tcm

I don't know why it took me this long to try acupuncture. I mean, I've been studying Making Babies as though it were a holy screed for the last two and a half years, and the book clearly says acupuncture and Chinese herbs would be beneficial for me.

Timeliness is not my strong suit, I guess.

Anyway, I decided on Friday to just go ahead and do it. I called the office to make an appointment and they were like: Would you like to come in today? And I was like: Sure.

So I went in and met my acupuncturist, K. She asked a lot of questions about my medical history. She is officially the first person I've sought fertility help from who's asked me how I have dealt with my miscarriages emotionally. Just her caring enough to ask made me a little teary. She confirmed that Paleo is the best diet I can be on right now in order to minimize insulin surges.

I asked for her thoughts on the crinone gel I'd recently been prescribed and she said it can certainly help, but that her take on my condition is that my eggs need to be nourished and built up so they'll be strong. When I produce a strong egg, my body will react in accordance with the proper hormones. I'm not totally sure I agree, but I do agree that I'd like strong, nourished eggs.

For the treatment portion of my visit, she felt my pulse, palpated my stomach, and felt my cold hands and feet, at which point she declared that my yang is stuck. Although she pronounced it "yong." My qi is deficient and needs to get ... efficient. This information totally jibes with what Making Babies has told me.

She popped some needles in my forehead, lower abdomen, legs, and feet. Then she did this moxibustion thing I'd never heard of, where they heat some kind of dried Chinese plant and touch it to the needles. I think the theory is that it stimulates circulation. She placed a heat lamp over my belly and a heating pad at my feet. I was instructed to let my heart grow with unconditional love and send that love down my right arm, into my hand (which was resting on my lower stomach), and into my ovaries. I began to picture my ovaries as purple mirror balls. It was involuntary, what can I say.

I was left to relax for ... I don't know. Half an hour? I laid there and listened to the hippie music and got nice and deliciously toasty, and once I got bored of sending love to my glittering ovaries, I let my mind wander wherever it wanted to. I didn't fall asleep -- I'm simply not that chill of a person. Perhaps on a future visit I'll be able to relax that deeply.

When the session was over, K asked if I'm familiar with basal body temperature charting. Um. YES. She wants to see my charts. She is the first person I've sought fertility help from who's expressed the slightest interest in my charts. My personal belief on this subject is that most doctors have no clue what the temperatures mean.

K also wants to see my most recent blood work, so I got that for her as well. She prescribed some herbs and gave me a moxibustion stick to light and hold over my stomach. I told her I will try anything. Why not?

When I got home, there was an email waiting for me with my treatment plan inside. I'm to go for weekly sessions for one full cycle, and then reevaluate. She also strongly suggested I buy a certain book ... you guessed it! Making Babies! I believe I've stumbled upon the holy grail of acupuncture practices.

Because I had such a positive experience, I'm seriously considering not taking the crinone gel when I ovulate this cycle. Is that insane? I just kind of want to see how my body responds to acupuncture first ... maybe give it a couple cycles. We'll see how I feel after the next session on Friday.

To top it all off, I got a card in the mail today from K, just welcoming me to the practice and wishing me a happy weekend. Which is way more than I can say for the multitude of doctors I've seen and paid wayyyy more money to. Now, if it works? I'll be completely sold.

getting the ball rolling

What's that saying? The one about how if you have a problem with everyone, maybe you're the problem? After all, the common denominator is you.

I don't have a problem with everyone, but I do have a problem with most doctors. I've only ever had one doctor who helped me out. This was probably six years ago now, when I thought I was having panic attacks. She ran every test under the sun, and the results were super helpful. Turns out I wasn't having panic attacks; my heart is just a little jacked. Unfortunately, that doctor closed her practice.

I just saw a new doctor, and ... I am afraid to get my hopes up, you guys. I went in with my 7-page infertility questionnaire, told her it'd been over two years and two miscarriages, and said I wasn't interested in hearing about how I needed to have a third miscarriage in order for her to be concerned. She told me she wouldn't have said that, anyway. This may have to do with me being 34 years old now.

She is running 19 tests. Many of them are specifically for the repeated miscarriages. 

And she's running the progesterone test, guys. Why has it taken me this long to find a doctor who would run a series of progesterone tests? I've always suspected progesterone was the issue.

I'll also get a heart check-up to make sure I'm OK to actually carry a child since it puts stress on the heart.

Of course, I need to wait for the start of the next cycle before I can do any of these tests. Many of them need to be taken on Day 3 of my cycle. And when do you suppose Day 3 is projected to fall for me, since my cycle has been spot-on for the last several months? That's right. Christmas Day. This Murphy's Law shit is the story of my life. I've just called and confirmed that yes, all of the labs will be closed on Christmas. As they should be. So I will probably have to wait until the following cycle.

It's ok, really. I do feel very rushed to get my results, but it's been over two years already. Another month won't hurt.

one word of advice

If you happen to be home alone and want to watch something funny, and you also happen to be infertile, may I suggest you refrain from watching "What to Expect When You're Expecting"?

