Tag Archives: miscarriage

Posted in Adoption Option • Infertility

Adoption Loss – A Follow Up

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It’s been almost two months since we lost Baby K, after only having him in our family for one day. I think all 3 of us have been touched and changed in some way by his loss.

Ava went through a very rough patch after his loss. She was clearly angry and confused and took it out on everyone around her, physically. We went through a very rough patch where she kicked, bit, pushed and hit anyone that was the same size as her or smaller. At one point she was having multiple times out’s at school for her bullish behaviour and I was really concerned by the impact of her behaviour on her best friend as he seemed to be her favourite target for taking out her anger and her grief. But following the advice of my therapist, our social worker and Ava’s school teacher, we decided it would be best to simply ride it out, give her lost of encouragement and positive reinforcement and talk openly with her about Baby K, what had happened to him and why he wasn’t there any more. She loves looking at his photo’s and still refers to him as her baby and as herself as a big sister, but the violent behaviour has dissipated and she is back to her old, happy go lucky, sweet self.

Ava Holding Kyle

Walter seems to be handling fine. It was a horrible situation for him, but he is far less emotional than I am, so he doesn’t seemed to have needed to grieve the loss in anyway because he hand’t allowed himself to get emotionally attached just yet. He was, and I think, still is, confused by the train of events that led up to Baby K’s loss but he has accepted the situation for what it is.

Ava & Kyle

 

As for me, I guess I’m ok. It still hurts for me to look at photo’s of Baby K and talking about it still makes my eyes burn with unshed tears. I often wonder where he is, if he’s ok, if he’s being cared for, nurtured and loved and for me that’s difficult. I struggle with the not knowing. Ava’s struggle with our adoption loss was very hard for me, I really struggle with feelings of frustration over her acting out versus deep sadness over the obvious pain she was in.  Like Walter, I’m also still confused by the train of events that led to Baby K’s loss but unlike Walter, I am struggling to accept how everything has turned out.

There are days when the pain loosing Baby K and my deep yearning for another child are so intense that I physically ache on the inside. Yesterday was just such a day. I read Robyn’s Wordless Wednesday post yesterday morning and was so touched by the beauty of her photo’s, by the obviously strong bond between her children that my heart ached for the remainder of the day.

Knowing with each passing day, week, month, Ava gets older and older and the gap between her and her would be sibling grows wider and wider and the chance for that kind of bond grows smaller and smaller makes me so sad and so frustrated. At some point, if we still haven’t had our second placement, we may just remove ourselves from the waiting list because I’m now in my 40′s and don’t see myself raising another baby when I’m 45 and Ava is 8.

So yes, it’s been a tough few months emotionally but we’re ok. We’re still hoping, praying, believing in our second placement, that somewhere out there is the perfect little soul destined to complete our family but only time will tell.

As a side note – ironically it’s almost 3 years to the day that we received the devastating news of our imminent 7th miscarriage, perhaps this also is playing into my melancholy mood at the moment.

Posted in Infertility

Advice For Couples Struggling With Infertility

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Yesterday during our one on one interviews with our SW, she went through the results of our psychometric tests with us individually and the results were a big a-ha moment for me.

Some of you will know this, but I fell pregnant the first time while we were on honeymoon and six weeks after returning from honeymoon, we were thrown head first into our struggle with infertility and recurrent pregnancy loss. We never had a chance to enjoy marital bliss and each other.

I came completely undone after my first miscarriage, for months after the miscarriage, Walter would arrive home from work and find me in a crumpled, snotty mess on the couch sobbing my heart out, balled up tissues scattered on the floor. My heart broke and it would take more than 7 years for it to be healed. My withdrawal from “breeders” (as they’re fondly called in the IF community) started there, I withdrew, I was broken, shattered, incapable of focusing on anything aside from trying to put my heart back together with a band aid in the form of another pregnancy and baby. Walter’s frustrating journey of exasperation and being sidelined began at around the same time.

A few years past in a muddle of we-must-have-sex-now-because-I’m-ovulating and no-don’t-touch-me-I-may-be-pregnant. Not exactly a healthy medium for any couple. Enter the fertility specialists and things took a turn for the worse. Ironic that the medical fraternity that were trying to help us have a baby were also the very people who would drive a wedge so deep between my husband and I that there was a time we thought we’ve never come together again. A midst a thousand invasive and humiliating tests and surgeries and injections and blood tests and procedures, we drifted further and further apart, at times barely even knowing why we were still together, except for the fact that we I wanted a child and Walter was my sperm donor, as crass as that may sound, I’m sad to admit, it is the truth.

I became obsessed with having a child, with beating infertility, to the exclusion and to the damage of everything and everyone else in my life. NOTHING. ELSE. MATTERED!

Enter Ava-Grace and instead of living happily ever after, Walter and I had more than 7 years worth of grief, hurt, mistrust, baggage and cr*p that we needed work through. But instead we pretended everything was just peachy, swept it under a rug and tried to pretend like there wasn’t a gigantic circus elephant sitting on the chair in the room with us, everything was fine.

Only, it wasn’t.

And it was with shock that I woke up one morning and realized that we were ONLY Ava’s parents. We were no longer a loving couple, the tatters of our relationship could barely even be described as a friendship. We bickered, we argued and we hurt each other.

Then sometime last year, Walter dropped a bomb on me and my entire world fell apart. He wanted a separation. He wanted to leave me. A part of me was relieved. A part of me was terrified.

We had hit rock bottom. Our relationship, our marriage had been ripped to shreds by years of infertility, of hurt, of my single mindedness in having a child to the exclusion of all else in my life. We were destroyed. Over. Finished. Broken.

I was terrified.

How were we going to make it through this. Would our marriage, our relationship survive this? The future suddenly seemed terrifying. A future without my husband, a single parenting the child I’d longed and yearned for, in a city more than a thousand kilometres from my family.

It was then that I knew that I had to fight. That I was not done fighting and just as I had fought for my dream of being a mother to be realized, I was going to have to put up the same fight to save my marriage. That I was in for the second biggest fight of my life, a second round in the ring, boxing against a heavy weight opponent.

Walter agreed to attend marriage counselling with me. It was hard. It was painful. After some sessions we were unable to look or speak to each other as slowly the realization of what we’d done to each other over the 7 years of our infertility. How damaged and humiliated I was by all the treatments, by having to give up the privacy of my own body and have nothing be sacred. To have every detail of our sex life chartered by the medical fraternity, told when we could and when we couldn’t have sex. (sorry if you’re reading this Mom!) Walter’s faith and trust in me destroyed. I’d hurt him. I’d stopped caring about what he wanted and single mindedly went about seeing to my own agenda.

It took months of weekly counselling for us to learn to trust each other again, to like each other again, to repair what too much heartache, too many Dr’s appointments, procedures and crushing disappointments and hurts had ripped us apart.

