17 +1, Oh Boy!

I’m officially more pregnant than I’ve ever been.  Doesn’t make me feel any less terrified, but I’m happy to have made it through my scary window.  In fact, I’m a little more terrified than ever.  Because I’m starting to adore this little guy.

Oh yeah, we’re having a boy.  I had an ultrasound at 16 weeks, and our little boy gave in to his momma’s bribe to buy him something blue/pink if he gave up the goods.  He proudly displayed his penis… legs splayed wide open.  Not a gentleman, for sure.

Universe help me, knowing that he’s a boy has made me even more attached.  (To be clear, it didn’t matter whether he was a boy or a girl, I mean knowing one way or the other has helped).  It makes him more concrete, instead of this abstract concept of “baby”.  Does that make sense?  And we’ve been calling him by his name.  He’s more real now.  Which, I suppose, is why my love for him is getting even stronger.

And in other news, we pulled off the band-aid and went Face.book official.  We never got to do that with Abby until after she was gone.  We told the FB world about her on Bereaved Mother’s Day.  It was scary to share on FB, but it needed to be done.  We needed to share our son with the world.

Our son.

Absolutely amazing.  It’s still sinking in.  I’ve told him he has to stay cooking for at least another 20 weeks.  I want nothing more in the world than for him to be our take home rainbow baby.

The Secret I’ve Been Keeping

I’m pregnant.  16 weeks and some change.

And I’m sorry for not telling you…. but not really.

I got tired of the world having a window into my reproductive life.  I got tired of everyone knowing my business, my failures.  I remember having a conversation with C. after hearing yet another pregnancy announcement and being pissed that they waited so long to share, when they knew what was going on with us as soon as the damn pee dried on the fucking stick.  And he said something to the effect of normal people not sharing pregnancy until the safety window*.  And it’s true.  I’m not entitled to that information, I just feel like I am because everyone and their fucking brother knows about the inner workings of my uterus/vagina/brain!  And that’s my doing.

In my attempt to share my experience to try to educate those in my life about what I was going through, I stripped away my privacy and left myself vulnerable to the world.  It’s a real double-edge sword.  And this time, I needed to keep it a secret.  A handful of people knew that we were doing an FET, and a handful more have found out about the pregnancy, but that’s it.  We acted like normal people… well, you know, except for the part about how our baby started out as an embie-cicle in a lab freezer.

So, I hope you understand. And if you don’t, oh well.

Over the next few days, I’ll be releasing some pregnancy-related posts that I’ve written and kept “private”.

*I have no illusion that I’ve surpassed some sort of magic doorway where my pregnancy is safe and I’ll bring home a baby.  That was taken from me a long time ago.

Still Pregnant (Previously Private)

I went to my chiropractor yesterday and as we made the obligatory small talk walking back to his room, he didn’t ask a thing about how I was doing but I knew he was waiting for it. So I said “I’m still pregnant”… to which he cheered, of course. Is it sad that people anticipate the worst when it comes to me in the fertility/pregnancy department? Is it really any different from the way I feel about myself in the fertility/pregnancy department?

These weeks have been difficult, I won’t lie. This is our “bad zone” from last time and I feel like I’m crawling through these weeks while holding my breathe. I had my bleed with Abby at 13 weeks and she was gone at exactly my 17 week mark. I’m 15 weeks, 2 days (yeah, I’m counting the days) right now. I had my first appointment with the MFM on May 16, including ultrasound, and they said there were two very small spots of bleed but that they weren’t concerned at all. It means nothing to me. I had my ultrasound for Abby and everything looked great… flash forward two weeks to when I’m bleeding like a stuck pig and my life begins to fall apart.

