Thanks, everyone....

I appreciate all the support and kind thoughts after the passing of our daughter Cécile.

I wish I had some good news to share for a change, but I don't. Our surviving daughter Madeleine is still going strong, but has very little amniotic fluid around her. We're unsure if this is due to a second sac rupture and a slow leak (which is my guess) or an aftereffect of some meds I took to save her life, which may have damaged her kidneys. The lack of fluid doesn't bode well for her lung development, and if her kidneys are damaged that could be even worse. I made the decision to continue the pregnancy and deal with whatever comes, with the understanding that it will almost certainly not be a perfect outcome. I can only hope she's a fighter like her mother.

I'm doing all I can physically, but emotionally I'm stretched rather thin. Cécile's birth was a particularly brutal one and the flashbacks are devastating. The memory of her birth, and of being completely unable at that point to protect or save her, is a constant torture.

To make things worse, I'm currently ensnared in a big insurance mess. When I became pregnant I was enrolled in a state plan that was to supplement my Medicare coverage. The plan involved choosing an HMO that would work with my current perinatal care, which I did. Then we began getting letters that said we had not chosen a plan and that one would be chosen for us.

Every time we received one of these letters, we called the 800# and tried to straighten things out. They would try to fix the selection, then we would receive another letter. Today I tried to call again and spoke to a man whose ignorance was frightening. I tried to explain that I was disabled, on Medicare, and that the state insurance was intended as a supplement. He explained with much patience and derision that I needed to learn the difference between the state health plan and Medicare, that he was certain I was mistaken about having Medicare, that Medicare is for old people. He finally referred me back to my caseworker for a talking-to about the difference between the two entities.

I wished I had taken his name as I usually do. I called my caseworker and explained my frustration, and tomorrow will begin another round of calls to try and straighten things out. How does this man have a job at a government insurance call center and not know that people can be on Medicare for being disabled?

Meanwhile, I'm doing all I can to improve Madeleine's odds, pushing fluids and sticking to the stricter side of modified bedrest. We'll be checked weekly. It's a helpless, horrible feeling.