Thursday, July 16, 2009

Pancakes

Regarding the grieving father, he said to me "at least I had 11 years with the most wonderful daughter a father could ask for". I thought to myself it sucks that it was only 11 years. I told my therapist about this and he said "do you think that he would have rather not had his daughter at all?" Of course I don't think that he would have rather not have had his daughter for those 11 years, just that there should have been so many more years from here on out. I've read and heard of many women/couples say that they are glad they had those few hours with their still born baby or the few hours before their baby died in their arms. But for me I had none of that and on top of it a lot of invalidation for my feelings so a part of me can wish that I was never pregnant those times to have those losses because in the end I really had nothing. I never felt Isabella move, I never held her, I never got to see what she looked like, if she would have looked like me or like my husband. And I lost my idyllic perception of my husband's family due to their insensitivity to these losses. The poems I've written (Isabella, Each Day) have multiple meanings as poems like to do. Obviously I can't recapture my innocence, I can't bring Isabella back to life, but I also can't recapture how I use to feel about my husband's family. That has been changed forever. And of course I made a point of referring to myself as Isabella's mother in her poem since my husband's parents made such a point of denying me that title.

A "normal" grieving process supposedly takes a year. I don't think a year of grieving will cover it when your child dies. As long as you live you will constantly be reminded that they aren't there with you, birthdays, holidays, and all the milestones that they should have reached, first day at school, graduations, their wedding day. Your future is irrevocably changed, the road has split to a cruel alternate reality, a living nightmare.

I really wish none of this had ever happened. And when I think that it makes me even more sad that it did. And then I wish I was dead so I wouldn't have to feel this way anymore.




"Realize that the answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being led... and, of course, the quality of the pancakes."
Dustin Hoffman as Dr. Jules Hilbert in "Stranger Than Fiction"

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Injustice

I'm in a serious funk today. I stayed up too late last night talking on the phone with a friend about all my pregnancy issues and then didn't sleep well and had to get up too early. I'll have to make sure I go home and go straight to bed after my massage tonight. I think looking forward to that is the only thing getting me through this day.

A month ago I posted a comment to a post Carol wrote. I mentioned about a memorial service for an 11 year old girl who died. Yesterday I decided to email her father because I saw something in Dear Annie about Compassionate Friends and wanted to let him know about it if he hadn't heard about that support group. I said that I went to a meeting last year, but felt out of place because the people there had older children who had died (children who were generally 5 years old or older, I think there were a few who died in their 20's). I mentioned about my losses and specifically about Isabella and Sean, but mostly just wanted to tell him I had been thinking about him and his daughter a lot and offered an ear if he needed it.

I got a response back and have emailed a bit back and forth today. I'm feeling so sad and I don't know if it's because of our email conversation or something else or weird hormones but I feel really down in the dumps today.

I guess I'm just railing against the injustice of it all. How can the sun shine and the sky be so blue and yet so many babies and children die.

I wish I could bring them back.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Birthdays and Biopsies

Friday was my husband's 30th birthday. We threw a big party and had 18 people (including us) come and it was a lot of fun. It wasn't a surprise because my husband doesn't like surprises and it made it easy for me because I could just ask him what kind of stuff he wanted and where it should be, etc. The most interesting part of the party was the crazy cross section of our lives in attendance. We had a college buddy of my husband's and his wife, two co-workers and their wives, our next door neighbors who are elderly, his grandparents and parents, my mom and her husband, and my sister and her boyfriend. (His spoiled brat sister who says family comes first was too busy to come, but I'm glad because I think she's annoying.) Everyone had heard and seen pictures of everyone else but it was the first time most of them met so it was cool. I was really glad when it was over because I was stressing out a bit and running around crazy most of Friday before the party. Saturday everyone left by noon and then I crashed and took a 3-4 hour nap. I was exhausted.

Now that that is over I'm thinking about this biospy I'm going to have done of my uterus. It's suppose to be scheduled for next Friday, the 24th. I'm getting a little nervous about it and wondering what it will be like. If it's like the HSG then that's not too bad. I can deal with that. I have no idea what the results will be, but I can't help but hope they find something, anything to explain why this keeps happening. Why I can't stay pregnant longer than a week anymore. After Isabella died I use to think "if I can just make it to 20 weeks, then I'll be ok", then Sean was miscarried at 9 weeks. Then I had miscarriage after miscarriage and now I wish I could just get to that ultrasound at 6-7 weeks where you see and hear the heartbeat. Hell, I wish I could do a second pregnancy test and see a darker line rather than a lighter one than the previous test.

The passage of time really sucks. We've been trying to get pregnant for almost 3 years now. I wish I could fast forward to being 25 weeks pregnant, but who knows when that will be, for all I know it could be years from now.