Yesterday the results of our psychometric tests revealed that we are free from the baggage of our years of infertility. There is no more guilt, no more blame. We are free. Our hearts as individuals and as a couple are healed. And I am proud. So very very proud.

We weathered one hell of a storm but we stuck by our marriage vows – “for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, through good times and bad.” We made it, with lots of hard work, we made it back to each other and today more than ever I can honestly say that I love my husband, understand him and feel connected to him in ways I did before we got married and before infertility nearly tore us apart.

So, my advice to all couples going through infertility treatment is this: acknowledge the toll it will take on your relationship.  Know that it is normal if infertility destroys your intimacy. Get help. Don’t underestimate how infertility can destroy your relationship and rock you to your core.

Stand strong together, don’t make the mistake I did of forsaking your partner in your goal to parenthood.

But above all else, know that dealing with the fall out after your infertility journey ends is just as important as walking your infertility journey.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

I Just Realized……

Comments:9 Comments

Ava has healed my broken heart in ways I could never have imagined. Just today I had another reminder of how my broken heart has healed. Its scarred and battered, it will never be what it was 8 years ago, but its whole again, for the 1st time in nearly 8 years.

I was browsing the fertility support forum I belong to when I came across my last last cycle buddy. I hated cycle buddies, the entire time I was going through all my IVF’s, I hated cycle buddies, they were like bad omens, because to be sure, as soon as my cycle buddy got her BFP I knew I was heading for a BFN. Cycle Buddies always boded ill for my cycles, that is till my FET. This cycle buddy was having GIFT and I was having FET so although our cycles ran concurrently, she had her GIFT done a few days after I had my FET transfer, which would have put her a few days behind me. I’ll never forget when I got the stunning, incredible news that my FET was + how my cycle buddy had responded. She was upset because now that I’d had my BFP she was sure she was going to get a BFN.

I remember the day I heard my beta’s were dropping, she received word that her GIFT was +. It was a bitter bitter pill to swallow, I remember being really angry with her, I wanted to send her a nasty message about how she felt now, now that the roles had switched and I was indeed again on the wrong end of the cycle buddy seesaw!

Well, back to today, I logged on and saw her pregnancy ticker, saw that her baby is due in 9 days and suddenly it dawned on me. My due date! I should have been a few days away from delivery, my due date was the 15th June. I should have been heavily pregnant, I should have been checking and double checking my hospital bag, checking and re checking our unborn babies bedroom, I should have been having some Braxton hicks contractions, I should have been many many many things.

Instead, I was completely oblivious to all of this till I saw her ticker this morning. Instead, I am a mommy, I have a six month old baby, I got the best ever “get out of jail free card” , I passed begin, I hit the jackpot, I gambled and I won.

So how do I feel? Oddly at peace but with a tinge of sadness. Bitter sweet! Sadness for that baby lost, sadness that I will never know that baby, sadness that I lost so many, sadness that I will never know any of them.

But joy at the beautiful, living, breathing, here on earth, angel I’ve been blessed with.

I’ve realized I’ll never get over it, but I have learned to live with it.

Posted in Mindful Meanderings

Holding Them Close

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miscarriageribbonI’m meeting two very special friends for lunch today.  Two friends, who despite their own journey’s and pain have really been there every step of the way for me in my transition from infertility to motherhood.

Two friends who have suffered immeasurable loss. Two friends who are both in mourning during the month of April. One friend mourning the one year anniversary of the loss of her baby girl and one friend mourning the second trimester loss of her boy girl twins.

I just wanted them both to know that today I am thinking of them. I am rooting for them and their success – whatever that may be. And I am remembering and mourning with them the little ones they have lost!

Posted in Mindful Meanderings

Finally! I Know The Diagnosis!

Comments:24 Comments

exclamation_markWe have spent the last almost 8 years in pursuit of parenthood. Trying to get pregnant, trying to stay pregnant, trying to figure out why I battle to get pregnant and why I battle to stay pregnant.

We have tried just about everything. A regular gynea, about 3 different homeopaths, reflexology, acupuncture, body stress release, herbs, lotions and potions, a consult at one fertility clinic and treatment at two other fertility clinics.

With each new pursuit, the practitioner has led us to believe that they have found the problem, that they can speculate at a diagnosis. I’ve been speculatively diagnosed with the following long list:

  1. Hyperprolactanemia
  2. 2x orange size fibroids
  3. immunological issues
  4. high stress levels
  5. elevated insulin levels
  6. blood clotting issues
  7. shared antigens
  8. natural killer cells
  9. partial uterine septum
  10. uterine scarring
  11. polyp’s
  12. 3 degree hydrosalpingus

Of course, this was all speculative as none of the millions of tests we’ve had done over the years ever picked up anything significant and each time there was a new speculation, it was treated, I’ve had treatment for every single one of the conditions listed above. Not one of the treatments was ever successful. It was all just speculation at the end of the day. Our case left all the practitioners and Dr’s scratching their heads and trying to find a new reason why I battled to fall pregnant and why I couldn’t stay pregnant.

After my last miscarriage in September 09, the speculation followed the natural progression and we were then told that there must simply be a genetic issue with my eggs. We were given two choice:

  1. GIFT – as it would increase the chances of natural selection of a healthy egg, but to be honest, after 7 pregnancies and countless chemical pregnancies, I was very skeptical that there even was such a thing as a healthy egg anywhere inside my body.
  2. Donor Eggs, this was the option we were considering, I could not face another round of treatment with my own eggs and run the risk of the same outcome, of having my hopes and my heart crushed by another miscarriage or chemical pregnancy.

Of course, again, it was all speculation, as if I’m honest, I’d have to say we have completely unexplained infertility, there is no obvious reason why things kept turning out the way they did. And I knew that should I go the GIFT or DE route, that ultimately we were taking a massive risk with no guarantee and that should that fail, the next obvious step would be surrogacy.

Thankfully, we never got that far, thankfully, our tummy mummy selected us before we could slide any further down the black, money sucking pit that is fertility treatment for us. But today, I can with clearest clarity say I know why I am infertile. I finally have a “diagnosis” and its NOT speculative. Its not experimental.

I am infertile because of destiny. I am infertile because of fate. I am infertile because God, the universe, whatever you’d like to believe or call it, I like to think its God, always intended for me to be my little darlings mother. I was not made infertile for any other reason, other than waiting for the time to be right for this beautiful child to enter the world and be ours.This is how it was always meant to be. Its why none of the Dr’s could ever find a reason for our infertility, there was only one reason and it was not medical, it was based on fate, on destiny, on God’s plan for W to be a father to this amazing child and for me to be a mother to her.

So my infertility diagnosis – its fate really!

