Things Not to Say to Someone Who's Gone Throuh a MC...

"i bet you will get pregnant again soon. everything happens for a reason" - not what i wanted to hear the day i started miscarrying but it wasn't confirmed that i was until the next day. courtesy of my SIL.

"i almost wanted to wait a bit longer for my hysterectomy in case you needed mine" - seriously? WTF would you even say that??? i was pissed beyond belief when my mom said that to me!!! just because i MCd doesn't mean i might need someone else's damn uterus! and if anything, i'd ask my sister long before i asked my mom! gah!!!

Back in the 2WW!

(cycle 18, day 21, 3 dpo)

yep, i finally ovulated! seemed like it took forever since i had a + OPK on friday and didn't O til monday... the digi OPKs must pick up on the hormones/surge sooner than the cheapies since O usually occured the next day with those. i'll be testing at the end of next week, but i'm also scared shitless about testing, almost terrified. i don't want to see a stark white test after all we've been through to get to this point and then have AF show up just a couple days later. i want our baby so badly that it scares me to not be successful even though its our first cycle post MC that effort was put in. i'm also scared of actually getting another BFP even though i will monitored much more closely this time around due to the MC. this fear didn't start creeping in until after the anger i had towards trying again subsided and now its all i can think off. just last week i was bitter about this process and now i'm afraid of it.

the up-side to getting a BFP is that the gyno at the hospital wants me in right away for blood work to check my HCG levels and i'm guessing progestrone levels as well. he also wants me in for an US between weeks 4-6 to make sure something is growing in there, and growing properly. i was going to ask my own doc to send me for all this anyway, but its a comfort that the gyno wants it done as well. but it still doesn't make that fear go away at this point...

New Brunswick!

i know i haven't posted about the family reunion yet because after we got back i still hadn't posted about mexico, lol. so i thought i'd get this updated : )

new brunswick was probably one of the easiest flights we've had in our travels so far. thank goodness for hamilton airport being so small and only stopping to switch passengers! hubby wasn't nearly as cranky since he had time to go out for a smoke break and come back through security, grab a coffee and board the plane. i was a little worried on the flight back, but he still made it through.

when we got there, his aunt picked us up and drove us the 2 hours back to her place. i was a little, okay a lot, nervous to meet the rest of his family because i had been pre-warned that they were all like his dad and uncle.... and they were! i was a little bombarded with how many ppl i met when we first got there and by the time everyone had shown up, there were 22 ppl  o.O we visited for a bit and was introduced to everyone, then we set up out tent and got situated so we weren't doing it in the dark.

we did pretty much the same thing each day: wake up, have breakfast, wait your turn for the bathroom, figure out who's doing what, have lunch, do what was figured out, get supper going and eat, hang out in the garage until everyone had gone to bed. it wasn't too bad, but i would have rathered rented a car so we weren't house bound unless someone else brought us with them somewhere. i learned after about the 2nd day that if you get up earlier, you actually get breakfast made by one of the uncles and get coffee as opposed to having to make toast and there not be any coffee left since it was all drinken by the early risers. by the end of the week, it was wake up early, get breakfast and some coffee then go back to bed for a morning nap so i can stay awake all day and not crash by 8pm, lol. a couple afternoons were spent at a warf for swimming, visiting or whatever. its probably where we got most of the pictures that were even taken on that trip.

the first morning we were there was actually our first anniversary so DH bought me some flowers and junk food. it was nice that he still did something on our actual anniversary, but we had already celebrated it back home before leaving.

the second night we were there a running joke started by putting a "for sale sign" on random things. the first night it was his uncles trailer, and then DH put it up on his wall and his friends would bid on it and so would family that was at the reunion. it was actually quite funny and the end of the night was spent coming up with what to "sell" next. the second night it was one of his other uncles's truck that DH has done some work to so the caption had something about the wear and tear on the tuck and how its "intermittently maintained"... the last night was his uncle when for some reason he was up and walking around at 10pm which for his was unheard of and another bit of a running joke about how early he goes to bed. he was labelled "antique watchclock", ha!

other things that happened while we were there:
-i ate quite a bit of seafood and loved it! still leary on mussels, but fish, yum.
-like father, like son...
-some kids are crazy (one of his cousins kids threw a massive tantrum then passed out on the floor beside her bed she was so tired)
-i kinda miss camping as long as i have the ammenities of home ie. shower, running water....
-there's a support group for those of us married into the family
-they have a reunion about once every 5 years
-realised i looked like crap and needed to lose weight (which spurred me to join WW!)

waiting waiting waiting...