The MFM also had me stop baby aspirin (feeling that it might be promoting bleeding, even though I haven’t bled since the original bleed at 7 weeks) and wanted me to stop the Glumetza (metformin) too. I’ve read lots on people being kept on metformin longer in pregnancy to hopefully prevent GD, but the MFM felt that it wasn’t a good option and that they would just treat the GD with insulin. I couldn’t do it. The day that I had set to stop the Glumetza, I very nearly had a panic attack. It would appear that stopping my meds last time around had nothing to do with my loss and intellectually, I can get on board with that. Emotionally, is a completely different (and far crazier story). So I stayed on it. And I’m still on the progesterone too. Although I’ve reduced to just one per day. I’m wondering how much shit I’ll be in at my next appointment? The reality is, they can’t tell me why I got the blood clot last time. They’ve tested for clotting disorders and they all came back negative. So they say it’s just bad luck. “Bad luck” is doctor code for “we can’t find a reason”. It doesn’t not mean there isn’t a reason, it means they can’t find it. I’m having a hard time letting that go. I’m having a hard time trusting the “experts”. I suppose that makes me a bad patient, or at the very least, non-compliant. I’m hoping to have a longer conversation next visit and be re-assured by something.

In other news, my belly is changing shape. If you looked at me, all you’d see is a chubby girl. But without clothes on, my belly is changing from a “B” belly to something else. And that’s awesome. I’ve started wearing maternity pants — also so awesome and comfortable. I can fit in my regular pants but they are not comfy any more. It’s all starting to feel more real. And that is terrifying. I’m starting to feel more and more connected to Bubba, and I’m just so damn afraid that this baby will be taken from me too. I don’t have another loss in me.

Alas, I must tell myself, for now, I’m still pregnant. And that’s the most awesome thing in the world.

When will the healing start? (Previously Private)

I was at work today and a co-worker asked me how I was feeling.  I proceeded to explain that I was never feeling unwell, and that it was a bleed that had me off work.  She then told me that her daughter was in her 5th month of pregnancy and was going like crazy, doing all this painting at her house and she was trying to convince her to take it easy and slow down.

Why are all pregnancy announcements such a kick in the ribs?  I don’t know this person, nor do I really care.  But what I do know is that they were just married in the last year… and now they are blissfully pregnant.  Painting away and behaving like a normal person… while I panicked today at gas pains and wondered if something bad was happening!

When I was pregnant the first time around, I remember that my bitterness and jealousy softened a bit.  This time… not so much.  When will it get better?  When will it stop hurting so much?  What if infertility and pregnancy loss has fucked me up forever?!

Forgiveness

I’ve been struggling a lot lately with forgiveness.  And I’ve come back to this post several times but walk away feeling unsure as to how to put words to this struggle.  Forgive and forget.  Move on.  Forgiveness will set you free.. and the blah, blah, blah of all those face.book positive outlook quote bullshit thingies.

I get it.

But how do you forgive someone who never takes responsibility for their behaviour or asks for forgiveness?

I make a lot of allowances for people’s asshole behaviour.  I try to understand it.  Behaviour has meaning.  I try to empathize with where they are coming from, why they behave the way they do and that allows me to tolerate them just a little bit more.

I wouldn’t say I’m generally one to hold a grudge, per se, but there are some things that I am not willing to excuse.  Mostly it’s the Momma bear in me — hurt the ones I love (or me) and we’re done.  And I believe in that fiercely… but you have to be a pretty big douche to get the royal kick out the door.  Maybe it’s not the healthiest way to deal, but I can’t seem to find it in me to give any energy to relationships that clearly don’t deserve it.

And I don’t think I really set the bar that high… really, I don’t.  We all make mistakes.  We can all be assholes sometimes, saying and doing things we wish we could take back or change.  We are human.  I get that.  But I seem to always be the black sheep… because I won’t just put my head in the sand and pretend that bad things didn’t happen.  There’s been some things that have happened over the last year or so that have been very hurtful to me and my family.  In both instances the “offender” if you will, behaved awfully.  I understand the behaviour.  I know why they did what they did.  What I don’t understand, is that in these two very separate instances, they expected to be let back into the lives of my family without taking responsibility for the offensive behaviour.  Without saying a word, in one circumstance.  The others in my family who were involved in these situations, complied and allowed for the relationship to resume.  But I just can’t do it.  One situation isn’t really my battle to fight, so I don’t really care what the outcome is and the choices the person makes, but it drives me crazy just the same.  Are we just going to pretend these really major things didn’t happen?! That these people behaved in the most awful way possible during a time when their support should have been front and centre?!

