Inspired Blogging - Post #5 - Time you told a lie...

5. That one time you told a huge lie and kinda got away with it {or perhaps you didn’t and that would make an even better blog post! Cringe}

I love the idea of this one but had SUCH A HARD TIME coming up with one. Not that I am perfect or honest 100% of the time but I have never been afraid to tell the truth or speak my mind so not an easy task. A huge lie is not really in my nature. (I'm more of a little white lie type ;D)

So here it is. It isn't that crazy or even funny but ... the time I told a huge lie and got away with it was...

When Brian and I decided to start having kids we had already been married for over five years. I guess we always knew we'd get around to it but when you get married at 20 there no rush. It became fairly evident early on in the "trying" process that it wasn't going to happen quickly or easily. After a couple of unsuccessful months I did some digging around online. I started charting my cycle and monitoring things like Basal Body Temperature. I had my cycle figured out to the day but still nothing.

When we decided it was time to get help we had been trying for about 7 or 8 months. I called a few doctors offices to find someone who could help and I was met with a question. "How long have you been trying unsuccessfully"? To which I replied (honestly) "7 or 8 months". Then I was informed that if we had not been trying for more than a year, at our age, no reproductive endocrinologist would see us.

So I lied. I called another office and I lied through my teeth. I confirmed we had been trying over a year and stuck to my story. I got an appointment and the process of Infertility testing started a few months later.

So, that's it. My big lie. I never did "get caught" although I doubt there would be serious repercussions had I been. We ended up with a different doctor in the end and I am guessing by the time we did any treatment we had been trying well over a month.

(Sorry for the boring story! ;D)

Unequipped

I sat there waiting. I did the research and the thinking and the talking and the hurting. The choice was obvious... birth control. We are the people who survived 3 IUI's, 5 cycles of IVF and four miscarriages... so very little in the world of our reproductive health is obvious. But it felt like the answer SHOULD be so obvious at this point. FOUR miscarriages. FOUR! Way too many to consider every putting ourselves through it again.

After this most recent loss we spent A LOT of time soul searching. If it was humanly possible to get pregnant on our own SHOULD WE? Should we throw our chances to the wind? Should we take fate into our hands permanently and tie tubes of some sort? Should be opt for a less permanent solution? What the hell should we do? Why was no one telling us what to do?

We know how to make decisions about IVF. What med protocol to use, whether or not to use assisted hatching or ICSI or how many embryo's to transfer. But whether or not to use birth control... We are SO not equipped for that! We have never had to make decisions about that

So after a lot of talking, soul searching and information gathering it was an IUD. Something semi-permanent but not permanent enough that #4 was out of the question. No decision truly felt like the right one. I guess losing our fourth baby did such a number on us that it was hard to tell which end was up. And why the hell am I still writing in the past tense?!?

But as I sat there waiting for the doctor to come put this foreign device into my uterus I heard the sweet sound of an unborn babies heart racing away on a doppler. The decision felt less obvious. I texted a person that steadies me in those world shaking moments and she held my hand. When the "device" was in place the world kept turning. No faults erupted allowing the earth to swallow me whole. It was okay. So for now I am not capable of having any babies. And for now that's okay.

It still makes me sad that after ten plus years of infertility I am still so mind numbingly out of control of my own fertility. Somehow the remote possibility of conceiving on my own makes this whole process feel a million times harder. I am just hoping that time and healing and living my life will make this whole thing feel a hell of a lot less muddy.

What now?

It's been 52 days since saying goodbye to angel baby #4. Fifty two days... but it feels like more. I had hoped that 52 days later I would be so much better than I am. I am still sad. I still cry when I drive alone in the car. I still sometimes look at my kids and just want to sink into the ground. This one isn't easy to get over. I know I will never "get over" it but I would have thought I would be doing a little better by now.

Today I go to my OB to talk about birth control. I never thought birth control would be something I would have to worry about again. Part of me wants to get my tubes tied. Be sure that I never have to live through this again. Part of me wants to do nothing and see what happens. The rational side of me has decided (I think) that I will do something short term for now and give myself more time. I guess I just don't know what I want.