Posted in Mindful Meanderings

5Weeks 6 Days & Hope

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I’m 5weeks 6 days “pregnant” today, or rather I should have been,  instead this morning, I woke up to very bad cramps, the kind of cramps that come with a miscarriage, and bleeding, lots and lots of bleeding. Its hard to explain how I’m feeling, I’m relieved that the bleeding has started, I’m relieved that I can start putting this pregnancy behind me, I’m relieved that I don’t have to spend one more day walking around knowing that there was something dead inside me. But I’m also really sad, the last tiny flicker of hope is snuffed out with the start of the bleeding, the last tiny glimmer of the joy we experienced last week is now over, all I’m left with is termendous sadness and wondering where to from here. This miscarriage has occurred at exactly the same point as all my other miscarriages 5w6d, that’s pretty much as far as I’ve ever gotten, except for my first pregnancy.

But in the midst of all the sadness, I’ve been touched by some of the anonymous acts of kindness and love and gestures of support from so many.

A reader sent this to me the other day and it lifted my spirits and helped me feel encouraged. I won’t lie, I’m hurting badly at the moment, going through the motions of what grieving is… one moment I feel ok, the next I feel completley overwhelmed by sadness.  One moment I find myself laughing at a joke and the next I’m overwhelmed by sadness and tears, laughter seems to bring on bouts of hysterical sobbing, but I suppose it all has to come out somehow. But the most overwhelming emotion I feel at the moment is hopelessness and this email just reminded me that with time and healing, my hope will be reignited and I will be able to go on.

But I received this during a particularly difficult moment of my day on Tuesday, its an email about hope from www.silentgrief.com

Hope is not a weak sentiment, but it is a robust and

vigorous confidence built on knowing that we will

get through this trial of loneliness, separation, and

grief over our loss.  Shipwreck occurs following

a loss, but we don’t have to stay that way forever

thanks to the assurance of the living hope within us!

If you are feeling alone and lost today, don’t give

up!  Remember that just as the sun has risen to awaken

a new day, so will the hope that is asleep in you be

awakened to meet your needs for courage and the

will to go on to find your new normal in a world that

is now so different for you.

When you begin to falter, surround yourself with

nature and fill your heart and soul be renewed with

fresh hope!  Watch for the evening stars to light up

the dark sky, and know that the hope that is abiding

in you will light up your darkest night, also.

Trust.  Cast aside fear.  Remind yourself often that

you are not alone.  And, soon you will be filled

with new hope to carry you through!  –Clara Hinton

“Hope is that heroic step of throwing yourself into

total confidence in God.”  –Clara Hinton

“And now, Lord, for what do I wait?  My hope

is in Thee.”  –Psalm 39:7

Posted in Infertility

Shattered Husband

Comments:12 Comments

This miscarriage seems to be hitting W hard. He had such real hope that this was it. Since we’d had the first confirmation and then the awesome second beta, he’d started planning and arranging and genuinely getting excited. Its probably the first time, aside from my first and second pregnancies when we were still naive enough to think that there weren’t any real issues. On Thursday morning, while I was nervously eating my breakfast before going in for the repeat beta, he told me I shouldn’t be nervous, that he really believed everything was going to be fine after the fabulous beta count on Tuesday. On Friday morning, while I was sitting with him, all puffy eyed and bloated from the crying, he looked at me and asked me if there was no way that the beta would go back up again and that everything would be ok? I cried so hard when I saw the hope in his eyes, the hope he is clinging to is completely crushing me. We are praying for completely different things him and I – he’s praying for a miracle, that somehow, someway my beta would have miraculously recovered when we retest on Saturday. I’m praying that the beta will continue to drop so I can get off this roller-coaster. At the end of the day, the ending is inevitable, my beta increasing will simply prolong the eventual outcome.

Posted in Infertility

I’m Angry!

Comments:30 Comments

Can you tell? I’m so so so pissed off about this. I really cannot believe it. The part that bums me off is that I have to live with a tiny glimmer of false hope till Saturday’s retest finally plunges me over the edge. Till then, I have to continue to live and pretend like this could in fact, possibley be a viable pregnancy. I have to take all my meds, I have to continue with the bluddy burny Estra-Derm and I have to continue on with the ultra painful Gestone shots. All of which I was happy to do while I thought I’d get a live baby out of it. Now that I know there is little to no chance, it just seems like a cruel joke.

My beta went DOWN, this means that its only a matter of time before its well and truly over. Its not like it climbed a bit but didn’t quite double, where I could cling to the hope of a vanishing twin, it went down. It DROPPED from 233 to 198 in 48 hours. Given that I’ve been through this 6 times in the past, I know what to expect, I know that usually by the time my beta’s drop down to 100 the brown spotting will start and within a couple of days the heavy, painful bleeding will start.

What I’m hoping will be different this time is that when I go for the repeat beta on Saturday, it will still be high enough for spontaneous bleeding not to have started. This is because I want a D&C. I want analysis done placental tissue, I want to know what went wrong. I want to know if this pregnancy spontaneously aborted because the baby had Downs syndrome or Patau’s Syndrome or any of the syndromes. I need to know. If there is no answer, my answer is simple – I don’t think I can continue on along this journey.  I cannot go into another round of treatment with blind faith & hope. I cannot, my heart won’t take it, my soul won’t be able to bare it and most importantly, I don’t believe W could take it.

So for now I while away the time, trying to crush any false hope that could potentially creep in, I just want this over, I want to put this behind me,  I want the dead tissue removed from my womb, I want to wipe away any and all traces that this brief period of happiness has brought.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Irony of Timing

Comments:8 Comments

PhoenixRisingThere is a theme I have often blogged about….. the irony of timing, especially along my infertility journey. Yesterday, while I was remembering my first pregnancy loss, Kirsty was remembering the birth of her first born son. There are ironies and reminders everywhere that no matter how sad or depressed we may be, the world continues to turn and life goes on, we can choose to go on with it, or get stuck in a rut and miss out on so much.

Almost as a reminder of that exact sentiment, right at the time when I was writing yesterdays blog posting and remembering what the day was like 7 years ago, I felt the familiar stirrings of the start of a new cycle. Cramps, bloating, bleeding, CD 1 of my FET cycle struck at the exact moment when I was dwelling on the past and what could have been. Now the superstitious little infertile in me immediately started looking at this as a sign… Was this God’s perfect timing? Was this me coming full circle? Was this the end of the cycle of loss and sadness and perhaps the start of the cycle of new beginnings and new life? Could it be a sign of good things to come, could it be good tidings for my FET cycle? I guess only time will tell, I guess the only way to find out is to push the fear of what lies ahead aside and brace myself, put my shoulder to the grind and start working.