Maybe it’s a lifetime of disappointing relationships with people who should be there who drastically let me down that have tainted my heart.  Like I said, I feel like I’m always the black sheep because I’m not willing to just pretend that things are hunky-dory, when others seem to have no problem letting bygones be bygones.  I’m a loyal friend… I think my friends would say that about me.  Even during this infertility and babyloss hell when I’ve been the worst friend in the world, I would still say that I have been honest about my shit and remained loyal.  I don’t let a lot of people in (shocking, since I write the narcissistic blog and all) but I don’t really let a lot of people in to the real me.  I know it’s a mechanism to protect my heart.  You can’t hurt me if I don’t let you close enough to do so.  So when those who I have let in hurt me, you don’t get another chance.  You don’t get another chance.

I don’t carry this shit around with me and think about it constantly, I really don’t.  It’s not like it haunts me.  Most days, I don’t even think about it.  It’s a post that I’ve been meaning to write for a long time to simply stop drafting and redrafting versions in my already over-worked brain.  It’s been something that I wanted to get out because it does make me sad when I think about it.  I know that I could resume this relationship if I just played along, but how can I do that to myself?  And it all could have been avoided if the words “I’m sorry” were uttered… but they never were… and now it’s too late in my books.

Ten (Previously Private)

I’m slowly creeping towards the end of the first trimester.  Being off work is wonderful for the oodles of sleep and not having to function through feeling gross, but boy does it make the days seem long sometimes.  We had our check-up (quell the patient’s anxiety appointment) yesterday and got to see Bubba bouncing around on the screen.  We got a fantastic picture that show him/her looking at us and I swear doing something akin to “jazz hands”.  Best of all, the bleed seems to be getting smaller.  I didn’t get the exact numbers but C. was watching the measurements and said it was shrinking.  Our NT scan is May 13 and our first appointment with the MFM is May 16.  This appointment also includes an ultrasound.  I think I’ll do both… because.. why not?  Any opportunity to see Bubba, I’ll take it!!

I’ve been pretty lucky on the gross-ness front this time around.  Again, it happens in the evening (which makes dinner a real hoot) but it’s not as bad as last time.  I think it’s all the sleep and being able to do what I please through the day.  I can eat when I want instead of not being able to squeeze snacks in between clients and then feeling gross because of it.  I haven’t had as hard of a time with food aversions either.  It would seem this little one is a little less picky.  Meat is still a hit and miss, but I just had rotisserie chicken for dinner with no problem.  And I can eat veggies!  I remember with Abby I had trouble with meat, green veggies, plain milk and even tap water for crying out loud!

I also bought something for Bubba.  IN MY DEFENCE, the item is a handmade stroller blanket and the items are often one of a kind.  And it has the most adorable sock monkeys on it.  I adore the sock monkey.  I have resolved not to buy anything for this baby for a good long time, but I couldn’t resist.  A very dear friend asked me when she could start buying things for the baby and I told her “when he’s here!”.  She advised me that I was being ridiculous.

It’s so hard.  There is a part of me who just wants to be a normal, excited person and embrace this baby and this pregnancy and trust that lightening doesn’t strike twice.  But I just can’t.  Because lightening does strike and cause damage all over the place with no rhyme or reason and seemingly no understanding of when people have had their fill!  I keep referring to the future as “if Bubba sticks around” or “if we get to bring Bubba home”.  If I get too comfy, bad things will happen.  Just like they did last time.  I know it’s illogical and irrational… but try telling that to my heart…. I dare you.

Again. (Previously Private)

At 6w6d, I had another bleed.  It was like the universe wanted to make sure I didn’t relax… not even for a second.  As if this pregnancy wasn’t going to be ridden with anxiety anyways, hey why not throw in some bleeding right from the get-go?  It was a very small gush and then some spotting for the next day or so.  We went to the clinic the next morning and I was terrified to see a dead baby.  But we saw a sweet little heartbeat.  The best friggin sound in the world.  I bawled my face off.  And we saw another subchorionic hematoma.  They promptly took me off work, put me on bedrest and put me back to progesterone 3x/day.  My vagina is in a constant state of slimy mess.