That's what scares the shit out of me.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

In Real Life

I've been getting friendly with the fiancée of a friend of my husband's from his home town in PA. It's a bummer that she's far away, but we've been emailing back and forth a bunch and it's been really nice to get to know her better. She's a very good influence on my husband's friend, so it makes hanging out with him better than how he use to be.

So a few weeks ago we were in PA for my husband's sister's bridal shower and Friday night we got together with Alice and Craig and also another guy from my husband's childhood and his wife, Peter and Jane. (These are fake names by the way, but it's easier for referencing.) We went to a local bar for some drinks and munchies and at one point in the night, the guys decided to play some songs on the jukebox, and while they were up there Jane asked me if we were still trying to have kids. I sort of shrugged, nodded and said "yeah". It was so out of the blue and I always feel so caught off guard when people bring up pregnancy and babies. So that was it and we either talked about other stuff or the guys came back to the table. (Just for some back story on Jane, I've never gotten good vibes from her, although Peter is really nice. I don't know what I ever did to her, but she always seems really pissy and isn't very friendly.)

So yesterday Alice emailed me and said there was something she has been wondering about and asked if she heard right, that Jane asked if we were trying to have kids. And that if she did ask that it was really insensitive of her.

This is what I emailed back to her:

Jane asked if we were *still* trying to have kids. I don't know if Craig ever knew, but Peter and Jane did, I was pregnant a little over 2 years ago and she ended up dying. It's a long story which I can tell you more about later, but I got to 19 weeks so a lot of people knew I was pregnant. Her name is Isabella, she died in May 2007. I got pregnant again last year, but had a miscarriage at 9 weeks (April 2008), it was a boy and we (I) named him Sean. I don't think Jane or too many other people knew about that pregnancy. And not too many people know that I have been pregnant 5 times since then. I've had tons of tests done and I'm due to have another in a couple more weeks. I hope we finally get some answers. These last 5 are considered "chemical pregnancies" where if you didn't test you would think you were just having a late period. And while my mom and sister have admonished me for testing "early", I really have no choice. I learned after Isabella died that the reason why is because I have a blood clotting problem, so I have to find out as soon as possible (plus I really want to know!) so that I can take blood thinner injections (lovenox). Besides, testing on day 28 is not testing early. I don't know if you've looked at my Facebook stuff very much, but I posted a video that I put together of ultrasound pictures and other things from Isabella and Sean's short lives. My not so happy status posts of late is because I was pregnant last week and then found out the same thing was happening all over again. So I'm currently having a miscarriage, although it seems like a normal (but late) period, I know it's not.

So I can really relate to your feelings about unhealthy people, I feel that way about people who easily get pregnant and complain about being pregnant and then take their precious children for granted. I vow that when/if I ever have kids that I will never complain, not about poopy diapers, teething babies or any of it! I would love to have morning sickness, tons of stretch marks and c-section after c-section as well as being covered in drool, not knowing when my last shower was and my sole purpose in life to be a milk factory on demand day and night. That would be heaven for me.

That's probably a lot more information than you thought you would get. I feel sometimes like I want to tattoo these things across my face and shove it in everyone else's face, but I know that's a little crazy. As sad as this all is, I'm glad you asked and that I could share Isabella and Sean with one more person. It makes me a little bit happy to know that other people know their names.



Alice is such a nice person and I'm so glad that we're becoming friends and I could share all this with her. It's nice to have a sympathetic ear in real life.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

My Uterus...

is where babies go to die.

I got a positive pregnancy test on June 27th, I did another on June 30th, about the same darkness of line (medium). I went for a blood test on the 30th - 19 mIU/ml. Repeated on July 3rd - 4 mIU/ml.

Woke up just now in a pool of blood.

Why, why, why???

Monday, June 22, 2009

Fingers Crossed

This past weekend my husband and I went to Boston for the No Doubt concert, it was super fun. As luck would have it, my appointment to see a new RE in Boston was scheduled for Friday so I was happy that we didn't have to make a special trip. The weekend was slightly rainy and dreary for parts, but otherwise was packed with fun. We hiked all over the city doing the Freedom Trail and rode the "T" every which way. The appointment with the RE didn't give us any major break-throughs, but we got our blood drawn to do karyotypes on both of us to make sure all our chromosomes are normal to rule out issues from that. I'm nearing the end of my cycle, Thursday will be day 28, so it's just wait and see for now, I'm determined to not test until then. The only suggestion the RE had was if I don't get pregnant this month that she recommends doing a biopsy on my uterus next month which would mean no trying for that month. But depending on the biopsy it would say if I have an infection or something else that is keeping critters from latching on which could be fixed. That sounds unpleasant, but at this point I'll do whatever so bring it on. Obviously I hope I'll find out I'm pregnant on Thursday.

