I never thought I would say this, but I think this is the miscarriage that has finally broken me. Every day seems like a struggle, and is not left without some sort of tears being shed. I think most of this comes from the fact that I am still bleeding. We are almost reaching the 3 week mark, and I am reminded of my loss every day.
I finally passed tissue last night and immediately broke down into giant, unattractive, sobbing tears. Never did I think that 2 years ago when I decided to have a baby, that all of this heartache and frustration would be what was in store for me. I have spent my life trying to prevent unplanned pregnancies so I could further develop myself and my career - and after waiting so long, this is what I have to deal with? It just doesn't seem right.
We went to the High Risk Pregnancy Specialist on Monday and were told what we have always been told. All of your tests are normal, and because of that reason, we feel you will have a positive outcome. Really? Because I'm starting to lose hope of anything positive. They said they could not even classify me as high risk because I was losing pregnancies so early. This I do not understand.
I'm not sure where I want to go from here. All I can tell you is that right now? I am emotionally and physically exhausted. But what I do know is that I been pushing both my mind and body to the limits for the past 2 years and I think it is time for both of them to take a break.
Showing posts with label Decisions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Decisions. Show all posts
November 13, 2010
September 8, 2010
Incompatible with life
I was going to wait to post this tomorrow, but I’m getting tired of reliving the past. I want to look forward, not back! So I’m going to post this tonight and finish up my story tomorrow. After that, I can AW about our latest donor cycle.
**WARNING**In this post I talk about the difficult subject of termination for medical purposes. Not everyone will be comfortable reading this, nor will everyone agree with our decision. You might also notice that I approach this post with humor and acceptance. Forgive me if I seem uncaring. This is a side-effect of my sunny outlook, my sense of humor, and the healing that’s taken place these past few months.***
Despite all the bad feelings I’d had about the cycle, I wasn’t surprised to get a BFP. At 7dp3dt I’d had really mild cramps all day long. I never get cramps before AF, and I’d never had cramps for any previous cycle, so I took the cramps as a good sign. I also received a batch of 50 cheapie pregnancy tests from Amazon that day, so I decided to test in the morning, or 8dp3dt.
Sure enough, the next morning I got a faint second line on an HPT. To rule out an evap line, I had Mr. GB get out of bed, pee in a cup, and watch while I tested his pee. He got a BFN. (For the record, I am a big advocate of POASing, and I would’ve done so sooner if I’d had HPTs in my possession.)
Fast forward past a few ultrasounds at the RE’s office. Despite my high betas, I admit I was disappointed to only have a singleton, because I knew we’d have to repeat the donor process (and expense) if we wanted siblings. At the same time I felt very lucky to have no morning sickness or fatigue. There were many times I’d forgotten I was pregnant. My mom was the same way with me, so I wasn’t worried. We even met my mom in Las Vegas for a short vacation and broke the news. She was thrilled, of course. We swore her to secrecy. Or so we thought.
Fast forward to my first OB appointment at 11 weeks. Yuck. Coming from a fancy-pants RE clinic to this OB’s office was like a culture shock. The waiting room furniture was uncomfortable, there were no magazines, and the décor was dated. The paperwork had no place for me to indicate that I’d used IVF, let alone an egg donor. The nurse kept asking me when my last menstrual period was, and I had to explain to her that my LMP was irrelevant and that she should use the donor’s LMP. She also asked me if I wanted genetic testing for cystic fibrosis. Clearly she was clueless both about IF and donor eggs. And don’t get me started on her gender predictions based on the Doppler heart rate. The doctor was equally uninspiring. I hated being treated like a pregnant fertile in an assembly line. I was ready to get out of there.
I vowed to find an infertile-friendly OB just as soon as I got my referral for an NT scan at 12 weeks. To me, the NT scan was a big milestone. Technically I didn’t need one because our donor was 28 and not AMA, but I wanted one anyway—I wanted to revel in the magic of high-tech ultrasound equipment and get my hands on the DVD they give you at the end.
Per my usual impatience, I booked the appointment on the early side of the NT scan window (11 weeks & some days) at a Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic at a local hospital. (MFMs see high-risk patients and have better-than-average ultrasound equipment.) The MFM’s office was also an upgrade over the trashy OB’s office in the same hospital complex. The MFM paperwork had questions about IVF treatments and a nice little “Donor Egg” checkbox. I was happy.
The exam room was also lovely, with twinkling lights on the ceiling. Didn’t see the doctor at first, just the technician and nurse. The ultrasound was my first experience abdominal ultrasounds--the RE is all about the vag-cam, which is a different experience altogether. It was weird keeping my pants on.
