Life goes on

I've been writing to you all in my head again for weeks now so I figured I better get on here and actually try to write something.

One daydreamed post was about anger...another about resilience...then when I was feeling good I thought about how far I've come through this journey.

I can't remember anything but those thoughts so they're lost to my mind now. 

Today I feel angry and I am having some issues with feeling badly about myself, like I've done something wrong.  Instead of spiraling for months like I would have in the past I sat down and wrote out the negative thoughts and then challenged each one, one by one and realized that after each of my miscarriages I've had a general feeling of having done something wrong.  I think it has to do with how miscarriage is perceived and responded to by "others" and the fact that I take a lot of non verbal cues in my dealing with people and use them to identify how people feel about me.  It's not a good thing to do especially when people are uncomfortable that I've had a miscarriage and so act in a way that shows they are uncomfortable.  If I then take that as they are uncomfortable with me as a whole you can see where this is going.

Anyway it felt good to take charge  of those feelings and challenge them.  It doesn't make it go away but it helps it from gaining momentum at least.

In other news I am terrified to have sex with my husband...birth control doesn't make me feel safe from pregnancy and I don't want to get pregnant.  Isn't that a new wrinkle...spent all those years trying and now I am really back in my 20's in respect to my feelings around it.

Foster care is not going anywhere I've made some calls and actually read some blogs about it which scared me a little bit.  So I am still not anywhere with that. 

Other than that things are going well.  Just keeping on with life as it comes.

CD1 and stepping back into my life

Well here I am again, physically back to fairly normal.  I was actually shocked when my cycle started I had gotten used to being in the limbo land.  Well hello again...I guess I'm not "pregnant" anymore for real.

I have to come clean....a couple of weeks ago I took a pregnancy test and it was positive and I decided to keep it.  After the ultrasound where the Dr. definitively announced this pregnancy as a miscarriage I had thrown away all of my pee tests...there were a lot.  Then I regretted it.  But really what was I saving them for?  Peeing on a stick and seeing the positive made me feel better.  How freaking odd is that?  The only thing I can figure out is that it made it real and not something I'd imagined....in a "see I really was pregnant" kind of way.  I think it's an antidote to the world around me that's acting like nothing's happened.  Starts to make a girl feel a little crazy, if you know what I mean.

The tears have come this week.  I cried myself to work two days this week and definitely cried on the days I worked from home.   I don't mind the tears.  It feels real.  It feels justified.  I am fairly confident the tears will give way to some sort of acceptance at some point.  I'm just riding it out until they do and trying to steer clear of stupid comments from well meaning but misguided people in the meantime.

I did a lot of research into the foster to adopt program this week and am realizing it won't be easy.  I think I am ready to face the challenge though.  I find myself wishing my husband already had children, from a previous marriage and isn't that so strange? I guess I just WANT to mother regardless of genetic ties, I want to mother and I think it's time to make that happen.

Lonely

..just lonely.

Energy

I read a great post today http://lifewithoutbaby.com/2013/06/03/children-in-my-future/ which talked about the soul needing to heal along with the mind and body.  So touching and relevant to me.  Also there was a comment about two people having met over many lifetimes and the writer says " Lately, when the subject of children comes up, I tell people that in our next lives, my husband and I will have children. But this lifetime was meant just for us and I’m going to enjoy it as much as I can."  What a fantastic way to think and it really touched me.

I've always felt I knew my husband on a deep level even the first day we met.  I felt an immediate level of comfort and ease that is usually a long process for an introvert like me to get to.  I like the idea that maybe this life is just for he and I.

Hormonal Roulette

I am on a roller coaster of hormones.  I am up, then I am down.  I am exhausted, physically wrung out.  I don't remember this...but maybe having the last bits of this pregnancy ripped out of me is different than the slow decline from the last two times.  I could not get out of bed this am.  I am achy and tired and cranky. 

I hope this passes soon.  I'm tempted to use a small amount of the progesterone cream to ease me over the hump..but then I can't figure out if that will even help or make things worse and totally confuse the heck out of my body.

