Period Watch 2009 – Bear vs. Panda

is over.  Yup.  Yesterday morning.  I was sort of surprised but not really.  The nausea went away on Saturday and my breasts stopped hurting Sunday morning .  I had one of those moments (I call them “Sidney moments” after our puppy who, upon learning something or seeing something fascinating, cocks his head to the side and perks his ears up…sort of like, “huh.  Oh.  Okay.”).  It was a Sidney moment because I sat in bed Sunday and thought, “Hubby was right, we were pregnant.”  As a result of the BT, I’m guessing the embryo grabbed on (I did have implantation spotting which is why the negative test was so confusing) and then just didn’t have the genetic material necessary to keep growing and therefore, didn’t produce enough HCG to show up on a test.  Classic BT.  Despite what the movies tell you, it is possible to be slightly pregnant.  This is my 4th or 5th time proving that fact…I’ve lost count.  How much does that suck?

But, glass half full me is also happy that I clearly ovulated and got pregnant again.  I was worried since I hadn’t been pregnant since February – the Clomid experiment produced nothing and a 42 day cycle is not normal for me.  Only time I’ve had a cycle that long was when I was pregnant.  Hubby said the same thing, he was ready to call in the RE out of fear that something as wrong.  Good to know we already know what was wrong, it’s “just” the BT. 

Also, anyone else starting to notice a pattern here?  I seem to get pregnant in the Fall.  The boys were conceived in November, 2007.  I had two confirmed pregnancies in November and December 2008 and now this one.  Maybe I’m more like a bear than a panda.  I want to eat, get fat, get pregnant and hibernate until the cub comes.  I really, really want that….Prehaps it’s my love of Halloween…I get happy with the approach of my favorite holiday and I’m sure my mood has something to do with my ability to conceive…

Whatever.  There is always next month, right?  That seems to be the story of my life…next month, and then the next month, and then the next.

Hiding

I’ve been hiding.  I admit it.  Except for a few select people, I don’t want to be around anyone.  I’ve been bad about returning calls, answering emails, accepting invitations.  I’ve used the excuse that I’ve been busy with work – which is partially true.  With several people being on vacation, I have been busy but that’s not the total reason.

I’m tired of hearing about this person is pregnant or that person just had their baby…it’s hard on me.  As much as I want to be that person who can rise above all of the pain and grief that I still feel and be happy for someone else…I can’t.  And honestly, I am too tired to pretend anymore.  If that makes me a bad person, that’s fine, I can live with that.  I’m protecting myself and while I hate that some people’s feelings are going to get hurt, I’m too sad and too broken to care anymore.  Congratulations and call me when it’s over.

And I realize that separating myself from people is not good.  I get that.  Particularly with the depression looming over me.  But honestly, I am tired of being the only person at the party with no kids.  I swear to God, if I hear one more person say, “I went off birth control and got pregnant the next month!”  Guess what?  So did I.  The boys still died.  Or I just love when the conversation drifts to, “oh and when I was delivering…”  Just once, I’m going to pipe up and say, “really? I don’t remember that but that could be the massive amounts of morphine that was coursing through my veins so that I would actually NOT remember delivering two dead babies…”

See, probably shouldn’t be around people anyway….

You Might Be…

Hubby and I were laying in bed talking about “stuff” (which for us is mainly baby talk – why don’t we have one, why did we lose our boys, etc…) and we came upon some “truths…”  If you are fertile-ly challenged, you may have discovered some of these yourself.  For instance, if you buy a pregnancy test, you will get your period on the way home from the store (and the price of the test is proportional to the quickness with which you will get your period, the more expensive the test, the faster it happens).  If you email the doctor that you are approaching a 35 day cycle, when you get up immediately after hitting “send,” you will get your period….(BTW, that apparently was the Clomid and it’s not uncommon.  Thanks for all of the encouragement and advice, I love my bloggy peeps).

I feel like that comedian, Jeff Foxworth and his “you might be a redneck if…” jokes (and sadly, some of his jokes apply to my family).   Tell me if you agree with these or have some of your own….

You might be fertile-ly challenged if your husband knows what day of your cycle you are on or even the history of your cycle (yes, mine does and so does the therapist.  Sigh.). 

If it’s not unusual for your closest friends to say to you, “so when do we pee on a stick?” you might be fertile-ly challenged (I love it, it makes me feel like I have my own little army battling the RBT for a baby, keeping me from giving up…). 

If you have weird superstitions like, “I have to wear THESE pants to the RE for my ultrasound,” you might be fertile-ly challenged (these are the same pants I wore to the day I found out I was pregnant and when I found out I was having twins – it was a 9 week ultrasound and I wasn’t really that big yet).

If some of the closest people to you have sat down and cried with you after your 3rd miscarriage and you are just to sad too go on…you might be fertile-ly challenged.

