A new kind of limbo

I don't know if I'm delusional, or dissociated, but I am not as slayed by this miscarriage as I was the last. Either that is good, or that is bad, I can't figure it out.

I know I was more willing to enjoy the moments where I felt happy, and careful to not project myself too far into the future. Maybe that helped, or again, maybe I'm to out of it to feel like I should. Or maybe, this is ok. I wish I knew.

Tomorrow we meet with Dr Calm. Either she will have results from the analysis, or not (or not ever, as it was with Sparky). I really hope she does, we need some sort of way to make a choice about what to do next.

One thing I intermittently obsess about is whether or not my calcium supplement might have killed the baby. I know, sounds crazy,but it had 500% of the vitamin K the of the RDA, and I have a minor clotting issue (one copy of MTFR gene) and vitamin K 'helps' with clotting. Ultimatly, unless Dr C comes back with "baby was fine, but we found huge blood clots" it's probably just another way for me to try to have some sense of control in this situation. I also feel like an ass for not reading the bottle. I never would have taken it if I looked at it, but alas I didn't. Shit. Ya know?

Husband and I don't want to know the sex of the baby--I guess it would make it too real for both of us. Maybe not letting him/her be real is our defense against being totally slayed by this.

We are looking at two donors. One has had 3 great cycles with varying numbers of embryos to freeze, and all cycles have resulted in babies (twins and singletons) and the other has 3 cycles, a 4th is under way, but even though she's had live births with all of the cycles, only one of the cycles has resulted in frozen embryos. Somehow to me this just doesn't seem good. Sure it could be a sperm issue--but all three? Ok, maybe couples with sperm issues are drawn to her...

Warning:Petty Details Mentioned that Make us look Shallow.

The choice seems clear based on previous cycle data, but there is an appearance issue--the donor's mother has olive skin, and Husband and I are fair (although he's got dark hair), and oddly enough we are worried about the child feeling as if they fit with us, if the they do have the olive skin. He told me about a former work co-worker of his whose parents both had fair skin, she had olive skin, and throughout her life people commented on it. Since we are able to choose, should we choose an option that doesn't create more attention? And then I think, no matter what, we can't choose what is going to happen, how the genes will combine.

Ultimatly, I just like the donor with FE's better--since it's all fantasy anyway, I have a sense of her as sweet, well our doctor said she was a sweet person, so maybe that is in there, but I 'like' her.

Also, as I said in my last post, we may find out that my husband actually got me pregnant through the usual means, and scientifically speaking, trying with my eggs isn't a crazy idea.

For us, the question is what can we stand. Can we stand to try with my eggs and withstand the terror through the amnio? Or do we need to stop this madness, spend all our moula on DE and just get on with it.

At this point, I don't want a baby from my eggs more than I want the DE baby. I just want a baby. I want to get on with the loving and growing and being a mother part of this mishigas.  I am very good at being infertile. One more miscarriage and I earn my "Habitual Aborter" badge (sorry, gallows humor).

So the new kind of limbo is about not being a mess, not being sure, but just being here all over again. I also feel absurdly hopeful. Why? I have no idea. I guess the dividend of all this loss and growth is that I can more quickly dispense with the sense of humiliation and shame that accompanies these reproductive failures.

I talked to an old friend that just adopted, and she pointed me towards her adoption agency which looks great. It works with singles, same sex couples and us types (I won't work with one that doesn't), and has a very approachable website. Also, I think I could write a statement now--We rock, give us your baby. Sounds about right, eh?

I also had a bit of a spiritual epiphany on while listening to Fresh Air on Dec 23. Greg Epstein, a Jewish Humanist Rabbi, has a new book called "Good without God" and here is what he said about death and loss, which really resonated with me, and what I have come to feel more clearly over these last 3 years:

"Mr. EPSTEIN: And if you think God is mystery, well mystery is not a great source of comfort in the face of death. You know, at least I didn't find the mystery to be all that comforting when my father died or when I lost other loved ones and what I was really wanting was not, you know, the presence of a mystery but the presence of people to love me and care for me. And that's what I try to offer in the face of death to the members of my own community, is the sense that, look, there is no justification for the tragedies that happen. There is no good reason that we could ever come up with for why the Holocaust happened, for why innocent children are ripped away from us every single day, every minute.

There's nothing that one could say that would say, oh, this makes it better. Or there - you'll be rewarded in haven. No, it's not sufficient. And what, to me, the only thing that we can say is that we care, we love, we acknowledge. Death is real. It's final. It takes tremendous, tremendous courage to cope with. And we have to love one another because that's what we get. We get this world, this one shot."

I know for many of you God and Jesus are a great comfort, for me, it has never felt real. The closest I could get was the Jesus was one really smart guy who was very right about a lot of things, but I don't find comfort in God or Jesus. For me, I find comfort in the love of my community that acknowledges and helps me to bear my pain and loss, and in helping others to bear their pain and loss. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, each and every one of you who has shared my pain, buoyed me with your humor, your anger on my behalf, and your gentleness with my heart and losses. I could not have gotten to this new kind of limbo with out you, and I am profoundly grateful.

Comments

[Sprogblogger]

A lovely post, and damn, I hope that you get answers, that you can get going -soon please! - on this 'have a baby' thing, and that you never, ever stop finding the funny in amidst all the horror. I'm so glad you're doing ok, and I am thrilled that you're feeling hopeful; I'm right there alongside you. Let's have us some babies this year, eh?