I forgot to tell this part of my apt.  I was so traumatized by the actual procedure.  During the US my Dr. asked us if we had thought about what we might do next.  I was confused..oh maybe we'll go grab some dinner...depending on how I feel.  No.  She meant what we might do next about having children.  I was kind of surprised that she would ask that.  Although she is the one who told me at the last apt. that she had a patient who had many miscarriages and two children.  So maybe she thinks there's some small level of hope.

I think I am done.  I mean maybe if I were 40 or younger I could contemplate this again.  I think if I weren't still recovering maybe I could contemplate it.  But really I feel more done than ever before.  I feel at this point that it's really not a good idea for me to pursue this again.  I think if we did pursue it, the only way I could feel good about it would be to use a surrogate and PGD or donor egg.  I did look into that the other day.  It comes with about a 50K price tag.  That's likely the minimum.  I hate to put a price on it but for me that's just too much and I am physically worn out. I don't know that I could go through multiple IVF cycles to get enough embryos for PGD. 

I think at this point actually foster to adopt is the way we will look.  I actually feel a little excited thinking about it which is new and quite different from how I felt in the past.  I don't know that I've given up on being a parent but I am fairly certain that I've given up on giving birth to my own biological child.

Endometrial biopsy

I finally figured out what my endometrial biopsy  felt like. It was like having someone dig at an open wound with a fork.

I had what I hope was my last ob apt yesterday and the miscarriage was still incomplete. I had taken vicodin before as suggested and was feeling pretty loopy. It didn't help  I think I actually left my body during the procedure. My husband broke out in a cold sweat. It literally only lasted 20 seconds and it was physically  the most painful 20 seconds of my life.

Ironically I woke up today feeling great.

Trying to get back on track emotionally as well.

Incomplete - Update

Fridays apt went from bad to worse.  The nurse took my blood pressure and then said "I have to apologize, we didn't get a big enough sample in your pap smear so we have to do it again."  I said, "I didn't have a pap smear I had a miscarriage.  Are you sure you have the right patient?"  Then she proceeded to argue with me.  I think I know what I was there for.  Then she said they must have given her the wrong information when they pulled my file...whatever.  I was already over it at that point.  Just wanted the hoo hoo cam to show I was done with the miscarriage.

So Dr came in, I didn't bring DH...that's how confident I was that things had resolved.  I didn't look at the screen.  The last thing I want to look at is my now empty uterus.  Except then she made a negative sound so I looked up and lo and behold stuff.  Lining and placenta.  F.  So she proceeds to talk about sticking some sort of endometrial biopsy tool up there to disrupt the lining so it will come out and I'm thinking...ok if she's talking about doing it now it can't be that painful.  Then she asks if I took Vicodin before coming in.  Why would I have?  I was so confused.  Then she was assuming DH was in the waiting rm.  It was a complete fiasco.  We ended up with me leaving and waiting another week to see if I can pass it myself and then next Friday I have to go back with DH and doped up on Vicodin.  Fantastic. 

I walked out to the desk to make Fridays apt.   Made it out into the hall to the bathroom and proceeded to sob in there for a good few minutes.  I was so loud a kind lady asked if I was ok.  I said yes but I truly wasn't.

Spent time with DH's family today.  Who I know he told what had happened.  Not one person asked how I was doing or anything.  In fact when one did say how's it going?  and I said alright, I got an "Only alright?"  Yeah only alright.  That's the best I can do right now.  It will never cease to amaze me how completely horrific this situation is to me and how easy it is for people to just blow it off like it's a hang nail or something.  My mind kept flashing bitter...like a big neon sign.

WTF

being at the dr waiting to confirm my miscarriage is complete is bad but sitting here with all of "the pregnants" is just even less fantastic. I feel very sorry for myself right now.

My friend sent me this. Having a particularly hard day back at the office.

Naomi Shihab Nye  (1953-)

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

Bargaining...

I think I remember that being one of the stages of grief.  Bargaining...and I am doing it today.  I am crying and telling myself maybe we should try again as soon as I start my next cycle.  I'm already grief stricken, why not just piggy back onto this one with the next one? 

I can't believe my mind is not done with this.  I mean what on earth am I thinking.  What on earth would give me the inclination that the next time would be any different than the prior? Except I still want it to happen.

