We met with my high-risk OB (Prof Yossi Ezra) today. As I expected, he has no answers for us. The pre-term labor was totally unexpected and there is nothing he or I could have done differently to prevent it. He said that even if I had gone for a check up the day before, they wouldn't have seen the signs - and by the time the PTL started, there was nothing they could have done to stop it.
With regards to getting pregnant again, he said that there is no reason I shouldn't be able to carry a singleton to term (twins would be super tricky and risky -- but odds are super slim I would get pregnant with twins a 3rd time, even with the fertility treatments). He said there isn't much we can do differently next time either - since we didn't do anything 'wrong' this time. Next time, I would still do the frequent u/s to check my cervical length (which was fine this time, even just a few days earlier). We would add P17 (progesterone) injections - which we couldn't do this time since they don't help with twin pregnancies, only singleton pregnancies. But other than that -- things would be the same and chances are good that I will carry to term.
Because of the C-section, and the fact that I've been pregnant so often (56 weeks total out of the last 2 years) which severely diminishes the store of vitamins and minerals in my body, we need to wait before we try to get pregnant again. Because the paperwork and bureaucracy takes so long to process, I made an appt with the IVF clinic for next month so I can at least get the balling rolling. I'd like to get all the paperwork and re-testing done so that when we can start the IVF again, we are ready. (I'll need the national health care to re-approve my IVF qualifications which will probably take a few meetings with a few specific doctors as well as a ton of testing redone -- STD panel, blood count, clotting factors, hysteroscopy, HSG, etc)
After the trip to the doctor, we made a trip to the Ministry of the Interior (Misrad HaPanim). In general, new mothers don't have to go into the physical office to register their child's birth. You get a temporary birth certificate in the hospital after delivery that has a detachable part where you add the child's first name and mail into the government. They process it and mail you back the official birth certificate. Death certificates you can only get in person. So we went in and met with the special person who handles cases where new parents need to file for BOTH a birth and death certificate. Luckily, we had all the paperwork we needed and the guy was really nice. I now have 2 official birth certificates and 2 official death certificates. He asked us if we wanted to add them to our identity cards (children are listed on their parents identity cards and only get their own cards at the age of 16). We decided that we did. So now, both Micha and Asaf are listed on both of our identity cards, with the initials z"l (standing for the Hebrew version of "of blessed memory"). It's bittersweet...