(cycle 18, day 15)

it feels like i'm perpetually waiting and i'm sure i've posted about this before. waiting for AF to leave, waiting for O to happen, waiting to POAS, waiting for AF, then it starts all over again if you aren't pregnant. its pure torture!

currently i'm waiting to O. actually, i'm waiting for a + OPK so that i know when O will happen and we've done all we could til the next cycle.



lately, i've been feeling pretty angry about this whole trying again thing. i just keep thinking that i shouldn't have to be doing this. i should be enjoying the beginning of the second trimester, looking forward to our first ultrasound, buying stuff for a baby, decorating a nursery... instead i'm back at square freaking one! this feeling hit on monday when i was getting anxious about BDing because i knew we needed to start so we could have an army of sperm built up but i felt like it might not happen. i suddenly felt pissed off. something i hadn't felt before since the MC. i've been sad that i don't get to do all those things, but this week it was actually anger. i hope that feeling doesn't stick around for too long, its not something i like to feel...

ETA: i started this post yesterday and continued it this morning. didn't finish writing it til later in the afternoon after i got my first positive OPK on the digital!!! O should be tomoro or sunday so by monday i will for sure be in the 2ww :D

finally : )

(cycle 18, day 1)

that's right! AF finally showed up today : D
i'm counting this as our 18th cycle since quiting BCP as we weren't completely abstaining during my first cycle after the MC.
fingers crossed i'll be pregnant by my birthday next month!

cycle update / pathology report

so my body may not be quite back to normal just yet. i still believe i O'd this month, its just a little unclear about when that happened. i thought it happened on cd15, but now that AF is a few days late, i'm guessing i actually O'd a bit later, which is entirely possible because my temps post FF's O day are pretty close to my pre-O temps. i did question O day a few days later, but i left it alone and was hoping to see AF early this week or a surprise BFP... neither has happened so now i'm sure that O happened later. if that is infact the case, i should be getting her by the end of the weekend. *fingers crossed*

last week i got the pathology report from my doc back... everything looked good and there's no reason to think that i would MC again. there wasn't any fetal tissue in the gestational sac so its likely that it was a blighted ovum but because it was so early, they won't say for sure. they also said that the lining that the placenta attaches to had "died". so now we continue to try again and if it happens again, i'll get sent for testing and my doc will likely put me on progestrone supplements the next time i get pregnant after a second MC. but she said that now we know that i can get pregnant, so there isn't likely anything wrong with dh's sperm and nothing wrong with my eggs. if it continues to happen its likely something other than the sperm and eggs that are causing it.

camera course (also my 100th post!)

since i bought my new DSLR camera, i thought i should try to find a camera course so i could learn how to use all the new buttons i have and learn what they actually do instead of experimenting so that i can take the pics i want quickley and not spend 10 minutes playing around with it to get the same result. i learned a lot. almost too much in one weekend, lol. but it was a lot of good information that i will put to good use when i start taking awesome pictures  : D
it snowed a shit-ton the night before the course so i was a little worried about whether to still go or not, but i paid for it, i might as well at least try to make it there. it actually wasn't as bad as i was expecting. that night when i got home, i went to DH's hockey game (its just a beer league thing) so i could try out what i learned that day in the course. do you think i could remember anything i learned so i could get those awesome shots? NOPE! haha. i got some good shots, unfortunately they're kinda blurry... next time i'll get some better ones  ; )

Back to Normal?