I'm in the throes of planning a birthday party for my husband, he's going to be 30 on July 10th. It's sort of a pain because the majority of people invited live far away, so a decent chunk of them aren't coming. Our parents and his grandparents are coming and now it's down to who is sleeping where. We live in a very touristy area so hotel prices are $150 and up even for not so spiffy motels. So I'm stressing a bit about what to do, get out the air mattresses I guess.

Last weekend we went to PA for my "sister-in-law's" bridal shower. I put it in quotes because I'm such a non-entity to her that I don't feel like I should bother calling her my sister-in-law. She gave a big speech at the beginning of the shower introducing her bridesmaids and gushed over her soon to be sister-in-law (her fiancé's sister) and how they've been calling each other sister for so long and how soon they really will be sisters. Whoop-di-do. According to my husband his family never does anything to purposefully hurt me, so I just have to assume his sister is so completely self centered and oblivious that she couldn't possibly comprehend how hurtful that was for me to hear as her sister-in-law of nearly 5 years. Needless to say I'm not a bridesmaid. Maybe if I was more girlie growing up then I would have more female friends and would actually get picked to be a bridesmaid in the weddings of women who were bridesmaids for me 5 years ago. I guess if my sister ever gets married I'm guaranteed a spot there. Should I really even be upset? I get out of wearing an ugly dress and paying an arm and a leg for it.


Friday is our 5 year anniversary, this past weekend was our present to each other, but we'll probably make a tasty dinner at home and celebrate in a little bit more low key way. I hope the weather clears up for the weekend, it would be nice to do some gardening and some other things around the house. As my neighbor always says: "Anyone who owns a house, deserves it."

For now I'll keep my fingers crossed for Thursday.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

It's Been So Long

It’s been a while. I’ve been pretty bummed out lately and haven’t felt like writing about it on my blog. I’ve also considered taking my blog down and leaving the world of dead baby blogging. It’s still something I’m considering.



Last Friday I noticed a post a friend of mine had made on Facebook saying something about maternity/newborn photo shoots. I gathered that she is pregnant. For those of you who’ve read my blog for a while, she’s the one who was maid of honor at my wedding (almost 5 years ago), but then asked me NOT to be in hers. She’s the one who told me last July that I was too much of a bummer to be friends with and more or less pushed me over the edge into full out depression and 2 months of not working, taking antidepressants and all that unpleasantness. On Saturday morning she called me and left a voice mail confirming that she is indeed pregnant. Parts of the message were garbled but she might have said something about this news being difficult for me. (No shit.) My husband and I were getting ready to go to a party across the state so I didn’t call her back. I know I shouldn’t have let it, but it ruined my whole day. Not one part of me feels happy for her. Mostly I just never want to hear from her again. It seems to me to be exponentially unfair how easy it is for other people. I don’t want suggestions on how I can make myself happy for her or delude myself in any way, but how can I keep myself from being consumed by it? Everywhere I go there are pregnant women, huge bellies, couples with small children, and then there are the comments they make because they have no clue what we’ve been through. At the party a couple we’ve met once before were departing because their kids were getting tired and she said to me “it sucks having kids”. I wanted to slap her and shake her and tell her what really sucks. I’m just filled with a lot of anger. I’m jealous, I’m bitter, I’m at a loss for words to even describe the depths of my misery.



I’m sure that starting my period on Friday didn’t help the whole situation. Not that it wasn’t unexpected, but this is the first normal period since the beginning of April. At least I feel like we have a chance this month. No matter how much I try and what I actually voice I still can’t help but think that it will happen this month. That I will get pregnant and it will stick and then in 9 months I’ll have a healthy baby. I suppose if I didn’t think that then I would have already given up.



At the beginning of May I had an MRI done of my uterus. Because the HSG was inconclusive an MRI was the only way to really see what things look like in there. My doctor called with the results and said that there is basically nothing wrong with my uterus that would cause me pregnancy problems. It was one of those situations when you actually want to hear that something is wrong with your body. I actually hoped that I would need surgery to fix some sort of malady. Instead there are no answers. Just bad luck.



