So after yesterday's acupuncture session, I felt a bit restored. My doc was so kind and upbeat, and she gave me such confidence in my awesome kidney pulse fluttering away so fertilely. I began to think that maybe all hope wasn't lost...
And then a little later I felt hopeless again and cried. I got a bit of work done and sent it to my boss. I focused on snuggling Sam and feeling that mama love all over my body. I made dinner, watered the garden, did my shots. I took my supplements and listened to a fertility meditation on my headphones in bed. And while I was visualizing my secret fertile garden and the child who visits me there (Sam, plus a faceless glowbaby), I imagined my abdomen (can't bear to type "womb," blegh) as a place of life and not death. I imagined the black dust of death that has settled in there and pictured blowing it away and starting fresh. And I prayed for one more chance, please. Just one more good egg.
At today's scan there were 3 larger follicles as before, but a bunch of new ones on both ovaries are starting to take shape. I should've asked for an exact number---Damn those rushed nurse calls---but it sounded like several on each side. My estradiol is only up to 400, but that's double what it was 2 days ago. Maybe my ovaries will be capable of meeting all this aggressive stimulation with more than a cough and a wheeze. At least there's still some hope. It's not over yet. Next ultrasound on Friday.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Pray
I'm on day 9 of stims and off to a very slow start. Estradiol is rising slowly and I only have 3 follicles as of yesterday morning. I'm doing all I can...adding acupuncture, CoQ10, melatonin, and fish oil to the routine to give my body any advantage I can. But if you happen to be reading this and could send some prayers my way, I'd be grateful. I don't know exactly what I believe about God or a universal order anymore, but I'm praying anyway. Praying for just one more little life for us to bring forth and cherish.
One possible bright spot: the nurse says that even if this cycle doesn't improve, they can freeze any embryos that we do get and then do another cycle to try and produce enough for biopsy and PGD. So at least this cycle doesn't have to be a total waste.
One possible bright spot: the nurse says that even if this cycle doesn't improve, they can freeze any embryos that we do get and then do another cycle to try and produce enough for biopsy and PGD. So at least this cycle doesn't have to be a total waste.
Saturday, July 7, 2012
Why I Call It a Stillbirth
I realize that technically Eva's death, at 19 weeks, was still considered a miscarriage, but my feeling is that when you birth your child and then hold her, kiss her head, look at her perfect little hands and feet, and have to decide when to hand her body over to the nurse knowing that you'll never see or touch her again, that's more than "just" a miscarriage. And having had two of those, I'm not making light of that loss, either.
Hail Mary Pass
I injected my first dose of Lupron tonight. I'm scared. It has been 21 months since E died and we have achieved some degree of normalcy and happiness and now we're wading back into the water for one last Hail Mary Pass at having a baby through IVF with PGD. It's our best shot at having a biological child without losing him or her to Kell again. So after months of recovering from our loss and then more months of waiting for the genetic testing to be done and all the minor tests of my uterus and blood, I injected the Lupron.
There is a lot in this process that could unsettle me. The potential mood swings from the drugs themselves. And then the potential trauma of an IVF cycle that fails, or succeeds but ends in miscarriage, or succeeds and results in a high-risk pregnancy in some other way. Even a healthy perfect pregnancy will certainly rake up a lot of sense memories of my last pregnancy. And that is an unlikely outcome anyway. I'm so old now, relative to the fertility world. I'm 41. My FSH numbers aren't great. It has been 6 years of trying to build a family with 2 kids in it and here we are.
So why not just stop now and be grateful for Sam? Oh my God, I am grateful. Every day I am so grateful for him. I could settle into being a happy family of 3 and move on. Why not?
But I'm just not done. I just snuggled Sam to sleep and that Mama bliss is what makes me soldier through this. I want more of it. I want more of the physical experience of pregnancy and nursing, if I can have it. Maybe I can't. But we have this chance and I need to give it at least one try. And if we try and still can't have it, we'll look at our options. But it would be nice to not have to work through that loss. And that's also the most likely thing. But if there's a chance, we have to try.