Just grief stricken.  I guess I won't be bouncing back the way I had hoped.  I think that was a fools wish.

Coming up for air.

It's been a tough couple of days.  Our ultrasound apt on Friday went as expected.  There was no miracle baby that had caught up to dates with a heartbeat. (I still really believed this might happen and cried all over again)  Doing the ultrasound though was calming as well as upsetting.  It really gave me the closure I needed and I would urge anyone to ask for as many reassurances as they need to feel closure.  I actually had a small bit of spotting that I would have missed if I hadn't been looking and some pretty strong but not too painful cramps and back ache on the way to the apt.  Here's what we've gone through since - and it's all about the miscarriage so skip it if it will be upsetting or bothersome to you.

******

The Dr confirmed that the gestational sac was breaking down.  The yolk sac was large almost as big as the gestational sac which apparently is a bad sign and there were bits in the sac of which she wasn't sure if either were the fetal pole.  What she measured was measuring 6w1d so a day behind the previous week and the whole thing was down at my cervix and so had moved down in that week which explained the cramping she said.  No heartbeat anywhere to be found.

She brought a Nurse Practitioner to the US which bothered me because I was thinking she wanted a second opinion present since I had questioned my own ability to accept things and had asked for another ultrasound and I was worried that she thought I was questioning her.  This is what I assumed but DH said No not true, that when she walked in she said this is so and so NP who is training.  I didn't hear that probably because I was beside myself.

So we decided to go with the Misoprostol and she prescribed 8 pills 4 to be used vaginally and then in 24 hours if no bleeding the other 4.  We did a pharmacy run and I stocked up on junk food, magazines and pads. DH actually got the prescription because based on last time I didn't want to start sobbing while I was there.  I ate a healthy lunch because I wasn't sure how my stomach would respond to the Vicodin.  I am allergic to Ibuprofen and so can't take that so my option was Vicodin which sometimes can upset my stomach.  Remembering how badly the pain hit me last time I made sure to take two Vicodin ahead of time and waited a half hour.  Then I inserted the 4 Misoprostol.  I was actually already bleeding and cramping since I'd gotten home and it was getting worse.  Apparently my body was already doing what it needed to do.  In about 15 minutes I was in tears from the pain and pissed that the Vicodin was doing nothing.  It actually took another hour for that to kick in and I think that maybe there was too much food in my stomach?  Not sure.  So I passed what I think was the sac and a good chunk of what looked like placenta in that half hour.  Then just bleeding with occasional bouts of cramping.  Very little clots or tissue for the rest of the night and today very little bleeding.  At about 3am I was wide awake so I was reading in bed when it really hit me with terrible cramps, crying again and freezing chills.  DH had to get up and help me get more Vicodin, turn the heating pad back on, get me another blanket and rub my back.  I was literally in too much pain to even move.  All I passed was more blood...not anything that would justify that much pain.  This morning I got up feeling o.k. very hungry and so had some cereal and a little coffee.  About 3 hours later I was so ill I could barely move and ended up vomiting.  It was awful.  Not sure what that was since both the Vicodin and Misoprostol should have been out of my system by then.  I spent the next few hours feeling awful, dizzy, tired, headachy and sick to my stomach.

So my dilemma today was did I really pass it all.  I did a lot of googling and decided to do the second dose of Misoprostol this afternoon and nothing.  No cramps, no more bleeding.  I'm a little concerned that I have not passed everything and won't.  My next apt is on Friday for the follow up and I am really crossing my fingers that I didn't go through all of this only to have the D&C anyway. 

Side note - My Dr. was adamant that she would not have done the D&C in office.  She said it is way too painful to be done with a local and that the nurse who scheduled it was confused.  My Dr has had multiple miscarriages herself so not only is she a brilliant doc but she's also very compassionate and understands exactly what kind of pain comes with a miscarriage.  She's the same Dr who did not make me wait for three miscarriages for testing.  She had all of the testing ordered for us after miscarriage #2 and paid for by insurance.  She's truly a great lady.  Anyway there you go.  I actually feel a little better now surprising since I just dosed myself with 800mg Misorprostol but there it is.

