21 weeks, cerclage, bed rest

[Meg71592]

Hey Ladies, Im new here.  A little bit about me.  Im 26, and this is my 4th pregnancy and I have yet to bring a baby home.  My first and second pregnancy were both ectopics that required emergency surgery and I lost my left tube.  3rd pregnancy was a miscarriage at 9 weeks last august.  I am exactly 21 weeks today with my baby boy and Its been a rough 2 weeks. We went in for our anatomy scan on the 20th and I was 19w3d, my cervix measured at .9mm and I had a rescue cerclage placed that night and by the time they were able to do it, I was closer to .2mm but they did it and told me that there wasn't much to work with but that it was holding.  I spent a full week on HBR and was on indocin to stop contractions.  After the week of HBR they scanned me again and my cervix was at 12mm. So I was sent home and taken off meds and still on SBR. I was home for the weekend and went in yesterday for another scan to find that my cervix went back down to .6mm and still funneling.  So now I am back home (for now) on SBR, taking indocin to stop contractions, and progesterone suppositories at bedtime, then another scan on thursday.  My doctor has been hard to read and Im not really sure what to think about any of this.  I didnt even know this was a thing.  I thought our days of fear and anxiety were behind us.  We got the baby to the right place, got the baby to develop and got past the 1st trimester.  Those were the issues with the other 3 so this is all just a shock and slap in the face.  We have to make it to at least 24 weeks for the NICU and obviously we want to make it way further than that, but I dont know how much time my little guy has. Any advice, success stories, anything will help.

[Lauren]

Hi Meg,

I'm so sorry to hear that you're going through this.  We lost our first baby to undiagnosed incompetent cervix and just went through an incredibly challenging pregnancy due to the same thing. Fortunately, we had a pretty good outcome the second time around and welcomed our baby boy, Thomas, to the world 6 weeks early on July 10th.  He is perfectly healthy and contentedly sleeping beside me as I write.

You can read my full story, if you want, on "pregnancy complications --> Sludge/Contraction/Short Cervix/Preventative Cerclage - 16 weeks"

Anyways, it sounds like you have a dynamic cervix, which can be incredibly anxiety provoking since your length changes so frequently. Luckily, your doctor has said that the cerclage is holding.  When my cervix shortened dramatically at 18 weeks despite a preventative cerclage, my doctor told me the same thing.  I didn't believe him when he told me that the main thing is that your cervix is hard and closed, and that the length on its own isn't a good predictor of imminent labour.  It wasn't until we made it further into the pregnancy with an incredibly short cervix that I really began to believe that this was true.

One thing that I advocated strongly for was a pessary ring.  This is a rubber doughnut shaped implement that is inserted vaginally.  It helps to distribute the weight of the uterus on the cervix.  It can be inserted clinically in less than a minute, has very little risk, and has similar outcomes as a cerclage.  It can be placed even with an existing cerclage, although your doctors  might tell you that this may put you at greater risk of infection due to adding another foreign body.  Unfortunately, it is not common in NA to use a pessary ring, so it took a lot of convincing to get my OBs to place it.  At first they were skeptical that it would help, but in the end, we all agreed that it was the only thing keeping Tommy in.  After my pessary was placed, my cervix remained stable for the remainder of the pregnancy.  My waters broke only 4 days after the pessary was removed.

Anyways, I would highly recommend doing some research and asking your doctors about a pessary ring.  It may be the one thing that helps get you to term!

Check out this website for more info:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4282542

Best of luck!  I'm glad you found this website.
If you're on Facebook, there's also a great support group for women with Incompetent Cervix.
Both of these supports really helped me get through this pregnancy!

[jmomma]

No real advice here, as it sounds like you're doing everything you can right now, which is great, but I wanted you to know I'll be praying for you and your baby boy. I completely understand the fear and anxiety, and I'm SO sorry. There are many positive success stories though, so don't lose hope!