So here is this bag of drugs sitting next to me on the bed, as daunting as anything I've ever owned. I am so lucky to have access to these drugs, so lucky, and they scare the crap out of me. But we move forward. Second Lupron injection tomorrow morning, followed by the baseline ultrasound.
There is a lot in this process that could unsettle me. The potential mood swings from the drugs themselves. And then the potential trauma of an IVF cycle that fails, or succeeds but ends in miscarriage, or succeeds and results in a high-risk pregnancy in some other way. Even a healthy perfect pregnancy will certainly rake up a lot of sense memories of my last pregnancy. And that is an unlikely outcome anyway. I'm so old now, relative to the fertility world. I'm 41. My FSH numbers aren't great. It has been 6 years of trying to build a family with 2 kids in it and here we are.
So why not just stop now and be grateful for Sam? Oh my God, I am grateful. Every day I am so grateful for him. I could settle into being a happy family of 3 and move on. Why not?
But I'm just not done. I just snuggled Sam to sleep and that Mama bliss is what makes me soldier through this. I want more of it. I want more of the physical experience of pregnancy and nursing, if I can have it. Maybe I can't. But we have this chance and I need to give it at least one try. And if we try and still can't have it, we'll look at our options. But it would be nice to not have to work through that loss. And that's also the most likely thing. But if there's a chance, we have to try.
So here is this bag of drugs sitting next to me on the bed, as daunting as anything I've ever owned. I am so lucky to have access to these drugs, so lucky, and they scare the crap out of me. But we move forward. Second Lupron injection tomorrow morning, followed by the baseline ultrasound.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Still here
The spring was really hard. After mostly avoiding the emotional burden of jealousy and bitterness until then---a bit of grace I was really grateful for at the time---the ugly twins finally caught up with me. Some friends had babies, others became pregnant. It was a kick in the stomach every time. More like a knee in the gut. And it was double the burden for the way it then made me feel guilty for being bitter, the way it isolated me from people I genuinely care about, and how obvious it was to me that they pitied me on some level, or at least felt awkward around me in light of their good fortune, and how that made me hate them. There is simply no winning in these situations.
The summer got better. My beloved cat died, which was horrible. But the grief for Eva let up a little. Once we had time to recover from losing the cat, the first "baby" that we ever had, we were wrapped up in moving from one house to a temporary apartment and then another house that we've been renovating. We were a little band of travelers together, sharing a bedroom for a few weeks, and the closeness was soothing. As the deep grief and bitterness lifted, I began to have glimpses of how you come to accept something as awful as birthing and holding your dead daughter. You don't condone it, you don't want it, you'll never totally accept it, but you stop feeling like you can't really live the life you're in. You stop feeling that you're in the wrong life. You realize that this is the life you have and there are some good things about it. Things to embrace.
So that's where I've been spending more of my time. But I write now because we're coming up on the one year anniversary. One year ago today, I had a bad ultrasound that indicated that Eva was gravely anemic. That the bizarre Kell isoimmunization issue that we had discussed at every appointment might actually amount to something very serious and in need of immediate treatment in the form of a fetal transfusion. Over the next days, it just got worse. The treatment that would've worked if she had been just 3 weeks older before getting sick couldn't help. I keep thinking of that line from Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. I don't have it here with me. She's talking about the day she felt something was wrong with her pregnancy---the baby wasn't moving. In her case, this was at full term. She describes the vague concern followed by the nagging worry, the consultation with the midwife, the reassurance. "And then," she says...and I forget what the next word was. Catastrophe? Calamity? But she gave words to the moment between the old life and the new life, the pause before you plunge into an abyss.
I see that this is how the story turned out for us. What a horrible fucking thing. What a fucking travesty that my daughter died.
I don't know what happens next. We were too wrecked all year to decide what the next move was. We're starting to talk now. I'm old now...40. How unfair that we had the two miscarriages...lost all those years between when we first started trying at 35 and now. And yet we have Sam. How lucky is that? And how lucky are all the other good things? And yet Eva is still dead and trying to be grateful can sometimes get me ping-ponging between peace and self-pity and shame and anger.