Long story short: at some point I was asked to go empty my bladder and return to the room for a vag-cam for a closer look (so I got to take my pants off after all). Ladies, I’m telling you, if this happens to you, it’s probably not good news. I’d seen the technician do the NT fold measurement and the number looked good to me, so I had no idea WTF was going on. So I pee, come back, meet the MFM’s vag-cam, and the technician resumes looking at the baby’s head. Finally she says she needs to go find the doctor. I ask her if everything is ok and she said she’s having trouble seeing the baby’s head.
At this point she stepped out of the room and left me and Mr. GB to hug and try to deal with this news. A few minutes later the doctor (a very nice woman) and a genetic counselor come to talk to us. They told us that the baby has a severe neural tube defect that was incompatible with life. Basically the baby had a brain but no skull. Our choices were to terminate or continue the pregnancy knowing that the baby would not survive.
As you can imagine, this news was terribly upsetting. But I knew there was no way I could continue the pregnancy, so we made arrangements for a D&E the following week.
Alrighty, that’s enough for today. I’ll try to wrap up my history in the next post.
Golden Bud
**WARNING**In this post I talk about the difficult subject of termination for medical purposes. Not everyone will be comfortable reading this, nor will everyone agree with our decision. You might also notice that I approach this post with humor and acceptance. Forgive me if I seem uncaring. This is a side-effect of my sunny outlook, my sense of humor, and the healing that’s taken place these past few months.***
Despite all the bad feelings I’d had about the cycle, I wasn’t surprised to get a BFP. At 7dp3dt I’d had really mild cramps all day long. I never get cramps before AF, and I’d never had cramps for any previous cycle, so I took the cramps as a good sign. I also received a batch of 50 cheapie pregnancy tests from Amazon that day, so I decided to test in the morning, or 8dp3dt.
Sure enough, the next morning I got a faint second line on an HPT. To rule out an evap line, I had Mr. GB get out of bed, pee in a cup, and watch while I tested his pee. He got a BFN. (For the record, I am a big advocate of POASing, and I would’ve done so sooner if I’d had HPTs in my possession.)
Fast forward past a few ultrasounds at the RE’s office. Despite my high betas, I admit I was disappointed to only have a singleton, because I knew we’d have to repeat the donor process (and expense) if we wanted siblings. At the same time I felt very lucky to have no morning sickness or fatigue. There were many times I’d forgotten I was pregnant. My mom was the same way with me, so I wasn’t worried. We even met my mom in Las Vegas for a short vacation and broke the news. She was thrilled, of course. We swore her to secrecy. Or so we thought.
Fast forward to my first OB appointment at 11 weeks. Yuck. Coming from a fancy-pants RE clinic to this OB’s office was like a culture shock. The waiting room furniture was uncomfortable, there were no magazines, and the décor was dated. The paperwork had no place for me to indicate that I’d used IVF, let alone an egg donor. The nurse kept asking me when my last menstrual period was, and I had to explain to her that my LMP was irrelevant and that she should use the donor’s LMP. She also asked me if I wanted genetic testing for cystic fibrosis. Clearly she was clueless both about IF and donor eggs. And don’t get me started on her gender predictions based on the Doppler heart rate. The doctor was equally uninspiring. I hated being treated like a pregnant fertile in an assembly line. I was ready to get out of there.
I vowed to find an infertile-friendly OB just as soon as I got my referral for an NT scan at 12 weeks. To me, the NT scan was a big milestone. Technically I didn’t need one because our donor was 28 and not AMA, but I wanted one anyway—I wanted to revel in the magic of high-tech ultrasound equipment and get my hands on the DVD they give you at the end.
Per my usual impatience, I booked the appointment on the early side of the NT scan window (11 weeks & some days) at a Maternal Fetal Medicine clinic at a local hospital. (MFMs see high-risk patients and have better-than-average ultrasound equipment.) The MFM’s office was also an upgrade over the trashy OB’s office in the same hospital complex. The MFM paperwork had questions about IVF treatments and a nice little “Donor Egg” checkbox. I was happy.
The exam room was also lovely, with twinkling lights on the ceiling. Didn’t see the doctor at first, just the technician and nurse. The ultrasound was my first experience abdominal ultrasounds--the RE is all about the vag-cam, which is a different experience altogether. It was weird keeping my pants on.
Long story short: at some point I was asked to go empty my bladder and return to the room for a vag-cam for a closer look (so I got to take my pants off after all). Ladies, I’m telling you, if this happens to you, it’s probably not good news. I’d seen the technician do the NT fold measurement and the number looked good to me, so I had no idea WTF was going on. So I pee, come back, meet the MFM’s vag-cam, and the technician resumes looking at the baby’s head. Finally she says she needs to go find the doctor. I ask her if everything is ok and she said she’s having trouble seeing the baby’s head.