I was happy with three kids. I was done. And then all of that happened. And now I am turned upside down.

I think that having Jack and being happy with where I was at felt like such a nice end. I had my "last" baby and I loved the experience. But now this. THIS is supposed to be the end to this story. The story has already been long and torturous.

Maybe I just need to put some time between another loss and myself and it will all look different. I don't know. I hope so.

I got my blood work this morning and my beta is officially less than 5 so no more blood tests.

I am thankful.

Thankful

Today I am thankful that:

1. The sun is shining.

2. The crushing weight of losing another baby feels like it might be lifting.

3. This week my beta should be back to 0 so I should be done with the doctors, blood tests, ultrasounds, etc. I can start to move on.

This one sucks

I have had four miscarriages in my life. I lost my first pregnancy due to a blighted ovum. That was during our second attempt at IVF. I. WAS. DEVASTATED. It took me months to dig my way out of the black hole that shoved me into. After four years of trying, three failed IUI's and a failed IVF cycle that loss was huge for me. I don't think I have ever gotten over it.

My second loss occurred during my pregnancy with the girls. We chose to put three embryo's back and all three stuck. Baby C was smaller and less developed from the first ultrasound. The doctors thought that that baby would never develop to the point of having heartbeat. They were wrong. Tiny baby C continued to develop for several weeks, had a heartbeat but died around 10 weeks. I think we were by far more prepared for this loss. The doctors told us all along that Baby C had a very minimal chance of survival.

The third loss was Jack's twin. That pregnancy was up and down from the beginning. My HCG numbers weren't good. My progesterone was too low. The sac was too small around both babies. Baby B was way behind Baby A (Jack). But with that pregnancy both babies had nice strong heartbeats. We got all the way to 11 weeks before we lost Baby B. Even at that point it didn't look good for Jack. At one point he had something like a 10% chance of survival... but he made it! I think this is the loss we never really dealt with. We were so concerned with keeping Jack developing that we never took the time to mourn the loss we had.

Then we have number four. And the only word that comes to mind with this one is heartbreak. We didn't want another one. We weren't trying. Then we had a baby there just long enough to be heartbroken when it wasn't. It seems so pointless and unfair. And now I'm mad. I'm mad at God. We're not even really speaking at this point. I just feel wronged somehow. And I can't get past the mad long enough to actually deal with it.

It doesn't help that every time I turn around someone is showing me a picture of a new baby that has been born recently. Or that my instagram feed has a plethora of sweet baby faces. Or when Jack cries I feel like I can hear cries of babies that aren't here. It just hurts.

I know it'll get easier in time. It always does. It just feels like this one is so different. We weren't asking for a baby and we got one just long enough to lose it. A tiny part of us thought maybe we should try but the larger part knows that we're done. I couldn't do this process again.

I guess we just need some time.

Shoved off the horse

Spring is probably my favorite season. Although I am a summer girl at heart I love the promise of Spring. I am not much for winter and cold so Spring is like the thawing of my soul. I start to gear up for the things that make me incredibly happy (and have to go into hibernation for the winter) like gardening, the beach, sidewalk chalk all over my driveway, blowing bubbles, walks after dinner, lazy evenings at the park and so on.

Miscarriage #4 has managed to shove me off of my Spring high. Instead of hopeful and ready and anticipatory I feel deflated and beaten up. It seems incredibly unfair. I hate whining. I hate hearing myself do it more than anything. But I feel whiney. I want to kick my feet and scream for no reason and cry just because. But I can't. I'm a Mom. I don't get to. And as much as being there Mom makes this whole thing liveable it also makes it harder to grieve and start to move on.

I want my Spring back. I want to want to clean up the yard and plant the first flowers. I want to be more smiley and happy because I know that summer will be here soon.

I'm just not there yet.