Sweet Baby Jesus.

I admit it was a dumb move on my part, ordering that movie from Netflix in the first place. But I honestly thought it was going to be a funny ha-ha "look how much pregnancy sucks but being a mom is cool" movie. And it was some of that but it was also a lot of oh my god miscarriage and trying-for-two-years and IVF and bad eggs and adoption and ... I sobbed. It was really ugly. I should have turned it off and I didn't because I'm a glutton for punishment.


Lesson learned. No movies about pregnancy/adoption/infertility/babies. Not yet.

please hold

Hurry up and wait is the order of the hour. It's a good news/weird news week.

For starters, my OB (the bitch with a capital C) is leaving the medical group I go to so she can be a full time mommy. How nice for her. That sentence wasn't dripping with acidic sarcasm. In opposite land.

Anyway, it's fine, because as I say, she's a total cuntwozzle and I am just gonna pick a different OB in the same practice. Probably.

Probably, because yesterday my husband's old company acquired his new company, and our insurance is going to change. Things can only get better in that department -- nothing can be worse than "We're sorry your vagina doesn't work, now here is zero dollars to help with that."

So in anticipation of better coverage, I canceled a physical I'd scheduled at the fertility clinic on Tuesday, along with a round of blood tests that would have cost a couple grand. I'm OK with waiting another month or so.

In other fertility clinic news, they keep having this ignoramous call me and tell me things, when she clearly has no idea what she's talking about. It's becoming grating. She called Monday to tell me one of the doctors says two miscarriages in a row does not equal "a pattern of miscarriages." In their world, perhaps. Anyway, because of that, they do not feel any additional testing is warranted. I didn't argue with her because as I said, she knows nothing. I'd planned to attack the NP doing my physical for information yesterday, but that'll have to wait.

Finally, I pored over Making Babies and upped my vitamin intake to the level the book recommends. I will probably ovulate this cycle, despite the miscarriage, if the CM I'm seeing is any indication. I'm seeing more than normal, and I can only attribute this to the vitamins. I'm taking a lot more folic acid, and I've added vitamin C, NAC, and coQ10 to the mix.

The ignoramous on the phone says they don't generally recommend trying to conceive again directly following a miscarriage blah blah I've heard it all before. I wonder if three miscarriages equals a pattern? Hm. I'm not interested in finding out but I also wonder if it's possible two miscarriages in a row really isn't a pattern and there's maybe nothing wrong with me. I can clearly get pregnant; staying pregnant is the trick. I'm still losing tiny bits of weight at a time and am down about ten pounds, so hopefully that helps whatever might be jacking me up.

In any case, that's what's up right now. There probably won't be much to report until we get the insurance thing worked out. Til then!

(insert curse word)

Since what Making Babies calls my "early pregnancy loss" and what others may term "chemical pregnancy" or the charming "disintegration":

• I ordered an ass-ton of new vitamins. Because what if vitamins are the problem? Sure.

• I rescheduled a physical with the fertility clinic. Blah blah I hate everything. 

• A woman from the clinic told me "we don't test for progesterone" when I suggested that might be the problem. She is dead now because I killed her. 

• I composed a list of tests I want done, including progesterone testing. I am bringing it to my next appointment. If they won't order them, I am blowing the place up. Which I think is perfectly reasonable. 

•  My dominating emotion this go-round has been anger, if that's not readily apparent. I'm a true joy to be around. 

• I'm still not talking about it. I don't want to talk about it. After the first miscarriage I talked the fuck out of it and now if I have to talk about it I might hurt someone. 

Yep.

Second verse, same as the first

I may have just had a beer, which is not on the Dr. A diet plan, but allow me to explain.

Last Tuesday, I was scheduled to have a physical with a nurse at the fertility clinic I've recently begun using. I woke up and took a pregnancy test, just in case. And it was positive.

This moment in time -- this two-pink-lines moment -- was such a sweet plink on my timeline. Good god, second pink line. You could not have arrived at a more fortuitous moment in time. You are saving me thousands of dollars in doctor's bills. You are the indicator of the son or daughter I fully expect to come tearing out of my vagina in nine months.

I woke up my husband. He was astounded. I went to the drug store and bought various different types of pregnancy tests. I tested a total of five times and got a positive result each time. So I bought a baby name book. We discussed plans for the nursery.

And, of course, I canceled my physical. The doctor's office wanted me to have a blood test to confirm the pregnancy, so I blithely headed to a lab for a draw that afternoon.

This is where the sequence of events becomes droll and irritating and grey and possibly even infuriating.

The doctor's office called me back. Yes, you are pregnant, they said. But your HCG level is only 28.

HCG levels are supposed to double or triple every 48 to 72 hours.

I tested again on Friday. They called on Saturday. Your HCG level is only 32.

I tested again on Monday. I started bleeding Monday afternoon. I took a home test and it was negative. The doctor's office called Tuesday and the HCG level was 8. I informed them that I already knew I was miscarrying.

