How Do We Heal?

I'm sorry I haven't written in a while.  I just haven't had much to say.  It's been almost 2 weeks since the ultrasound that crushed our dream.  I survived the bleeding and it actually wasn't too bad.  Which isn't surprising since it looks like we lost the baby around 6 weeks.  But considering the emotional pain I was am in it felt like it should have been more of an event.  Slowly my thoughts and focus have started to move away from the baby and miscarriage to other aspects of life.  Last night was the first night I didn't cry myself to sleep, which seems like a big milestone.  I've found my motivation to try and get rid of the 10lbs I've gained from 2 back to back IVF cycles.  I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever on Friday when I shared an ice cream cone with my silly dog and she was so excited (yes I'm that person who shares food with their dog - don't judge.  She's the only baby I have).  Life is slowly getting back to normal.  And when I think about that it brings fresh tears to my eyes.  I don't want my life to go back to normal.  To what I've always known.  I WANT to be pregnant.  I want to be experiencing changes and feelings I've never had.  To be planning for a future that includes a baby.

Instead I find myself trying to heal from what has been the most painful experience of my 33 years.  And I have absolutely no idea how to do that.  The grief and sadness is always there.  Sometimes I can push it away and other times there's no controlling it.  I've noticed that when I think about us having a child my mindset has switched from "when" to "if".  This thought makes my broken heart feel as if it will never be whole again.  And while I'm not ready to give up on us having a family (which is the only dream I've ever really had) I just can't shake the feelings of hopelessness.

Which leads me to our next steps.  We had our WTF meeting with Dr. H which was SO hard.  While it was nice to see the wonderful staff at my clinic it was hard to go back to where our world came crashing down.  But these people have been with us every step of this journey and they are so caring and compassionate.  I am grateful for every one of them, as they have truly made this difficult battle a little easier on both of us.  Dr. H didn't have a whole lot of insight for us.  As he put it, everything that we can control went right and we were successful with getting me pregnant.  He explained that this in itself was a victory since so many women have problems even getting pregnant.  Now our mission becomes keeping me pregnant.  He thinks the miscarriage happened because the embryo that implanted was not chromologically (is that a word?) healthy.  He explained that at Day 3 even embryos who look perfect still have a high percentage of arresting.  However, for those embryos that make it to Day 5 almost 90% of them are genetically normal or healthy.  That being said his recommendation was for us to move forward and transfer our 1 Day 5 grade 2 embryo that we froze.  I know you hear mixed messages about the success rates of frozen vs. fresh.  Dr. H said that their success rate with frozen transfers is higher since my clinic only freezes Day 5 embryos.  Based on the fact that our 1 embryo made it to Day 5, and that one of it's "siblings" implanted, he thinks our success rate for a FET would be between 60 and 70 percent.  D and I both have our doubts about transferring just 1 embryo since we transferred 3 and we are right back where we started.  But Dr. H addressed these concerns by saying that transfer DID work.  And this embryo is much further along and we know a lot more about it than the 3 we transferred last cycle.  When you factor in that a FET runs us around $3K (vs. $15K for fresh IVF) it seems like the right thing to do to transfer this one and hope it works.

So right now we are back to waiting.  How I hate the waiting.  I need to have a period and then we start me back on birth control while we wait for cycle to start.  The FET protocol is pretty easy.  I'll take Lupron injections to keep me from ovulating and then I'll do E2V estrogen injections every other day leading up to the transfer.  Once my estrogen levels and lining are where they need to be we'll do the transfer.  Then it will be the standard PIO injections and estrogen/progesterone suppositories until we get the beta results. Sounds like a walk in the park compared to my last round of IVF.  Unless something strange happens and my period comes early it doesn't look like we will make May cycle so we are most likely looking at June.  And honestly I'm okay with that.  I know I need time to try and heal and to grieve.  And as I mentioned earlier if I can get some of this weight off I think I will feel a little bit more like myself.  As far as the hope I have for the FET it's running pretty low right now. I know it only takes one but after all we've been through it's hard not to focus on the fact that we are running out of time, money, and options.  Which puts a lot of pressure on this lonely little frozen baby.  I pray that it's God's plan for us that this is it.  I pray that He can provide me some peace and some hope.  I pray for a miracle.

