigourney Weaver. My brother decided on this name after about a week of calling it 'The Alien'. He still calls it THE ALIEN on occasion, but Sigourney is what I'm going to stick with. 


   I have to say, right now I don't know if any of these baby posts will ever actually be made public. I may just end up saving them as drafts if they end up being too painful to publish.. But for the moment, I'm going to stay positive and keep praying that God lets me have this baby.
 Woke up this morning, felt ok as usual, no heartburn even. I told Yuki that I was actually a bit worried and was thinking about taking another pregnancy test before our doctor's appointment on Saturday. Leave it to me to think that feeling all right is a bad thing! But, unfortunately, in this case maybe it was a premonition, who knows.
 ...Right after Yuki left for work, I began having cramps and some bleeding (sorry if this is TMI). Of course I panicked and called him, begging him to call the doctor and then come home asap. Waiting for him to get back was terrible, and I was absolutely convinced that I was losing this baby. There wasn't a ton of blood, but definitely enough to make my mind scream 'miscarriage!!!!!!'. My mom managed to talk me down on the phone until Yuki got back, and then we left for the doctor's office.
  I can't remember the last time I was so scared, waiting for the doctor to try and find the embryo on the ultrasound screen. My legs must've looked like little chicken legs, all goose-bumpy and rattling around in the stirrups. I was trying as hard as possible to get them to stop shaking, but they weren't having any of it.
  Any, there is was, our baby, really obvious and much bigger than last week!!! I wanted to scream for joy, but the doctor immediately started cautioning us that we weren't out of the woods yet. She showed me the uterine bleeding that could also be seen on the ultrasound, ugh.
 To make a very, very, very long morning short, I was basically given a shot and 3 new sets of pills, plus the admonition that I'd better stick to bed rest for at least the rest of the week, if not longer. BED REST. This is akin to having my fingernails pulled out. Slowly. Plus, I looked up the US recommendations for threatened miscarriage, and they don't advise bed rest any more as a means of treatment. Still, I guess that doctor's orders are doctor's orders, and considering the amount that I keep getting up and moving around the apartment, it won't be strict bed rest anyway.
  For now, I'm going to assume that this baby has a 100% chance of continuing and becoming a live birth. I refuse to let go of her, so my body had better listen--and it's going to listen better than my legs did this morning, too!
                           
                            Sigourney Weaver (the round black circle in the middle) is getting bigger! That smallish dark patch above Sigourney that looks somewhat like a stick is blood....let's pray it's gone by the next ultrasound...oh, and the large dark patch on the left is nothing, apparently, so ignore that.