well i think my body may be back to normal already... about a week or two sooner than i thought it would be  : D  i had some EWCM yesterday (which rarely happens to me in the first place... but maybe it's that increased fertility that i'm supposed to have post-MC...) so i took an OPK just to see if it was fluke or something. the line on the OPK was the most negative line i've ever seen, lol. i wasn't planning on using OPKs this cycle anyway because of the havoc hormones can cause after a MC, but i tried it out more as an experiment. experiment = failed. oh well. then this morning my temp shot up... not sure if both of those things (EWCM and high temp) could both be flukes so i want to say that i've ovulated yesterday... but i'll wait until tomoro's temp to call it confirmed  ; )

with that bit of good news though, i'm still struggling with this MC... i've accepted that it happened and there is/was nothing i did/could do to have changed/caused it. but yesterday i was feeling particularly spiteful and angry at the fact that i was back to square one like when i went off BCP, not having a damn clue when to expect AF for the first time. i had already been through that in september 2010, it's the last place i wanted to be back at 18 months later. we were supposed to be welcoming our baby in september and celebrating their first thanksgiving and christmas in 2012, that got taken away from us... there's a still a chance we could be celebrating christmas with a new little baby, but this is supposed to be our "first" baby's christmas and sadly they won't get to spend it with us.

on the other side of the spectrum, i so badly want to get pregnant again. this urge is even stronger now than it was before getting pregnant. i don't know how i'm going to deal with this TTC process again. i'm really hoping that it only lasts a couple cycles (only one more would be ideal) but i don't know that we're lucky enough to have that happen  :-/  it seemed like once DH finally did almost everything he could to make it work, it worked right away, so you would think that means i'm quite fertile as it is. but i can't help but think that it will take at least 6 months for it to happen again because the previous 6 months to getting pregnant, we BD'd at least once if not twice while i was fertile so it was 6 months of being let down by either BFNs or AF. maybe my body just finally decided to let one finally implant and that it had nothing to do with anything DH did differently the cycle i got pregnant on. i want to be optimistic that we'll be one of those couples that conceives very quickly after a loss, but i have that nagging feeling that we won't be one of those couples. i feel kind of jaded because of everything that led to this....

anyway, enough bumbling for this post, i'll leave you with a picture of the northern lights we saw last night on our way home from a valentine's day supper at japanese village:

(thank you new camera for being able to actually snap a pic of them!)

Feeling Better

(still not counting days or anything until i'm actually back in the game, maybe next month...)

well other than my counselling session this morning, i've been feeling pretty good. more like myself, more normal. i'm back to work this week and i don't feel weird about it. it feels nice to be back in a routine instead of spending my days sleeping in and being a couch bum and getting nothing done. i don't feel so useless like i did last week because there was nothing i could do to change anything that happened. this week i'm actually feeling somewhat accomplished at the end of the day. i'm still taking it easy and i'm easing myself back into my everyday life. i don't have this overwhelming sense of grief like i did last week. i was exhausted and down almost all the time. this week is very different. even my DH has noticed the change in me  : )

i'm not fully back to wanting to TTC again just yet, but i'm getting very close to feeling that urge. i'm slightly afraid of it, but i know i have to power through if i want us to get our take home baby. i can't just avoid TTC and expect a baby to result from that, that's not how it works. we're taking it one day at a time, but every day the want to be pregnant again so we can have our family is getting stronger. i've started temping again even though last week i was very much not wanting to do anything in the way of temping or using OPKs. i'm not using temping as a way to aide in getting pregnant (not that its helpful to point out O ahead of time) but it will help me know when my cycle is getting back to normal. this way, if say AF still hasn't shown at 5 or 6 weeks post-MC, i'm not testing and seeing 2 pink lines again and thinking i'm pregnant when in reality its just leftover HCG and my cycle is just taking a bit longer to get back to normal. also, it will help me know if the timing of our BDing (when we start that again) is even condusive to making a baby so i know when i can test if that's even a possibility. it will establish when i'm normal again. and next month i'll go back to using OPKs (possibly continue temping) so we can jump back in with both feet and hope i can benefit from the increased fertility women suposedly have for the first 3 months after a MC...