The Sorrow hit hard

I cried so hard last night I thought I might burst an eyeball or something.  It's the first time I've cried.  I mean at the US I had a few crocodile tears but I was pretending I was fine.  Shrugging my shoulders.  Giving DH a little smile.  And I've been keeping up that persona all along.   So. FINE. I'll admit it.  I've been toughing it out thinking I'd been through this before and I can take it.  But I can't.  The sorrow is just as sorrowful as it's ever been and I feel bad for myself.   I don't like to feel this way so I hope it goes as abruptly as it came.  I am sitting with it though because I know if I send it away it will just come back later on and torture me all the while.  I don't want to diminish anyone's pain.  A miscarriage is horrible but I had hoped that I would escape this one with a little less of the sorrow.  Unrealistic I guess.

D&C on Tuesday is no good.  The surgery center gave my spot to someone else.  I guess that's what happens when you sit on the fence.  It's looking like next Friday is the earliest and I am still not sure what road I will take.  I understand that work should take a back stage but I refuse to miss out on the work things going on next week.  This road has taken too much from me and I won't allow anymore right now.  Stubborn?  Yes probably.

I go in tomorrow for an Ultrasound.  There's no point in doing it except my mind just will not let me rest that there is still a live baby in there.  At the very least we will probably see things smaller and reabsorbing that's what happened last time and maybe that will make the pill vs D&C conversation an easier decision.  On the other hand if things grew...but are still behind then what will that mean.  I guess we'll see.

Not sure what to do...any advice would be helpful.

Dr just got back to me about D&C.  She can't get me in to surgery center until next Tuesday..I had been hoping to get this dealt with this week because next week Wed and Thur I have two big workdays offsite where I will be in a big room with our entire corporate team.  Lots of team building and interacting etc.  I'm even staying at the offsite location one night. 

So my other options are to use the pills again and just deal with the pain and bleeding.  I know what to expect so I am less concerned about it than DH.  It was awful but manageable.  Choice #2 is to have a D&C in the office under local anesthesia.  I'm not so much a fan of this and would prefer the pills at home.

Choice #1 is the pills and my concern with that is complications but I could be through with things by the end of the week and have already requested to work from home this week so no disruption really in work.  I didn't have any complications last time but my HCG levels took a long time to come down..I think it was about 8 weeks and that was trying plus it was painful and distressing.  On the other hand I was in the comfort of my own home.

Choice #2 is the D&C on Tuesday and hope that I have no issues with going to the offsite on Wed.  I really have no idea what to expect but remember after my hysteroscopy being quite sick that day and taking the next couple of days off to lay around on the couch.  Benefits of this is that it would be over and from what I've read unless they miss some placenta the HCG levels will come down quite quickly.  I've also read there's less bleeding and minimal cramping so there's that.

Choice #3 is the D&C in the office on Friday under local anesthesia in her office.  This is my least favorite choice mostly because I have no idea what to expect and the fact that they routinely do these in the surgery center under general anesthesia makes me think this is something I might regret trying to do with a local...this right now is my least favorite choice.  On the other hand I have had an HSG and the other die test forget the name and have heard that those are quite painful for a lot of people and did not have issues with them myself other than some bleeding after the HSG due to the catheter having to be put in multiple times after my RE popped the ballon that's supposed to hold it in place.

I think I may have made my decision to use the medically managed with pills but please if anyone can bear to relive a prior experience and let me know what their opinion is I would appreciate it so much.  I know this is not an easy topic to relive though so I totally understand if you don't wish to share.

Thanks so much for all of you that have stuck with me even though I abandoned this forum for awhile.  And while going through your own trials and troubles.  It has meant so much to me to have this forum to say what I can't say in real life to people who are clueless about these things and it's meant even more to have the feedback and friendship from all of you.

Still waiting

Still waiting.  No sign of a miscarriage.  Still exhausted although my boobs are not sore anymore and the nausea is pretty much gone.  The fatigue is just too much though.  I requested a D&C and...another US prior just to confirm and quiet my doubting mind.  Hopefully those can be scheduled soon.

I still keep having these dreams that the Dr's made a huge mistake and that there is a twin in there that she missed who is perfectly healthy or that the slow embryo catches up.  It's very disconcerting.  I know it's not possible.  I was there when she looked for anything else.  She even looked at my ovaries and measured the fibroids that are on the outside of my uterus so she looked for a good long while.