It was but it wasn't

About a month ago I thought I was coming down with something. I felt icky and run down. We have been sick NON-STOP this winter so I figured it was the millionth cold. When I realized I was also a little "late" my heart skipped a beat. How many times have I been pulled into that naive thought "could I be pregnant all on my own?" But I was. I bought a test and you could have knocked me over with a feather.

We had done what they said we couldn't do. We got pregnant on our own. After five cycles of IVF and years of trying on our own it happened. I. WAS. SHOCKED. I can't say that I had the elated, giddy feeling I had in the past when I saw that + sign. Although we toyed with the idea of more we have a full plate. We let it sink in for a day or two and I called the clinic.

They brought me in for bloodwork and again two days later. The numbers were not great. They looked like an ectopic pregnancy (very low doubling time) so in I went for an ultrasound. When I sat down for that ultrasound it was so surreal. I never thought I would be in that place again in my entire life.

The ultrasound showed a uterine pregnancy but it was measuring way, way behind where I should be.

*The dates are where they measured me not where I should have been. 

They decided to let me go another week and bring me back to check for a heartbeat. It was an excruciating week of waiting. After the painful wait was over there is was. A teeny, tiny flicker of a heartbeat.

Baby was still way behind where I should have been and they were assuming my dates were off. This concerned me a lot because I knew my numbers could not be that far off but we waited another week.

We started the mental preparation for a loss but they continued to shine us on that "everything was fine" and "the numbers were just off". I had a feeling they were wrong. When I went the following week the progress was minimal. Baby had gone from measuring 5w 6days (when I should have been 7.5 weeks) to 6 weeks 1 day.

The bad went to worse when they called later and said my progesterone had fallen from 40 to 14. We started to officially prepare.

I won't share all the gory details but this part Sunday night the miscarriage began and this morning they confirmed the loss by ultrasound.

This was loss number 4. This one hit particularly hard since we weren't trying. All the years of trying and never preventing and not one time. Then this. It's hard to make sense of it. When it's all said and done we'll be fine. We have three kids. We have the boys and Gen. Our lives are incredibly full and busy and exactly what we want. It just doesn't soften the blow all that much.

 But the grass is getting greener and the sun is shining brighter. Spring is coming and we're trying to focus on that. Moving forward isn't easy but we've done it again and again. We will now. It'll be the fourth and last time we say goodbye in this way.

When infertility attacks

People don't think of a mother of three children as an "infertile". I guess technically when we had the girls we went from "infertile" to "fertility challenged". But somewhere in the back of my mind I will always be the infertile girl going to the IVF clinic day after day after day, getting poke and prodded just for the hopes that someday the news would be good (and stay good). That part of me will never go away. Living through that kind of pain and loss and anxiety isn't something you easily forget.

That being said once you become a mother it softens the memory a bit. Instead of the torturous clinic that I used to see, every time I pass the office I now think of it as the place that gave me my children. But it never goes away completely.

After I got pregnant with Jack we made the decision that we would never do IVF again. The stress and anxiety of the process was too much. Losing Jack's twin and almost losing him was too much to want to put ourselves through it all again. That part of our life was over.

Recently Brian and I were laying in bed, unable to sleep and he says to me "you know, it's a shame we can't have more kids. I would have liked to have another one or two." In that moment I wanted to cry as I managed to squeak out "me too". We both would have loved more kids. We both feel like now that we have hit our rhythm of parenting we're unable to have any more. It seems unfair. Not unfair in the way that it is for people who have no children, but unfair nonetheless.

We often hear how "maybe you'll be one of the lucky ones". Meaning one of the couples who gets pregnant after IVF's. While we realize there is some random, remote possibility... it probably won't be us. With both male and female infertility we hit the infertile backwards lottery. We're okay with it. We are the lucky ones. Despite bad odds we have THREE children. We hit the jackpot. We are rich beyond our wildest expectations in terms of luck. We weren't sure we would have any children, let alone three.

It's just a little sad.