If you have ever gotten a card, a pair of socks, anything from someone you have yet to meet in person but faithfully reads your words because they too, have lost too much, you might be fertile-ly challenged (or made a new “in-person” friend because of the loss – I’m grateful for Amy).

If you have ever gotten pregnant and chanted over and over again for weeks (thus giving most of the neighborhood the idea that you talk to yourself on a regular basis), “hang in there Bean, hang in there…,” you might be fertile-ly challenged.

If any of these apply to you, you might be my people….

I’m sorry for that but I have discovered (and I hope you find out) that we are in good company.

I’m At A Loss…

Ha!  Get it?  “I’m at a loss” and I also suffer from recurrent pregnancy loss…that was funny.  Okay, not really.  Not a whole lot funny about this right now.  Or ever.

I just don’t know what to do anymore.  I had a little mini-breakdown on Saturday while Hubby was at karate.  I don’t feel like I’m pregnant this month and we all know, I’m pretty good at figuring out when I am pregnant (although, honestly, the more I think about it, the more I don’t remember having ANY symptoms with the boys other than PMS cramping and a positive test and in December, I had no symptoms initially until after the test…ummmmm, starting to wonder….).   I know Hubby was so convinced that the Clomid was going to be successful this month and I hate that I am going to have to tell him that it didn’t work this time.  Maybe next month.  That’s that the motto of our house, “maybe next month.”

I’m committed to the next two rounds of Clomid.  After that, honestly, I don’t know.  Maybe Hubby and I need to discuss other options.  What?  I have no idea.  We don’t have any of the money necessary for adoption or egg donation.  I’m don’t want to say it but we may need to accept that our life together will be childless.  It’s painful to say that but I just don’t know what else to do.  I’m not giving up but can’t keep getting my hopes up every month only to have them dashed or worse, get pregnant and have it end.  Plus, I’m starting to question whether I want to pass this along to my children.  Maybe this needs to end with me.  Maybe I am giving up.  I can’t make the decision for both of us but I just wonder, how success can we be if my heart is just not in it anymore?  Maybe the boys were it.  Maybe I’m just tired.  Maybe I need a break.

Maybe I just need a fucking win.

Now I Know.

“I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou is one of my favorite books.  I read it as an adult and I empathized with Maya, feeling sadness at her pain and confusion but I never really knew the depths of her pain and grief that would cause her to stop speaking.  Now I do.

These past couple of weeks I have found myself slipping into solitude and quietness.  I don’t blog as much, I don’t email people back right away, I don’t call people to chat.  Katie (http://lrcyoga.wordpress.com/) sent me an email which kind of forced me to get out of my own head and share what’s going on with me and I am grateful for that.

When I wrote the post about going to see my MIL and my SIL and her perfect 3 children, I realized that it’s not that I don’t want to see them, in fact, I really don’t care either way.  Honestly, it’s fine.  That’s not what’s bothering me.  It’s the trip.  One year ago, Hubby and I were speeding towards PA in hopes that our unborn sons would be okay.  We soon recieved the news that Baby A was dying.  He died on March 10th.  I feel like no one remembers this.  No one remembers him.  From what I read, this is pretty typical of someone who has lost a child (or two) and so I understand that this is a normal reaction to grief.  It’s just that this trip to PA is serving as a constant reminder of what I was doing last year, of how I was feeling, of the bargains that I was making, the begging I did, the compromise I made.  I’m slipping back into a dark place and I don’t know what to do.

It’s also serving as a reminder that I am still in so much pain.  There is so much pain that it wells up at night and I wake up crying.  I don’t feel any better than I did a year ago and there is no wonderful numbing shock to dull the intensity.  I thought I would feel better by now.  I can’t even talk about this normally without falling to pieces.  I still feel so bad.

And I have no baby either.  I’m not pregnant and I don’t know when I will be and that’s compounding these feelings of loss.

So I get it, now I know what would make someone hurt so bad that they would stop speaking.

I Get Pregnant, I Just Don’t Stay That Way.

Today is our appointment with the RE.  I had hoped that I would be able to walk in and say, “oh by the way, can you do an HCG test on me, my period is 6 days late, my boobs are sore and heavy and I have intermittent cramping – basically, I think I am pregnant.”  Well, those symptoms went away on Saturday and I got my period Sunday morning.  I’m guessing another chemical pregnancy but since I was too scared to take a test, I don’t know.  Besides, chemical pregnancies don’t usually generate enough HCG to trip a test anyway.  The other option is that my body is just now recovering from the miscarriage to have a period and the “symptoms” were something else but I am getting pretty good at knowing when I am pregnant.