The summer got better. My beloved cat died, which was horrible. But the grief for Eva let up a little. Once we had time to recover from losing the cat, the first "baby" that we ever had, we were wrapped up in moving from one house to a temporary apartment and then another house that we've been renovating. We were a little band of travelers together, sharing a bedroom for a few weeks, and the closeness was soothing. As the deep grief and bitterness lifted, I began to have glimpses of how you come to accept something as awful as birthing and holding your dead daughter. You don't condone it, you don't want it, you'll never totally accept it, but you stop feeling like you can't really live the life you're in. You stop feeling that you're in the wrong life. You realize that this is the life you have and there are some good things about it. Things to embrace.
So that's where I've been spending more of my time. But I write now because we're coming up on the one year anniversary. One year ago today, I had a bad ultrasound that indicated that Eva was gravely anemic. That the bizarre Kell isoimmunization issue that we had discussed at every appointment might actually amount to something very serious and in need of immediate treatment in the form of a fetal transfusion. Over the next days, it just got worse. The treatment that would've worked if she had been just 3 weeks older before getting sick couldn't help. I keep thinking of that line from Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination. I don't have it here with me. She's talking about the day she felt something was wrong with her pregnancy---the baby wasn't moving. In her case, this was at full term. She describes the vague concern followed by the nagging worry, the consultation with the midwife, the reassurance. "And then," she says...and I forget what the next word was. Catastrophe? Calamity? But she gave words to the moment between the old life and the new life, the pause before you plunge into an abyss.
I see that this is how the story turned out for us. What a horrible fucking thing. What a fucking travesty that my daughter died.
I don't know what happens next. We were too wrecked all year to decide what the next move was. We're starting to talk now. I'm old now...40. How unfair that we had the two miscarriages...lost all those years between when we first started trying at 35 and now. And yet we have Sam. How lucky is that? And how lucky are all the other good things? And yet Eva is still dead and trying to be grateful can sometimes get me ping-ponging between peace and self-pity and shame and anger.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Update
Well, I left this blog on an ominous note and I feel inclined to note that I haven't fallen off the planet, at least.
What has happened since we lost Eva and today is mostly a lot of daily life. We didn't fall apart as much as circumstances might have allowed. In fact, in the early days, I was flooded with this very odd, very deep sense of gratitude for Sam in particular, but for all the other good things in my life. I feel that there's this trick that happens immediately after some losses. Maybe it's grace, maybe it's a neurological response, maybe it's both. But something cushions the blow in the beginning, if you're lucky. Even when you're on your knees sobbing and saying, "I can't do this," there is a moment soon afterward where you think, "We'll be okay." I think it's much harder after the initial crisis when you realize that the shitty thing is still there, only without everyone rallying around you. And the shitty thing shall remain evermore, get used to it.
I now understand what Joan Didion said about magical thinking. I've had so many moments, particularly when visiting the hospital where we were during the pregnancy, where I've had the half-conscious thought that maybe Eva didn't really die or that maybe this new doctor will be able to make things turn out differently. It's hard to even articulate because it's so nonsensical. It evaporates when brought up to the level of words.
Now the grief hits in occasional storms. Not waves, but storms. More storms lately because my due date is this week. When I'm in the storm, I absolutely can not see out of it. I feel desperate. Clawing, screaming, pounding desperate (I save it for when I'm in the car alone. Parked). In those moments, I feel that I am ruined, that Adam and I are ruined, that I must have another child right now because that is the only way I'll ever heal from this. Or, I'll feel that we can never take such a terrifying risk because surely that will destroy whatever good is left. And now we're even more ruined because I'll never stop longing for another child and never stop feeling jealous of every family with more than one and oh my God it is exhausting to be like this. God bless my parents who have gotten two such phone calls from me in recent months. Thank God they're still here to talk me down from the tree. I feel irrational rage toward Adam in these times and I'm glad I at least have the sense to shield him from it.
