a loss

I was waiting a few more weeks (three, to be exact) to write this post with what was supposed to be happy news. It is with a very heavy heart that I instead write that we found out yesterday morning that our 11 week pregnancy is ending. A second loss. The grief is palpable in our home.

Kevin and I found out in early June that, after 19 months of trying to get pregnant after our first miscarriage, we were expecting. After endless tests, fertility consults, three failed rounds of Clomid, many blood draws, one surgery, a little humiliation, and lots of heartache and frustration, our naturally conceived pregnancy arrived as an unexpected, beautiful gift. We were overjoyed. We felt blessed. Things had been progressing well, with blood levels rising appropriately, progesterone supplements and multivitamins being taken every day, and an incredible 8.5 week ultrasound that showed a little grape-sized being with a discernible head and body, limb buds, and a strong beating heart.

Yesterday morning we went in for our 11 week appointment, to hear the heartbeat via Doppler for the first time. When the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat, he didn't seem concerned (because I have a tilted uterus, which could make it more challenging to hear the heartbeat with the Doppler in the first trimester). He sent us in for an ultrasound, where it was confirmed that our sweet baby had no heartbeat and had stopped growing at 9 weeks.

We are grief-stricken, but we are doing a good job of supporting each other. We have been comforted by the love and support of our families, friends, and co-workers. And, somehow, I feel rather clear-headed. I am so very sad, but I am ready to go through the grief this time, instead of fighting to go around it as I did last time. Pain is cleansing, and I have learned much over the past two years about my ability to endure, about the strength of my marriage, and about the beauty of relinquishing the desire to control situations which are very much out of my control. I have grown. I feel like a woman. Still, this is hard. 

We are not sure we are going to go back to the reproductive specialist just yet. We don't want any more of the pressure we felt to pursue the invasive, intensive, and expensive treatments that are so enticing when you are a couple deep into the life-consuming desperation to bear a child. For now we have decided that we will continue to work with my beloved acupuncturist, Dr. Julie, who is a true kindred spirit, a teacher, and a healer. (Julie, who fit me right in to her day's schedule when I called her office yesterday morning to tell her the news. Julie, who took me by the hand when I arrived, led me to one of the treatment rooms, hugged me, and just let me cry. Julie who has pieced me back together before, and who gave me the strength to know that this time I can piece myself back together - with her help. My gratitude for Julie is deep and abiding.) We will also be working with a local naturopath/midwife, who will help us understand why I am struggling with my fertility. We want to take a holistic approach to healing our bodies, minds, and spirits, and to achieving optimal health. Then, we will try again. It feels impossible to be thinking of trying again, when I am still carrying this baby, but we know that we will try again. 

This is a sad reason for me to start writing again after a long absence, but it felt wrong not to write about our baby and this loss. This loss which feels so very raw right now. This loss which will add another little scar to our hearts that, years after we have built our family, will remind us of the road we traveled to get where we were meant to go.

I can already feel the love and good thoughts pouring back to us as you read this, so thank you in advance. The love is needed and much appreciated right now. Friends, family, and thoughtful co-workers are getting us through this sad patch. Send some love to us, but also send some love out to the universe, to this hurting and healing world. The world could use a lot of love these days.

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First photo, at 5 weeks. 

Second photo, at 8 weeks.

First ultrasound, gestational sac and yolk sac visible at 5 weeks 2 days. 

Our bean at 7 weeks 5 days, the first time we saw the beating heart at 166 bpm.  

Big head, a little body, arm and leg buds, and a wild little heart beating away at a healthy 179 bpm.  

We are a little busted up right now (as my sister would say). But, we're going to be okay. 

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thoughts on a hard day (or, the longest post in this blog's history)

*I originally posted this a few days ago, and then I changed my mind and removed the post, and then I changed my mind again. I am posting this once again, this time for keeps. I wrote this on a hard day, and my mood and mind have improved vastly since then. It's amazing what a night of good sleep, exercise first thing in the morning, a hearty breakfast, the beginning of fall-like weather (my favorite), and a chiropractic adjustment can do for my outlook on life.