I think what's giving me doubts is how absolutely perfect the embryo looked at the last ultrasound.  It was that perfect diamond ring shape you would see at about 6 weeks.  Except I was just shy of 8 weeks and there was no heartbeat.  We've never had that perfect diamond ring shape at least that I ever saw.  During our last miscarriage the US were done at the radiology lab where they don't show you the screen so maybe when we had that heartbeat it looked like that but this is the first time I've seen the yolk sac with the little embryo riding on top of it.  It's hard to see how perfect it looked and believe that something is wrong.  I have moments of guilt for having stopped the baby aspirin and the progesterone.  Then I go back and look at my chart again...and check the dates and realize that it's not possible.

I've also been struggling with guilt.  I feel guilty that I did this again.  My mother said some things that were not all that helpful.  Basically she asked if the Dr thought I should go on the BCP.  Um...Mom DH and I knew what we were doing.  We know how to prevent a pregnancy.  This wasn't purely an accident we weren't using Birth control.  Her - Oh really? Why would you do this to yourself again....She said something else about my age too.  I mean I get where she's coming from.  But why did I do this.  I mean what do you think Mom?  Because wanting a child outweighed all of the other bad stuff, that and I didn't actually think it would happen.  Anyway...guilt.  Maybe this really was a stupid thing to do unless it had gone well.  Then I would have been the smartest 43 year old on the planet and people would have talked about my resilience and the miracle I was open to and shit like that.  But instead since it didn't work out I am kind of dumb and still a failure.  Well Fuck Me.

Friends of mine were on the flight that crashed in SFO.  They are all fine but what a sad event.  I can't help but think their children are going to have some emotional issues after having lived through that.

I can't even escape in sleep

I've been dreaming about my miscarriage. Sometimes in my dreams I believe the Dr. has made a huge mistake and there's a healthy embryo in there.  Sometimes I just am sad.  It's pretty close to my waking where I have the same feelings.  I feel very guilty about stopping the progesterone and baby aspirin when I have those moments where I panic that the Dr. was wrong...but then I go back to the calendar and realize that for the embryo to be 6w2d I would have had to ovulate during the same day I got my BFP. But then I panic that science and Dr's don't know everything! But then I realize that the Dr. wouldn't offer a D&C lightly and that yes she does know and if there was a heartbeat then maybe she could have measured incorrectly but there was no heartbeat...no little flicker. 

Also some of the "I can't believe I am not going to have children" sorrow is back.  I knew I had put it mostly to bed but this just brings up those feelings again.

A missed miscarriage is so cruel.  It really is.  There should be no such thing in the world.  To be sick and huge sore breasted and be doing everything you can to hold onto a pregnancy and then to have one little Dr. visit rip it from your hands.  It feels very cruel.  Like a cruel joke. 

On a positive note stopping the progesterone has lessened the nausea and my breasts are getting back to normal.  I cancelled my next acupuncture apt and cried when I had to say why.  I let my boss know and cried again. 

Here are some peripheral things this miscarriage took from me (Aside from the immediate dream of this child)
1. I planned a trip for my friends birthdays to Vegas and missed out on the fun during that.
2. I was asked to go to a big trip at work as a reward.  It's next week and in anticipation I cancelled because  I didn't want to miscarry in a foreign country alone.  Looks like that was prudent but still sucks.
3. I went on a trip last week with family and friends and wasn't able to swim, jet ski, hot tub etc.
4.  My sense of well being. 


5.  My sense of wonder
6.  I feel very ugly, bloated, waddly, gross.
7.  Hours I spent googling


In other news, an acquaintance of mine shot herself and a friend who knew her well is struggling to deal with her death, another friend of mine died from cancer this year and I am still trying to come to terms with that.  It was sudden and awful.  We are taking one of our kitties to the vet tomorrow to put him down.  He's at the end.  Having a miscarriage makes all of the above more unbearable than would normally be if possible.  

Another one gone.

I'm sorry I don't have good news.  I really thought this was going to work as much as I prepared myself for it not working I really thought it was.  I didn't realize how much I thought it would work until the US today when it didn't. I wore my lucky earrings.