And when the storms pass, they're just gone. Most days I can feel quite happy. There is a shadow over things maybe. I can see it if I look for it. But most of the time it doesn't distract me.
If we want to have another child, if we want to take that risk, we have three options: use a sperm donor who is Kell negative, do IVF with PGD, or adopt. I suppose we could throw a non-Kell-sensitized surrogate into that mix, but it's not going to happen. I have no idea if we'll try any of them. Adam is so very wary (part of the reason for my rage during the storms). And when I'm not feeling desperate, I tend to agree with him. We got this one beautiful, perfect (within the range of human imperfection) child. We're lucky in many ways and happy on most days. Let's just be grateful for what we have and move on. Think of all the easy traveling we can do! A cozy family of three.
And yet...I think about my life ten, twenty years from now and will I be at peace with it then? Do I want Sam to live his life without a sibling? No answers yet.
What has happened since we lost Eva and today is mostly a lot of daily life. We didn't fall apart as much as circumstances might have allowed. In fact, in the early days, I was flooded with this very odd, very deep sense of gratitude for Sam in particular, but for all the other good things in my life. I feel that there's this trick that happens immediately after some losses. Maybe it's grace, maybe it's a neurological response, maybe it's both. But something cushions the blow in the beginning, if you're lucky. Even when you're on your knees sobbing and saying, "I can't do this," there is a moment soon afterward where you think, "We'll be okay." I think it's much harder after the initial crisis when you realize that the shitty thing is still there, only without everyone rallying around you. And the shitty thing shall remain evermore, get used to it.
I now understand what Joan Didion said about magical thinking. I've had so many moments, particularly when visiting the hospital where we were during the pregnancy, where I've had the half-conscious thought that maybe Eva didn't really die or that maybe this new doctor will be able to make things turn out differently. It's hard to even articulate because it's so nonsensical. It evaporates when brought up to the level of words.
Now the grief hits in occasional storms. Not waves, but storms. More storms lately because my due date is this week. When I'm in the storm, I absolutely can not see out of it. I feel desperate. Clawing, screaming, pounding desperate (I save it for when I'm in the car alone. Parked). In those moments, I feel that I am ruined, that Adam and I are ruined, that I must have another child right now because that is the only way I'll ever heal from this. Or, I'll feel that we can never take such a terrifying risk because surely that will destroy whatever good is left. And now we're even more ruined because I'll never stop longing for another child and never stop feeling jealous of every family with more than one and oh my God it is exhausting to be like this. God bless my parents who have gotten two such phone calls from me in recent months. Thank God they're still here to talk me down from the tree. I feel irrational rage toward Adam in these times and I'm glad I at least have the sense to shield him from it.
And when the storms pass, they're just gone. Most days I can feel quite happy. There is a shadow over things maybe. I can see it if I look for it. But most of the time it doesn't distract me.
If we want to have another child, if we want to take that risk, we have three options: use a sperm donor who is Kell negative, do IVF with PGD, or adopt. I suppose we could throw a non-Kell-sensitized surrogate into that mix, but it's not going to happen. I have no idea if we'll try any of them. Adam is so very wary (part of the reason for my rage during the storms). And when I'm not feeling desperate, I tend to agree with him. We got this one beautiful, perfect (within the range of human imperfection) child. We're lucky in many ways and happy on most days. Let's just be grateful for what we have and move on. Think of all the easy traveling we can do! A cozy family of three.
And yet...I think about my life ten, twenty years from now and will I be at peace with it then? Do I want Sam to live his life without a sibling? No answers yet.