Today was a hard day. I woke up this morning, feeling tired and slow after a fitful night of sleep, and tried to talk myself out of taking a pregnancy test. Since our miscarriage last October I have taken many pregnancy tests, and every negative is a little heartbreak. In the spring, when I found myself in the midst of a very real depression (the result of having delayed dealing with all of the emotions from the miscarriage), the negative tests were almost too much to bear. I felt sad in a way that was beginning to scare me, and all I could think of was how much I wanted off the crazy baby-making train. 

I was gone for three weeks in May, visiting my mom in Spain, and the break must have been just what my body needed. After months of 40+ day cycles, I finally had a normal (for me) 33 day cycle. It felt great, and I thought, "Okay, here we go. I can go home now, refreshed and ready to start trying for a baby again." I was revitalized. I was wrong. My cycles went crazy again after I got back from Spain, one time reaching a record 50+ days. Waiting nearly two months for each opportunity to try again was torture. 

June and July were emotionally fine, maybe even good, because I was distracted by family visitors, travel, spending time with friends, looking for a job, working on the house, and strengthening my relationship with Kevin. I had finally gotten to a point of resignation by reminding myself that getting pregnant can take time, and that, if all else fails, Kevin and I are open to adoption. Kevin, unfailingly optimistic and gentle, was good about reminding me that no matter what, he and I will be parents one day. And, in my back pocket, I had the reminder that my doctor had said to make an appointment to see her in October if I wasn't pregnant by then (October because one year of trying without achieving pregnancy = infertility diagnosis). August arrived in what felt like the blink of an eye, and I was hopeful that it would finally be our month. I faithfully did the ovulation predictor kit (never getting a positive indicator of ovulation), and there was a whole lot of what the crazy online "trying to conceive" (or, TTC) boards call "baby dancing." Trust me when I say that frequent, scheduled "baby dancing" can become a lot less fun than it sounds.

About two weeks ago I woke up with some ovulation signs that I hadn't seen in months (and which I will not be elaborating on here, though if you are interested in learning more about the workings of a woman's body, I highly recommend the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler), and I felt hopeful that our chances of conceiving on this cycle were high. For the past two-and-a-half weeks (the dreaded "two week wait" - the time from ovulation to the beginning of a new cycle or a positive pregnancy test), I've tried to think about anything other than whether I might be pregnant. And yet, in the grocery store picking apples, in line at school to buy this semester's books, on the couch in the evening watching a movie with Kevin, on the phone with a friend, on a walk with the dog - all of the time - I found myself wondering, and trying hard not to hope. Was my left breast slightly tender?  Was that a flutter of nausea I'd just felt? I was desperately willing my body to feel a pregnancy symptom. When I woke up this morning, on day 45 of my cycle, I told myself that there was no chance I was pregnant and that I should take a test so that I could move on to the next month of trying. I was aiming for something like nonchalance, as a protective measure against hope. However, as I carefully unwrapped the stick from it's foil wrapper, and carefully peed on the stick for exactly five seconds, and then carefully avoided looking at it for exactly three minutes while I distracted myself with brushing my teeth, I felt my heart soaring with hope. I looked in the mirror and prayed fervently to God to please, please, let me be pregnant. To let Kevin and me have a baby, to let us live the dream of the crazy chaotic family that we both hold so close to our hearts. When I finally looked at the stick and saw just a single pink line I was devastated in a way I hadn't allowed myself to be in months. 