i will say that i love my doctor. i went in to see her last friday to find out about counselling and i asked her about when we could start trying again. her answer was probably the most sympathetic and not demeaning answer i've gotten this whole time! she told me that we could do what we wanted when we saw fit, to take it one day at a time and if that was to resume having sex, then so be it. she's had girls come in 6 weeks post-MC pregnant again. she also said that there was no medical reason to wait a certain number of cycles and that my body won't get pregnant again if it is not ready to be. after talking to DH's cousin, this sounds like the most sound piece of advice i've heard from anyone. it puts me in control of the situation, not a doctor telling me what to do. so i'm no longer afraid (not the exact word i'm looking for) to get judged if i do pregnant quickly and it makes me feel even more ready to start trying again because i don't have this fear that i'm doing the wrong thing at the wrong time and looked down upon for doing things too soon. i'm ready for this and i want our baby in our arms <3


more on my counselling session this morning:
i'm not sure its the right fit for me. she seemed to be convinced that there was no possible way i'd be ready to start trying again this soon after. she started trying to convince me to hold off TTC again until after we get the pathology report and after my hormones settle down. she wants me to get the answers as to why this happened so i can deal with those emotions before completely moving on. why would i want to drag this out longer than it needs to be? i don't see what good it will do me to focus on the pregnancy i lost for the next month when what i should be focusing on (at least what i feel i should be, i don't know if my idea is wrong or not) is the future and looking ahead and getting better. not being stuck in this dark place, i don't like it there and i won't let someone put me back there because they feel like i'm not done dealing with my MC. she also wanted me to request getting my hormones tested to make sure there isn't a chemical imbalance or anything. seriously? so that's now two ppl i don't really like while dealing with this (the first being the gyno at the hospital). i should have waited until this week to make a decision about seeking counselling. if i waited til this week, i probably would have skipped it because i'm feeling so much better about everything without needing to talk to someone. i was hoping to sort through my feelings and make sense of them, not be told what to do. she booked me in for another session in 3 weeks when my hormones should be leveled out and i'm not looking forward to it with the same enthusiasm as i had today before i got there. i feel like i'll be chastized if i have sex with my husband before that appt, that's not how i should be feeling, at all. and now i'm exhausted from that session, more exhausted than i've been since like thursday when i was still very much a basketcase over this or over the weekend when i still sad but feeling more normal. the more i talk about it, the more i'm thinking i should just cancel my next appt altogether because clearly i'm not happy with it.

And just like that it was gone....

i'm not sure how to label the day or the cycle. my mind is a mess. nothing really makes sense anymore...

it's quite obvious by the design changes on my blog that i am no longer expecting our first little one this coming fall :'( i've suffered a miscarriage and its something i hope we never have to re-live for as long as my heart keeps beating. it truely is the worst kind of pain a person can imagine and there is a large hole left in my heart by this.

it started with spotting on monday (january 30 - 6w5d) and it was more than i was comfortable so i called my doc and they got me in late that afternoon. she took a look and said that it is completely normal and its not too much bleeding, but that if i started to hemorrhage or didn't feel quite right to head to the ER to get checked out. she also scheduled and ultrasound for 3pm the next afternoon. that night as i was heading to bed i started cramping like my period was starting. it didn't feel right but i tried to get some sleep in my own bed before going anywhere. by 1am the cramping hadn't subsided and i began passing clots. i had a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. i knew what was happening but i didn't want to believe it so i tried my hardest to fall asleep in my own bed.

tuesday morning (january 31 - 6w6d) i called the clinic to explain what had happened and see what they wanted to me to do given the previous days events. DH picked me up at 10am and we headed to the ER. they got us into a room pretty quickly and tried to see if they could find anything on their new portable ultrasound machine. i wasn't surprised they couldn't find anything given that i wasn't that far along and you typically need an internal one until around the 12+ week mark because the uterus is still very low in the pelvis. the on call doc also tried the doppler, but the same thing, he couldn't find anything but i wasn't surprised since you usually can't pick anything up on them until around 12+ weeks as well. he told us to stay put and that he would be getting some blood tests ordered and they would try to get me into my scheduled ultrasound as early as they could. unfortunately i didn't get in any earlier so it was a very long day waiting around in the ER for something to happen. we finally got in and not my surprise, i was in the process of miscarrying. i still burst into tears when being told the actual words, but who wouldn't? you can never prepare yourself for that, to hear those words, its so... final. we finally headed home because we were tired of waiting around the ER for someone to talk to us, but they tracked me down and called me back in to the see the resident gynecologist. i didn't like him very much. he's very "matter of fact" and that's not what i wanted while going through this terrible situation. he made me feel like he was pushing me to get a D&C even though i rathered to try to pass it naturally. he wanted me to come back the next morning to get another ultrasound to see if anything was left in my uterus and if there was, that i would NEED to have the D&C. it just felt like i was getting pushed into this horrible decision and i didn't really have anyone explain my options or pros and cons of getting the D&C done over passing it naturally. i felt like i had no choice in the matter other than choosing to go home for the night. i felt helpless and DH felt even more helpless because he couldn't take away the pain i was feeling or fix what was happening to us. i felt so bad that he couldn't do what he normally does in these situations, fix them. i knew he felt horrible not being able to help his brokendown wife, and that made me feel even worse than i already did. i hate seeing him like that and he hates seeing me like that.