Everything is where it's supposed to be in the uterus, yolk sac, fetal pole, gestational sac but there's no heartbeat and it only measures 6w2d and that's with the Dr being generous with measurements. Our last US was two weeks ago...14 days and we measured 5W6D.  So we've only had 4 days worth of growth in 14 days.  I'd say that's an unequivocal negative result.

So now I am deciding what to do.  I could handle the hoo ha pills again but DH can't handle watching me go through that much pain and blood loss.  He was in a complete panic the whole time last time.  So my options are wait..or D&C.  I am choosing to wait but I got the Dr to prescribe nausea meds.  No sense being sick if I don't have to.  Since there's no heartbeat I am thinking that maybe the embryo actually petered out a few days ago and my body hasn't caught up yet.  That would mean it will eventually catch up.  The Dr said she'd give me two weeks to miscarry on my own before she wants me to follow up.

I'm handling it better than before.  I'm still terribly sad but I think the element that's missing from this one is the despair over being childless.  I have come to some kind of understanding with myself that being childless will be ok and DH and I will be ok.  So the sadness I'm left to contend with is the loss of this one small being and not the larger despair.  I think that's why this time seems a little easier than prior losses.

Sorry I don't have better news.  I was so sad to tell my mother again.   I almost wished I hadn't told her we were pregnant.  She wants this for us more than anything and it hurts to cause her pain.I didn't tell very many people this time.  Close friends and work because I needed to.   So not too many people to let down.

So off I go to implement Plan A.

Really feeling it.

I'm sick...oh so sick.  I go from joy at being sick...to OMG how am I going to carry on.  Ultrasound is tomorrow.  I have two plans laid out, one for each outcome. 

Plan A - (No growth, no heartbeat, poor prognosis) - get back to myself ASAP.  I refuse to vomit if the jig is up so loading up on whatever meds I need to will happen immediately.  As soon as said nausea goes have a drink and a coffee not necessarily at the same time.  Maybe a sushi dinner.  Have S.E.X. with DH.  Then Join that gym I've been planning and get a trainer.

Plan B - (Good growth and appropriate HB - still have a hard time seeing this happen) Continue planning to have a baby.  Talk to Doc about nausea meds...just in case I can't deal.  I know that one good US doesn't make a baby but if we have a good US I will be much more inclined to think this might work out and I plan to go forward as if it is.

Putting off the US until this week was both a curse and a joy.  Waiting was hard but I also didn't have to endure the limbo that is pretending cautious optimism after inconclusive or bad results.  I've almost been serene at times.  Especially when I feel like I may lose my lunch.

They never got me pregnant

I just realized something.  All of my pregnancies have been on our own i.e. not while doing fertility treatments and we did a lot of treatments.  I find this very interesting..I wish I knew what the stats are on that and if that's what other women like me experienced...I think that's the opposite of what usually happens to infertiles..right.  Of course everything I do where pregnancy is concerned is fairly opposite of the norm.

Pregnancy symptom talk - Warning...
I finally understand what "nipples full of glass" means.  I've heard others mention it and never quite felt it until now.  I don't mind.  It at least means the progesterone pills are doing their job.
Tummy is good and bad on and off...I hate to admit I wish it was more bad.
Kitty jumped on my side today in bed and I yelled.  It hurt so badly.  She does that all the time and she is a petite little thing so it usually doesn't hurt.  I feel generally achy.
Tired...oh man am I tired.  It was all I could do to get dressed this morning and get to work.  Thank you again progesterone pills.

Trying to enjoy Limbo

For about the last week and a half I've had moments of pure gaggy, upset stomach joy.  Joy because I feel it at least means we're headed in the right direction.  Then last week two days before our ultrasound it went away completely.  Other than being incredibly tired I felt great.  I thought the pregnancy was over...then it came back so I felt reassured.  Yesterday it went away again.  My boobs even stopped hurting.  I panicked.  Tonight it came back.  I guess it's too much to expect I won't expect the worst. I also know that being ill doesn't really mean anything in the missed miscarriage realm where I've been twice.  It is more reassuring than a loss of symptoms though.