So on Monday morning, I will be getting up before the sparrows-start-a-farting and head on over to Vitalab for my CD3 scan and then the long wait to CD10 and trigger and in due course & God willing some nicely thawed & dividing little embryo’s………

Posted in Infertility

7 Years…..

Comments:14 Comments

Today marks the exact start point of my journey through infertility. Today, 7 years ago, I woke up to the sound of my alarm going for work, I had a stretch, rubbed my pregnant belly, smiled and climbed out of bed. It was then that I noticed the blood running down my legs and when I turned to look at the bed, the blood that stained the sheet. It was then that I knew that we’d lost baby Zoe (too early to know if it was a girl  but W and I always referred to her as Zoe).  It was in that moment that I changed never to be the old Sharon ever again. It was in that very instant that my infertility journey began.

A lot has changed during the last 7 years, I’ve changed allot, some of it good some of it not so good. The early years of my infertility were unbearably painful, I can honestly say that infertility became easier to cope with once I crossed the 6 year barrier, before that, it was excruciating and all consuming. I remember, after my second or third miscarriage, when we’d been trying for about 2 years, I remember one of my friends trying to offer me comfort by telling me of her Mom’s history. How her mom had suffered 5 miscarriages in 5 years before going on to having 5 healthy children. I remember looking at this friend and thinking that I’d die if that were me. That I’d die if I had to walk this path for even another year, never mind 5 years, that I’d die if I had to suffer through another miscarriage, never mind another 3 miscarriages.

Well isn’t life funny, the very things I thought would kill me made me stronger, I lived through my worst nightmares and those nightmares where offered up to me in the extreme. Not only did I survive 5 years of infertility, I survived 7 years, we’re into our 8th year trying. Not only did I survive 5 miscarriages, I went on to survive 6 miscarriages as well as 3 full IVF failures, granted, my last miscarriage did almost kill me, but I survived.

As I look back on the past 7 years I can honestly say, its 7 years I NEVER want over again. I’m grateful for the way that this struggle has grown me and I’m grateful for the beautiful friends I’ve made along the way, but I do not want to live through another one of those excruciatingly painful moments ever again.

Had baby Zoe gone to full term, had she been born, she would have been 6 years old by now, she’d be finishing her first year of school. I want to live my life without regrets but there are certain things I’d change if I could, infertility and the loss of all those pregnancies would definitely be top of the list!

Till we meet again my baby girl!

Posted in Questions About Infertility

One Issue @ A Time

Comments:15 Comments

When I had my last miscarriage – shockingly, almost 3 years ago now – I went through something equally crushing. I learned the devastation of having my best friends turn their backs on me and walk and ignore my excruciating pain. For a very long time I festered and thought and analyzed and talked and obsessed about what was done to me. About what I could have done differently, about what I’d say to those two women if I was ever given the chance.

When one of them emailed me about a year after all was said and done, with an apology, I even posted about it on an Infertility Support Forum this is was I posted, this will give you some insight into what I’m referring to:

Girls, I’m so sorry, I’m monopolizing the forum today, but I need help, something I’ve dreamed about for a year and a half has just happened and I’m so shocked and sad all over again…………
Let me start at the beginning! Sorry for those of you who have heard this story a thousand times, but please understand, the reason I always mention it is because I’ve never made peace with it, its something that still haunts and hurts me. Its something that still makes me cry when I allow myself to think about it, anyway, here goes:

In November 2006 my one BF (lets call her I)phoned to tell me she was pregnant, I was absolutely crushed! I phoned my other BF (we’ll call her A) to talk to her, have a sounding board, just somebody to share my raw emotion with.
Anyway, the following day A phones me to tell me she’s just found out she’s pregnant as well.
You can imagine, I thought I was going to loose my mind, I didn’t want to think what lay ahead, we are always all together, the three of us girls and our DH’s are all best buds as well, so I knew that hell was lying ahead of me. But I tried to prepare myself as best as possible.
The following week I got my 6th BFP! I was ecstatic!!! We all were, three BF’s, our due dates were for I 29 June, for A 6 July and for me 8 July. We were planning our maternity leaves together, how our babies were going to be BF’s, the works. They went for there 6wk scans and all was peachy, they described the heart beats everything, I was so excited to finally finally be a part of this to be able to participate was amazing! I went for my 6wk scan – no heartbeat, foetus the size of a 5wk pregnancy. The next day I miscarried. I have never been so heartbroken in my life. I did not know how I was going to not only survive my own mc, but survive watching my BF’s have babies and know every single step of the way where I should have been, how big my baby should have been, when my baby should have been born.
I notified them via sms of my mc as I was too distraught to speak to anyone. Friend I IGNORED my sms, she never bothered to make any contact with me, other than to send an email one week later to say she was sorry to hear I’d had a bad scan!!!!!!! My baby is dead and you’re sorry about a bad scan???!!! This friend I being the very same friend who’s cat had been run over 3 months previously. This same friend who I’d rushed to her house, I’d cleaned the blood off the pavement, picked upt he cats dead body, disposedof it for her, went shopping for her and spent a weekend sleeping at her house with her to keep her company after the loss of her cat and she can’t even acknowledge the loss of my baby!!!!!!!!! I was so hurt, but little did I know that worse was still to come.
Two weeks after my mc, I was still bleeding, friend A phones me the one day to tell me and I quote “Sharon, the world does not revolve around you, get over yourself, my pregnancy is just as important and you’re putting a dampner on it”!!!!!!!!!!!!
I was stunned, I did not know what to say or how to react, I simply retreated into myself. They systematically shut me out after that. No longer were DH and I invited to join in on evenings out nothing. They just went dead quiet as if they no longer existed, as if our friendship had never been anything. This has haunted me for a year and a half, for a year and a half I have thought about this every single day of my life, I have cried too many tears to remember over this, the words still ring in my ears, the hurt still stings and burns every day of my life. I have fantasizedabout what I would say if I ever saw them again, if they ever made contact with me again. I have thought about this moment every single day for a year and a half. I’ve lain awake at night thinking about this and this is the email I received today:

Quote:
Dear Sharon,

I know you must be very surprised with this e-mail and possibly upset, but I want to assure you that this mail is not meant to upset you in any way.

This e-mail is also not intended to mend our past friendship.

I have been thinking about you a lot lately and I strongly feel that it isn’t right to leave things the way I did.

For the first time in my life I have a better understanding of what I think you might be going through. I can not begin to imagine how suffocating it must be to want to be a parent so badly, but not having that dream come true. And I now understand how something like that can be the source of so many different emotions, especially when your friends don’t really understand and babies are just popping out everywhere around you. The self doubts, disappointment, resentment, envy and pure heart ache.

I am sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most and I am sorry about so many things that was said and done. I do believe we both had a share in things that was said and done, and I have fully forgiven you and I have forgiven myself and I hope you have done the same.

I really mean everything in this mail from the bottom of my heart and I would never want to cause you one minute of unhappiness.

Sharon, we miss our frienship withyou guys immensely, but I know we are not good for each other. But I want you to know that I do think back on the good times we shared and I am grateful to have known you. You are both amazing people. I truly hope all your dreams come true and wish you only the best.

