Odds and Ends; or, The End is Nigh

A few thoughts rattling around in my head this morning:

- Thank you for all your comments, tweets, and e-mails these past few days. I feel like you are holding me up right now and it's incredible--I wish I had known all of you and had this level of support last fall. Your encouraging stories and examples really help, and when you tell me that you have hope for me it helps me have hope for myself.

- I rested a lot yesterday, watched some junk tv (the Giuliana and Bill miscarriage episode--such tears! Yet it was cathartic rather than upsetting), read your comments, and took a very long nap. I gave myself permission to not do anything or be anything other than sad and miserable and mopey. By the evening I was feeling good enough to laugh, so I'm glad I gave myself this time off.

I also read this post by Basic Girl from her post-IUI chemical last February. I was so amazed by her spirit and optimism in that post and by her refusal to submit to hopelessness in a very similar situation to mine--one miscarriage on their own; then nothing; then IUIs. And of course, she's very pregnant now after their first IVF attempt! It made me reevaluate my response to this process, my constant doom and gloom, my overwhelming negativity. I'm going to try to be positive next cycle--not tell myself that I'll get a sticky BFP, but also not tell myself that it won't and can't work. I'll just reassure myself that there's a chance and that we've done all we can.

- This morning, that optimism was sorely tested when I woke up at 5 am with some very dark fears for company. I lay there wondering how many more losses I will be able to handle, and I decided that I can take several more chemical pregnancies but only one more miscarriage of a clinical pregnancy. (I know, this is insanity. Who thinks like this?) I decided that if we have another miscarriage at 7 or 8 weeks I'm putting TTC on hold and pursuing adoption, because I will be tapped out.

Then again, if you had asked me this time last year how many miscarriages or chemical pregnancies I could handle, I would have shouted "None!" and stuck my fingers in my ears and sang to myself to keep from hearing you. This is clearly a moving target.

But those kinds of thoughts are so unproductive and I really don't want to be beset by them any longer. I know I will be in a panic as soon as I get another positive pregnancy test, but I'm going to work on putting that anxiety out of my mind until we get there. And who knows how long that will take.

- I'm heading into Manhattan for my second betas soon. And I finally started spotting this morning. I'm glad, in a strange not-very-glad way. I want this to be over so we can move on and I don't want to take any drugs to end this or have worry about an ectopic or have to wait around for days and days and days hoping my body gets it's act together. Let's just chalk this one up to experience and give the next one a serious shot.

- We have no plans for Halloween this year, but staring at myself in the mirror yesterday I suddenly had a brilliant brainstorm for the BEST Halloween costume ever. Picture this:

A large burlap bag with leg holes cut in the bottom and arm holes cut in the side. I tie the opening around my neck with twine and write the letters S-A-D on the front.

Get it??? A sad sack!!!

Conversely I could always just go out looking like myself.

- And finally, I want to share a picture that Lawyer Guy snapped with his phone on Wednesday after he got home from work. We had cried a bunch and asked ourselves why this was happening and hated this dreadful burden we've been asked to bear. And then around 5:30 he took our pup Bella for a walk and saw this in the sky:


Isn't it incredible? I can't help thinking of Noah and the flood and God's sending a rainbow as his promise to never drown us all again. I know it's just water and sunlight and atmosphere and the right angle, but I can't help but pretend that it's a message from our baby to let us know that he or she is coming if we can just hold on a little longer.

Doctor's Orders; or, The Follow-Up

Dr. Wonderful called this morning to discuss yesterday's results. It was a good conversation--a little scary, but also reassuring and she took lots of time to answer all my questions.

First of all, she said she thinks it's a positive sign that we achieved a pregnancy, even if only a chemical one, in our very first attempt at an IUI. She said this shows her that the treatment can work for us. I'm going to take that and try to find comfort from it.

She then told me to prepare myself for this pregnancy not to last, and I said that I'd basically been anticipating that ever since I saw those ghostly shadows of lines on the pregnancy tests. Those were not lines that suggested a promising ending.