[Sara]

Hi Sarah,

I'm glad that you're not feeling too awful, and don't think that it makes much sense to second-guess yourself. You feel the way that you feel, KWIM? If you felt worse than you "should," would it be helpful to say that you shouldn't feel that way? All that you can really do is deal with the feelings as they come.

As for your choice of donors (if you end up going in that direction), I don't think that the appearance issue is superficial. Almost everybody chooses their donor to match themselves in some way (whether physically, intellectually, or temperamentally, and those that don't choose their donors for the features that they wish they themselves had. It's true that you probably don't have any more control over what your child will actually look like than anybody else, but it makes sense to at least try to choose donors that don't throw up red flags for you.

I suspect that you already know this, being wise and thoughtful as you are, but when your child is born, they will be so beautiful to you that their image permanently burns itself into your retinas and casts a glow on everything around them, regardless of how they actually look. Of course that won't make the issues of "resemblance talk" go away if you do choose to use a donor rather than your own eggs, but it will hopefully help you to cope with them when they arise. My own (genetic) child looks so little like me that I am asked at least once/month where I adopted her. And I wouldn't change any tiny little detail about her appearance given a choice.

Good luck with the meeting with Dr. Calm. I really hope that whatever she has to tell you is helpful in some way.

[Good Egg Hunting]

I don't know if any of this will be helpful...when I had my m/c a friend said to me that everything is helpful and nothing is helpful when you're going through it, and that made perfect sense to me. I'm glad you're doing okay, and I think that you'll probably have moments when you feel okay and moments when you don't and I think that's all totally normal. I found that the lab results were reassuring because I, too, looked to something I did as explanation of why it happened, and it let me off the hook to know there was no way I could've controlled it. So I hope the same for you. But even if you don't get results I hope you will eventually know that nothing you did -- vitamin K or anything else -- caused this. My doctor always says that nothing (besides street drug use and serious car accidents) can shake a good pregnancy. Just now I am starting to believe her.

I know just what you mean about not wanting to know the sex or think of the baby as being real. For me, that is the only way I can think about it, the only way I can tolerate it.

On the spiritual front, forgive me if you've already read it or if everyone says this but I found the book When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Rabbi Harold Kushner to be a huge help -- maybe you would too.

Most of all I just wish for you peace and continued hope in the new year. I want you to be a mother too, and I truly believe in your efforts to get there, regardless of how you arrive.

[cindyhoo2]

You are my hero. I completely believe in the healing power of gallows humor and I actually laughed out loud when I got to that remark. You do seem to be finding your strength through this awful time. I know what you mean about not finding out the gender of the baby. I did and knowing that I lost a baby girl made the loss that much more real and painful. You are making a wise decision.

In terms of choosing a donor, we make the best choices we can based upon very limited information. You are not shallow. I am sure you would interview donors based upon personality, appearance and philanthropy if you could--- kind of like choosing Miss America. :)

By the way, this post is beautiful and it resonated with me in a way I really needed today. Thank you.

[meinsideout]

I have to say - I was not "as crushed" by my second loss as I was for my first, I was really numb but I was totally enraged by my third. The conflicting emotions then would make me feel guilty - but I learned to be okay with whatever I felt - it was right for me and I needed to feel it.

As for the donor issue and skin pigment - so odd! We had the same issue - we are fair (both blonde with blue eyes) our donor was fair with fair sisters and a fair mom but had a dad with olive skin...we took the chance. My mother has black hair and my sister has a different complexion than me so there is some genetic support on my side...

Thinking of you and I hope that 2010 does not bring the habitual aborter tag. ((HUGS))

[Eva]

Obviously, you are in a really tough place, and your are handling it well, probably (and unfortunately) because you've been down a similiar road before. Epstein reminds be of Harold Kushner, author of Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, who writes about the fact that God doesn't cause bad things to happen. He believes that God is really there to comfort us. I know you are not a believer and I totally respect that but I think that important point to take from all of this (if we can find an important point) is that love is all we have. It's all we can offer and all we can find comfort in when experiencing real heartbreak. So for all that it's worth, please know that you are deep in my thoughts and in my heart. xo

Oh, and what's the adoption agency? ;-)

[Lisa DG]

Sarah,
I know how you feel when the desire to be a mother to a child outweighs the need to be the genetic contributor. It didn't happen over night for me. No- it took years for me to even consider it, much less want to go that route. Now that I am beyond the decision, I can't believe I ever waited so long to choose this. I have a great therapist that I can pass on to you- she literally wrote the book on egg donation and she even does phone consults- that is, if you need someone to mull over your feelings with.

I wanted the donor to have some basic characteristics like me- similar hair, skin, eyes. I have to say, though, that the top factors I considered were the possibility of a successful cycle (so proven fertility), and that there was a good story in there that I could tell my child (I really like my donor for the kind person she is). As for you, you don't necessarily need to settle for one or the other of the women you are looking at now, unless one of them really feels right to you. This is a big decision and there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of women who are egg donors today.

I guess I am saying, you don't need to settle. On the other hand, once you have your baby in your arms, skin tone or hair color won't be as important.

The other thing I was going to mention the other day was that another woman I met online shared that oversees egg donation can be another option when money is an issue. She did it and had a very good experience.

I am hoping that you don't have to turn to DE- but if you do, know that it is much better than you'd imagine.

xoxo