What a fertility clinic will never call this (because they want to keep you as a client) is a chemical pregnancy. Christina says: I hate that phrase. I hate it, too. It's demeaning. It's a real pregnancy but the difference is it's never seen on an ultrasound. It's an early miscarriage. It's a blessing in one way; I won't have to spend any number of hours hunched over on a toilet this time. But it's absolutely still a miscarriage.

Miscarriages are what happens to other women. Two miscarriages in a row is what happens to other women who have shitty fucking luck; not you. God, or the universe, or whoever it is you think is looking out for you out there: He or She would never let this happen to you. You don't deserve it, certainly. It's not fair, at all. You'd be a good mom, your deity knows.

But there it is, draining out of you. Draining out of me, a bright red river. Again.

I'm not sure what I should feel, and I'm not sure what I do feel. I feel a swarm of things that are buzzing around my head, really, and when I pluck one out of the air it's often something like: Rage, self pity, helplessness, seething anger.

Whether I am allowed to feel strong emotion about an early miscarriage, I'm not sure. I do, though. I did. I will. I don't know, really. I am confused. They said You miscarry once, then you get pregnant again and it's fine, and it wasn't fine. No.

I told my family and a few close friends, but most friends I didn't tell. If you are one of them, I'm sorry. Maybe you are one of them but you'll never read this, and that's OK, too. I can't discuss this over and over and over with everyone. I know you get it, or hope you do. I wanted to be pregnant at the same time as my other friends who were pregnant and I can't talk to them about it. They'll read it here: Hi, girls.

The only option is keep going, keep going, keep going. The woman from the clinic on the phone talks of next steps and tests and appointments and money and I answer with a voice that's small in my chest and I know it's the only option. 

Ovulation ... ?

Because my life follows Murphy's Law, I became rather ill during what The Machine told me were my most fertile days. We managed to get some good "work" done before I turned into the walking dead, and then I waited for ovulation.

And waited. And waited.

And then my temperature spiked on a morning after I'd slept fitfully. This was three days after my last peak fertile day, according to the fertility monitor. The previous night I'd slept two hours. I can't be sure if the temperature spike can be attributed to illness, or actual ovulation.

The next day the temperature dropped back down to pre-ovulation numbers. In case you're not familiar with how tracking basal temps works: Your temperature is supposed to spike when you ovulate, and then basically stay high for the rest of that cycle. If the temperatures drop back down, that's usually an indication of low progesterone, according to Making Babies. That's something I've suspected for a while.

But I gotta say, I am suspicious of that temperature spike. I don't think it's genuine. Next cycle's temperature chart will be more telling, as long as I don't come down with The Crud again. But honestly, I don't think I ovulated.

MB says the most common anovulatory condition is PCOS, and that 10 percent of women have it. I've never been diagnosed. Post-miscarriage the ultrasound showed only one unruptured cyst, but that's been seven months now. Who knows what my ovaries have been up to since then.

Most women with PCOS have weight issues (yes), hair in unwanted places (hello mustache), and insulin resistance. I've been tested for insulin issues a number of times -- my sister has Type 1 diabetes and I'm overweight, so doctors probably assume I'm a ticking time bomb. But the results have always come back normal.

However, there are actually two faces of PCOS; one that involves insulin resistance, and another that involves hyperandrogenism -- elevated androgen levels result from unruptured cysts. I don't know if I've ever been tested for that, but you can bet I'll be asking for it. 

MB says the best at-home remedies for PCOS are eating well and exercising. Unfortunately, "eating well" for PCOS means something close to the Atkins diet. The disease responds well to it. And the book says, encouragingly, that the majority of women with PCOS can get pregnant naturally. 

So, as usual, I'm basically self-diagnosing. Something else entirely could be causing my temperatures to be off. In any case, I'm still planning to give it one more cycle, and then it's off to the doctor. I'll reluctantly give low-carb eating a shot for the next month and keep trying to knock off the pounds. Diet, exercise, and The Crud helped me lose another few pounds since last week, so I'm on the right track. 

Due Date

My due date was on Sunday, April 22.

For some reason, there was a plethora of births this month, and more to come. I guess everybody was getting busy in August.

It was floating there on the bottom of my consciousness for the first couple weeks of the month, and then it felt like I was a nail and it was hammering me into the ground and I did, of course, have my own special little breakdown on and off for several days.

I don't want to self-indulge. I don't want to express my want for a baby; it's obvious. I don't want to cheapen anyone else's experience or my own. 

I just want to acknowledge the coulda-been-baby that would've been keeping me up all night, this week, if everything had gone as planned.

And I want to acknowledge the women in my life who have miscarried. I had no idea what you'd been through. If I'd known, I'd have shown more compassion and poured more wine. There's so little importance placed on miscarriages in our culture, for some reason. And perhaps even some kind of shame attached to it. I don't want to examine why, I just want to say: I get it now.

