Dreams and False Alarms

Hello Stranger

Wow, I'm not sure how long it's been since I've posted,but clearly it's been a while.

The rawness of the grief is starting to fade, but I wonder if this weekend will be hard. It is my husband's grandmother's 80th birthday party, it is also close to when I would have made the 12 week mark.  I am working hard to not mark every milestone, but because I had imagined this one in advance, it might hit me a bit. Also, I'm seeing my husbands mother and sister, and I wonder if their grief over the m/c will rekindle my own.

I was feeling all calm and confident about having the homocystine test and the cardiolipin and lupus antibody tests, and then I did a little googling and got myself a bit freaked out. Since I already have two autoimmune syndromes (fibromyalgia and vitiligo, and I guess you could throw in allergies) the cardiolipin and lupus antibody tests make sense, but what is unclear to me is if I do test positive for those things, beyond using Lovenox during pregnancy and popping 4k of folic acid everyday, what are teh long term health issues? I realized I was avoiding the blood tests, so I got myself over to the lab and did the blood letting. In terms of venipuncture, it was one of the best I've had in months--and I am a connoisseur at this point.  So, hopefully Friday will bring news about both the blood tests and teh chromosomal analysis on teh Sparky.

It's one of those odd situations where it is hard to know what would be a good outcome? Clearly, a chromosomal problem, of the non repetitive type (i.e. not Robertson's translocation etc) and no clotting issues would be ideal. However, the wish to be able to control some other aspect of teh pregnancy, and imagine that I can do more to make it successful, gives rise to this little hope that I have a clotting issue. But then, the fear of long term health issues is scary.  Oy.

I am going for my annual exam today--it seems like a bad idea because there is still some odd colored stuff coming out,but my RE assured me it is ok. 

My cycle is definitely stabilizing, I'm gearing up to ovulate, heavish breasts, hunger. All good signs, but that post-menstrual lack of appetite was so much easier to do WW on.

I went to the local Y and had a tour. They have 4 pools!  The parking is a bit of an issue, but I think I'm going to join and do some swimming stuff.

We are taking a vacation. Camping. I know. You who know me IRL are a bit confused, but hopefully the longer term stretch of it will make the more troubling aspects less problematic. We have a new tent (less claustrophobic), and it's a vacation we can afford.

Sorry for the banal update. I'll try to wring out some emotion, but for the moment, I'm not feeling particularly funny or sad, and that is a nice change for me.

 

 

Sorry for the long silence

Where the heck have I been all week? I actually thought I'd posted something, but clearly, I was posting in my head, and not on my blog.

 

So here goes:

Tuesday was a sob fest, but it is therapy day, so that makes sense.

Wednesday was a social whirlwind

Thursday was a discombobulated day that ended with meeting one of my blogging heroes: Cecily of Uppercase Woman.  I met her and Sarah, of Sad and Beautiful World for dinner and then I crashed the Blogher newcomer party (shhh...)  Cecily is the same in person as she is on her blog, only shorter. Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense, but she is really short!  People with big personalities often seem taller to me than they truly are.  However, her eyes are actually as blue as they appear in her banner. Trippy. 

 

Two Misidentification Highlights:

-A very hip, and possibly young, woman pulled what appeared to be a sweater shaver out of her backpack, and I exclaimed "is that a sweater shaver?"  Thus trumpeting my ignorance of all things tiny and hip. Turns out it was video camera.

-T-Mobile was doing a survey and had fish bowls of long silver doohickeys. I said "Are those lighters?"  Uh, no, Data sticks. The poor girl giving them out seemed to think I wouldn't know what they were if she named them, and went on to describe them.  Ugh. I must be looking older than I realize.

The gracious Cecily patted my hand and said "We're just showing our age." I didn't feel alone...Oy.

 

I also met:

Dan of Chucklehut

Violet of Violet the Verbose

Sara Rosso of Ms. Adventures in Italy

And some truly fun moments with some unknown ladies as we escaped the press of the 2nd floor elevators and left the hotel via a staging area. They have a picture of me--they called it their pre-arrest photo.

 

 

In other news:

We saw Dr. Calm today.  She is so lovely and serene. I'm sure she is really a seething cauldron of anxiety (or maybe that is my wishful thinking, who wants to be this congenitally anxious?)

She did a sono, saw a bit of blood in the Ute and some nice follicles starting on the left. Lefty has always been reliable. She said the blood will probably be reabsorbed, and that she put a stitch in my cervix during the D&C to control bleeding. Apparently it will come out when I have my period in a few weeks.  Fun. 

 

So it looks like I'll have a period in about 3 weeks. Then we go another cycle and that is the one we start the next IVF with.  I hope that my cycles are still in the 24 to 26 day range, otherwise I'll be confused all over again.  My husband and I both thought that we would do an IVF with the next cycle, but that was confusion and wishful thinking.  I'm a bit relieved. We can go on a little vacation, or camping or something.  She said we shouldn't try this month, but it's ok to try next month.  Might as well try, right?