I'm doing acupuncture and my acupuncturist has me cutting down on carbs which can't be a bad thing.  I'm still eating plenty and I am eating three whole grain servings a day. Last night I had the worst heartburn.  We picked up take out and I got a salad with chicken and sour cream and salsa so it was already hot enough and my husband got a big bowl of rice and beans etc.  So I get home grab what I think is my bowl and head to the TV room (we're like bachelors we never eat at the table although this still galls me it's a battle I've given up on) except I didn't have my bowl I had DH's so I head back to the kitchen to find him dumping every kind of hot sauce he can find on my bowl...I was like "Seriously, you didn't notice all the lettuce here vs. your big old bowl of beans and rice?!"  So I ate a bowl of hot sauce with a little salad and then suffered for the next two hours...it wasn't pretty at my house.  I was so angry and even though I realized it was an honest mistake I couldn't reign it in.  I felt just plain mean. Hormonal?

Oh also, acupuncturist asks me this morning "How many"  I said "How many what?"  he said "Embryos"  I was like huh..."Well just the one"  and then my mind got to wondering...maybe one was hiding...does he know something I don't know?  I wished I'd asked why he asked me that..probably just because they are an acupuncture group specializing in infertility and RPL so they probably deal with a lot of IVFers and I am 43 and not likely to be pregnant naturally.   I have this friend who likes to argue with me about a woman's ticking biological clock.  She's of the inclination that a woman can get pregnant at any age.  What's rich is she's never tried to get pregnant...so there you go.  I can't wait for her to say "see I told you so"  HAHAH this makes me laugh out loud at the ridiculousness of it.

Average results again and I'm not complaining

Our Ultrasound was today and it went fairly well.  It was a little bit early.  I had wanted to wait a few more days but my OB works really limited hours and she still delivers babies so she's strapped for apts.

So what we have is a perfect round gestational sac measuring just about exact for dates 5W6D and a perfect fetal pole measuring 5W6D and a yolk sac.  She thought she saw the flicker of a heartbeat but couldn't be sure.  So our option was to come back next week or wait 2 weeks.  We were having a hard time figuring out a visit date and time because of her limited hours and me having vacation next week for a couple of days so we are now scheduled for July 3 for US #2.  I actually feel really good about it. I'd rather wait and have a definitive answer on July 3 than go in next week and perhaps still be in limbo.

She checked out my progesterone cream and said I could keep using it and double the amount I am using or she could prescribe prometrium.  So at the risk of having to slather my entire body with the natural cream I opted for the cooter pill.  She said she doesn't have any reason to assume I need it but "it can't hurt"  how many times have I heard that statement? :)  The other thing she kept saying was..."well you know, you've been down this road"  which was nice. 

One thing I didn't know and was surprised by is that she'd prefer I not swim in the lake on my vacation...I did think that maybe I should ask but then I thought maybe I was being a hypochondriac.  But she asked us what we were doing on vacation and when we said swimming in the lake she said "Oh, not you.  You can dangle your feet in if you don't have any cuts or blisters, but you can't get all the way in."   Well I guess now I know.

I feel really good.  I think this is the best we could hope for at this stage and I will see what happens next.  There are a lot of milestones in pregnancy and I've many more to come.  Good news is we have a growing intrauterine pregnancy and that's good enough for today.

I don't follow any rules..no matter how hard I try

When I had my taxes done this year my tax lady said to me.."So looks like you're pretty risk averse" as she was looking over our finances..And she's right I am so risk averse it's a joke among my friends, colleagues, family.

Apparently though that risk aversion doesn't apply to my reproductive health.  If it did I never would have tried the second, third, fourth, hundredth time and if it did I wouldn't be pregnant right now...

That's right.  You read that correctly. 

The day after my last post which was all about how well I am doing and how I've moved on I had some spotting.  More pink water than blood..it was odd.  It was day 20...So my first thought was oh man I am really starting into perimenopause now.  My cycles had been down around 23 - 26 days but never at 20. 

