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.

Every Moment of Every Day

I am trying to make mental shifts and reframing my view of life.

I wrote my friend who is due around the same time and told her:

Thanks so much for dinner last night.  It was so sweet of you and [your husband].  It was, as I imagine it will continue to be, difficult to see you and think about where I should have been in my pregnancy.  I can only hope with time I will accept this loss into the arc of my life and that seeing you and your sweet baby will not be some painful.  It's odd, but I did have a weird thought when we told each other that night that we were pregnant, that I hoped that nothing happened to either of our babies because it would be a terrible reminder.  Perhaps my intuition knew then that things would not go well with the pregnancy.  Please understand that it may be difficult for me to see you and your baby (boy or girl?  still waiting?), but that I will get over it and love your baby as we love [your older son].  I hope that some day I can be thankful for your baby because it will be a reminder of our sweet Mackenzie as life moves on and he becomes less of a part of every moment of every day in our lives.

 

Love you guys,

 

RunningMama

Well that sucked

Tonight my friend that was due three days after me dropped off dinner.  Her stomach was round and swollen and my baby is born and dead.  It fucking sucked.

And now it begins....

My new life without my baby.  Without the crutch of family and friends and support.  Everyone else's lives are heading back to normal and my life is anything but.  Today was the first time since the Friday before Mackenzie's birth (i.e., the Friday before Easter) that we have not had houseguests.  It's been great in that I haven't once had to worry about dinner or had to deal with Nugget's evening temper tantrums alone.

But, I also haven't had the space and time to reflect on Mackenzie's death and I fear my memory of him is fading fast.  My pregnancy with him was a mere nightmare, somewhere lost in the cobwebs of my mind. 

Few reminders of his life exist.  The remaining plants and flowers that were sent after his death.  The cards accompanying these flowers and notes sent in the mail.  The fact that I am still unable to fit into any of my clothes.  The small remaining strip of sticky stuff on my inner thigh from where they taped the catheter during delivery; I refuse to scrub it off.  If I look closely, at the top of my belly I can see the small scab from where the prick of the amnio needle went it.

Being out of a regular schedule for the past 3.5 weeks has been taking its toll on me.  I realized this weekend that I go crazy without a schedule of my choosing. I need to exercise every day and have everything organized and be constantly working down my to-do list or I start to get irritable and angry.  Couple a complete lack of control over my schedule, constant houseguests, and my now desperate need to process and understand my grief and I am a wreck.  I find myself wants to eschew the whole mourning process and move on to focusing on my new future.  I want to lose the baby weight and get in shape and get everything accomplished on my to-do list and start researching new jobs.  I don't have time for grief.  I don't have time to dwell on the life that I no longer get to have with a beautiful baby and the end of IVF treatments and moving forward with a new career.

If I push just a little beneath the surface, an angry, bitter screaming person emerges.  She demands her old life back.  She yells at random strangers.  She's constantly irritated with her husband.  She grabs the fat around her hips and curses the mass.  She throws away maternity clothes and baby toys without regret.  She hates her life.  She hates pictures of who she used to be: happy and hopeful and confident and excited about life. 

My birthday is coming up: 35.  I am fucking pissed about it.  My friends want to have a party and celebrate, but I don't.  I am a failure.  My life is a failure.  When I turned 30, I was 12 weeks pregnant with Nugget and so excited.  I thought that by the time I was 35 I would have all my children (i.e., all 3 of them) and I would have moved on to a new job and we would be living in a bigger, better house and everything would be wonderful.  I did not expect to be mourning the loss of my little baby boy, stuck in a job I hate, and so far adrift from where I thought I'd be that I don't even recognize myself.  I don't want to celebrate this birthday.  I can't see why I'd bother.  I certainly don't want my friends to gather around and acknowledge my failure.  I'm sure they don't see it that way, but I do.  I want to be alone, licking my wounds, and hating what I've become.  Healthy attitude, right?

I miss my baby.  I ache for him.  How did I lose you, baby boy?  I'm so sorry I failed you, too.

Don't Read if You Aren't in the Mood to Deal with One Angry B*tch

We've had constant guests since the weekend of Easter.  My mother-in-law and sister-in-law were standard fixtures that whole week.  Then, my sister and mother came to town.  Loving friends have brought meals, sat with me, talked to me on the phone for hours, emailed, left messages, texted, sent flowers, brownies, care packages with magazines and chocolate and lounge wear.  The outpouring of love we have received from our family and friends and coworkers has buoyed me up. 

