12 short weeks

12 short weeks ago I was sobbing because my sweet baby boy was dead and I was going to have to deliver him. Tomorrow, 12 weeks from his death, I will be going in for my 8th IVF retrieval.  I am hoping that there will be a living, viable baby among those eggs, but know that the chances of that happening are slim.  I miss my baby boy and wish that he were here.  Wish that this wasn't what has happened in my life.

A photo that makes me smile to counter balance the deep sorrow and sense of loss in my life.

Stim Day 6

Soooooo, I was supposed to be writing little positive memories of each day.  Fail.  I'm tired.  We're busy.  I can't make myself slow down to write because I don't know where to begin.  Or where to stop.

I can write you about our crappy Father's Day and how disappointed I was in my husband for his choice of activities...which included NOT being with his family.

I can write you about how as I was walking into my fertility clinic I ran into a woman that I have only met a handful of times and had heard from a mutual friend that she had lost a baby girl at 24 weeks in November.  I may or may not have cried out when I saw her that our babies had both died and hugged her. 

I can write you about how strange and unhinged I feel now that my daughter is out of daycare and the reality of not having daily interactions with humans is starting to settle in.  I fear that being a bit of a goal-oriented introvert that I will slowly become more socially isolated as I get absorbed in doing little tasks around the house.

I can write about how scared I am about making any next steps with my career for fear that there isn't anything in this world that I would actually like to do.

I can write about how I ran into an old college roommate and her older brother who was the Resident Advisor in my dorm freshman year.  It was embarrassing to see them and be so adrift in my life.  I can't help but feel like a failure about the way my life has turned out.  I had such plans.  They were little plans...but they were plans at least.

Let's just talk about my cycle instead.

My estrogen on stim day 6 is 491.  I keep my trusty little excel spreadsheet with E2 numbers and try to decipher the outcome of my cycle.  For my two most recent successful cycles, my E2 rose very slowly: by stim day 6, my E2 was 135 and 159 for these two cycles.  Waaaay lower. What does this mean?  My follicles are all 9-10mm, so they've got at least another 5 days of stimming, which would put me at 11 stim days.  Does that mean that there are more follicles this time?  Is my cyst secreting E2?  This cycle is most similar to the cycle in NJ.  On CD 6, my E2 was 486.  Will this cycle be another utter and total disaster? 

How much more of this can I take?

Happy memory: We bought a hammock a few weeks after Mackenzie died and hung it on our screened porch.  There is something deeply relaxing about gently swaying in the swing, reading a book, and listening to the light laughter of children in the background.  Tonight my son was showing a friend around the house and said, "That's my mommy's chair."  I had never laid claim to it out loud, but he knows it is mine.

I guess I'm really doing this; IVF#9

I've been kicking and screaming the whole way.  Refusing to admit that I was doing an IVF cycle again, despite the fact that I put $4K of charges on our credit card for a cycle.  Despite the fact that I had an HSG and endometrial biopsy done again.  Despite the fact that I have spent absolutely no time thinking about how our future might look if I do or don't get pregnant.

Since Mackenzie died, my horizon shortened.  In the first few weeks after he died, I didn't know what I would be doing in a few hours, let alone a few days.  I didn't know when grief would sideline me and I would find myself sobbing in my kid's play tent in the basement, lost in a reverie about struggling to curl my body up enough so that all three of us--Baby Girl, Nugget, and my big ol' belly--could fit in.  As the bouts of grief became less frequent (but no less intense), I could make plans days in advance, but only with close friends with whom I could trust to let me cry or cancel if necessary.  I still am not at the point where I can make plans a few weeks out, let alone bigger life plans like whether I will go back to school or return to my old job.  I honestly still don't know whether I'll go through with retrieval.  I might get a few days into this cycle and have a total melt down and decide that I can't put myself through this again.  I'm just taking every single day as a solitary event, subtracting in my mind the impact that today's decisions will have on tomorrow's outcomes.

To help me stay in the present and soak up my little life with my living children, I'd like to challenge myself to post a picture and/or a little memory from the day.

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Day One: 10 weeks since I last held Mackenzie

This morning I was frantically trying to get out the door to go to my monitoring appointment at 8:30.  Having not had to deal with the morning rush in the past 10 weeks, I've grown quite rusty at the routine.  I was running around like a crazy person trying to find my cell phone before I left, screaming at my husband to try calling my cell phone and to "help me!"  My son, still sleepy eyed from just waking up, called out from the top of the stairs, "I'll help you, Mommy."  It broke my heart to have him see me in such a state over such a meaningless worry, but was so heartening that his reaction was to want to help.  Luckily, I happened upon my phone before he even made it down the stairs.  I dashed out to the car and he stood at the window blowing me kisses.  Slow down, Mommy.  Don't worry, Mommy.  This isn't worth the rush or the stress, Mommy.

Box of Drugs

My IVF drugs arrived on Thursday.

I've been in a fucking pissy mood ever since.

I don't want to do IVF again.

I don't want to be a crazy hormonal bitch.

I don't want to have to stick myself with needles.

I don't want to have to stress about whether I will get pregnant and how many cycles I can endure and how much all of this is going to cost.

I don't want to have to put all vacation plans on hold permanently until we know when our cycles will be.

I don't want to have to face the fact that my fucking baby died and now I have to do all this shit over again.

I've even managed to mess up my protocol.  I was supposed to start the estrogen patch TODAY not YESTERDAY.  I hope I haven't already screwed everything up.

I miss my baby.  I wish he was still in my belly getting ready to come out in a few weeks.  I wish I was starting to buy little baby boy summer clothes.  I wish I was getting all of the baby gear out again.  I wish my life was moving forward rather than standing still.  Again.