 

The analysis of the plac.enta and the fet.al tissue will most likely be back by next Friday, and there is an 80% chance that it will be a chromosomal abnormality.  In the meantime we are going to do some preliminary checking to see if I have any clotting factor issues, as well as the Cardiolipin factor, which would mean lovenox in addition to baby aspirin. Dude, I will totally give myself shots for 9 months, no problem.

 

So that is all the news that is fit to print. 

Not too bad for a Monday

Wow. Yesterday really sucked.  I am surprised at how low I feel sometimes.  A friend, who loves his wife dearly, but got very stressed before the wedding and ended up with a new food allergy (which disappeared after the wedding!) shared his acupuncturists theory of 'your bag.'  Basically, we all have a bag, and when it gets full, stuff starts to happen.

I think my grief bag was very full last night. It helps so much to write about it, I don't think I could have gone to sleep last night if I hadn't poured out how low I was feeling.  As it was, I went down stairs, ate cold chicken, a glass of milk and a peanut butter and banana english muffing (with a drizzle of honey...), and then slept the sleep of the innocent from 10:30 to 7

Good things I did for myself today:

-I weighed myself. I started WW last Monday and I was quite virtuous all week, but took full advantage of the lovely food that came my way all weekend.  I lost 4lbs, which was probably bloat, but it was inspiring. I was so sure I hadn't lost, I almost didn't weigh myself.

-I went to the good veggie store (not whole paycheck, but a local place), and got lovely tomatoes and made the gazpacho that I planned to make last week.

-I ate two cups of said gazpacho.

-I gave my eldest kitty two long cuddles (resulting in much much fur on my clean shirt)

-I emailed a blogger about meeting her at blogher (and she didn't laugh at me for wanting to meet her!)

-I emailed a professional organization about networking.

-I cried when I opened a sympathy card from my cousin. I think I need to trademark 'best cousin ever'

-I decided to make a memory box for Sparky.  It seems a bit odd to me, but so much love and hope went into that pregnancy that I need to make a solid place to hold it so that I can claim this grief.  I imagine my children coming across it one day, and talking about it, not as a lost sibling, but as part of our life that shapes us as partners and parents.

I am now going to take my second cup of gazpacho and sit on the couch with Stacy and Clinton.

Goodnight.

 

Bereavement--stream of conciousness

If I looked it up, I'm sure I'd meet the criteria. 

My husband left our weekend away to go on a short, but important business trip.  And on the way to the airport we got a call from my cousin that someone had called her (from an invitation that the robbers discarded) to report they'd found our opened and rifled mail, 6 miles from our house.  Oy.

Also, on Saturday my friend who was staying with the kitties called to say the water had been turned off. It turns out our cheap landlord sent his incompetent handyman to see if he could fix it. So, yeah, 2 days no water.

I haven't eaten anything since 10am. I just don't want to. Why should I?  I know why I should, and I will, but it is so hard to bother at this point. 

Our weekend was lovely, and painful.  We could both enjoy our friends and the beautiful scenery, but I think it was seeing our friends children, and realizing even more clearly what we've lost, and what we want, that put us both in a sad state of mind.

I fell asleep on the plane, again the beating heart movie pops in to my head as I fall asleep, and I jerk awake.

It's getting dark and cold, and I need to go pill the cats, and eat something.

The body says goodbye

 Feeling my body shut down the pregnancy has been interesting.  My breasts had shooting pains for two days, as if a power plant had been blown up, and all of the cables were throwing off sparks. On Wednesday it was as if they were making a mad dash to be the most pregnant breasts ever; the blue veinyness finally arrived and my nip.ples were vivid purple. By Thursday they'd changed to their usual peachy pink.

 My belly has deflated, but it doesn't seem that I'll be able to wear most of my pants for a while.  That leaves me in the awkward position of wearing a bella band or my maternity pants. 

One thing I was really sad to say good by to was my pub.ic puff. The area between my pub.ic bone and my belly has shifted back to being two distinct parts.

When I was pregnant there was a part of me that wondered if I was really pregnant, were the changes I was seeing real, or was I hunting for them.  Now I know they were real.  My voracious hunger was not just me excited to eat with abandon, but real. It is comforting to think about these things--I was really pregnant. 

I have 5 or 6 weeks to prepare for the next IVF, and I'm going to try to make good use of it.  I know that having another IVF on the horizon is a great help. This is one of those cases when I think infertiles have it easier than fertiles; we don't have to wait as long between attempts at the next pregnancy

I also found a full box of menopur and a half box, so that will save on meds, as well as the Gon.al F program I'm in which gives me 3 IVF's worth of gon.al F free (the IUI counts as the first one).  So, glimmers of hope.

The days of snot and tears

Yesterday was the one week anniversary of the bad news.

I had a doctors appointment in the morning with my lovely, supportive osteopath, who I needed to tell about the miscarriage, so she could help me with the odd pelvic/hip twist I developed. She gave me a hug and was so lovely about the whole thing.