That whole setting myself up for disappointment thing

Well, it didn't happen this cycle, even though I had some kind of ridiculous faith that it would. It's a tad bit worrisome. People who miscarry are most fertile in the three months following a miscarriage, and I'm on month 4. Yarrrrgggggh.

By the way, Drew Barrymore is pregnant. You're welcome. Also, so is every-fucking-body else, and their best friends and their dogs and cats.

Pregnancy's for the birds, anyway, don't you think? I've been hearing tons of pregnancy horror stories lately. I heard three late-term miscarriage (technically stillbirths I guess) stories recently. I mean, these are people who know people that I know. The degree of separation is much too small for my comfort. 

You want to think that if you can just make it through the first trimester unscathed, you're good. But that's not necessarily the case. Which is terrifying.

Anyway, there are good stories out there, too. Really good stories that aren't necessarily mine to tell, but fall within the miracle realm. Those kinds of stories make me really happy. They make me want to keep trying.

My 'gift'

Every year for Christmas, baby Jesus gives me my period. I am sure you will think I am exaggerating or simply lying, but the truth is: I start my period on Christmas Day, every year. Every. Single. Year.

And lest ye think this year was any exception, I assure you it was not.

After the miscarriage, I really thought that the next time I got pregnant I would just know it. But what's ended up happening is I have known that I was pregnant for the last two months in a row, only to discover, I don't actually know jack.

Well, what I know now is PMS symptoms and pregnancy symptoms are absolutely identical. I even get nauseated during PMS. It's really the best.

My sister had her baby about two weeks ago now. As I hold little Ava and feel unequivocal love and tenderness toward her, I can't help but think some kind of magic baby dust has to be floating in the air and if I just hang around her long enough, I'll get to have my own kid.

A more likely story is I'll have to break out my trusty Machine -- the most expensive ovulation predictor known to man -- and give that sucker a whirl again. It makes baby-making really romantic. In Opposite Land.

A friend remarked last night on the dwindling of entries here on Tired & Stuck, and I could only say:  I think the three of us are getting tired of saying the same thing over and over again. This is not one of those things that gets easier as time passes, unfortunately. It's harder to think about every month. It's faith-breaking and has that deep-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach feeling you get when something is unjust; not right; unfair; straight-up wrong -- and there's pretty much nothing you can do about it.

True: there are worse tragedies in the world. We know it, and we have perspective. But when your heart wants something so bad -- your brain can't reason it away. 

Eventually I'll stop talking about miscarriage. Not today, obviously.

Here I am to pour another cup of cheer into your day by talking about miscarriage! Ho, boy. I am a real hoot to be around these days.

Honestly, this is a good day, if you don't count how I almost cried while I was taking a walk this morning. Which: I have kind of come to accept that I am basically going to cry every day for essentially no reason, so it is what it is. I was listening to a song that made me ... happy and sad at the same time, so I got all teary-eyed.

I finally got my period! Again! Continued proof that life is cruel and disgusting; am I right? These post-miscarriage periods are real doozies, lemme tell you. I'll be sitting quietly, and, well ... you recall the scene from The Shining when the blood pours out of the elevators? That is essentially what is happening in my pants. I have bled through almost every pair of pants I own. I sprint for the bathroom. I want to yell: Clear the decks! Hoist the mainsail!

Don't ask me why you would hoist the mainsail. I know nothing about boats and/or sailing. Maybe instead I should yell: Stop the presses! Seeing as how my background is in journalism and I feel the unwise need to tell you every time I buy a new box of tampons.

I think my friends are coming up for air after the miscarriage. It's like the dust has cleared and they're creeping carefully out of the bomb shelter to see if it's safe to venture out. A few friends have surprised me this week by reiterating to me how sorry they are for what happened. They are telling me they're not sure they made it clear early on. Believe me, they made it clear in the beginning. There's no way to properly express your horror or grief about things like that, honestly. When these things happen, it makes us all helpless. All we can do is stand together.

I have very good friends. They are over-thinkers (as I am). Perhaps most women are. I'll return home from a gathering and replay each conversation I had with each woman, turning each word and each raised eyebrow over in my mind to make sure nothing was misconstrued and there's no possibility that anyone had their feelings hurt. I can't tell you how many times I and my friends have spoken later and said: You know that time we were talking? I didn't mean this and I hope you didn't take it like that.

Maybe my friends are just worried about their reactions to the miscarriage because I won't shut up about it. Consider this my very public journal. I keep a journal, normally. I kept one during the pregnancy, and when I miscarried I wrote: Having a miscarriage.

That was it. There was something about putting ink on paper ... I didn't want to literally spell it out there. That journal is for my secret, innermost, darkest thoughts, and I haven't as of yet been able to talk to even myself about that.

I feel sorry for my friends, in a way. Especially the pregnant ones (because of survivor guilt). They don't want to mention the miscarriage and they don't want to ignore it. They've got to touch on the topic to show they care but they don't want to make me feel like shit, either. The ones who know but weren't technically in-the-know because other people told them assume that I don't know they know (confused yet?) -- I see the wheels turning behind their eyes -- they're searching their minds frantically for cheerful things to discuss. They pity me and treat me kindly, and I'll take that, for now.