There are countless other triggers for this stealthy heartsickness. A friend or acquaintance, a blogger I follow, a movie star, a neighbor, or friend of a friend, announces she is pregnant and I fall apart. Someone makes a careless comment like, "We didn't even mean to get pregnant this time!"and a flash of jealousy pierces me. Yet another person tells me that if I could just relax, or not think about it so much, I would likely become pregnant. A friend of my in-laws',who hasn't seen me since my wedding five years ago, asks when Kevin and I are going to get around to having a baby. I see a hugely pregnant woman at the grocery store holding her beautiful toddler's hand. Kevin and I make plans to get together with friends on a Saturday, only to have it turn out to be a morning play date at the park for the three other couples' perfect little boys, and we show up painfully childless only to be asked by one of our friends why we didn't borrow a baby for this play date (it is a joke, not mean to be unkind, but very painful nonetheless). I find myself trying too hard not to stare at my pregnant friend's beautiful swollen belly, and instead focus on asking her rapid-fire interested questions to hide the jealousy and the pain I am feeling. Hearing about someone else's miscarriage or infertility struggle and feeling both incredibly sad for them, and secretly, a little bit relieved that I am not alone in this struggle. All of these moments make me catch my breath, stand very still for a moment, and wait for the feeling of desperate grief to pass.

I know, in the most rational part of my self, that everything is going to be okay in the end. I am now entering the proactive stage of this journey to conception. I had my first appointment with the acupuncturist today, and while I don't know if the treatments and herbs will change anything physically, it is already helping me emotionally and psychologically to feel that I am taking action. I also have an appointment with a new OB/GYN who specializes in infertility, and I have the name of a reproductive endocrinologist that, if necessary, I can make an appointment to see in a few months. Kevin and I have barely started talking about the kinds of fertility treatments and interventions that we are open to trying. It's difficult to talk about things like Clomid, IVF, and adoption, in part because there is an overwhelming amount of information available on each of these options, and partly because these options are a deviation from the original baby-making plan we had in our minds. And that's what this whole infertility (and I can't believe I belong to the category of women struggling with infertility) struggle comes down to - the struggle to realign our thinking with a new plan, to resign ourselves to the fact that we are going to require a little bit of help and intervention to achieve what happens so naturally for other people. There is also the struggle to remind myself that I am not defective in some way. It helps to talk about all of this (my mom and my friends have been especially supportive), but it is also difficult to talk about these feelings because I can never fully explain the pain that comes with the loss of innocence about the process of baby-making to someone who has never been through this.

It's not easy to be one of the last couples in our group of Kevin's college friends, our grad school friends, and our Minnesota friends, to remain childless. The first round of babies for our friends were an unquestioned cause for celebration - we thought we would be right behind them all, and, more than that, we were totally, unselfishly, happy for our friends.  It has been the second and third babies that have been more difficult for us to celebrate. I feel guilty admitting that, but I also know that these feelings are a reaction to a deep pain that has nothing to do with our friends' happiness. These feelings are temporary and do not reflect the deep love we have for our friends, and the joy we feel in their joy over their growing families. We do not want our friends to refrain from sharing their happy baby news, or from letting us play "tia" and "tio" to their kids, or from including us in birthday parties, baptisms, and play dates at the park, or even from asking us to babysit. It's just more difficult for us to do these things at this particular point in our lives.

I never planned on sharing all of this publicly, but already I feel it's helped to write these thoughts down. I know I've found comfort in reading other bloggers' words on miscarriage, infertility, pregnancy, and parenting, and maybe someone will read my words and feel a little less alone in their own infertility journey. Also, not writing about this struggle that has become such a defining point in our lives is the reason I haven't blogged much over the past nine months. Trying to find other things - more pleasant and less intimate things - to write about felt unauthentic. It was becoming a struggle to sit down and write at all, if I couldn't write about this struggle that weighs heavily on my mind and heart. There is catharsis in writing all of this down, and I am grateful for this virtual space that allows me to do this.

Finally, a few weeks ago, I came across these photos from last October, when I found out I was pregnant. It was a beautiful time for Kevin and me, and it felt wrong to throw the photos away just because two weeks later we had a miscarriage.

The day we found out we were pregnant, after only a month of trying. Pure joy.

Just seven of the ten tests I took so that Kevin would really believe I was pregnant. 

If you've read this entire post, you now know much more about my cycles than you ever needed - and likely ever wanted - to know. You've also seen my urine (see photo above). I am sorry about that. But, also, I thank you. You are now a part of my healing process.