We went back to the clinic yesterday for our regular scheduled ultrasound and got to see baby again. Still growing like s/he should be at 8w3d, with a strong heartbeat of 188.  But there is still the stupid SCH.  I have had no other bleeding aside from the initial gush, and then some expelling of brown sludge this past weekend.  They are keeping me off work for another month.  Going back for a check-up ultrasound on April 30 and hopefully the NT scan on May 13.

I feel like I can’t get too far ahead of myself.. because that gorgeous little peanut could be gone in the blink of my eye.  I catch myself pleading with an unknown entity and wishing on clocks but then I remember that at the end of the day, none of this matters.  What will be, will be.  I have no power to control the outcome.

A friend who keeps checking in on us asked me how I was feeling after the first ultrasound, and I replied that I was relieved, anxious and angry.  I am angry.  Can nothing be simple?  After everything that we have been through, do we not deserve an easy ride?  But when has the world ever worked that way?

6 weeks (Previously Private)

We’re getting another chance, and I’m terrified.  I’m excited and happy, but at the same time detached a bit and afraid to let myself believe that things might go differently.

We had our frozen transfer on March 8 and everything went perfectly.  Our blast was hatching and  everything went off without a hitch.  The two week wait ensued and I felt pregnant.  I waited out the entire 14 days before peeing on a stick because I was confident that I was pregnant and I was terrified to be wrong.

I wasn’t wrong.  We finally went for the beta at 15dp5dt and it was 1664.  Two days later it was 3899.  I wasn’t wrong.

Now I wait.  Our first scan is still over two weeks away.  The clinic is doing them a bit later than they did when we were pregnant with Abby because I guess they want to make sure they see what they want to see.  But the wait is killing me!  I’ve got a few symptoms — some sore boobs from time to time, some waves of nausea and some peeing.  I’m waiting for the symptoms to kick into high gear and really give me some comfort.

I haven’t had any dreams.  By this time with Abby, I had dreamt about her.  I was convinced she was a girl.  I haven’t dreamt about Bubba.  I’ve dreamt about checking pantyliners for blood.  Yeah.  Guess we know where my subconscious is at.

Some days I’m confident and forward-looking and hopeful.. other days I’m just plain terrified.  I guess maybe that’s normal after all that we’ve been through.

None-the-less, I don’t want to forget a moment of this pregnancy. I want to savour every last, anxious bit.

The Darkness

I can only write about this now that I’m not so deeply entrenched in it.  Maybe I should have written it when I was entrenched, but admitting my emotional defeat was too much, I think.  But I feel like I need to write about it now, because I know that there are others out there like me and I want them to know that they are not alone.

Infertility is tough and emotionally draining and confusing, but nothing could have prepared me for the feelings that came with the loss of my baby.  And nothing could have prepared me for how much energy it took to keep functioning and to keep dealing with infertility.

The first time I googled “suicide and infertility” was after I was blindsided by a pregnancy announcement.  I had this complete emotional (over?)reaction — I lost my shit.  I just wanted to walk into traffic.  I felt as if the world wasn’t a fair place and I just wanted all the pain and disappointment of our failed IUIs to stop.  I just wanted to be the one with a fucking pregnancy announcement.  I got through but I wondered, do people kill themselves over this?  I found one blog that talked about it and it seemed as though the writer just stopped writing and people were concerned.  Funny thing about suicide, no one talks about that either and one cannot tell one’s story once one is  dead.  I bounced back and started this blog in hope of explaining to those around me, just how painful all this was for me.

After I lost Abby, I was grief-stricken, angry and I just didn’t give a shit.  I didn’t want to die though.. I just didn’t care if I lived.  I simply didn’t care about anything.  The first time I really considered suicide was after all the bullshit that the old clinic put us through, followed by all the shit I went through with work.  I just wanted it all to stop.  I wanted something to go right and I wanted to stop hurting.  I had more bouts of this darkness in the fall when I was being bullied by my boss at work.  But strongly again after our failed IVF cycle.  Each time, I pulled myself out somehow.  Maybe those weren’t real suicidal feelings, but merely the musings of someone who wanted to give up, but it was the darkest place I’ve ever been in.  The really stupid thing is… I continued to function and do my job… as a social worker.  It was like I had these two people inside me again.  The one who puts on a face and helps people and makes it through the day… and they other who felt such despair that she was planning ways to leave the world behind.  Sometimes, I felt like such a fraud at work… who was I to be helping people to cope when I wasn’t coping at all??