So because of that, I’m a little down plus the fact that I feel like this appointment today isn’t going to tell me anything that I don’t already know.  I am predicting that the RE will say, “your repetitive pregnancy losses are due to the genetic issue and all you can do is keep trying and suffer through the continued miscarriages.”  Not anything I don’t already know and think about all the time.  I mean, is it worse to get pregnant and lose them or never get pregnant?  I don’t know but I keep trying to remind myself of the law of averages – that eventually the statistics will swing in my favor and that the boys were fine, they didn’t have the genetic issue but died from something else completely unrelated and unpredictable.  It happened once, it will happen again.

Do I let this doctor do a bunch of tests on me to rule out other possible issues when this genetic issue is staring right at me?  Hubby thinks it’s a little weird that a fertilized egg bounces around in there for a couple of days and then just doesn’t implant.  We have had at least 3 chemical pregnancies (2 we know of for sure because the doctor did blood work and the HCG level was over 5 but never got to 50 before I started bleeding).  A bum egg or genetically not viable egg would just bounce around and then disintegrate though.  Hard to say.  Dr. T recommended a Hysterosalpingogram or HSG.  I know some of you who read this blog have had one but for the unfamiliar it’s an x-ray where they shoot dye into the uterus and watch it come out the tubes.  If there is blockage in the tubes, the dye doesn’t come out.  I don’t think I have blockage – my eggs are all dressed up in their favorite dresses and heels, going out and hitting the bar and getting picked up by the sperm.  In other words, I get pregnant, I just don’t stay that way.  My best friend from high school is a L and D nurse and she got a list of tests that her friend recently had done.  Again, I will take to the RE about that list with me but if those are tests for unexplained infertility, they aren’t going to help me.  I get pregnant, I just don’t stay that way.

I know that this is an exercise in hope and patience.  I get that, I do.  That doesn’t make me less frustrated or sad that I can’t just have sex with my loving husband, get pregnant with a healthy baby and STAY THAT WAY for 9 months.  Today is Chinese New Year so I thought it was fitting that I wear a new outfit, go see a new doctor and hope for a shiny new baby.  We shall see.

One of Those Days….

I go through these phases where I accept the fact that I have been labeled “RPL” (recurrent pregnancy loss – I need to write a whole blog on how a label is extremely damaging to an already tired, grieving and frustrated woman).  I understand that eventually, I will have a baby but that I will likely miscarry a good number more times before getting that healthy baby gets here.  I sort of just figure, this is the way it’s going to be and while I can shake my fists at the universe and ponder why some people get pregnancy standing up wind from their husband and have little or no compassion for anyone other than themselves (if you read my blog regularly, you know of whom I speak), it’s not going to accomplish anything.  We just keep timing sex each month and waiting for the next positive result and hopefully it sticks.

And then there are the days that I just get pissed and I do shake my fists at the universe and scream, “Why me?  Why me?  WHY ME?”  Today I am pissed.  I woke up pissed.  I’m sullen and angry.

But that’s okay because I am allowed to be angry and mad today because tomorrow, I won’t be.  Or maybe I will be.  Who knows.  Part of this whole experience, for me, has been not being tied to one single emotion all the time and knowing that is okay.  I just have to ride it out.

On another note, here is a great blog about announcing pregnancies and I think it’s good for everyone to read.  I was guilty of this with the boys.  I just told everyone regardless of what happened in their past (in my defense, I didn’t know that some of my friends had lost babies – part of that culture of silence and shame that surrounds miscarriages and hopefully, blogging has taken away) and for that I am sorry.  Trust me, I’ve been schooled. 

http://staceysthoughtsoninfertility.blogspot.com/2009/01/announcements-part-one.html

My friend Deb, who had losses before I was pregnant with the boys, called me and told me over the phone (we live 3,000 miles apart).  I was grateful for her directness and honesty and not letting me find out another way.  I was able to talk with her about her fears and concerns and it made me more aware when I got pregnant again.  Another friend has yet to tell me that they are pregnant but I know because they have a Facebook page.  It’s more painful to me to learn that way – it makes me think you can’t trust me and my reactions.  I know that you don’t want to hurt me but guess what?  I got hurt in April when I lost the boys, you had/have no control over that.  I will be happy for you but I will be sad for what I have lost.  There is nothing you can do about that and your deception only makes it worse.  It makes my loss about you instead of just your joy being about you. 

That being said, all in all, I’m doing okay even being sullen and angry.

Maybe We Jumped the Gun….