Kind Regards,

And now I dont’ know what to do or what to say??????????? But I feel like I’m going to be overcome with grief and pain all over again. Please somebody tell me what to do or say because I don’t know how to do this.

 
This is my response:
 
Quote:
Dear A

Surprised is an understatement; stunned is probably a better word. Although I’m not really sure why, but I always suspected this day would come. Your email has been like having a plaster ripped off a very painful oozing bleeding wound and has drudged up all the hurt, sadness, devastation and disappointments of the passed year, I cried the whole way home from work today.
I could not respond immediately for a number of reasons, firstly because I didn’t know how and because I needed sometime to think about exactly what I was going to say. I have restarted this email about 10 times already.

My initial reaction was to simply reply that I had forgiven you and moved on, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I have more to say than just that. Firstly because my initial response sounded harsh and secondly because I know I’m partly to blame for what happened because I never allowed anybody to see how truly raw my emotions over my infertility and countless miscarriages were and perhaps if I had done that my two best friends would have reacted with some level of compassion, but I couldn’t do that, I was afraid to bare my soul and let you and friend I see how deep my hurt ran.
But it’s a little over a year and a lot of water under the bridge for me. So let me start off by telling you what I’ve been through in the passed year:
1. 2 failed adoption attempts
2. 3 Failed Artificial Inseminations
3. 1 Failed Invitro Fertilization – pre genetic testing done on our embryo’s and all of them had Patua’s Syndrome (Trisomy 18)
4. 1 Failed Immune Modification IVF where I went through hell and spent weeks being injected 2 times a day and walking around covered in the most painful purple bruises on my thighs, stomach and bum
5. 1 Cancelled IVF – after going through all hell of egg retrievals and medications, my eggs didn’t fertilize and the treatment was cancelled.
6. A hysterosalpingogram – an incredibly painful X-Ray that entails local anesthesia onto my cervix and dye being injected vaginally into my uterus and fallopian tubes while fully conscious
7. An office hysteroscopy again involving an anesthesia onto my cervix
8. More blood test than most human beings will have in a life time, including DNA and Genetic testing that involve drawing BOTTLES of blood and not viles blood.
9. Additional Surgery with a partial tubal ligation
10. An inflammatory reaction to my surgery and being hospitalized
11. Witnessing the birth of my second nephew on the anniversary of my miscarriage (21 November)

I went through all of that with no best friend for comfort or support, with only my incredibly strong husband to carry me through, so I mean this with the greatest respect when I say this, but I don’t think you can have any understanding of what the passed 6 years have been like. The only people who can understand this are people who have experienced this and I would NEVER wish this on even my worst enemy. I live most women’s worst nightmare every day of my life. I live with the memory of lost babies, it has fundamentally changed who I am forever and ever. I can never go back and be the person I was 6 years ago, my heart and soul have been scarred for eternity. But its not all bad, there are many things I’m grateful for. My infertility has made me stronger, braver, kinder and more compassionate than I ever dreamed possible. I am proud of the person I am today.

But I do want to tell you this as well. What happened between you and friend I and I nearly killed me. It broke my spirit for a very long time. What you both did hurt me almost as much as loosing my babies There has not been a single day go by in the passed year where I have not thought about you and friend I and what happened. I have questioned time and again how this could happen, how when I needed my two best friends the most, they weren’t there for me. I don’t think you can ever imagine how much having you and friend I just cut me out hurt me.

But I have forgiven you both and moved on. What is done is done and in the passed.

I thank God everyday for my incredible husband and our truly strong marriage as I’m sure a lot of marriages would have crumbled under the strain of what we’ve been through in the passed few years. But instead we stand stronger together than ever before.

My greatest regret is that DH has lost his best friend in the process and I would give anything to change that for him.
But life goes on and we’ve moved and are standing at the door of a very exciting new life for ourselves.
I wish you nothing but good things and hope that you can do the same for DH and I.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to purge some hurt and emotion that I’ve kept inside for far too long! The sense of relief and freedom I feel after typing this email is immense, I feel like I’ve been set free from a very heavy burden that I’ve carried for too long.

Kind Regards

Sending this email gave me a certain amount of closure, but really the best healer is time……..

So it was a total surprise when last week out of the blue, this ex-friend SMS’d me with Birthday wishes, kind of surprising when you think that 3 years have past, but what was even more surprising is my reaction to it. Nothing! Niks! Nada! I’m so pleased that this chapter of my life is over, that I’m free of this, that I’m no longer bound by the hurt & sadness of this poisonous friendship, of what is in the past.

Another hurdle over come, another door closing and perhaps a new one opening?

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Thoughts On Loss

Comments:16 Comments

Just recently two of my friends have suffered the misfortune of miscarriage. One friend is a multiple miscarriage survivor and the other is battling through the unfamiliar territory of her first (and hopefully last) miscarriage. Its been an enlightening experience for me, watching from the sidelines, doing my best to offer both moral and emotional support. But its also been an odd experience, like dejavu, watching the emotions evolve as they both work through their grieving processes individually and yet the emotions are pretty much the same.

Its also stirred up some of my own feelings about my own losses over the past 7 years. Losses I thought I’d dealt with and moved on from, but I guess we never really get over these losses, they do become easier to cope with over the course of time, but they never really leave us completely. I try not to dwell on them because the sadness and sense of loss would be overwhelming and yet what I’ve lost would be impossible to describe.

I suppose what makes the grieving process of a miscarriage, especially a first trimester miscarriage, so unique is that its not something that the majority of the population can relate to, as a generally fertile society the feelings surrounding miscarriage seem to be largely misunderstood. People seem to think its something you recover from and you recover from quickly. Until I went for therapy about 2 years ago, I used to make excuses for the emotions I felt about my pregnancy losses. It was only when the therapist told me that I did not need to excuse my feelings of sadness and loss that it actually begun to sank in, that it was  a big deal, that it was terribly sad and that it was a massive loss.

Some people would argue that you can’t really call it a loss because how can you loose something you never truly had. Well for me, and I sure I speak for most miscarriage survivors, my sense of loss comes from the could have beens. From the dreams and aspirations I had for that child from the second I became aware of their existance.

That sense of loss, although not overwhelming anymore is always there. I wonder if it will ever go away, I wonder if the only thing that can take it away is a living, breathing baby of my own? I haven’t gotten to “the other side” yet, but hope to very soon, perhaps then I’ll know the answer.

But for now, I want to tell my friends and anyone else reading this who’s battling through the pain and emotions of a miscarriage, don’t let anyone make you feel that your feelings aren’t justified!

Posted in Questions About Infertility

To Know Or Not To Know?