Monday, October 25, 2010
And again
We have had two years of such happiness. Overall, I mean. There was a cancer scare last spring---a benign tumor on a fallopian tube that looked a little scary in the ultrasounds. And stuff. Just regular life stuff that was challenging. But we have had so much happiness. We have Sam. And last spring we decided that yes, we both wanted to try again because of the love, and for Sam to have a sibling, and wanting to experience the baby thing one more time. Mostly because of the love. And so we started trying to get pregnant in May and got pregnant in May and despite my old age it all happened so easily for us. And then our doctor told us that looking over my charts and all the latest research, he didn't even think I needed to take Lovenox this pregnancy. No more shots, just a little baby aspirin to be safe. For the first time in four years, my IgM antibody levels were down to normal range. And so here was the easy pregnancy, for once. I think it did feel like a reward.
And now that baby is gone at 19 weeks. Her name was Eva. You think that once you've been through the forest, you know the most fearsome creatures that dwell there, but there can be other monsters you didn't even imagine. For us, that was the Kell antibodies that we'd never heard of, mostly likely created when I gave birth to Sam and our blood mixed in some quantity. Sam had inherited his dad's genes, which were different from mine. He had a little protein on his blood cells that was different from the little protein on mine. And when my body sensed his foreign blood, it went on alert, producing antibodies to his type. He was safe, as he was already delivered. But Eva had Adam's genes, too. And my body had been primed to seek out her blood type. Search and destroy.
There wasn't a thing wrong with her, except that she was trying to grow in the wrong body.
By 18 weeks, when they began to look for signs of a problem, she was already so sick. A sick, tiny baby. They tried to save her, but she was too too small to save. It doesn't usually happen like this. Usually the baby doesn't get so sick so soon. Usually it happens later, if it happens at all. And then there are treatments—transfusions, namely—that work in the vast majority of cases. Ninety, ninety-five percent of these pregnancies end with a healthy baby at home. But at every turn of our story, the bad thing happened. What could've gone wrong went wrong.
I think this latest tragedy probably puts this blog into radioactive territory. After my second miscarriage, I went to a support group for the unfortunate minority grieving miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss. The stories I heard there were terrifying. Instead of comfort, I found new outcomes to fear. I drove home panicked.
Maybe that's how our story reads now, too. But I know we don't even have it that bad. It can always be so much worse. We have Sam. What more does the universe owe us? We get to be parents. Every day, he pulls us back into life.
And yet Eva is gone. My baby. I delivered her still, tiny body three weeks ago. We held her. Our daughter is dead. How do we live with that sentence?
And now that baby is gone at 19 weeks. Her name was Eva. You think that once you've been through the forest, you know the most fearsome creatures that dwell there, but there can be other monsters you didn't even imagine. For us, that was the Kell antibodies that we'd never heard of, mostly likely created when I gave birth to Sam and our blood mixed in some quantity. Sam had inherited his dad's genes, which were different from mine. He had a little protein on his blood cells that was different from the little protein on mine. And when my body sensed his foreign blood, it went on alert, producing antibodies to his type. He was safe, as he was already delivered. But Eva had Adam's genes, too. And my body had been primed to seek out her blood type. Search and destroy.
There wasn't a thing wrong with her, except that she was trying to grow in the wrong body.
By 18 weeks, when they began to look for signs of a problem, she was already so sick. A sick, tiny baby. They tried to save her, but she was too too small to save. It doesn't usually happen like this. Usually the baby doesn't get so sick so soon. Usually it happens later, if it happens at all. And then there are treatments—transfusions, namely—that work in the vast majority of cases. Ninety, ninety-five percent of these pregnancies end with a healthy baby at home. But at every turn of our story, the bad thing happened. What could've gone wrong went wrong.
I think this latest tragedy probably puts this blog into radioactive territory. After my second miscarriage, I went to a support group for the unfortunate minority grieving miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss. The stories I heard there were terrifying. Instead of comfort, I found new outcomes to fear. I drove home panicked.
Maybe that's how our story reads now, too. But I know we don't even have it that bad. It can always be so much worse. We have Sam. What more does the universe owe us? We get to be parents. Every day, he pulls us back into life.
And yet Eva is gone. My baby. I delivered her still, tiny body three weeks ago. We held her. Our daughter is dead. How do we live with that sentence?
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