So last night, Hubby admitted that he thinks we made a mistake in trying again this month so soon after the miscarriage.  He is frustrated and stressed and it’s making him angry all the time.  He then thinks that I am going to blame him if we don’t get pregnant this month or think that a month off is wasted time.  Then he gets angry when I tell him that the only person I blame is me – it’s my genetic issue that is the cause of all of our problems.  He is trying so hard to take care of me that I think he has forgotten how to take care of himself.  He also thinks that all our future happiness depends on having a baby – that I can’t be happy ever again unless we have a child.  He is wrong.  I’m to the point now where my happiness is a day by day thing – my whole existence is not clouded by the death of the twins like it was 6 months ago.  I cried over the miscarriage but was also relieved to have been pregnant again.  I’m happiest when he and I spend time together, when we go to the zoo, to the movies, to the park.  When we read together or nap.  I am happy then.  I can’t really think in terms of a “global” happiness.  Maybe that’s depression talking.  I don’t know.  I know haven’t been the most emotional stable individual the past couple of months but have felt like I was moving forward – getting better.  I have good days and bad days but the good ones are starting to out number the bad.

And maybe it’s hubby’s turn to meltdown and I need to be the cheerleader like he has been for me the last couple of months.  I’m fine to do that but I just don’t want him to give up on having a baby.

The thing is, I am hopeful that we will get pregnant (and stay that way) this year.  I really am.  I have my bad days where I cry because I miss the boys or because I am thinking about what might have been but I started this year hopeful.  Something that I need hubby to understand – and I don’t think he does – as much as this year has sucked big time, it’s only been a year.  We have had 3 pregnancies in a year.  Eventually the law of averages will work in our favor – it did once with the boys – they didn’t have the translocated chromosome and it will happen again.  See?  That’s hope.

We decided last night that we are going to take next month off and relax and then start again new, with a fresh prespective.  We are also going to get a referral for counseling along with the referral for the RE.

Weight of My World

I am sure, if you are my people, you understand what I am about to write.  There is a part of every one of us that feels guilty about our infertility, miscarriage or stillbirth.  You can tell me that it’s not my fault but until the day that I die, I will feel bad about everything that has happened this year.  I will blame myself for the loss of the boys, the subsquent miscarriages (yes, there  has been more than one, it was the weekend before Christmas and my holiday was ruined, why ruin yours too?).  Every time something bad happens, I think to myself, “I promise, next time I will do better.”  I don’t know if it’s simply because we are women and that’s how we are hardwired or if it’s because we are the ones in the equation that are responsible for carrying the baby.  Or in  my own personal situation, is it  my genetic issue that will continue to cause me to miscarry until one of the embryos doesn’t have the genetic issue or has it in the right “combination” that will allow it to survive (like the boys had but of course, as a bonus, they didn’t live for other reasons)?  Or maybe I am just not used to failure.  I am here to tell you, it’s exhausting to feel so guilty all the time.  

And I am not alone, I know that there are other women out there that feel a ton of pressure to do everything “right” and guilt when something goes wrong.  They have to take drugs, time sex perfectly, then race to the clinic for blood draws or insemination and then in the end, if something doesn’t work, they take it upon themselves that they failed somehow.  They search for an answer when they have a loss.  I admit it, I thought I caused the death of Baby B by not resting enough.  We went looking at a house when I was on bed rest, did that cause his death?  Of course not and I have a report to prove it.  But I thought it.  Every time I got a negative pregnancy test, I would say to hubby, “what did we do wrong?”  And he would have to remind me that we didn’t do anything “wrong,” it just didn’t take this time or a loss at 6 weeks is almost always indicative of a genetic issue.  That has to be exhausting for him too, constantly reassuring me that it’s not my fault.

I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t feel guilty for something that may be my “issue” but I have no control over.

I will have a living, breathing, healthy baby eventually, I am not giving up and I am not going to feel guilty after every single negative test or loss.

Anybody got any ideas on how I can accomplish this?

Survived Thanksgiving

Since this blog is all about my ability to survive things that have happened this past year (blah), I thought I would let you all know that yes, indeed, I survived Thanksgiving with my family.  Hubby and I left Thursday morning instead of Wednesday night mainly because the traffic out of Raleigh towards the beach is BAD on the Wednesday before turkey day – last year it was awful trying to get to the ‘Boro (Swansboro for those of you not in the “know”) – a 2 and 1/2 hour trip took us nearly 4 hours last year….no, not happening.

Got to the ‘Boro, hung with Mom who managed to not say anything inappropriate or mean to me (she did call Hubby “shit for brains” or something close, I didn’t actually hear all of what she said), and we headed over to the family’s house for dinner.  We ate, drank, played board games, went home, went to bed and were back in Holly Springs by 3:30 on Friday afternoon.  I call it “Tag Team Turkey Day” – get in, get out, get it over with.

It was awesome.

Spent the rest of the weekend in my jammies, cleaning house, making our own turkey, destroying stuffing (don’t ask), shopping online, sleeping until noon (for some reason I am super-duper tired, my stomach is sick and I’m hot all the time – probably food poisoning or early menopause) and going to see “Twilight” (you will be sadly disappointed).

Only cried twice and no one asked me what I am “thankful” for this year.

I survived.

Now, just to get through Christmas……..