add it to the list

I guess I can add weddings to the list of things I no longer enjoy. We're going to one tonight, and it should be lovely.

Except: There will be a pregnant chica there, just starting to show, surely announcing the pregnancy to all who haven't yet heard. I'm cringing already at the thought of all of the congratulations, and her glowing happy motherliness, while my still only slightly swollen belly announces my empty uterus to the world.

And then, there's all of the anticipation for the couple embarking on their journey of married life. The expectation that they will conceive, and have a baby (or babies). The happy joking about building a family. The celebration of their future.

And there I'll stand: the cautionary tale. My presence will shout "It doesn't always work out like that. Some people expect it to, and end up with a belly full of sadness". People will avoid me, as if miscarriage is contagious.

I have no doubt that this couple will have a baby before we do. That shouldn't make me sad, or jealous, but it does. It does.

I wish I could fast forward my life.

bad friend

I have a friend, K, that I have known since we were four years old. We used to be supa dupa tight - we lived in the same shitty housing projects. We went to the same schools through high school. We know all of each other's dark family secrets (I think she might have been there the day my dad threw a chicken - fully cooked - out of our second floor window. Or at least she saw the aftermath). We got chicken pox together and stayed home from school together, watching scary movies. I went with her on her overnight weekend visits to her dad's because she couldn't stand to deal with him and his new family alone. She's been to the funerals of every family member of mine who has passed. etc, etc. We were two girls from unstable homes who leaned on each other and forgot our troubles with barbies, and later, boys and booze. She's the closest thing to a best (female) friend I've ever had.

I don't really think we're friends anymore.

What happened? She married a guy I think isn't good enough for her because she was knocked up. We started trying to have a baby and I started having miscarriages. We moved away. She had another baby, her loser husband lost his job and they planned (!) another pregnancy. He is still unemployed, and she's about to give birth. They are struggling financially, and they planned (!) this baby. And got pregnant, no problem. Had a worry free pregnancy.

I am a bad friend. I am resentful and judgemental, and I have lost my ability to relate to people who can reproduce without medical help, who can plan (!) a baby when they probably shouldn't, and are overwhelmed with the two they have. I cannot talk to her without wanting to cry and pull my hair out. It took all of my strength to send her a message on FB wishing her luck with the upcoming birth.

I think I will be bitter and alone (save for Hubby, who really doesn't deserve any of this bullshit) forever. My lighthearted, funny, witty, laughing self has been drowned lately. I hope she comes back soon. I miss seeing the world through her eyes.

just for fun

or to make you vomit and curse the unfairness of the universe.

why oh why

standing still/still standing

There are days when I focus on the fact that I am standing still, watching my friends get married, have babies, become parents, move forward in life, while we suffer loss after loss, stuck.

Then there are days when I thank the universe that we are still standing - we have been fucked by life, kicked in the balls over and over, and yet, and yet, WE ARE STILL STANDING. Still trying to build the life we want. Still trying to become parents.

So which is it? Standing still or still standing? A little of both, I think.

numb

At this very moment, I am numb, which is okay by me. I keep expecting to wake up and discover that the last very nearly four years have been some crazy nightmare.

Over the last week, I've been all over the place emotionally: hopeful, sad, despondent, guilty, and overwhelmingly angry. I am not naive enough to think that just by wanting this so badly, we'll be guaranteed a happy ending. It pisses me off.

I do want this, though. I want to try, at least once more, and then IVF if we can. This determination to keep plugging along has me questioning my sanity.

I'm going to wake up soon, right?

