Tag Archives: pregnancy loss

Slippery.

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11

I haven’t posted a substantive post in a while because everything feels a bit…slippery.  I’m having a hard time focusing on any one thing. If I keep my mind moving doing nothing then I don’t have to think.  I don’t have to think about the days, weeks, months and years that have gone by.  I don’t have to think about how I should be 21 weeks pregnant.  Or 7 weeks pregnant.  I don’t have to think about how if we were one of the fertile ones I would probably have a six month old. I don’t have to think about how perfect that would have been given my unemployment.  I don’t have to think about the past 12 months of unemployment.  I don’t have to think about what a goddamn waste all of my hard work has been. I don’t have to think about my deteriorating self-esteem. My deteriorating confidence. My deteriorating happiness. I don’t have to think about any of it.

I wake up in the morning and I read my emails, then I read the NY Times, then I read the articles I link to on Facebook.  I drink some coffee, and I read through my blog roll.  At this time it is about 9 am.  The entirety of the day is yawning ahead of me, and I don’t know how to fill it.

I don’t have any kids. I don’t have a job. I don’t have any friends here. Nothing.  It feels like I have nothing. Like I have effectively been excluded from life.

If things weren’t so slippery I would do something.  Perhaps work on publishing bits of my dissertation. Or begin knitting that blanket for my mum.  Read a book.  But, like I said, everything feels a bit slippery, and I’m having a hard time focusing on much of anything. Let me tell you, this malaise kills all motivation.

I won’t lie.  I’m not in a good place, and I’ve given up on the thought that tomorrow will bring something good.  Job? Baby?

No. Probably not.

Not for me.

That is the mantra that echoes around all the other slippery thoughts.

Not for me.

Conversations.

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14

RE Nurse: We need to send you over to an OBGYN so they can give you a Rhogam shot.

K: OK.

RE Nurse (on phone): We have a patient here that needs a Rhogam shot.  Can we send her over to you?

OBGYN Nurse (on phone): Is she having a miscarriage?

RE Nurse: Yes.

OBGYN Nurse: How has this been confirmed? Hands phone to me.

K: I’ve had six betas, the highest of which peaked at 410. My most recent was 32.  I’ve been bleeding for five days. Bright, red blood. The ultrasound at 5 weeks 5 days didn’t show anything in my uterus.

OB Nurse: So this is your first pregnancy?

K: No, this is my second.

OB Nurse: Oh! You have one child?

K: No. I had a miscarriage in March.

OB Nurse: March of 2011?

K: No. March of this year. March 6th.

OB Nurse: And you are having another miscarriage?!

K: Yes.

OB Nurse: OK. I think we can see you today.  Can you come right over?

********************************

OBGYN: So, this is your first pregnancy?

K: No. This is my second.

OBGYN: Oh! You have a child?

K: No. I had a miscarriage in March. I was 9 weeks. They did a D&C and gave me the Rhogam shot.

OBGYN: It really isn’t that common to have back-to-back miscarriages.

(Five percent.  Those are the odds.  I don’t need you to tell me.)

OBGYN: So. You’ve just been spotting and you think your pregnancy might be at risk?

K: No. I had a miscarriage. This has been confirmed with betas and an ultrasound.

OBGYN: Well. An ultrasound that early may not show anything.

K: No, perhaps not.

(Lady, I’m not fucking pregnant. I understand you must cover your ass, but there isn’t a shot in hell. Did you even glance at the chart?)

OBGYN: You’ve just been spotting?

K: No. I’ve been bleeding since Friday.  Bright red blood.  Clots. Stringy shit. At this point, the bleeding has tapered off.

OBGYN: Well, was it bleeding like menstruation or spotting?

K: Bleeding like menstruation. Heavier than menstruation.

OBGYN: Oh, that’s too bad. Well now it’s time to do some more testing.

K: Yes. My RE ordered the karyotyping test.

OBGYN:   Well, you are young and healthy.  It will happen.

********************************

Hair Stylist: I love your hair.  I was dying my hair bright white like yours, but I stopped.

(Oh, she stopped dying her hair because she’s pregnant.  She set the conversation up like this so I will ask her why she stopped bleaching her hair. Everyone thinks that babies are a good conversation for women our age.)

K: Oh? Why did you stop dying it?

Stylist: Well, I found out I was pregnant and I was uncomfortable with all the chemicals necessary to bleach my hair.  I thought I would rather be safe than sorry.

(I bet she is due in October when I would have been due.)

K: Congratulations. When is your due date?

Stylist: October 12th. You can’t really tell. I’m not showing yet.

(Right. A due date a couple of days behind me. How many weeks would I have been, 20?)

K: How many weeks are you?

Stylist: Hmm.  I dunno.  Nineteen or 20?

(That must be nice. You mean you don’t have an internal tracker that ticks the days off as you move towards viability. Huh.)

K: Halfway there.  How do you feel?

Stylist: I’ve been pretty sick, but my mum was sick for the entire pregnancy when she had me, so that’s what I think is going to happen.  Do you have kids?

K: No.

Stylist: Oh, do you want kids?

K: Shrug.

Stylist: Maybe someday? They are a lot of work.  This is going to be my only one.

K: Maybe someday.

The Waiting Game.

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10

It seems like this infertility journey is primarily one of waiting.  We wait to ovulate. We wait to test. We wait to stimulate. We wait to suppress. We wait for phone calls. We wait for lab orders. We wait for lab results.   And we wait for a baby. I’ve been waiting 502 days, 75.5 weeks. 17 months, and 12 cycles to have a baby.  Put like that, it isn’t so bad, but it feels interminable. Today, I’m just waiting for the bleeding to begin.