The long cycle

I guess my cycles are still evening out. I am on Day 34 of this cycle and Aunt Flo has made no indication of her impending arrival, unless deep, dark rage is any indication.

Oh, rage is an indication? Huh.

A few days ago I took a pregnancy test, just in case. It was negative. I gotta say, this is the first time in over a year that I have seen a negative pregnancy test and not needed to either eat a vat of chocolate sauce or punch something. I felt mild disappointment and overwhelming relief.

The doctors said I would be scared to get pregnant again, but they were wrong, because the way I am feeling about getting pregnant again is something akin to horror. Terror, you might call it. Things would be very simple if my husband and I decided we didn't actually want to have children; I'd send him in for a vasectomy (he's going to read this and be like what the hell?) and that would be the end of that.

Unfortunately, it appears that we both want children even more now than we did before. Which is a problem, when paired with my severe fright about getting pregnant again. I can't even really talk about it, or think about why it scares me so much ... accessing that dark and smelly pit in my brain is such a disgusting thought. I really see it that way -- it's like I'd have to swim in tar, maybe go meet Gollum somewhere down in a dank, pitch black cave. This has begun to make exactly no sense.

I kept saying we'd wait until January to try again. Then I said we'd wait until I lost 15 pounds. Then I said we'd wait until April. If I keep pushing the try-again date back, eventually the pit of tar will dry up and go away, right? I'd thought it was gone, or at least on an extended vacation, until last week when I suddenly began to think of my baby. Who thinks of a first-trimester miscarriage as a baby? This cannot be a healthy line of thought.

Of course if I keep pushing the try-again date back, my fertility will lessen. Women who miscarry are most fertile in the three months following a miscarriage. It declines after that. I can't spend another year doing this; I might lose my marbles, you guys.

Yeah, I'mma try again. It'll need to be sooner than later. There's exactly no reason to wait, other than that dark pit.

Community

I'm not sure how I would feel about this last year and everything that happened during it if it weren't for the Internet.

In real life, I have a couple of friends whom I've struggled alongside to get pregnant. We all have our own very individual, unique issues, and having these couples in my life has produced sanity for me. I just can't imagine being the only one of my friends dealing with this. And while I wish my friends didn't have these problems, I selfishly am glad I know people who get it. Everyone says it and it's true: You don't get it unless you've been there.

When it first started to become clear that getting pregnant wasn't going to be as easy as I'd believed it would be, I must have said something somewhere on the Internet about it. And Libby saw what I said and, maybe jokingly, said she and I should start a blog about exactly this problem. I roped Christina into joining us, and here we are almost 9 months later, all of us battle-scarred and -- there's no denying it -- pretty pissed off.

But what I didn't know until we started this blog was about the entire, enormous community of women out there who call themselves infertiles and blog about the things they go through. The things I've been through pale in comparison. It ain't nothing compared to five failed IVFs. Can you even imagine?

For the several weeks that I was pregnant in the summer, I read their blogs and wept. It was probably survivor guilt, although there's no denying what they have to say is heartbreaking. And I follow so many of them out of fascination and a sense of sisterhood, that when I became pregnant, I noticed when other self-professed infertiles became pregnant at the same time. Look at us! Pregnant together! There was something really bonding and strength-building knowing myself and these women were pregnant together and would have children around the same ages.

Then about half the infertiles began to have miscarriages. Why? I wondered. I read their profiles. Multiple miscarriages, been trying to get pregnant for ten years. Stuff like that. Unexplained infertility. (Few phrases enrage me as much as "unexplained infertility." It's the biggest load of bullshit out there)

And some kept their babies. They're coming up on five months now, getting over morning sickness, starting to get their baby bumps. That would be me, too, I can't help realizing when I read their updates. I'd never wish otherwise for them, but I still feel raw and wounded when I think of how it could have been me, too, with a viable baby.

I think the infertiles of the Internet (and other wonderful friends) kept me sane during the darkest times. There's just something about knowing other women have been through it, and whether or not it's just in my mind, I sensed a warmth, a cushion of support that, in my mind, was the collective voice of these women holding me up. It can't be overstated -- this kind of support is life saving. It'll never take away the hurt you naturally have to go through, but it will make it easier to endure, and easier to see the light on the other side.

 

Ick

My husband's hair dresser knows about the miscarriage because she also recently had a miscarriage and these days when someone we haven't seen in a while asks: "How are you? What's been going on?" here's an approximation of the answer that runs through our heads: "Miscarriagemiscarriagemiscarriage."

Sometimes, if it's too much information for that particular person, we just say "same old" and proceed with some how's-the-weather kind of conversation.

Anyway, Liz, the hair dresser, knows about the miscarriage. She told him at his last appointment to be wary of my reaction when I finally did get my period because it's kind of like a reminder of the whole incident and can be pretty emotional.