Comments:10 Comments

boy_girl_symbolsI’ve often wondered if knowing the sex of our babies makes it harder to come to terms with their loss? I haven’t really thought about this for a while, its just something I’ve believed to be true, for me it is anyway. My first failed IVF was hardest to come to terms with, not just because it was the first IVF and your first failed IVF is crushing, but also because we did PGD with that IVF so we knew that both our embryo’s transferred were boys. Knowing they were boys got me thinking about things I hadn’t/haven’t thought about during my other IVF’s. Very gender specific things. Would they grow up and be tall and very masculine like their Dad, would they love rugby, would they be Mommy’s boy, would they be little hooligans? I’ve not thought about those things in the same way with my other IVF’s or pregnancies, for that matter, mostly because we had no clue of the gender and lost the babies & was not given a D&C. But that failed IVF hurt, it crushed me, saying goodbye to my boys was excruciatingly painful. I suppose knowing the gender was painful in the loss in the same way that a failed IVF is so much more devastating (for me personally) than a failed IUI or timed cycle. You don’t have to wonder at what happened, you know that living dividing embryo’s were put back. Knowing means that you know whether you lost boys or girls or both.

This week, one of my BFF’s, Elize, had her follow up appointment with Dr G on Monday and got the results from the tests carried about on her foetus. And on the one hand I was thrilled that she got an answer as to why she miscarried this time, on the other hand I was completely crushed for her. Her news that the baby had Downs Syndrome and that it was a precious little girl was devastating to me, it really felt like a swift, hard punch right in the center of my chest. So if it felt like that for me, I can only imagine how it must have felt for her.

I really wonder if it wouldn’t be best for us not to know the gender of our unborn, miscarried babies. From my own experience I’ve found that knowing the gender has made that tiny blob seem so much more real and so much harder to say goodbye to.

To all my precious friends, and God knows there are too many of us, who’ve suffered the tragedy of a lost baby, I hope that one day the ache in our hearts can be healed by the joy of a living breathing baby. I know God is taking care of our precious little ones and that one day we will be united with them.

Elize, my special friend, I now know what your definition of fine is and I want you to know I’m here for you, even if you are fine!

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Two Steps Back

Comments:21 Comments

After the shocking news of Elize’s loss yesterday and her planned D&C today, I’ve taken a few steps back and I’m back to asking to TTC or CTT?

Where will this all end? Will there be a happy ending? Will it actually be worth all the heartache and pain? I really really don’t know the answers to all these questions. I do know that the news of Elize’s fourth loss has sent me into a downward spiral, even further into the black depression that has been engulfing me for weeks, now complete with extreme anxiety and even a little panic attack thrown in for good measure yesterday. I really hope that my RE will come back to me today with that script for the AD’s, I clearly need them.

I’m back to questioning whether we should push ahead or not, whether we should give up our frozen embryo’s for adoption. I know thinking of this absolutely terrifies me, but so does going on right now.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be making any decisions right now.

Posted in Infertility

Heart Break

Comments:5 Comments

As if I weren’t already beyond depressed! As if I wasn’t already heart broken, I just received the worst news imaginable, my best friend, who has suffered multiple first trimester miscarriages, and who’s journey to parenthood has also been painfully long has just found out that yet another pregnancy will end in sadness and misery at 10 weeks.

Please go and give Elize some love. After battling infertility for many years, suffering multiple first trimester miscarriages, she just received the devastating news today at her 10 week scan that the babies heart has stop beating. She’s scheduled for a D&C tomorrow.

My friend, there are no words of comfort, there’s nothing any one can do right now, I know your pain is beyond unbearable! I’m so sorry for both you and Stian and for the shitty hand you’ve been dealt yet again. Know that W and I love you both and that we will do anything you need right now, anything you can’t do for yourself, allow me to do it for you. We love you and we’re heartbroken for you.

There are just no adequate words.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Dodged A Bullet

Comments:17 Comments

I think part of the reason my IF journey has become easier to cope with over the past few years is because I’ve done such an excellent job with self preservation. Somewhere around the time of my last pregnancy I just one day decided that if something was too painful for me to cope with, I just wouldn’t do it. After I miscarried, I was in a very fragile emotional state and exercised my right to self preservation even further. I systematically cut out and avoided anything that related to fertiles all together.

And of course, the luck of the infertile is that as soon as you suffer a major set back regarding your fertility everyone  close to you will fall pregnant, almost as if our infertility is like a fertility drug for the fertile. Babies start popping out left right and center, both planned and unplanned. In the 6 years, 4 months and 12 days (see what freaking tickers do to you) every female close to me has had one, two or three babies. And all of the pregnancy announcements have come either in the middle of an IVF or during the repeat Beta tests in the early stage of one of my miscarriages. And every time its felt like the universe has conspired to make my infertility as painful as absolutely possible for me.

I never saw my SIL pregnant, I never attended her baby shower, I surrounded myself with fellow infertiles and worked hard at cultivating friendships within the infertility community. I’ve known from the word go that this was like creating a paper empire and that at any moment it could all come crashing down around me. I know my reality is unrealistic and that I cannot avoid pregnant people and all things fertile for the remainder of my life. To be honest, I dread having to face the real world again. I dread the fact that one day (probably in the very near future) I’m going to have to deal with a pregnant woman, no matter how tough or how much it hurts.

But for now, for today, I can utter a huge sigh of relief. I dodged flying bullets from a HUGE machine gun today. Yesterday, two of my colleagues who sit in the same office as me announced that they were both feeling extremely nauseous and had been for a few days. I almost past out! I felt my heart constrict, I felt the fear, the wondering how I would survive 9 months with two pregnant co-workers.

You know how the superstitious infertile mind works? Right? So here’s what went through my mind (baring in mind this is the messed up thought patterns of a KuKd woman)

1. I’m infertile so of course their nausea relates to pregnancy, it couldn’t possibley be anything else.

2. With two pregnant colleagues in the office, my IVF was doomed to fail.

3.  The next 9 months are going to be torture, watching their pregnant bellies grow and listening to all the pregnancy talk, how am I going to survive?

I know this must sound INCREDIBLY selfish, but I’m so relieved to hear that neither of them is in fact pregnant. I’m relieved purely for my own selfish reasons, thank goodness, I’ve dodged that bullet for now, but for how much longer can I keep being this lucky?

Me thinks not too much longer………….

Posted in Questions About Infertility

Pregnancy Announcements

Comments:10 Comments

I have a twin! I discovered my twin quite by accident. She lives on the other side of the world and we’re not identical in looks, but we are identical in fertility and in our thoughts on fertility. Stacey is somebody who totally “gets” and can relate to my thoughts and feelings on infertility, mostly because our journey’s have been almost identical. So this week, I’ve been doing a series of postings on my blog about my thoughts and feelings and needs in terms of coping with me when I’m pregnant and coping with me when I miscarry. Stacey did this fantastic post on announcing a pregnancy to somebody who’s battled infertility and RPLand I figured I’d include it on my blog as her thoughts are identical to mine.

