Recovery: day 13

The day we found out we lost the heartbeat, I was standing at the bus stop on my way to meet Mike for a Broadway show that had been scheduled months prior. Being out in public was hard. People flitted by, laughing and all dressed up in their Halloween best. I looked down at my very un-festive outfit: jeans and a light gray sweater. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I thought about how this journey has ruined so many holidays that were formerly filled with so much joy. And how I now have new associations, each tainted by my infertility. It's unfortunate that bad days now seem to outweigh the good.

The bus was late. Traffic was bad. I leaned against the building under the weight of the D&C I had scheduled for the next morning. At some point I looked up (something I've struggled to do lately).

I'm not very religious. If there is a god, he hasn't been very kind. But sometimes I feel like there are signs. I don't know from who or from where, but they always seem too perfect to simply dismiss. This happened after my last loss too (which is a story for another time) and left me trying to catch my breath. But that day when I looked up to the sky and saw a fluffy white heart floating there, it was difficult to rationalize away. Maybe it was coincidence, maybe I was reading into it, or maybe it was there for a reason. Regardless, I will carry it with me.

It may have seemed that I've fallen silent lately but I promise you that I've read every word that you all have written. I've been traveling for work and commenting from my phone is infuriating and ultimately proves fruitless. I'm back home now and eager to resume my regular habits.

8 weeks, 0 days

I'm exactly where I was when I lost my last pregnancy. The significance of this day is not lost on me. If I find out on Wednesday that we still have a heartbeat, this will officially be my longest pregnancy to date. Ironic that it is the unhealthy pregnancy that lasts the longest.

I'm not looking forward to this week. Actually, I have a feeling it's going to be an all time shit-fest.

• Wednesday: Followup u/s with Dr. D. As I see it, there are three possible outcomes: 1) No heartbeat and grieving escalates 2) Slowed heartbeat and prolonged waiting for the inevitable end or 3) Continued "normal" heartbeat and more agonizing over the 'what if's' and, of course, more waiting. Yeah, no good options in there. 
• Thursday AM: Appointment with the fetal development specialist (if we get that far). For some reason the idea of seeing this doctor scares me to death. I also hate going to new doctors- the fear of the unknown is daunting. What if their super-powered u/s machine shows me something I don't want to see? Though unlikely, this thought plagues me. 
• Thursday PM: Remember my friends that found out they were pregnant exactly as I lost my last pregnancy? (No? You can read about it HERE). They are flying across the country to stay with me for 4 days (the trip was planned 6 months ago). Since my last miscarriage our friendship has struggled quite a bit. There has been a distance that has never been there before and I don't know if it is my fault or theirs or a combination of the two. I'm just dreading the thought of seeing my friend's partner's swollen belly for days on end. In my home. I have weird fears about their visit too. Like, I'm worried that if she voices one little pregnancy complaint, I will be down her throat. Or, that she will unconsciously cradle her swollen belly with her hands. I don't even want to hug her at the airport because I don't want to touch it. It sounds crazy, but this is where I am at. If hotels in our area weren't $300/night, I might have asked them to stay elsewhere. But they are, and so I can't. I'm not going to be able to handle this gracefully. Truthfully, I don't want them here. It's the worst timing imaginable. But I'm stuck and have to get through it somehow.

I fired my therapist, Zsa Zsa. My appointment last Monday was the final straw: 

1. I was talking to Zsa-Zsa about how hard it has been for me to relate to the rest of the world. I used an example of a friend of mine who texted me a few days prior. She was venting about her horrible day. It turns out her three-year old twins were going through a "phase" and she was beyond frustrated and angry. I found it impossible to text back any kind of support because, the reality of it is, I would cut off both my arms to have her problems. When I finished, Zsa-Zsa turned and angrily scolded me: "Tutti, you have NO idea how hard it is to raise children. You have NO idea." I sat there shocked. I couldn't even manage a reply. And though it's not right of me to play the Pain-Olympics, it also wasn't right for her to reprimand me for voicing my struggles in therapy. I shut down for the rest of the session. 
2. I realized that though Zsa-Zsa has been a sympathetic ear for the last eight months, she hasn't helped me. I have asked her a number of times for ways to cope and strategies to deal with all this grief and pain. But there has been nothing except the advice that 'time will heal'. Gee, thanks. 
3. At the end of the appointment Zsa-Zsa said, "I know you said nothing is really helping you right now, so would you like to cancel your appointment for next week?" Way to support a girl in crisis. Talk about feeling abandoned. So I cancelled my appointment next week. And all future appointments. 