He shouldn't have even been here

A few weeks back I had this striking moment where I realized (or I guess remembered is a better word) how close we came to losing Jack. I can remember sitting in the nurses office at the IVF clinic crying. We had lost the first baby and they were giving our remaining baby a 5-10% chance of surviving the next week. I went through the next week as if it was over. I stopped planning ahead. I drank too much caffeine. I basically gave up and accepted the fact that I was destined to be the mom of two. I was SHOCKED when we saw a heart beat the next week.

When I look at him now I am in awe of how tough he is. This tiny little man beat those odds and turned out to be absolutely perfect. And even beyond that... the worries about him being too small or his legs not growing right or not being able to visualize his brain... all worries for nothing.

Just makes you realize how darn lucky you are!

Picture

I have come to the realization that we never print a birth announcement. There may never be a first picture or a posed hospital picture. We may likely never get that far. So far I haven't posted many ultrasound pictures. We get one each week but because of the ups and downs I wanted to keep them to ourselves. But this week I want to share. I want to show how beautiful our poor, squished baby is. How amazing life is when it begins to really take form. Even if our little one doesn't make it she (or he) is still beautiful.

I think you can really see in these pics what we are dealing with. There should be a good deal of black space around the baby which would be the sac filled with fluid.

Last Ditch Efforts

The doctors are officially throwing everything they have at keeping this baby alive and growing. I appreciate it but it scares me even more. When they start talking about "long shot treatments" and things like that it scares the hell out of me. They have put me on an antibiotic to treat any possible fluid leaks in the sac. They took me off PIO injections (I am thankful for that) and put me on massive doses of progesterone by mouth and suppositories. Not 100% what the rationale is there but at this point what else can I do.

When I Talked to the nurse Wednesday she assured me that the sac not growing is a complete mystery. It isn't necessary chromosomal, it's nothing I'm doing, it's not even hormone related. It's just seriously scary stuff. I know that now those statistics I read a couple of weeks ago (about a 80-95% loss rate) apply. So I now know that we are not talking about 50/50. It's more like an 80/20 at best.

Makes me so sad to think that the walls are just closing in my poor little angel. :(

Why

Two weeks ago had I lost these babies I think I would have been okay. The roller coaster ride was intense and the ups and downs were drastic. I was prepared. I was ready. I had my grieving process mapped out and I knew how I would handle it. Then I lost just one baby. I grieved. Probably not as much as what will happen in the future but I grieved the best way I knew how. But I also knew that one baby had been chosen by God to return to heaven so the other could flourish. I was thankful that God chose His will. I found peace in that.

Over the past week or so I have officially bonded with this baby. I didn't let myself before. How could I let myself feel for these babies when it looked, so much of the time, like they would not stay long. I finally let it all in. The idea of a baby in my arms, in my living room, in my life. What car seat would be we use? Where would we move the office to make room? Would we be discussing boy names or girl names? How would the girls react when they knew they were going to have a sister or brother? It was all so exciting.

Then came yesterday. It all crashed down. I laid there on the table and saw that baby move and dance and kick. I pushed away the knowledge that even I knew the sac looked like it was closing in. I started to get nervous when the nurse went to talk to the ultrasound tech with my chart in hand (something they never, ever do at our clinic).

She told me it was 50/50 at best but the rest of the conversation said otherwise. She said things like "miracles can happen" and "we can't do anything but pray" and she asked if we had more embryo's frozen. It all felt like 50/50 would be hugely optimistic.

Now I feel lost. I feel like my hopes were brought just high enough to dash them. I am struggling with finding any purpose in it. Who knows what will happen. Maybe a miracle and maybe not. One more week...