Living in denial, as I tend to do on a regular basis, I viewed the impending period as exactly what it was. Just another period. And then it arrived and turned out to be more than that.

My reaction wasn't even conscious. I wasn't even necessarily that disturbed that this was an extremely heavy period -- heavier even than the bleeding following the miscarriage, and heavier than any period I've ever had, period. (heh)

I think it disturbed me on a subconscious level. I was exhausted, and sad on a different level ... It was sadness and a real hate of me. My inner monologue: God, sometimes I just hate myself. What in the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I get it together? If I could just live in the woods by myself for maybe six months, maybe I could stop hating me, stop hating everyone else, stop being such a sucky, boring, repetitive asshole. I hate everything. Why is everyone so annoying and demanding? The holidays are coming. Is there any way at all that I can opt out of the holidays? God, why do the holidays all have to be so close together and suck so bad?

I'm a real joy to live with. Just ask my husband.

I believe I'm pulling out of it. 

Some women say the only way they can handle this post-miscarriage span of time is to immediately become pregnant again. That would be a great distraction, and I totally get that. More power to them. I won't do it until I'm ready. Good and ready.

The way of things

We are status quo since the miscarriage. Since then, I've had many bottles of wine and many delicious mugs of coffee, read almost the entire Sookie Stackhouse series, and pondered my next move.

And actually, I haven't had a period yet. It's been over five weeks. I could be pregnant again, but I think it would be a long shot. The internet tells me it could be a long time until I get a period again, which is just fine, I say. I was never fond of the Red Tent. The internet also tells me there is no medical reason to wait for a period to try to conceive again. But I still want to wait.

Another thing I've been doing: Working on weight loss. I say "working on" instead of "losing weight" because while I've lost a few pounds, I don't feel that I have enough momentum to say "losing weight" yet. Maybe after 10 pounds. If I feel that I have that momentum by the end of the year, I may wait a few more months to try to conceive again, so that I can get to my desired weight. This isn't purely selfish: I believe the excess fat is affecting my hormones. And, it will be easier to carry a baby if I'm more fit.

I have other projects in the works, as well. I'm finishing my novel, which will be done by the end of the year. The other option is for me to walk into the ocean and drown myself, so probably I'll be finishing the book. And, we're working on a few home upgrades that have yet to get liftoff. I'd feel so much better about getting pregnant if all this stuff were behind me.

I admit I'm a little scared of pregnancy now. I know statistically everything will probably be OK if I get pregnant again soon, but ... Ugh. I just don't know if I could handle it if I had another miscarriage. And I don't want to be pregnant. I know it's basically impossible to have your own natural child if you don't get pregnant, but oh lordy. I didn't enjoy the small taste I had. That sentiment is either selfish or reasonable. Maybe both.

Anyway. Those of you that have miscarried: How long did it take your period to show up? How long did it take you to get pregnant again? Tell me your stories. Tell me pregnancy is better in later trimesters. Tell me it's beyond worth it.

Better

It got better, although I feel nervous about feeling better. Like a diaper commercial might send me into a twenty-minute crying jag. This hasn't happened; I'm just saying I feel like I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Maybe it's just like waiting for the other baby to drop. That sentence makes no sense. But you know how everywhere you go, there're babies? And how I almost left a cart full of groceries in the frozen food aisle when I saw a baby the day after my miscarriage? It's like that.

I cry pretty much anywhere, unapologetically, and not because I'm sad but because the emotion of almost every situation feels amplified at least five times. And yeah, babies make me sad for the time being.

On the other hand, having a few months off from trying to get pregnant is a relief, for lots of reasons. One being that it gives me a chance to try to be healthier, and lose weight. Lately I've been holding up my own clothes and thinking, Wow, this looks really big. It seems like there's no way a piece of clothing so large would fit on my body, but it does, and most often is even a little snug. That's not how I want to feel about my body when I get pregnant.

You learn a lot about yourself, your family, and your friends when you're going through a rough patch, and that's been interesting, too. Sometimes people are afraid to speak to you when you're at your lowest. Or afraid to speak of The Big Bad thing you're going through. I get it, really. And sometimes people think you should probably be over it a lot sooner than you're over it. I get that, too, although I think that attitude sucks. And then some people catch you off guard with how wonderful they are.

You know, selfishly I wish I could have life both ways. I enjoy my life the way it is; baby-free. I get to do what I want, when I want, without a second thought. That's fun! I know I don't take advantage of that the way I should, but to the extent that I do, it's enjoyable. But then I also really want my own chubby baby. I want to know what color eyes my baby would have. I want to put up cutesy decorations in the baby's room and sing Journey songs as lullabies. I want to carry my own cute baby around in the grocery store in one of those hippie slings like the women who've been torturing me all year do.

I can't have it both ways, obviously. So I'll enjoy it the first way for a while longer, and then hopefully the second way at some point down the road.