While my husband and I drove home from the party this weekend we had a long talk during the 2.5 hour car ride. Generally speaking my husband has just been going along for the ride <-- ha ha. All the tests are done to me (although he’s nice and comes with me), I make all the phone calls to the doctor’s office and deal with the crappy office staff. He doesn’t question much, but this time he had a lot to say on our baby making mission. He said he wanted to see a specialist, he wanted a doctor to guide us rather than us (me) suggesting a course of action and having my doctor go along with it. I had asked my doctor if I could email him in an effort to avoid some of his office staff so we drafted an email to him to ask him all these things. We mentioned about our trek back in January to an RE an hour away who had nothing for us unless we wanted to do IUI or IVF. We didn’t want to have the same outcome. He’s currently working on getting us an appointment out in Boston. After his last response I’m beginning to worry that it won’t be any different than our January appointment only it will be further away and even less convenient. He said that he can’t guarantee that we won’t have the same experience with another RE. While I can understand that it makes me wonder what the point is. So I asked him. I asked him if there was anything that could be done for us. I asked what he would do if he were in our situation. Now I wait.

When I talked to my husband about my doctor’s email and how we should respond to it and because it sounded so discouraging my husband said “maybe we should just adopt”. He mentioned a long time ago that there was a file cabinet in his office where people leave random paper backs and other books available for people to borrow or keep. There was a book about adoption there. He said to me it felt like a sign to him that it was there in his office where he would walk by it several times a day. So I asked him if that book was still around and that maybe he should bring it home. He replied that it’s already at home, he took it a few weeks ago and that he was waiting until the right time to tell me. He’s apparently had it on his night stand all this time, but it’s on top of or tucked into a tall stack of books and he purposefully had it turned around so that the title didn’t face the bed for me to see. He’s very sneaky. He said he hasn’t started looking at it yet and wanted to give it a few more months to think about it. Depending on the outcome of this month and/or the whole RE referral fiasco we might have to crack that book open sooner rather than later.



In the meantime, we’ll try our hardest this month. I’m taking clomid, I’m going to do some ovulation tests since my doctor suggested waiting until after ovulation to start the progesterone as it might mess things up if I take it too soon. And I’m not going to bother with the lovenox until I get a positive pregnancy test. I know I’ve gotten pregnant twice without taking it, so I have to hope that it can be done again. And even though the bruises have faded I still have nickel to quarter sized marks on my abdomen from the lovenox I took in April. It’s just as well to put that off until I know I need it.



In my attempts to de-stress I’ve gone for a couple massages and I did yoga for the first time on Monday. Tonight I have another massage of the hot stone variety. 90 minutes of pure enjoyment and relaxation. I plan on making use of the whirlpool and sauna beforehand.



All I want to do is retreat into my bubble and not deal with the rest of the world. Not have to react to their comments or pregnancy announcements. To take some deep breaths, sleep without dreams, and find some way to be happy again.

It’s been so long since then.

A Philosophy I Should Adopt:

http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/reprieve/?8ty&emc=ty

8x8

8 THINGS I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO:

1. Giving birth to a healthy baby
2. Breastfeeding that baby
3. Summer
4. "No Doubt" concert on the 20th
5. The weekend
6. Doing more yoga
7. Our anniversary on the 26th
8. The vegetables we're growing in the garden this year

8 THINGS I DID YESTERDAY:

1. Worked
2. Therapy
3. Watered the garden
4. Went for a walk with my husband
5. Grilled buffalo burgers
6. Watched some TV
7. Shaved my legs
8. My husband ;)

8 THINGS I WISH I COULD DO:

1. Stay pregnant
2. Play the piano better (I suppose if I practiced and had a piano that was in tune...)
3. Relax
4. Speak a few foreign languages
5. A back flip
6. Travel
7. Have the time and money for my hobbies
8. A job that I enjoy

8 SHOWS I WATCH:

1. Big Bang Theory
2. Heroes
3. NCIS
4. Survivor
5. Brothers and Sisters
6. American Idol
7. New Yankee Workshop
8. How I Met Your Mother

8 FAVORITE FRUITS:

1. Strawberries
2. Kiwi
3. Pineapple
4. Bananas
5. Raspberries
6. Cherries
7. Apples
8. Watermelon

8 PLACES I'D LIKE TO TRAVEL:

1. Shannon, Ireland :)
2. Paris, France
3. London, England
4. Athens, Greece
5. Napa Valley, CA
6. San Francisco, CA
7. Toronto, ON
8. Vancouver, BC

8 PLACES I'VE LIVED:

1. Cape Elizabeth, ME
2. South Portland, ME
3. Troy, NY
4. Current Town, MA
That's it. So exciting.

8 PEOPLE I AM TAGGING:
I stole this off Michelle's blog, if you want to do it, get to it!

Monday, June 1, 2009

"Every day that passes is closer to that day when you will have a baby and when what you are experiencing right now will be just a bad memory."

http://miscarriage.about.com/od/recurrentmiscarriages/a/recurrentmisc.htm