Diary of a Miscarriage

It is Friday. I sit at work, willing the doctor's office to call. My stomach is in knots. I wish, I hope for good news, but the thought crosses my mind that if it were good news the nurse probably would have called already. I try to distract myself with some of the mundane tasks that make up my job, the kind that take some brain power, but not total concentration, stealing anxious glances at the phone every 10 seconds or so.
Finally the phone rings. It is S, the nurse who seems to have been assigned to me (it is always S, the poor thing, who returns my calls and gives me my test results). We exchange pleasantries, and then she wastes no time in delivering the blow. I am to lose this baby, this tiny piece of hope, as well. I can hear sadness in her voice, and I feel bad that my broken heart has colored her day. I am sobbing now, but somehow I manage to ask her to have the doctor call me when he has returned from surgery.
I call my husband, who has been out of town all week. The words nearly choke me. It is as if I can hear his heart break, and at that moment, I want to die. I manage to type out a text to my mom, who has been nervously waiting, too. I have to stop and wipe my tears off of the tiny screen three times. I feel as if I've been punched.
I cannot believe that the world hasn't stopped, yet the fact that it hasn't reminds me that I am still at work, that I need to pull my shit together. A client comes in, with a stinky bag of bloody poop, and questions. I have answers. Autopilot has taken over. As I watch her leave, I see that another client, an elderly man, has pulled into one of the handicapped spots out front. He is here to drop his dog off for her weekly treatments. He struggles to rise from the driver's seat, and I rush outside to get the dog and save him the effort. "We'll call when she's done," I say, smiling brightly before I turn to walk back inside. Just then, something cracks inside of me, and this tsunami of shit that I've been barely holding back rises up. By the time I reach the treatment area and the coworker who is getting set up for this dog, I am sobbing again. Two thoughts flash into my brain, in rapid succession: first, that I must look like someone has died, and second, that someone has died.
I think about lying, about making up some crazy story to cover the quick exit I am about to make. I feel like I cannot let others know about this baby, dying or dead inside of me, because they just won't understand. The least I can do as a mother- literally, the absolute least I can do - is to shield this child's brief life from those who would reduce him to a collection of cells. I don't have the strength to lie, though, and the words spill out to my coworker. Even at this miniscule motherly task, I fail.
Driving home, I am surprised by the howl that rises up from my throat, and I find that I am beating my fists against the steering wheel. I remind myself that I need to pull it together, at least until I get home, because while I might want to die, surely most of the other folks on the road don't.
I make a quick stop for provisions (beer) and then I am home. The tears are coming hard and fast now, and my dog sits patiently in front of me, licking them off. I know that he simply loves their salty deliciousness, but at that moment he is my best friend. I wonder if this will be it for me, if all I'll ever get to mother will be things with fur.
Another coworker, who is also a friend, calls and offers to come over. I decline - I need to be alone with this right now. I try to justify this to myself, but really, I am just pushing her away, as I always do.
I talk to my mom. We both cry. It feels so familiar, and I want so badly to give birth, not death, to celebrate the arrival of a baby instead of mourning the departure of one.
Finally, the call I've been waiting for. I take a deep breath, answer, and hear my doctor's voice on the line. He, too, sounds sad. I tell him how frustrated I am, how I've been doing everything I can. He reassures me that there is nothing that I did, or didn't do that could have caused this nightmare to descend on our lives yet again. I ask the question: can we, should we, try again? Is it pure foolishness to believe that this will work out, eventually? I feel a little crazy for even thinking the question, but the conviction in his voice startles me. "There is no reason," he says, "to believe that you cannot have a healthy pregnancy." I am reminded of the conversation we had at my annual appointment, just before this baby was conceived, when he told me that the only question was how much we were willing to endure to get there. He is still talking, giving me statistics about how often these early losses happen, even to couples without a history like ours. He says that this changes nothing, that as sad as it is, and as much as it sucks, early miscarriage is a part of trying to get pregnant and it doesn't mean that I am doomed to uterine failure. Something is forged inside of me with his words, that cracked place in my soul is welded together, and I suddenly see myself differently. I begin to let go of that vision of myself as weak, as a destroyed, broken failure. I know this, and it is as clear to me as my name: I will not be defeated by this. I will not tuck tail and run. I am not a quitter. I know that I can't just walk away now, that I have to see this thing through. I will not stop until we are parents, or I can be sure that we have tried every possible thing we can try. I will not live my life with regret - I will not look back on this time when it is too late to try and wish that I had done more - because that would destroy me more completely than a miscarriage ever could. And if we get there - to the point where we've done all we can, and the conviction leaves my doctor's voice, to the point where my husband no longer smiles when I show him a positive pregnancy test - then I'll be able to walk away, free from thoughts of what if.
Until then, though, it's on.