But, I am finding it to be a false sense of security or optimism.  In the early hours of the morning when the night sweats wake me up or when things quiet down in the evenings, I revisit every decision we made during this pregnancy.  I think about whether we should have transferred two embryos.  I think about whether we should have allowed ourselves the space to mourn the loss of the first baby.  I wonder whether we should have been more aggressive about the care I received after the car accident.  I wonder whether we should have done the CVS or the amnio.  I wonder whether I should have gotten more second opinions on the heart condition diagnosis (cardiomyopathy).  I wonder whether we should have sought out a support group for people who had received diagnosis similar to baby Mackenzie.  I wonder whether we should have asked about the low amniotic fluid more or insisted that I be put on bedrest or have more regular monitoring.  I wonder whether I should have gone into the hospital on Easter Sunday when I felt those weird pains.  I wonder whether I should have cut back from work more when I started getting sick all the time.  I wonder whether I shouldn't have exercised.  I wonder if this loss is some sort of retribution for our mistakes in life.  I wonder whether it is a sign from a higher being that we are failures as parents and shouldn't have procreated (rationally, I don't believe this one, but it does creep in).  I wonder if I could have eaten more protein and that would have helped.  I wonder if I could have been a better advocate for my baby if I had done more research about worst case scenarios or the diagnosis. 

There are no answers to these questions and my doctors refuse to even entertain a discussion of the "what ifs" as none of them matter.  But, I think this is bullshit.  The doctors don't want to entertain "what if" because they don't want a malpractice suit on their hands.  The doctors aren't rewarded for helping us to understand this situation.

We got some autopsy results today.  They are still studying Mackenzie's heart and thyroid to understand what role, if any, they played in his death.  The only definitive results from the autopsy were that Mackenzie was genetically normal, that the placenta was degenerative, and that they don't know why the placenta was degenerative.  So, basically, everything that we already knew.  It's maddening.

I'm trying to figure out how to deal with my desire to publicly mourn baby Mackenzie.  I emailed my close friends the day that we found out he died.  I'm generally opposed to substantive announcements of any sort on Facebook, but I did decide to post about our loss.  I felt that it was necessary to be forthcoming for a number of reasons.  My husband isn't on Facebook and, in his stead, I am friends with many of his work colleagues, former mentees, and friends.  It broke my heart  to think about him having to answer questions one-by-one the next time he saw these friends about the baby. I think part of the reason that I posted it as well was to remind people blithely bobbing along in their lives that people struggle and people they know struggle.  I posted to remind those fuckers that post their positive pee stick before they're even out of their first trimester or who complain about how "hard" their life is dealing with 2 under 2 or 3 under 3 or blah blah blah to not be so oblivious to the luck they have received in life.

I find myself wanting to scream every time I am out in public that my baby died and I want to die and I hate each and every person I talk to.  I find myself telling casual acquaintances or random customer service people that my baby is dead.  I find myself considering mourning practices previously considered to be too garish and exposed:

• getting tattoos memorializing lost children or loved ones;
• wearing t-shirts acknowledging lost loved ones outside of a race context (i.e., "running in memory of Joe Schmoe who died of cancer");
• having memorial car decals; etc., etc.

I even found a shop on Etsy where a wood carver will make you a baby doll at the exact stage of fetal development at which your baby died.  And I wanted one.  They're only $100.  I want to carry my 22 week 1 day old baby around until he smells and rots.  I want to get a custom t-shirt made with a picture of my dead baby.  I want to carve a large, cherubic angel baby on my arm with his birth and death date.  I want to punch pregnant women in their bellies.  I want to both immediately lose all this fucking baby weight and carry it around forever because it is the last tangible, physical evidence I have of his existence on this earth.  I want to wear black every day until I die.  I refuse to wear make-up or put on anything other than slouchy sweats or curl my hair or look anything remotely like a well-adjusted healthy human being.  I want every single person that looks at me to think that something is wrong with that woman. 

I want my baby.  I want to hold him and smell his hair and have him suckle on my breast.

In the Pain Olympics, I have always weighed my competitors and acknowledged defeat to few: women who have done 4 or more unsuccessful IVF cycles; women who have had multiple miscarriages and taken years and years to conceive; women who were told that they have premature ovarian failure at a young age and were never able to conceive; women who have had to birth a dead baby after years and years of trying to have a baby; women who have had to birth a dead baby and then never get pregnant again. 

It's a crass and rude way to think about suffering.  I will tell you that I never really knew how multiple IVF failure would compare to infant loss.  I always assumed that infant loss would be worse. With both, your future is uncertain.  You don't know if you will ever get to have a child, what that child would look like, when your suffering will end, if you will ever feel like a whole person again.  Your body is not your own.

It's the exact fucking same.  It hurts.  You are mourning.  You wonder what your baby would look like.  What his or her life would be like.  You want to die.  You want the world to suffer.  You hate living.  It's the exact fucking same.