wednesday morning, the day i would have been exactly 7 weeks, i got DH to drop me off at the hospital to begin my second very long day there. i registered, my requisition form said "inevitable abortion", i shouldn't have even looked at the sheet. it was the worst thing to ever read in my life. another reminder of what i was losing. they got me in for the ultrasound right away and it was the same tech from the day before. she wasn't able to give me good news. nothing had changed from the day before. my body was failing me by not miscarrying on its own. i got her to show me everything on the screen. i don't think i'll ever forget seeing that, ever. our baby's gestational sac was collapsing on itself and there was nothing that could be done other than have some sugeon go in and take everything out. i was put in a room to wait for the gynecologist from the day before to see me to get me ready for surgery that i would be having later in the day. around 2:30 a nurse came in to get my IV started to start pushing fluids for surgery. she told me to get DH to come down for support since i had gone in alone that day so he didn't have to sit around helpless for a second day. we had talked all day already by text as well as talking to some close friends. i didn't exactly feel alone but they wanted someone around for me. around 4pm i was brought upstairs for surgery. that's when it really hit me. not that i hadn't before because i spend the better part of 2 days crying my eyes out, but this was it. our baby was being taken from me in a few short minutes and i would no longer be pregnant. i can't even begin to explain the grief i was feeling deciding to go through with the surgery. but i knew that my body was already preventing everything from happening naturally and that the last place i wanted to end up after a few days of nothing happening was back at the hospital getting the D&C anyway. it was hard laying in that bed, with the gown and hat and booties on, waiting to be called into the OR. i even had to walk in there myself and get myself on the table. when i came to after the surgery, i felt a sense of relief. that it was over. i could begin to move on. i didn't really cry at all for the rest of the night. DH came and picked me up to take me home and take care of me. i had this feeling of remorse, but mostly just glad we could begin the healing process. we haven't cuddled so much in bed since we started dating.

overall, i've been doing okay. as good as person going through this can feel i guess. i'm mostly okay, indifferent if anything right now, but i have my moments of anger that this had to even happen and i have my moments of great sadness that we lost our precious little baby. granted a lot of this aftermath is because my hormones are completely out of whack and will take a couple weeks to go back to normal, but i'm sure even my husband is having these feelings, he's just not showing it because he's trying to be strong so i don't completely lose my marbles. i saw my doc today to talk about my options for counselling since it was suggested to me by a nurse in the ER. she said she didn't think i needed it since i seemed to be doing everything i can be doing right, like seeing her and being emotional. who thought being emotional would be a good thing? she'd be more worried about me if i wasn't emotional about this. so she gave a phone number to call for some counselling because i'd much rather seek it out now and feel or be told i don't really need it than to not try it out and in a few months' time be much worse off mentally and need it at that time. i'm trying to be proactive in the healing process because it helps me feel like i'm doing the right thing in this situation. she also said that when we're ready we can try again, there's reason medically that i can't get pregnant right away. my body won't let me get pregnant if its not ready to be. that also made me feel better that i don't have to wait 3 months like the nurses at the hospital were saying.

so we will be okay, we will move on and get through this. its just a much harder process than i ever thought it would be and something i never thought in a million years we would have to deal with.
my posts in the coming weeks will probably be more about my feelings as i work through the pain i feel about all of this and some of the other events leading up to this terrible week......