A miscarriage primer

There is a lot of information about miscarriages on the Internet. And a lot of misinformation, unfortunately. As I expect many women who are preparing to miscarry naturally do, I scoured the Web for any and all information that might be available.

If the Internet was to be believed, I could expect the worst pain of my life -- worse than real labor! -- in addition to vomiting and probably passing out unconscious on the bathroom floor.

What I think is probably true is that miscarriages are different for every woman. I'm certain a lot of it has to do with how far along the pregnancy was.

So what I'd like to do is explain, without reserve, the details of my own miscarriage in case there is a woman out there who is going through this same thing and is, perhaps, a little terrified by what she's read on the Internet.

Now for starters, I'm not going to leave out the dirty details that I feel lots of Internet miscarriers leave out. That is to say: I had diarrhea every day for 10 days before the miscarriage. This may not be normal, but this was my experience. 

I'd been spotting off and on for almost two weeks before I started bleeding, like a period. The bleeding began four days before the miscarriage.

The evening before the miscarriage, I was feeling pretty good but there was definitely a tightening in my abdomen; some cramping that I could feel growing stronger. I went to bed around midnight. 

I woke up at 3 a.m. with strong cramps. It felt like very strong period cramps. I knew this must be the beginning of the miscarriage, and I got up to go sit on the toilet. First there was more diarrhea - joy! About twenty minutes later, the first chunks of uterine lining slipped out.

Now, what I guess I hadn't anticipated was how that was going to feel. It felt larger than I expected. I didn't look at it; I just flushed it. And then I cried for a good ten minutes.

I'll interject here to say that while the cramps were painful, and the contractions did ramp up over the next three hours, at no point did I feel the absolute need to take the Vicodin my doctor had prescribed. This was not the worst pain of my life, and I am sure real labor will be worse. That being said, the embryo had died at 6 weeks, 4 days, so it was small.

So over the three hours of the main part of the miscarriage, I had contractions in waves. I would sit on the toilet, push out a chunk or two, get up, walk around, drink some water, lie down for a few minutes, and then repeat. The worst part of the whole thing was probably the back labor -- a deep ache in my lower back that was very uncomfortable.

*Note -- I think staying well hydrated during this process helps keep things moving.

I did finally take a look at what was coming out and I'm sorry if this grosses you out, but it looked like pieces of offal. Chicken liver and such.

At 6 a.m., I was too exhausted to continue. I was still cramping, but the cramps had leveled off to a level I thought I could probably sleep through. And sleep I did, until noon, getting up once to change my pad at 9 a.m.

Throughout that day I had some cramping, especially in the early evening, when it got so bad I did consider taking the Vicodin. Luckily, after about two hours it had stopped.

On Monday I was feeling physically pretty good. I still had some niggling aches in my lower back, but it wasn't constant. I decided I felt well enough to run some errands. About 30 seconds after I walked out of the house, I felt the amniotic sac slide out.

I am quite certain it was the amniotic sac because it was large -- about the size of my hand -- and grayish in some areas. Parts looked veined, if you can believe it. In all honesty the thing creeped me out so bad I could barely look at it. Another reason I'm quite sure this was the amniotic sac is that the cramps stopped right away. Everything I've read on the Internet has said the sac is the last to come out, and as soon as it does, the cramping stops.

I have an appointment this afternoon for an ultrasound. I fervently hope everything came out. I can't have gone through all that, only to then need a D&C.

Physically, I'm feeling decent. No more nausea, thank goodness. I do still feel a little fatigued, which is probably to be expected, and I've unfortunately developed pupps rash -- a rash pregnant women sometimes get after labor. It's quite itchy and annoying.

Emotionally I am relieved. I feel that now that this is hopefully behind me, I can move forward. Not just with trying to conceive again, but with other areas of my life. This experience has helped me reevaluate the way I've been living, and it's lighted a fire under me to be more ambitious.

As far as when we will try again, I don't think that emotionally I can do it right away. My current plan, barring any unforeseen change of events, is to wait until January to try again. I hope that by then I can get to a healthy place where I feel completely ready to embark on this journey once more.

Disappointment

To get this out of the way and prevent the paragraph-skipping your eye is going to want to do unless I just come out and say it, I’m going to just come out with it.

I was pregnant, and now I am not.

I found out I was pregnant about four and a half weeks ago. When I got an ultrasound at seven weeks, things didn’t look great. At eight weeks – last Thursday -- the fetal heartbeat was gone.

With that out of the way, I’ll now start at the beginning.

First of all, I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you right away. The reason I didn’t is because of exactly what happened. I couldn’t live out the joy and tragedy for a live audience. I’d planned to tell everyone after my seven-week ultrasound, if everything looked good. Since it didn’t look good, I kept quiet.

You might remember that Christina and I each took pregnancy tests before leaving for BlogHer in early August.  I was on cycle day 23, and had ovulated around day 15 or so, if The Machine was to be trusted. The result of my test was negative. Not even the faintest line. I proceeded to the airport and had two glasses of wine to calm my flying jitters, then another on the airplane. Then another that evening at the expo, and then a giant margarita at dinner.