At this point she stepped out of the room and left me and Mr. GB to hug and try to deal with this news. A few minutes later the doctor (a very nice woman) and a genetic counselor come to talk to us. They told us that the baby has a severe neural tube defect that was incompatible with life. Basically the baby had a brain but no skull. Our choices were to terminate or continue the pregnancy knowing that the baby would not survive.
As you can imagine, this news was terribly upsetting. But I knew there was no way I could continue the pregnancy, so we made arrangements for a D&E the following week.
Alrighty, that’s enough for today. I’ll try to wrap up my history in the next post.
Golden Bud
August 12, 2010
Now that I'm done being indecisive...
The Dr's visit went as scheduled. Chit chatted with Dr. Baggins, had a blood draw (I was scolded for having tiny veins, as I always am. He called me "titchy".) was told I probably don't have PCOS (huzzzah!) or a thyroid disorder (double huzzah!), but I did have to convince him that I don't have an eating disorder.
***This is a sidetrack that has nothing to do with TTC. At. All.***
Let me sidetrack for a moment. Doctors ALWAYS think I have an eating disorder. ALWAYS. I am small. Very small, and I always have been. I throw a party if I can manage to get the scale to go over 110. I have told this to every doctor I have ever been to, and yet I always get the same quiz. "What did you have for lunch today??" This puts me in the incredibly fun spot of playing "What would the anorexic say?". I usually can't say right off the top of my head what I ate, and I worry that if I take too long, he'll think I'm trying to lie. If I answer to quickly, he'll think that I am obsessed with food. It really is lose-lose. Oh well. Anyways,
***End Sidetrack***
He gave me a prescription for Clomid that I can take to any pharmacy to have filled. I thanked him (He really is very sweet, anorexic suspicions notwithstanding) and left.
On the way home though, I got this overwhelming sense of "This isn't what you need to do." It had nothing to do with fear or pride or anything else. It was simply a clear, very strong sense that we needed to wait a little longer before using the prescription. I should mention that Mr. Cherry Bud and I are Christians, and both of us are firm believers that God gives us direction for our lives. I understand that this gets me the side-eye more often than not. I'm ok with that.I'm also not saying that God came down in a pillar of flame and said "Thou shalt not CLOMID!!" I simply felt a quiet place inside me saying "Wait. This isn't the right move right now"
When I got home, I talked to Mr. Cherry Bud about it and found that he had felt uneasy about the Clomid as well and had wanted us to wait, but wanted it to be my decision, as it is my body.
So, while I do want to make it clear that I see nothing wrong with any kind of intervention to achieve pregnancy, we have made the decision to save the prescription and give my body a few more months. That prospect scares me a little. I like to have complete control over any given situation, So relinquishing the sense of control Clomid would give me is a little scary, but I am aware that God has a plan, and that Pharmaceuticals may, or may not, still be part of that plan. We will just have to see.
Hoping I'm making the right decision,
Cherry Bud
***This is a sidetrack that has nothing to do with TTC. At. All.***
Let me sidetrack for a moment. Doctors ALWAYS think I have an eating disorder. ALWAYS. I am small. Very small, and I always have been. I throw a party if I can manage to get the scale to go over 110. I have told this to every doctor I have ever been to, and yet I always get the same quiz. "What did you have for lunch today??" This puts me in the incredibly fun spot of playing "What would the anorexic say?". I usually can't say right off the top of my head what I ate, and I worry that if I take too long, he'll think I'm trying to lie. If I answer to quickly, he'll think that I am obsessed with food. It really is lose-lose. Oh well. Anyways,
***End Sidetrack***
He gave me a prescription for Clomid that I can take to any pharmacy to have filled. I thanked him (He really is very sweet, anorexic suspicions notwithstanding) and left.
On the way home though, I got this overwhelming sense of "This isn't what you need to do." It had nothing to do with fear or pride or anything else. It was simply a clear, very strong sense that we needed to wait a little longer before using the prescription. I should mention that Mr. Cherry Bud and I are Christians, and both of us are firm believers that God gives us direction for our lives. I understand that this gets me the side-eye more often than not. I'm ok with that.I'm also not saying that God came down in a pillar of flame and said "Thou shalt not CLOMID!!" I simply felt a quiet place inside me saying "Wait. This isn't the right move right now"
When I got home, I talked to Mr. Cherry Bud about it and found that he had felt uneasy about the Clomid as well and had wanted us to wait, but wanted it to be my decision, as it is my body.
So, while I do want to make it clear that I see nothing wrong with any kind of intervention to achieve pregnancy, we have made the decision to save the prescription and give my body a few more months. That prospect scares me a little. I like to have complete control over any given situation, So relinquishing the sense of control Clomid would give me is a little scary, but I am aware that God has a plan, and that Pharmaceuticals may, or may not, still be part of that plan. We will just have to see.
Hoping I'm making the right decision,
Cherry Bud
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