Waiting

I'm not a patient person.  I hate waiting.  I've done a lot of waiting in the past seven years since we stopped birth control and started to try for our family.  Unfortunately, practice hasn't improved my ability to deal with the anxiety caused by waiting.

I'm on cycle day 22 of my second cycle since Mackenzie was born.  The first cycle doesn't even count, though, because that period was induced by Provera.  I STILL haven't ovulated.  I've been spending two hours a day every other day driving to the clinic, waiting to be seen, being poked and prodded just to confirm that nope...my ovaries suck and they refuse to grow.  I have one follicle that is taking its own sweet time growing to the 20 mm minimum requirement for trigger.  I'm at 17.9 today.  But, it's only been growing about a maximum of 1 mm a day.  At this rate, I might finally be at 20 mm by cycle day 24, which will be a 38 day cycle.  Fucking forever.

Every time I go to the clinic I end up having a terrible day.  I'm reminded that just seven months ago, I left that clinic pregnant with twins.  And now I'm back at ground zero.  Doing IVF again.

Some days I think we HAVE to do IVF again.  We HAVE to have another child.  Our redemption.  I worry that in two or ten or twenty years we will regret not having more children.  I know that there are no replacement children, but I do think people that have lost a baby find salve in a "rainbow" baby.  A tangible evidence that if the pain of loss hadn't happened, this new child or addition to the family would not exist.

Other days I am so fucking tired of this process that I just want to stop.  Move forward with my life.  Enjoy my two healthy happy children.  Let go of all the pain that trying entails.

In other exciting news:
I am taking a year long leave of absence from my job!  I am loving not having the pressure of work or worrying about when I will go back to work.  And, honestly, being away from it....I just don't want to be there at all right now and being with my daughter and helping my son with his behavior and speech (which are big issues right now) is a big deal.  Plus, it opens space in my brain to think about other things that might bring me greater happiness in life than my current job.  We shall see.

Back in the Saddle Again

I thought I would cry or sob or something as I sat in the very same ultrasound room where I saw my little babies beating hearts merely five short months ago.  The technician looked at me briefly as she came in the room and turned to my chart on the computer.  "I've seen you before, haven't I?" she asked.  I watched as her shoulders dropped when I told her that, yes, she's seen me, but that my baby was stillborn five weeks ago and I'm getting ready to cycle again.  She turned back to me, her face a little crumpled, and she reached for the ultrasound wand.  "I'm sorry to see you again for so many reasons," she said and reassured me that she would be gentle with the wand.  Only 10 antral follicles, but we know that my range is typically 6 to 18.  All my bloodwork came back normal.  FSH at 5.6 and E2 less than 20.

I can't believe I'm back at the beginning of this elliptical story that seems never to end.

I'm not sure how much more I can endure, but do know that I can endure this cycle.  And, then I will decide again.

Tomorrow I go in for my seventh HSG.  Friday I go in for my fourth endometrial biopsy.  Hopefully, I will ovulate within a decent range of time and then I will begin estrogen priming and will start IVF#9. 

Am I strong?

Am I stubborn?

Am I crazy?

We miss you sweet Mackenzie.  I so wish that you would be making Nugget a big brother again in two months.  I wish that I was struggling with back aches and heartburn instead of trying to lose the baby weight and figuring out how to pull together the money for another IVF cycle.

Signs

I have a good friend that believes in signs, as in "signs from the universe."  I wish I believed in signs, but underlying it seems to be that there is a master plan behind one's life.  I generally to think life is just a sh*t storm and whatever happens is simply because of random chance and personal decisions rather than some master plan for the universe.

But, right now, I so desperately want a sign.  I've been looking into seeing a psychic or getting a life coach or randomly asking really old people about their personal life decisions to desperately try and decide what to do with my life.

Do I quit my job and take some time off to be with Baby Girl while she is so deliciously wonderful? 

Do I start up IVF again to try for another child again?

Do I stay in my job because it has IVF coverage? I have 3 cycles of IVF under my current insurance.  I could switch insurance in January to K@iser and have 3 more cycles of IVF covered there.  That's 6 more cycles.  Could I do 6 more cycles?

Do I sign up for cobra insurance coverage for 18 months and give myself just 3 more cycles of IVF coverage? 

Do I cut back my hours at work even more so that I have more time with Baby Girl and still have the IVF coverage and just push off the making a decision about my career for another year?

Do I learn to be satisfied with the two beautiful, healthy children we have been blessed to have?

I know this is crazy, but I feel so vulnerable with only two children.  I want to be like the Duggars with dozens of children.  Plenty of "back-up."  It's not even that I want "back-up" for one gender...I want "extras" of both genders.  Because how would I survive if my only son died?  How would I survive if my only daughter died?  The truth is that I would survive.  I would live if my children died, but my life wouldn't be as full and my heart would forever ache.

Plenty of people in this world think that two children of each gender is the "King's Family" (a son to leave your kingdom to and a daughter to marry).  The perfect family.  Why have more?

But, did those people ever lose a child?  Did those people ever struggle to have children?  Do those people understand how fragile and precious and amazing children are?

Is it natural to desperately want more children when one dies?

Elizabeth Edwards had twins after her 17 year old son Wade died.
John Travolta and Kelly Preston had another child after their son Jett died.

I know you aren't trading a soul for a soul, but maybe there is a primal desire to procreate and to make life after losing a child.  I wonder if having another baby is the only salve to recover from losing a child.  God, I hope not.  Because we may never be able to have another child. 

I just need a sign.

Is my longing a sign?  Will that just wane with time? 

I just can't figure out how to make sense of the pieces of my life anymore.