This is what she had to say:

“I’ve been having a lot of thoughts lately about the topic of pregnancy announcements. I feel like I say this a lot on my blog, but please understand that I don’t write anything here to try to take a stab at some particular person who might be reading. I don’t write to make anyone feel guilty about how they might have handled a certain situation. I write here to share my feelings about all aspects of living with infertility and miscarriage. When I write about a topic like this one today, I hope to open up some dialogue between people on different sides of the issue. So, with that disclaimer out of the way, here goes.

The fact is that for most people in my situation, hearing pregnancy announcements is hard. As much as I don’t want that to be true, it is. I wish I could explain just how much I wish it didn’t have to be an issue at all. I remember way back when it wasn’t, and I long for that day to come again. How the news is delivered actually does make a difference, I believe. Trust me when I tell you that in 8 years I have heard lots of pregnancy announcements. For organization’s sake, I’ll list out a few scenarios and comment on each individually.

1. The Surprise
This is the pregnancy announcement that comes totally out of the blue and is usually delivered in a group setting, at a party, at a restaurant, at a family reunion or holiday gathering, or wherever. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with gathering up your family and friends for your special announcement, but certainly if there’s someone in the crowd that you know has had difficulty with infertility or miscarriage, there is probably a better way to let them in on it. I can’t speak for everyone but I can tell you that being in my shoes and being blindsided with pregnancy info in a public place is hard. Keep in mind, I’m not upset that the couple is having a baby! I’m upset because I know that my feelings will be on display in this room full of people who know what I’m going through and are looking for my reaction. I know it’s not about me, but suddenly I feel put on the spot and I have to fight with myself to keep it together.

2. The Guessing Game
Oh, how I hate this one. I know that finding out that you’re pregnant is exciting. I know that you just got married two months ago and you “weren’t even trying,” and oops, this is totally an accident and you have no idea how it happened. I know that you just peed on a stick and saw two lines and haven’t been to the doctor yet but you just can’t wait to tell everybody. (Yes, I’m being snarky, but I really do understand that it’s their right to tell people whenever and however they want.) But seriously, if you want me to know that you’re pregnant, please don’t make me guess what the great news is. Don’t play around and send me an e-mail that says you’re really excited about something that will be happening on a date that is exactly 9 months from today. I’m not dumb enough to have absolutely no idea what that news could be. The bottom line here is that I’d rather just hear the news, plain and simple, no guessing games. I’m happy for you, but this game is not my idea of fun.

3. The Mass E-mail/text message
I actually don’t mind being told about a friend’s pregnancy by e-mail or even text message. I’ll tell you why: because I don’t have to worry about my reaction. I don’t have to be concerned about whether my voice sounds shaky or sincere. I hope that my friends know me well enough to know that I do rejoice in their good fortune. Even if I feel sad for me, I can feel happy for them. Particularly for friends who have had problems with pregnancy or conception, I’ve most likely been praying that it will happen for them! But it’s hard when, like I mentioned earlier, I feel put on the spot or feel like I have to make my enthusiasm over the news match their own. When the news comes by message, I can deal with it however I need to at that moment, and I can reply when I’m ready with my congratulations.
There is one downside to this mass text messaging business. Hearing the important news that you’re pregnant or that the baby was just born or things like that by text message is totally fine with me. I don’t, however, need a mass text message sent to my phone every single time you have an ultrasound or doctor’s appointment, felt the baby move, or had false labor pains. There really is such a thing as too much information! That’s not to say that I don’t want to be involved in a family member or close friend’s life, but that kind of info is hard to hear constantly when you’ve been through painful experiences with pregnancy.

4. The “This Isn’t a Big Deal”
Yes, it’s a bit hard to get through a pregnancy announcement where the person is absolutely overjoyed and goes on and on about how awesome their life is. But I kinda get that. I understand in a way. I’ve been pregnant before, and yes, I even remember what it was like when I didn’t have the dark cloud of recurrent miscarriage following me around. I know full well that finding out you’re expecting a baby is a joyful time. But sometimes I get reactions that go the other way and I never know what to do with that. To tell you the truth, it’s weird to get a ho-hum-I-guess-I’m-pregnant-it’s-no-big-deal announcement. I’ll have people casually ask me, “Oh, did you hear we might be pregnant?” They just shrug it off like it’s not anything to get excited over. I get the feeling that this is perhaps to cushion the blow or protect my feelings. As much as I think those people are well-intentioned, I would rather if they would just be authentic with me. It’s ok that you’re excited. You don’t have to pretend that you aren’t!

5. The “Wait, I Didn’t Tell You?”
As hard as the pregnancy announcement might be to someone who has been waiting for years and years for their own baby, the non-announcement can be just as painful. There have been many times where my husband and I are the last people on the planet to hear the news from a friend. If it’s someone we don’t see often, sometimes we don’t ever hear about the pregnancy until the child is born! Of course, I know that people lose touch, but I can’t help but get the feeling that the friend didn’t know what to say, so they chose to say nothing. To be honest, leaving us in the dark for that long makes us feel like our friendship is not important, or that you think we don’t care when in fact we do. I’ll never forget going to church one day when all of my girlfriends were talking about the cute baby announcement they’d gotten in the mail from one of our friends who had moved away. I hadn’t gotten one. I blamed it on the mail being slow, but it never came.

Really, the bottom line is that everyone is certainly allowed to announce their pregnancy in any way they choose. If, however, you have a friend in my situation, she will be grateful if you consider her feelings when sharing your news the next time around. Maybe you feel like the list above leaves you with no options! Now I’d love to share some ways that I feel people have done it very well.

1. Be honest & real.
These are my two favorite characteristics in people! I love it when my friends are straightforward. They have some news to tell me, so they call me up or send me a message and they deliver the news in a direct and heartfelt way. They know that I love them and care about them, and that I’m happy about their news and wish them the best. They don’t feel the need to apologize about their pregnancy, and they don’t push me to share my deepest feelings about my situation in that moment.

2. Be sensitive.
I’m not saying you have to get emotional or feel sad for me when you have happy news. Friendship is about give and take. It’s about being there for every step along the way, for all the ups and downs that will come in life. I remember when a friend called to tell me she was having her second baby while my first loss was still very fresh. She cried with me and said that she wished we could have shared the experience together. I knew that in her joy she was still sad for me, and she knew that in my sorrow I was still happy for her. That’s what friendship is. No, you don’t have to cry if that’s not what you’re feeling. Being authentic and sincere, though, is definitely the way to go. The overall attitude of the person sharing the news can make or break the whole experience, I think.

3. Be forthcoming.
Recently I got an e-mail from a friend asking if we could get together for lunch so she could share some big news with me in person. Of course you know what was going through my head. A little while later she sent me another message telling me that it was work-related so I wouldn’t be wondering what it was. I loved that. How refreshing! It felt good to let my guard down and enjoy lunch with my girlfriend without wondering what was about to happen or how I might react. I didn’t feel like I was being set up for any ambush either. Had she been announcing a pregnancy, though, I have to say that I would have wanted to hear about it in a straightforward way right then in the e-mail. Making an appointment to talk about it one-on-one would make me pretty uncomfortable right now and can be very overwhelming.