For the entirety of BlogHer, I was ravenous. I ate so much I gained two pounds in the few short days we were there.  The first night I slept terribly, but the next two nights I dropped into a deep sleep and had strange, vivid dreams. By the end of BlogHer I felt deeply fatigued and when I got home, I crawled into bed and took a long nap.

I continued to feel extremely tired and have strange dreams. The night before I got my “big fat positive,” I dreamed I had a baby but kept forgetting to take care of it. In my dream, I awoke and remembered I’d left the baby in the living room, and I scrambled out of bed to get it. When I got there, a raccoon had somehow gotten into the house and scratched the baby’s face. I awoke – for real – in a panic.

My husband had forbidden me to take a pregnancy test until my period was abnormally late, and as it happened the date I took the test was on his 35th birthday. I used an EPT test and the plus sign showed up immediately. I started shaking. I looked at myself in the mirror and recognized sheer terror. I’d been trying to get pregnant for so long that I’d never actually envisioned a positive pregnancy test. My husband was elated.

More symptoms started cropping up. Nosebleeds, sore breasts, sensitivity to smells, cramping and nausea. Fatigue and crazy dreams continued to be a mainstay.

And then we went to the first ultrasound. I was seven weeks along. The ultrasound tech showed us the embryo and the fluttering heart. She congratulated us and sent us on to the doctor. We sat in the waiting room, grinning ear to ear.

And then the doctor congratulated us and told us the baby’s due date would be April 22 – our wedding anniversary. But, there was a caveat. She said the fetus looked to be only about six weeks, three days old, and the heartbeat was lower than she’d like, at only 80 beats per minute, so she had us schedule another ultrasound for the following week. She said it could be a fluke and she advised “cautious optimism.”

I already felt optimistic – after all, I’d just seen my baby’s heartbeat. So I smiled and asked the doctor if I could proceed with asking her the dozen or so questions I’d written down. And she said: “You know, let’s wait until your next appointment.”

At this point I realized two things. 1) My doctor is kind of a bitch. 2) She didn’t think the baby was going to make it.

I, of course, jumped on the internet immediately when I got home and found a study that concluded that six-week-old embryos with heartbeats of 80 beats per minute die within one week of the first ultrasound 61% of the time. Even if the heartbeat returns to normal, there is still a 25% chance of fetal demise in the first trimester after such a low heartbeat reading.

This was devastating news. I crawled into bed and cried.

We kept busy over Labor Day weekend. There was a lot going on and we met friends and family for various gatherings with smiles plastered on our faces. My symptoms had begun to fade. The nausea wasn’t nearly as bad. My breasts didn’t hurt at all. And then I started spotting very lightly. I warned my family not to be surprised if I delivered bad news after the next ultrasound. They’d all been so excited when we told them about the pregnancy. My sister is almost six months along and the cousins would have been close in age.

At the next ultrasound, a male technician stared quietly at the screen, perhaps deciding how best to word what needed to be said. I could see on the monitor there was no flutter; no heartbeat. I just stared at it, dry-eyed. My husband didn’t make a sound. The tech said he was sorry for the bad news and sent us on to my doctor, who sat us down to inform me of my options for the next, essential step.

There are three options. 1) Wait it out and miscarry naturally. 2) Insert a pill in my vagina to induce miscarriage. 3) A D&C (abortion) to remove the fetus.

All three are terrifying, but I chose the natural option. My doctor wrote me a prescription for vicodin and I imagine when the time comes I’ll pop a couple pills and spend some time on the toilet. She likened the process to a “mini-labor.” If it doesn’t happen on its own within a couple weeks, she wants to do the surgery.

I am ok, if by ok we mean that I am getting up in the morning and acting mostly human each day. I am a little shell-shocked, and pretty bummed out. I feel a bit of low-burning rage in the pit of my stomach, and I would kind of like to break something and maybe scream a little bit. For now I just sit silent, thinking about how this happened, what must happen next, and what should happen a couple months from now.

The doctor says we can try again once I have a normal period. This probably means we can try again sometime in November, providing I haven’t been committed to a mental hospital (I kid! You have to laugh, or you’ll cry). I admit the thought of trying again makes me want to vomit. But this is still so fresh, of course I feel that way. Also, I still have nausea from the pregnancy, to add salt to the wound.

The good news is that in all my google consults, I discovered another study that says women who get pregnant within six months of a miscarriage have a greater likelihood than normal of having a healthy pregnancy.

And the other good news is that throughout all this, we found out one important thing: I CAN GET PREGNANT. This is pretty astounding.

This is probably enough to have said about all this – more than enough, likely. I’ll be dealing with the fallout for the next couple of weeks and I’m sure I’ll write more about that. In the meantime I’m being as much of a hermit as I can and trying to feel sorry for myself only in the shower or when the lights are off and I’m trying to fall asleep. Miscarriage is something normal, something everyday, that has happened to almost every mother I know. I know this. They made it through and I will, too.