Now I have to find a new therapist. 

I realize what a horrible place this blog has been. Looking back, there are few (if any) upbeat posts over the last several months. This place has been consumed with sadness, fear, pain, grief, anger, and sadness (deserves to be mentioned twice). And truth be told, it is not chronically this bad in real life, this is just where I feel safe voicing these feelings. So it becomes a dumping ground. However, I hope that at some point there will be light and happiness too. Maybe even some hope (don't want to get too far ahead of myself though). I just want to thank each of you for sticking with me. I know it's not easy to read and I know how difficult it is to find the right words to say sometimes. But with each comment that is left, I feel the support and love. And it helps so, so much. I gather so much strength from you all, strength that is so badly needed right now.

7 weeks, 1 day

Scene: A bright spotlight shines on Universe as he walks out from behind the curtains. He holds his hands up in the air and the audience quickly hushes. "Intermission is over. Please take your seats folks. There is a lot more to this show yet!" 

I'm exhausted. I don't want to write this post. I don't want to do anything really. But at the same time, I feel the need to update. So fair warning, this will be a dumping of events and that is all. It is all I am capable of right now.

Friday I went into the clinic for my last u/s so that we could finally schedule my D&C. For the most part, I was ok. I wasn't weepy or angry. I was just anxious to move forward. It was appropriately silent during the u/s. So needless to say I was wholly unprepared when Dr. D, very tentatively, said that she found a heartbeat. It was tiny, but it was most certainly there at 105 bpm. I swear at that moment I felt something snap in my head. I felt like I was going crazy. How was this possible? I'd already started grieving the loss of this pregnancy. How much more back and forth could I possibly take?

I measured a few days behind, but more concerning was that my yolk sac was still quite large. I had previously refrained from researching this because I figured it didn't matter- it wouldn't change the outcome. Confused and overwhelmed, I asked Dr. D to be honest with me: what were my chances? She said that she was quite worried and that when she had seen situations similar to mine, more often than not, they hadn't ended well. However, in my head that still left room for a tiny, tiny bit of hope.

When I got home I assaulted Google. To not, would have been naive. I needed to know what was going on. And this is what I learned: 1) A yolk sac measuring over 5mm was considered "enlarged". Mine was 9mm. 2) This was indicative of a chromosomal abnormality 3) This was bound to end in miscarriage. It wasn't really a matter of if, but when. I found two or three anecdotal stories from random 2006 chat rooms where women had slightly enlarged sacs (6mm) which ended in live births. However there were 100's of bad stories to counter each good one. Even more conclusive were the scientific papers. That is when my tiny, tiny bit of hope was snuffed out. Again.

This is no longer an anembryonic pregnancy. No, now there is a tiny baby with a tiny heartbeat. My pregnancy symptoms are growing stronger. The spotting (ironically) has stopped. All this, yet I know how this is going to end. I head back on Wednesday for a followup. I know that there is a good chance that the heartbeat will have stopped by then. And if it hasn't, I'll have to wait even longer. Can you imagine? Just hanging out waiting for your baby to die? I can't. And I'm living it.

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Note: I know there are some of you that are still hopeful. That some still believe in miracles. But I don't, not anymore. I'm not asking you to not be hopeful, just please don't voice it to me. I need to face the facts and grieve my third loss for the second time. I can't manage to get through this any other way.

Standing still, Day 4

I've been feeling very numb the last few days. It's not like I don't know what is going on. Diagnostically I know what happened. I know what the next steps are and that none of it is good. But it has all been processed from a distance. No tears. Just going through the motions. Because I knew once those floodgates opened, there was no going back. I just wanted to delay it for a bit. To not feel like such a disaster for once.

But standing in the shower yesterday morning, I felt it creep in. I curled up on the shower floor and wept. The water didn't wash away my tears, nor did it drowned out my sorrow.