One day, I photocopied some pages out of a book for a client who was struggling to manage emotions and had had two overdoses in a short period of time — about suicide.  This is what I mean.. the irony!!  And I read a line that struck a chord for me… it was something to the effect that most suicidal people don’t really want to die, they just want to stop hurting.  Ain’t that the truth?  I don’t want to be dead… I just want to stop hurting.  Depression is a funny thing — it clouds all reality.  In my logical mind, I know that there is hope and options and elements of my life that are very good.  In those moments of darkness, it seemed like there could never be an end to the hurt and emptiness.

I can’t tell you how I got out of the darkness.  I just kept living.  After the failed IVF, I decided that I still had two embies on ice and they deserved a chance to be born.  They would provide me with the hope and the strength to keep going.  So I promised myself that I wouldn’t think about killing myself until I had used up those embies.  And that was that.

I didn’t seek help, because honestly, the counselling I had before wasn’t all that helpful.  In fact, feeling that darkness made me wonder how futile counselling really is.  I give suggestions to clients all the time on how they can behave to feel better — but all it does is distract for a while.  I got together with my friends, I went out for dinner, movies.. whatever — but it was all just a distraction from my real feelings.  I was truly going through the motions and making people believe that I was okay. Because how do you talk to your friends about being suicidal.

“Hey.. pass the soy sauce and by the way, I played out a scenario in my head today whereby my car ends up in the Grand River and I die”.

I truly believe that people who want to kill themselves won’t tell you… if we told you, you’d try to stop us.  And how on earth do you find those words to tell someone?  How could I admit that I wasn’t coping?  That I was considering suicide?!  I judged myself: how could I be so weak??  The social worker me throws all empathy out the window when she deals with herself.

I’m okay right now.. really I am.  And I’m not just saying that.  I have a wee bit of hope and it’s enough to keep me going.

I just wanted to share this, because like I said, I know that there are other people out there that know this scary darkness.  There are some that will read this and judge me too… like I judged myself.  With all the problems that people have, you think about offing yourself because of infertility?!  I know.  I had those thoughts too.  All I can say is, I’m glad that you can’t relate.  I’m glad that you haven’t had such drastic feelings of despair in your life — and I hope you never do.

Abby Day

It came and went.  January 26.  The day that will forever be associated with the day the bottom fell out of my life.  The day that I changed forever.  The day that everything changed.

Her birthday?  Her deathday?  What do you call it?  I simply decided that it’s Abby Day.  And what were we supposed to do?  C said to me on Thursday, we should “do” something.. go out for dinner or something.  And I said.. that feels like we’re celebrating.. and I’m pretty sure we’re not.  There was no cemetary to visit — she sits in a heart-shaped urn on our dresser.  There’s no river or park or woods or anything where ashes are spread — because I can’t bring myself to do anything with them — because then I wouldn’t have the only thing I have left of her.  And it’s January so it’s fucking cold outside!!  I don’t need to freeze my ass off wandering through some outdoor frozen-ness reflecting.  And her garden is still only a tree… and it’s January.

So, I cried for her.  I cried for how much I miss her and I cried for a life that never was.  And as always, I cried for us and the sadness that infertility causes — the fear.  Because it’s all tangled up together — the grief and the infertility — I feel bad that I can’t separate it but it’s all in one big, sad, ball of mess.  I wondered, briefly, if it would feel different if there was a sibling to help fill the void in my heart.. instead of just the scar tissue of failure that fills it currently.  For an even briefer second, I allowed my brain to wonder what it would be like if there’s never another child to love.  But I can’t stay there for very long… I just can’t.

And when I was done crying, we went on about our day.  Without saying what it was, we just decided to do something to distract us from the sadness of the day.  What says “I’m grieving my baby” better than a little movie about torture and capturing a terrorist in the Middle East?!  We had some lunch, watched the movie, shopped, had some Star.bucks and came home.  And then I scrapbooked.  And then somehow the day was over and the sun rose on the 27th.  And just like that, Abby Day was over.