One of the greatest things is when those rare friendships come along that will have the same comfortable, easy feeling no matter what life throws at us. I treasure my dear friends who have managed to not allow pregnancy or motherhood or anything else to change what we have. They teach me things about parenting year after year – the joys as well as the struggles. It’s good to have friends who are great parents to their children, and I value that. Unfortunately there are some friendships that don’t hold up through extended times of grief for whatever reason, and I find that very sad.

Whew, even after such a long post I feel like there is more to be said on this topic. I also want to talk about announcements within the infertility community as well, but that’s for another post and another day (very soon). The last thing in the world that I want here is to come across as whiny and selfish. I think being honest about these feelings is good, and I encourage you to let me know whether you agree or disagree with any of these points. I don’t claim to speak for any one group of people – I know that every single person has their own feelings and opinions about this, so please share!”

Posted in Questions About Infertility

What To Expect When I’m Expecting

Comments:16 Comments

pregnant_belly2001

My life has changed to much in the last few years and one of the changes is that W and I have had to cultivate a whole new circle of friends. So we have some old friends and lots of new friends. Most of my new friends have not been around me when I go through a pregnancy. Now with my IVF just around the corner, and hopefully a positive result, I thought it best to give you all a bit of insight into the workings of my mind during a pregnancy so that perhaps you’ll understand my reactions a bit better when (Please GOD) I get my next positive result.

Pregnancy, for those of us who’ve had the misfortune of experiencing recurrent pregnancy losses (RPL) is not actually a happy time. In fact, the number one emotion I recall experiencing with my last pregnancy was anxiety. Constant, never ending anxiety. Anxiety when you open your eyes first thing in the morning, anxiety throughout the day, anxiety when you try to sleep at night. Anxiety that builds and builds and builds and in my case has even resulted in panic attacks. I think I speak for all women who’ve suffered the misfortune of RPL, that the level of anxiety increases with the number of pregnancies lost.

As sick as it may sound, the only relief I’ve had from the terrible anxiety has come in the form of a miscarriage. Miscarriage I know, miscarriages I know what to expect and what to do, I know how it happens, I know the signs of it happening and as soon as its been confirmed I feel……..  resigned relief….. sick I know, but I feel a sense of resigned relief at not having to live with the constant anxiety that eats away at my mind every second of every day that I carry a pregnancy. My anxiety was so out of control with my last pregnancy that I’ve already arranged with my RE that the second I get my positive result I’ll be going on some safe anxiety medication for the remainder of my pregnancy.

Now I know what the non-RPL’ers will say, just relax. Stay calm, don’t get yourself so worked up. But everyone who’s suffered RPL will tell you, relaxing is impossible. EVERYTHING is terrifying. Every mile stone in the pregnancy achieved is frightening. My first reaction on seeing the two lines on a pee stick is crying. I immediately get this overwhelming sense of foreboding and anxiety and I can’t stop crying. Then we face the next hurdle, the blood test, once you’ve passed the first blood test its the agonizing wait for the second and third blood tests, analysing the HCG counts with each and everyone. Squeezing your boobs constantly, wondering why they’re so sore? Is it because of the pregnancy or because of your constant poking and prodding. Convincing yourself that they’re not as sore as they were the day before and hence a miscarriage is imminant. Going for the first scan………. God scans terrify me, I’ve never had a good one. They’ve always been bad and so for me scans will always be terrifying.

I also become supersitious, I don’t want any gifts for the baby, I don’t want to make any plans around the baby because I’m afraid that by doing those things I doom the pregnancy to a miscarriage ending.

I know many well meaning non-RPL’ers have told me to just pray and everything will be ok. But the truth is that sometimes God’s answer to our prayers is a No. If all it took to save a pregnancy was prayer, well then miscarriages probably wouldn’t exist and I’d have 6 beautiful children. I know my friends mean well, I know that they want to comfort and support me, but please understand that telling me to pray doesn’t comfort or help me at all.

I don’t think it will matter how far along I get in a pregnancy, I know that with my history of 6 pregnancies lost, that the statistics do not bode well for me and so regardless of whether I’m through the first trimester or not, I will be anxious and terrified and fragile.

I will be hard work to be around. My anxiety and uncertaintiy will irritate you and test your patience. But the only thing you can do for me is to be there for me and try and tolerate what you may perceive as negativity when next I get pregnant.

Posted in Questions About Infertility

What’s Different?

Comments:10 Comments

Its almost exactly 2 years since I did my first IVF. And although the time has shot by in the blink of an eye, I feel like I’ve grown emotionally in the past two years. I’m so not the same person I was two years ago when I embarked on my first IVF. I feel so much calmer and in control now  in comparison to what I was back then.

This time two years ago, I was still spotting (6 weeks on) from my last miscarriage, I was impatiently waiting for my cycle to normalize so that I could start my IVF. I was obsessed with doing IVF. I (ignorantly) believed that it was going to bring me my miracle baby. How wrong I was. I was so determined, so pig headed that poor W was seriously brow beaten during this time. I didn’t give a damn about how he was feeling about all of it. I just wanted to heal the massive hole in my heart and I thought that IVF would bring me the healing I so desperately craved. I felt I had to, no matter what the cost, I had to be pregnant by the time my due date (5 July) rolled around, I felt if I wasn’t pregnant that I would NOT survive the passing of my due date with empty arms.

But God had other plans, and through his plans, I’ve grown so much.

I’ve learned to let go of control of my infertility, I can only do so much and I”m doing everything I can. I’ve learned that there are no guarantee’s and that IVF is not some miracle treatment that will miraculously plop a baby into my empty arms. I’ve learned that I can be happy and live a balanced life while battling infertility. I no longer feel like my life ended when I had my first miscarriage and that I will only resume living when I hold a living baby. I’ve learned to live in spite of my infertility and this has brought me tremendous joy and balance to my life. For so long I felt like I was holding my breath, waiting to exhale, but now that I’ve broken the constraints of my infertility I’m free to breathe and live again.

With all of that in mind, I’ve also got a brand new approach to my IVF. I’m much more relaxed than I was before, I’m not overly excited or overly stressed about it, in fact I’m not excited or stressed. My feelings are rather ambiguous and I believe its because I’ve come to a place of acceptance. Because I’ve been able to surrender to my infertility and not fight it so hard, its been easier to cope with and prepare for my upcoming IVF. I feel like I’m a leaf floating down a stream, I’m just relaxed and floating along and will go wherever the stream takes me and not try to swim up stream or change the direction. It feels pretty good, it feels like I may get to my destination sooner because I’m not trying to find all kinds of detours and short cuts.