Endless

Time seems endless these past few days.  I haven't been able to bring myself to go to work so I've been working from home yesterday and today.  I started bleeding yesterday, which was both a relief and a terrible, terrible (emotional) pain.  Waiting for it to happen was it's own form of torture but enduring it is another.  I spoke with my nurse yesterday and we set up a follow up appointment with our doctor for tomorrow morning.  Nurse Jenny thinks that he'll want to do some other testing (possibly genetic testing on D and I to make sure that we aren't too close of a match to form healthy embryos) and maybe a hysteroscopy.  She claims they have great success with pregnancies after that surgery.  I feel like that may be the case in unexplained infertility but they've also said that my uterus is "beautiful" so I don't really think that is the problem.  Honestly I haven't thought much about next steps.  I'm not ready to give up, but haven't had the heart or the hope to actually think about where we go from here.  We do have 1 frozen embryo.  It made it to 5 day blast and is a grade 2.  However after transferring 3 and not having it work out, transferring one seems almost like a waste of time to me.  I guess we will just see what he says.

I'm having a really hard time talking to anyone who knew about the pregnancy.  In fact, I didn't speak to anyone until Sunday.  Then I finally called my best friend and my mom.  Up until then I'd only been communicating through text message.  It's just such a lonely feeling.  And everyone is so sad and so concerned about us.  While I appreciate that I can barely handle my own sadness, much less everyone else's.  I feel like the weight of it all is crushing me.  D's mom wanted to come on Saturday and I told her I wasn't ready to see anyone.  Same with my parents.  I just feel like there's no one who can truly relate to what I'm going through.  My two best friends both have children and while one of them did endure a miscarriage, she now has 3 beautiful children of her own.  Not to mention she never had a problem getting pregnant at all.   Somehow I'm sure this would be easier to endure if I knew that I would be able to get pregnant again easily.  Instead I sit here wondering if we'll ever have a baby, what I did to deserve this, why this is happening to us, and when, if ever, it's going to end.  We are definitely running out of options, time, and money and it seems so hopeless.  I was just so ready to put this behind us.  And now starting all over just seems so overwhelming and exhausting.

I know I need to find a way to return to the real world.  I emailed my boss and told him about our appointment tomorrow and that my plan was to come into work after that.  Which the thought of actually doing that makes me sick to my stomach.  But logically I know I can't just hide out forever.  Life goes on and I have to find a way to keep living it.  My only salvation has been my husband.  I've been a clingy, crying, mess for the last four days and he's been my rock.  I know he's sad and struggling with his own emotions but he's somehow managed to put them aside to focus on me.  He is the one thing in this world that is keeping me going.  How I love that man.  How I long to give him a child........

Broken

There was no heartbeat at the ultrasound today. I miscarried. 

I feel broken. Heart broken, physically broken, emotionally broken. I don't understand why this is happening to us. I don't know what is wrong with my body. I don't know how we move on. 

I feel like we are never going to have a baby. And it feels so unfair. I'm angry. And I'm sad. I'm so sad. I feel like D has been tricked into this childless marriage and it clearly was not what he signed up for. I feel guilty. And the weight of my disappointment, his disappointment, our parents disappointment is crushing me. I have failed everyone. Again. 

I have no idea where we go from here. I feel hopeless and helpless. And so very alone.  

Butterflies

Today I am 7 weeks.  Tomorrow we have our first ultrasound.  I'm not even sure how to put into words everything I'm feeling.  Part of me is bursting with excitement and joy at the thought of seeing our little one.  Another part of me is more scared than I've ever been in my entire life.  I have constant butterflies in my stomach that started last night.  If all is well tomorrow we will be more than 1/2 way through the first trimester.  Our baby should have a steady heartbeat.  Ears, eyes, nose, arm and leg buds developing.  It seems unreal.  I'm praying that it's not. 