I have my husband. I have my close friends. I have my mom, my family. Dr. D and my nurses. My therapist. The women in my Resolve group. I have you guys. I've shared my story with so many people. I've talked about my feeling ad nauseum. I've written about them at length. I think that I somehow rationalized that if I gave lots of different people tiny pieces of my pain, that it would lessen my own. I was trying to unburden myself. I attempted to spread it out. To thin it.

But I've finally realized that my grief and loss are mine alone. I can't deposit these feelings and then run from them. They shadow me wherever I go. And they are as thick as molasses.

Physically I can do this. I know what I have to do and what the process is. I will go through surgery. Listen to the test results. Sit in Dr. D's office and figure out our next move. I will continue to wait. I will force my body to go through the motions, and it will obey. But emotionally I don't know what the process is anymore. I keep following the same track and when I find myself in the place I started, I don't know what else to do except continue back around. I'm going in circles and it's not working. I can't keep doing this, it's eating me alive. How do you stop the loop? For the life of me I can't figure it out.

I couldn't bare the thought of waiting until Wednesday for my next u/s. And then even longer for the actual D&C. I broke down and called Dr. D yesterday. I was ready to beg and plead to be seen earlier but I didn't have to. She told me to come in this afternoon and that we could schedule the D&C for as early as possible next week. Which is good because I started spotting this morning. I need this horror show to end.

Cycle 19, CD 19 (1 DPO)

[Click here for more information about Emhart's September Photo Challenge]  

Prompt: Garden

A close friend was scheduled to come for a visit in late July. We'd been counting down her arrival for months. I had already bought a little card and propped it on her pillow. It was a congratulations card: "congratulations you are going to be an aunt!" As it happened, I found out we lost the heartbeat two days before her arrival. 

I shredded the card and announced my devastating news to her over the phone instead. She needed to know the hornets nest she was walking into.  

A happy garden

It was hard to have anyone visit in those days leading up to the D&C. As anyone that has suffered a miscarriage knows, it is a crippling time. But as much as I didn't think it possible, having my friend with me was a wonderful distraction. Despite the despair that consumed me, she was somehow able to keep me from curling up inside myself. We went on long walks around the neighborhood. We got our toes painted. We drank in the ocean... and more than our fair share of wine. And amazingly enough, she made me smile. Especially when she yanked off her fun yellow sunglasses and made my neighbor's ordinary garden plant into something extraordinary. 

Recovery: day 12

The bleeding has finally stopped, the fighting with my husband has (mostly) subsided, and I'm left in a strange place of needing to move forward yet unwilling to do so. The anger hasn't gone anywhere. Though now it's turned mostly inward. My self worth its latest victim.

I'm due for a perfunctory checkup on Thursday to see my battle scarred ute and stagnant ovaries. Oh joy.

I've been struggling with the miracles of technology lately. Without the images of our growing baby blasted from the ultrasound machine each week, I wouldn't see her so vividly every time I close my eyes. Without all that monitoring I don't think I'd be so bloody attached. Attached some, yes of course. But not as much as I am now. I saw her. I saw her alive and I saw her dead. And in a few days I'll see where she was supposed to be, all cuddled up and growing strong.

My mom suffered 3 miscarriages in her quest for my sister, me, and a sibling that never survived. All early before 8 weeks. However, she said that when she thinks back to those times she only remembers the physical pain of the babies passing. And then nothing else. Is that because time has healed her wounds or is it because she doesn't have any images to return to? I'm afraid to let go because that baby was more than a blip on the screen. She was my tiny 8-week old daughter.

Grief.

My wounds that had not even begun to heal have been made even bigger.

Trisha and I met through the infertility blog world. I was drawn in by both her wicked humor in the face of pain and her soft spots that were so vulnerable they made me feel more human. We experienced our first miscarriages within weeks of each other. We bonded through our anger and pain. Then we met in real life and a true friendship was forged.

And then we found ourselves both pregnant again. With the same due date. We whispered of hope and excitement despite our overwhelming fears. We supported each other when the other was weakened by bad dreams or angst for the future. There was an understanding. A link. A bond.

In a twist that only the darkest novels would dare to take, we find ourselves tangled in the worst of nightmares. Trisha just received news that her sweet MB's heart has stopped. There is no cap to the amount of cruel that this world has to offer.