Pregnancy #7: Epic Fail

Beta #3: 20


I wish I were dead.

10/15/09: remembering our lost babies

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day.


I will be thinking of what could have, what should have been. I'll never know who they would have been, what they would have looked like, whose nose they would have had. I don't know who I would have been if they hadn't been in my life, however briefly.

Please light a candle at 7pm tonight. I will. I'll be thinking of all of our lost children, all of that possibility and promise. And hoping, against hope, that I don't lose this pregnancy as well.

the good/the bad

the good: Beta #2: 32

So, that's pretty ok. Also, spotting is pretty diminished right now, and I nearly ralphed four times this morning.

The bad: progesterone was down to 7, from 64 at my day 21 check. Fuck.

I get to go see the vampires again on Friday, and if the hcg is good-ish, I'll have an ultrasound next week. My doctor is probably worried about another ectopic. I'm worried about another ectopic. He said we'll just have to watch this one very closely.

I feel oddly detached at the moment. I am afraid to hope, to plan, to even think about it, which is odd because I usually consult Dr. Google about everything pregnancy/miscarriage related. I'm pretty stressed and could really use a glass of wine right now. Or some Southern Comfort. I'm glad, though, that for the moment I can't indulge.

Off to try to nap.

the waiting game

Beta #1: a thoroughly unimpressive 17. I have been spotting, off and on (mostly on) since yesterday. There is a tiny flicker of hope in my heart - amazing, huh? - but I feel as if the writing is on the wall. Only time will tell.

I keep trying to tell myself to stay positive, because even if I do lose this one too, this baby deserves a happy home for whatever time it has left before the utesaurus rears it's ugly head. I am struggling. I took the day off today to process (um, cry at will). I did not have the strength to lift the mask of my public persona, and hold it in place all day. Surely, I would have been crushed to rubble beneath it.

I have so much that I want to write, but I cannot right now. I am still processing, still considering where my path will lead if this pregnancy fails. The critters await feeding time (yeah, I get to take care of my in-law's dog - in addition to my own two - this week, while they are travelling to visit their living grandchild, and I am most likely miscarrying. Good times). Laundry must be done, the kitchen cleaned. Life goes on, even when the thrill of living is gone.

Wednesday cannot come quickly enough.

Oh, and thank you all for the kind comments after my last post. You truly have no idea how much they mean to me, you "strangers". Thank you all.

this is not a frakking hallmark moment.....

or, the post in which I announce that I am pregnant for the seventh time.

And that, just after I saw the word "pregnant" pop up on the digital screen, I wiped and came up with pink toilet paper. The morning urine giveth, the morning urine taketh away.

I know better than to hope, but I do. I hope. And I am happy, although it is a happiness tempered by fear, by doubt, by experience. But I am pregnant - today anyway - and today, I will enjoy it.

If this little bean sticks around - please, please, a million times please - my due date will pretty much be our seventh anniversary. The seventh pregnancy - please don't take this one too, universe. I have paid my dues, and then some.

And for all of my talk about not believing in god, I find myself praying to something, someone, the universe. I guess I'm in my own particular foxhole now.


Oh, and the topper? Hubby leaves tomorrow for a week halfway across the country. I will be alone if/when I find out that my betas aren't rising. I may need some serious handholding this week, ladies.

day 21 progesterone

..... is 64.


64.



wtf? that actually seems like a good number. ummm, like a really good number. The nurse actually encouraged me to take an HPT in a couple of days.



Good news from the doctor? Whose life is this?