But I didn't have anymore spotting or bleeding and my period didn't come.  So I tested and I got a faint line of the sort my husband looks at me like I've completely lost my mind but then the next day he saw it too and the next day it was undeniable.  I waited until a normal period would have come and called the Dr.  I just really felt this was going to go away and the next day or the next I would not be pregnant anymore.  It hasn't gone away and my hcg levels and progesterone are good.  We did two levels and they are exactly on the average scale, not high and not low and exactly doubling as they should. I'm not doing anymore bloodwork.  I know after all of these I've been through that there's nothing I can do to change the levels. We have an US on Thursday the 20th and we'll see what we can see.

I'm taking a baby aspirin a day at the request of my Dr. and I am using a natural progesterone cream bio identical.  I started back with acupuncture and am also going to take the herbal formula my acupuncturist gave me.  (Of course I Googled every ingredient to make sure it's safe and I feel relatively good about it).

Now here's how I think this happened, other than sheer luck.  We were not trying.  We never did get on any sort of birth control and DH never made his vasectomy apt.  I didn't push.  My therapist says it's likely that my emotional mind never caught up to my rational mind in understanding that I wanted to shut down the factory hence my ambivalence.  What did happen is I was having horrific pre menopausal symptoms.  Hot flashes, moodiness, loss of libido.  I was talking to my sister, who is 3 years older, and she suggested I try a natural progesterone cream that she had used.  If you want to know the name let me know and I will email you.   So I started using it and actually had a 28 day cycle.  The second cycle I got a normal period and also got a cold and so I was taking mucinex every day for the days leading up to what must have been "the" ovulation".  My libido came back...with a vengeance.  I felt 20 even though I was getting over a cold.  DH and I had a day of 20 something sex.

So there you have it. A highly unlikely pregnancy at 43.  Since I found out I have been reluctant to talk about it.  I had to cancel a work trip which would fall during the week of two of my previous miscarriages.  That is the last thing I want, to miscarry in another country without friends or loved ones.  I hated telling my boss why.  He was great about it but I don't want to talk about it.  Something about it being real and having to deal with the real possibility of failure.  There's a little bit of embarrassment...that I am here again after all that's happened.  I'm not sure what that's about but it's there.  It's also why I didn't post until now.  I wasn't going to post at all...Was just going to go out with my last post but then this is a real story about my real journey so that didn't seem right. So here I am, 43 and pregnant after years of infertility and 4 miscarriages (really five but I have a hard time counting the chemical as I suspect there were more of those that went unnoticed)

Wow it's been awhile.

I've been thinking about posting this for awhile.  So now I am finally doing it.

When I was in the midst of infertility and miscarriages I would read through entire blogs beginning to end hoping to find some hope or solace.  The saddest ones were those that just ended.  Where the person stopped blogging and the story was unfinished.

I'm not meaning to close out my blog but I've been feeling good lately and feel some closure on some of my issues so I wanted to update if it would be at all helpful to anyone who is where I was a couple of years ago.

DH and I decided not to pursue anymore treatment.  We also decided not to pursue adoption although lately I have been reading a lot about foster to adopt programs and we may pursue that at some point.  I am finally ok with the idea of an older child coming into our family and the idea of making a family with a child that would be ours in every way but who I didn't give birth to.

I've also started volunteering with a program for children.  It's been wonderfully restorative and has helped me realize that I have a very maternal streak and that I would not have trouble loving and nurturing a child who was not mine genetically. 

On the flip side I have been traveling, seeing friends, planning outings, volunteering in other capacities and just enjoying the life and the freedom that I have.  As hard as infertility was I have to admit that not having children frees up a whole lot of time and money to pursue other options.  It was hard to see this while we were involved in treatments and miscarriages but now that things have calmed down I do see the silver lining.

Work has been fantastic.  I put my all into it and was recognized for that and am very happy with where I am with my career and look forward to more of the same.  I think because of the strength I learned from my horrible experiences I stopped sweating the small stuff and gained a lot of confidence in myself.  That confidence has allowed me to really step out of my comfort zone.

I don't know where we will end up with our family building.  We are on the fence with one side foster/adopt and one side childfree living but right now we are doing well.  During each miscarriage I thought I'd never survive, but each time I got through it.  I still have my moments.  Mothers day will never be my favorite day and I sometimes still cry about what I've lost but for the majority of the day I am happy and whole.