On the way home I could feel the clamp I had on myself fighting with my wish to just blubber.  Luckily the blubbering won out.  I let my self watch the movie in my head of the little heartbeat and just cried and cried and cried in my car (parked in the garage).  Then I came up stairs and cried another big sloppy cry in my husbands arms.

I felt pretty human after that, and the grumpy irritable clamp that had descend the day before lifted.

I'm off for a weekend of good food, good friends and hopefully and good cries I need to have.

We miss you Sparky. You were only here for a little while, but we loved you like you'd be here forever.

New love brings back all the old love that you've ever had**

And new grief brings back all the old grief you've ever had. 

I find myself missing my grandmother who died when I was 16, our kitty who died 3 years ago and uncovering myriad other pockets of grief that have been hiding out inside of me.

The grief comes in waves. There are moments I am focused on the future and feel calm and hopeful, and moments when I feel a wave of grief wash over me, and my only thoughts are of what I've lost.

Yesterday I woke up and my first thought was "I'm not pregnant." All day that phrase when through my head.  I had a few good cries at therapy, and alone, and with my husband. 

There were moments when I was pregnant that I felt scared and worried and unsure. Unsure that at this late age (37) that I had the flexibility to move my life around to meet a child's needs; that I had the physical stamina for pregnancy, child birth and parenting; and sometimes I wondered could I live up to my own plan for being a parent.  But there were so many wonderful moments of having a delicious secret, of enjoying the surprises my body sprang on me, and most of all, feeling fertile.

It seems odd, I'm still 'infertile' in that I need help to get pregnant, but having actually been pregnant eased a bit of the fear I held that I'd never get that far. 

For now I'm taking it slow, listening to my grief.

We going out of town for the weekend with dear friends, and that feels like it will be a very welcome change of scenery.

**Chelsea Hotel, Dan Burn

No Regrets: the demise of magical thinking

One of my patterns is to imagine that bad things will be unbearable, and that I'll never recover.  For years that kept me in a perpetual whirl of magical thinking, manifesting as omnipotent beliefs about my capacity to predict pain, and horrible recrimination when I was proven mortal.  The early part of TTC was marked by crazy making bouts of magical thinking, omnipotent fantasies, and some truly awful self torture.

My new therapist, who I give an awfully hard time, has been so good at helping me to land on earth and deal with 'what is' rather than 'what should be.'

-Magical thinking would have me regret my joy at being pregnant, if only for 8 weeks.
-Magical thinking would have me regret telling our friends and family that we were trying, and that we succeeded.
-Magical thinking would have me regret buying maternity clothes at 7 weeks pregnant.
-Magical thinking would have me regret giving our little one a womb name.
-Magical thinking would have me regret believing the pregnancy would result in a real live baby.
-Magical thinking would give me permission to be angry at everyone else who is pregnant, and to pass judgment on their fitness for parenting.
-Magical thinking would have me mine my whole life for some sort reason I was being so unjustly punished by losing my very wanted child.

The seduction of magical thinking and omnipotence is that you believe that you can protect yourself from pain, by bargaining with your heart (i.e. If I do x, my heart will be protected).  And yet, that is impossible. The pain, mixed with magical thinking and omnipotence is much more painful that the real pain. It is the shame and humiliation at not being able to control things so as to assure your desired outcome that compounds the pain of the loss and is so crushing.

Beyond being well prepared, and a good advocate for myself, there is no way around this pain; the shortest route is through the middle of it.

I am sad, I am concerned that the next cycle might not work, I'm scared of spending the money on the medications. I am weary from all the heartbreak this process has entailed.  But I am not ashamed, and I am not humiliated. 

Where I'm at today

I couldn't update yesterday, I had nothing to say. 

I woke up far earlier than is good on a day when you can't eat anything (we didn't have to leave the house until 9am), and I just immersed myself in Ballykissangel, where of course, a 40 year old woman has a baby in a hot tub. Nonetheless, I found myself crying tears of both joy at the birth, and sadness for my own loss. 

There have been a lot of tears, but none more than Friday morning. I sobbed through my shower, I sobbed through my teeth brushing and sobbed the moment my husband appeared when I awoke from the anesthesia. The nursing staff was very respectful and let us have a lot of time to cry and hold each other after I woke up, which was just what we needed. 

We came home and immersed ourselves in mindless TV and held hands.  At some point during the day I realized I felt calm and not as if I was turning away from my feelings, but that some of the rawness had left me.

This morning we had some lovely moments of lightness between us, and that felt as real as the crying.  We are still checking in and holding each other tightly, but there is still hope, and that makes it bearable. 

Bad News **updated

No Heartbeat.  D&C monday, or sooner.

**D&C tomorrow morning at 10:30. I am relieved it is sooner rather than later, I am so afraid of the miscarriage starting on its own.  Maxi pads, gatorade, mystery novels are all ready to carry me through.

Thanks for your support.