My hCG level on Monday was 120, down from 410 on Friday.  In case there was any doubt, this pregnancy is not viable.  My doctor calls herself an interventionist, but in this situation she recommends I wait for the bleeding to start on its own, given that my body has already started the process.

The problem with that? No blood, no spotting, and a cervix shut tight.  There is absolutely no movement towards a natural miscarriage. Any signs of forward momentum ceased well over 24 hours ago, with the worst of it on Sunday.  By “the worst of it” I am referring to a scant show of blood on a pantyliner. It has been 36 hours since my last injection of progesterone.  Surely things have to begin soon, right?

To that end, I’ve done some googling.  Burdock root, dandelion root, parsley, ginger, sage, and rosemary can all help to hasten along the process when steeped as a tea. However, that sounds awful.  My bet is that it would not taste as bad as my cleanse smoothie, but would be about as bad as the many iterations of Chinese herbs I’ve consumed.  It is hot here in the desert.  Perhaps I should ice it and chug it after my workout.

Additionally, angelica, chamomile, cinnamon, clary sage, basil, ginger, jasmine, juniper, myrrh, peppermint, rose, rosemary, fennel and marjoram essential oils are also known emmenagogues.  That doesn’t sound as bad.  I may even smell nice.

Alternatively, I could wait until I have an appointment with my new RE tomorrow.  I’m hoping he will confirm the diagnosis and prescribe some misoprostol so I can stop waiting and move forward. I hate, loathe, detest, abhor, despise waiting.

On Keening.

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Only once before have I broken out in a long, anguished wail of grief and pain.  I was nine years old and my beloved grandmother had died from a stroke at the age of 81.  As the ushers rolled her casket down the aisle of the church, my heart broke.  I cried. I wailed. I keened for the loss of my grandmother, whom I loved so much. Other than the first initial cry, I don’t remember it. This is the story relayed to me by my mother and sister.

It has been 23 years since that incident. I did not keen when my father was diagnosed with a malignant tumor, an especially pernicious brand of cancer, the size of a football. Not when I heard him ask my mother if she would still love him when he couldn’t be strong. Not when he passed as I combed his hair.  But I should have. I did not keen when my love, my partner, relapsed for the first time, vomiting in the bathroom sink. Or when he relapsed the second time, or the third, or the fourth. Or when I realized that he wasn’t “relapsing”, but simply an active addict. Not even then. But I should have.

When I started spotting on Saturday, I started keening.  It is the only word to describe the pain and the grief that flowed out of me.  The sounds I made as I wailed against the injustice of another fucking miscarriage; I keened.

It is safe to say that infertility has brought me to my knees.  More so than my father’s death at 24 or my partner’s addictions. Or even the self-inflicted anxiety and terror that I experienced throughout my PhD process. This journey has resulted in self-loathing, disgust, derision, scorn, anger, contempt, disappointment, pain, grief, and sorrow, to just name a few. These aren’t new emotions. I have experienced all of them at one point or another, but never together in a tidal wave of emotion.  Keening was the only way to release, the only way to move the grief.

I used to be afraid of expressing pain and grief. It took years of therapy to come to that conclusion. Now, well, infertility makes every day a day of pain and grief. I’m no longer afraid to show these emotions.  In fact, I don’t think I could bottle them up if I tried. Case in point: We went to the coffee shop Sunday morning.  As we sat in the piazza behind the shop, we talked about the impending miscarriage and I cried. Openly and in front of a lot of people.  I didn’t care. I didn’t even think to put on my sunglasses to hide my seeping, red, bloodshot eyes.  I didn’t even notice.

May ICLW & Miscarriage #2

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30

New readers to my blog have stumbled upon Return to Go at a sad time. I recently found out I was pregnant.  Thirteen days ago at 13 DPO, my test turned positive, if ever so faintly.  Positive again at 14 DPO, and a little darker.   In honor of the pregnancy, I called my RE and scheduled a beta for that day at 15 DPO.  The beta was very low at 33, and my heart broke a little bit.  Despite the late implantation and the low betas, my numbers continued to rise to 66, 140, and 410 at 17 DPO, 20 DPO, and 24 DPO.  This was a doubling time of 48, 66, and 62 hours, respectively.  Just this past Saturday, or 25 DPO, I started to spot.

Today brings us to Monday.  Twenty-seven days past ovulation and at five weeks five days, my pregnancy test this morning was ridiculously light.  Markedly lighter than any test that I have taken in days, if not weeks.  I don’t need an ultrasound or a blood test to reveal that this pregnancy isn’t viable. My body has sent me some clear messages.  This, in and of itself, is a relief.  My first loss was a missed miscarriage at 8 weeks 6 days, and I was shocked at my body’s betrayal.  How could it not have told me things weren’t going well?  Things are much clearer this time.

Some may say that the cheap internet tests are not reliable.  Some may say that 1 out of 3 women spot in pregnancy.  It isn’t that uncommon.  Some may say that it isn’t over until it is over.  But my instincts tell me differently.  I would love to be wrong.  I would love to be wildly, pessimistically, wrong.  My partner and I can laugh about how wrong I was all the way to 40 weeks.  We can tell this child about how we doubted it’s perseverance and strength.  We can enroll them in martial arts and boxing classes because they were such a fighter en utero.  I would love to be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

I’m waiting until 8 am PST to call my doctor.  I should know by the end of the day.