She said she considers this a different category of loss than our miscarriage and that chemical pregnancies are extremely common and an "underdiagnosed" condition. It may be just a fluke--a less healthy egg that happened to be produced and fertilize, which she said all women have.

But we're still going to do an RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) panel once my betas get back down to zero--karyotyping on Lawyer Guy and me and clotting disorder testing on me. Dr. Wonderful warned me that this will involve a lot of blood work for me. Lawyer Guy is going to see a urologist and Dr. W said that his new doctor may recommend additional testing of LG's sperm based on the morphology stats.

At the same time, we're not going to hold off on treatment until the results come back. Dr. W said she's ordering the panel because she wants to be thorough and leave no stone unturned, but she doesn't think that anything will come back positive. Once my levels drop and I get my period we'll start the RPL testing and also begin treatment for next cycle: another dose of Clomid and another IUI.

Right now I feel a lot of conflicting emotions. I'm glad that Dr. W wants us to go forward with treatment; I'm glad that she thinks we've got a real shot at a healthy pregnancy with IUI; I'm glad that she thinks (or at least says) that the RPL testing is more of a formality than anything else.

And I'm also scared that I've now had a second loss. Even though chemicals are so easy to miss that many, many women may have had them without knowing it, I'm still bummed to be in that tiny category of women that have more than one lost pregnancy. Ever since we lost the m&m, this was my greatest fear: that we would have trouble both conceiving and maintaining pregnancies. That each year we'll get pregnant once only to lose it (I'm eerily prescient, aren't I?).

I'm trying to hold onto the hopeful stories I know--the many women who've had chemical pregnancies and losses and yet are currently cooking babies that seem to be doing well: People like Leslie and Al and Mo. And it's also encouraging that I've now got a doctor whose expertise is exactly this-- someone who responds to unexpected flukes with "Let's be thorough and check everything out" rather than "Eh, chances are everything's okay. Stop worrying."

And like I wrote yesterday, I don't feel like I lost a child, though I also feel considerably more miserable than my usual BFN funk. I never had one moment of "Yay, I'm having a baby!" and I never felt certain that there was anything growing and living inside me. But I also let myself imagine a little--I imagined telling family and friends at Thanksgiving; I imagined bringing 6-week-old twins to my sister's wedding. And those daydreams, fun while they last, create an awful sting when they fall apart.

I guess I'll just sit here for now in this very comfy chair and maybe read a little and try to sleep. And hope that things will seem brighter and more hopeful tomorrow.

Fuck

You know what two incredibly faint, nearly-invisible-to-the-naked-eye lines on two hpts at 14 dpiui and 15 dpiui equal?

A beta of 12.5 At least this will be over soon.

Thanks for the hope and encouragement. I guess those who thought I'd get pregnant were right, in a way. And I guess I was right, too, in my pessimism. A win-win for everybody.

I'm okay right now. I mean, I'm not okay-- I hurt like hell and I'm sad and disappointed because I'd let myself hope too much and too soon, like always. But I don't feel like I lost a baby, not the way I did when the m&m died. I'm just a little tired of getting kicked down every time I think it's my turn.

Another beta on Friday to rule out ectopic (and on the 1/1 millionth of a chance that this fakakta situation turns itself around and we get a baby out of it. Ha!). A phone call from the RE to come to discuss what's next. Lawyer Guy's on his way home from work early. I wish I'd never dragged him into this mess by peeing on that stupid stick.

Let's end with some positives: The sperm can meet the egg; I've got a doctor who's going to figure out what the hell is wrong with us; I have almost run of out imaginary worst-case scenarios that can come true; I used up two more hpts from my 18-month-old stash before they expire in February (4 to go!); I'm getting drunk as shit tonight and canceling class tomorrow.

Oh, and I didn't go to the conference. Thank God right? I will never doubt my wimpy gut again.