Now I find the grief I had for myself has shifted to my sweet friend. Her pain is my pain. Please offer her the support and love that she needs so badly right now.

Recovery: day 1

The D&C was yesterday and it's done. But not before my body did half the work its own.

I am in quiet pain now. The violent sobs and lashing out has been replaced with a sadness and stillness that is deafening. I only hope that healing comes swiftly. That I can somehow manage to find hope again. That I can eventually find peace with today.

Comforting a friend in grief has never been something that I've been good at. I've often just hoped that through my silence and quiet prayers, the person just.. knew. That they innately understood that I was there. That they could just feel my love through it all. That's not how it works though. For the person grieving, sadness and pain come from less, not more. It is a lesson I'll not soon forget.

The support I've gotten here has been immense. Overwhelming. The words that you have written saved me. The understanding and compassion got me through to the next day. The acknowledgement that I deserve to feel this pain. This anger. This blackness. That the grief is real. It made me feel human when I felt like I was less than.

For each person that took the time to read and leave healing words. For each person that reached out to a perfect stranger in pain. For each person that had old wounds ripped open yet still offered strength. Thank you. It seems insufficient compared to what you have given me, but it is all I have. And it is important for me to acknowledge what it has meant.

My body is now mending. I just hope that my heart follows suit.

Standing still: day 5

Fear.

The hate took hold by the time I pushed my way out of the Ob's office. The waiting room was filled with swollen bellies, new  moms, and crying babes. Fuck them. I wanted to hiss at them. I wanted to scream at those women that they will never understand how lucky they are. I wanted to claw at them and show them how their petty complains of swollen ankles or lack of sleep could never compare to my imploded heart. I'm scared at how full of hate I am. Fuck me.

In a situation where there is no right or safe answer, I think I'm going to go forward with the D&C. I'm terrified of this just as much as I'm terrified of the alternative. There is no comfort or relief with this choice, there is only second guessing and all consuming fear.

I started bleeding last night. The red blood, though I knew it was coming, made my knees buckle and a wail erupt from a very deep place. I'm petrified my body won't wait for the surgery and that I'm going to have to do this alone.

I'm angry at Mike for changing his mind on which direction we're going. I've been looking to him as the stable one, the logical one, the one that can make the right decision when I cannot. But his lack of being proactive has unnecessarily prolonged this process. Every second of every day, the fear of this dead thing consumes me. I'm terrified that I will forever blame my husband if it is too late.  

I slept next to a pile of towels and a bottle of Vicoden. This is not how things were supposed to happen. Since Thursday, I can't be alone without gruesome thoughts creeping into my head. For the few moments I have slept, I've been plagued by horrifying dreams of steep cliffs and dark places. I'm scared to close my eyes.

A year and a half of infertility caused thousands of hairline fractures in my marriage. Repeated loss has turned those into deep cravases. Mike doesn't understand my grief and thinks I'm over reacting. I don't understand his lack of compassion and question why he is so removed. Instead of finding strength in each other, we are further apart than we have ever been. I'm afraid of my marriage may not be strong enough.

My Ob didn't seem to think my Hashi's was to blame for this. So what then? 25-30% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. The number plummets to 5% for those that have two consecutive miscarriages. The stats are not in my favor. I'm frightened of what this repeated pregnancy loss means.

I feel sick when I think about returning to the clinic. I walked out those doors two weeks ago so proud, but today I'll be returning with my eyes adverted, shoulders rounded, and forever looking fearfully behind me. The appointments, the injections, the speculums, and pregnancy tests are almost too much to return to. The fear of continuing fertility treatments scares me just as much as choosing not to.

The girl I used to be, so generous with unsolicited smiles, compassion, and love for herself and others, is hardening into something that is almost unrecognizable. The irrational desire to lash out and hurt people that don't deserve it is bound to drive everyone away. I'm afraid that this hate and anger has forever changed who I am.

I'm just so fucking scared.

Cycle 16 (in limbo)

I was going to write something about acupuncture today, but when I read Cristy's news last night, everything else seemed so inconsequential. If you have not already, I do ask that you send some healing her way. Her world is dark and though we cannot change things, we can support her in her grief.