The Never Ending Week

Happy Monday!
Well I survived Vegas and even managed to have some fun catching up with old friends.  I can't express to you how happy I was to get home to D and the puppy and my own bed.  I have not been sleeping well.  Which of course, worries me.  I'm not sure if it's the anxiety and worry or what.  Actually I know that's a big part of it.  But I just keep thinking if everything was fine I should be feeling exhausted.  Last night all I could think about as I laid in bed was our ultrasound on Friday.  Today I am 6 weeks 4 days.  On Friday I will be 7 weeks 1 day.  At the ultrasound we should be able to see the heartbeat (please God) and the yoke sac and I'm not really sure what else they will be looking for.  As I was traveling home on Friday I experienced some moderate cramping in my lower belly.  I would say I had a couple spells that lasted maybe 10 min or so?  I immediately started visiting the bathroom every 15 min. to check for bleeding but there was none.  I emailed Nurse Jenny and she told me that cramping is perfectly normal and it's my uterus stretching.  Then on Saturday I had some significant lower back pain.  Dr. Google tells me this is also normal.  My boobs are still sore.  Some days they hurt REALLY bad and others it's barely noticeable (which sends me running for the Crazy Train of course).  I haven't really had any morning sickness.  I do get a wave of nauseous here or there but it seems to pass as quickly as it shows up.  I find myself coming up with reasons for all of these symptoms.  It's the progesterone, it's my anxiety making me nauseous, something is wrong which is why I'm having pain and cramps.  Basically any excuse except things could possibly be going as they should.  That is just too hard for me to believe.

I just re-read this and I sound like a complete Debby Downer.  I do also have good days where I am positive everything is fine and so grateful/happy/excited about this pregnancy.  And I'm doing my best to hold on to that positivity.  I'm so hopeful that this is going to be our chance for a take home baby.  I already love this little one so much.  I know it might sound silly but I've already begun to think of us a "we".  In my mind I think "we need to run to the store after work"  or "we're hungry".  My best friend told me the other day when I was in a fit of panic that it doesn't matter how cautious I try to be or how much I protect my feelings.  That if something goes wrong I will be devastated.  So I might as well embrace the pregnancy instead of trying to hide from it.  I'm going to try and take her advice, though I know I will still have times where the fear and worry overcome me.

Vegas....baby?!

So I'm in Las Vegas this week for a HUGE convention for my job. I've worked for my company for 10 years and am very blessed to have a job that I love and to actually be using my college degree (marketing). Over the years I have formed so many amazing friendships with people who live all over the country and even the world. Most of them are in Vegas this week and while it's been awesome getting to see them and catch up it's also been a challenge. 

I am six weeks along today. Obviously we haven't told anyone except our immediate families and a handful of close friends who know we were in cycle. So you can imagine the challenge of meeting up with friends you haven't seen in forever. In Vegas. Where everything is on the company. In Vegas. Where I am not drinking. 

Please don't think I am complaining. I love a beer or a good glass of wine as much as the next girl but I am THRILLED to not be able to drink. But it's also WAY to early for 1/2 my company to know that we are pregnant.  So it's been...interesting to say the least trying to keep my secret. 

I'm feeling pretty good. It's just so hard. One minute I'm positive that everything is fine and the next I'm certain something has gone wrong. I worry if I have cramps and if I don't. Some times my boobs don't hurt at all and I get panicked. Then when they do hurt bad I blame it on the progesterone. I stayed out til midnight last night and then couldn't fall asleep because I was worried I should have been more tired. I definitely feel mentally exhausted from the internal struggle. 

But this week is almost over then I just have to survive next week until our first ultrasound. I'm terrified that there won be anything to see but also SO hopeful that by some miracle I am still pregnant and everything is going fine. I am praying constantly that's the case. 

One more Vegas night and this girl is heading home to my hubby and puppy. I can't wait.