10.5 week ultrasound

My ultrasound today did not yield good news. The baby looked great... moving and dancing and kicking. It was beautiful. I knew the sac looked small but I didn't realize how small. The tech didn't say much but when the pregnancy nurse took me in her office she told me it was a 50/50 chance at best. The sac is way behind and it didn't look good. I just don't know what to say. : (

Ultrasound - 9.5 weeks

I had the much anticipated ultrasound today and sadly the news was not good. We found out we lost one of the twins. Apparently the heart stopped beating and growth stopped somewhere in the past week. They asked if I wanted to see the baby on ultrasound and I did. He just looked like he did last week but with no heart pumping away. So sad to think that we have lost three babies now. Two of which were growing and had heartbeats. Breaks my heart.

Baby A looks good (good strong heartbeat and grew more this week). She's still measuring behind and there is a week and a half discrepancy between the sac size and the baby but it looks like it's all trying to "get caught up". The nurse was fairly stoic and agreed we're not in the clear yet. They want to see greater growth before we can breathe a sigh of relief. The thinking is that with only one baby growing it might give A a better chance of developing normally. I guess we'll see about that.

I go back in another week to check on the baby and make sure growth continues. I also have my first OB appointment on Monday so I'll hopefully get a chance to make sure the heart is beating before the next ultrasound.

Update

Despite thinking I was going to either pass out of hyperventilate I survived todays appointment.

When I went in I lucked out and got my very favorite ultrasound tech. I immediately told her I was freaking out a little and she was wonderful. Set to work right away, told me what she was seeing, talked about her own experiences with IF and told me the TRUTH about everything!

The crazy thing is BOTH babies had heartbeats. The sad part is that one is probably not going to make it. The bigger baby was measuring 11mm (up from about 3 mm last week), 6 weeks and 4 days (I am 7 weeks and 3 days so within the plus or minus one week), and had a heartbeat of 146. The smaller baby was measuring only 4mm (only grew from 2 mm to 4mm this past week), only measuring 5 weeks 5 days and had a heart rate of only 114 (they wanted in the 140's at this point). It is VERY similar to the measurements of our triplet with the girls. So both the u/s tech and the nurse agreed that the smaller baby will probably not make it but the bigger baby (who is still a little behind) looks good.

The nurse will call tomorrow to give me my levels so that will be another piece of the puzzle. Then I go back next Wednesday for another u/s and b/w to see what's going on. SO all in all it was pretty good news. I thought I was losing both babies so it wasn't as bad as I thought.

Edited to add:

The nurse got the bloods back stat so I have my results already. Everything was still low: hcg 27,000 (doubling time of 122 hours... which is a little low), progesterone 22 (super low) and E2 548. Trying not to read too much into it at this point.

Will we know more?

Today is the follow up ultrasound and blood work. Needless to say I am extremely anxious to get more information and see what's going on.

Here's what we do know for fact:

1. Last week we had two heartbeats (it was early but we saw them)

2. I lost my pregnancy symptoms

3. I have had pretty miserable cramps the past few days

4. No bleeding

5. My numbers were VERY low last week

6. Yesterday I had intense lower back pain

7. Frankly I just don't feel pregnant.

There are so many thoughts swimming in my head. Another miscarriage. Vanishing twin. Waiting, waiting, waiting. More stress than I need right now.

I go today at 2 o'clock and the day just can't pass fast enough. I am just hoping and praying that when I leave the office today I have a few more answers than questions.

Here again

In so many ways I cannot believe I find myself where I am AGAIN. In my lifetime I have spent a grand total of five years trying to get and stay pregnant. Along the way we have suffered more tests than I can count, three failed IUI's, five cycles of IVF, the loss of two babies and more heartache than I can quantify. And here I am again.

We entered into this most recent cycle with a much more laid back perspective. Now that we have two kids it's different. The stress is lower. The expectations are different. We had hoped to end up with a baby but were also okay if that isn't what happened. The laid back perspective has quickly been eliminated... and I am so disappointed. I had so hoped to have an easier experience. Either be pregnant or not be pregnant. Get the news and move on.

Now I don't know which end is up. Another set of twins was the first shocker. Then one of the twins is measuring well behind the other. Now extremely low numbers (when I had very high numbers with the girls) and I am not sure what the heck is going on. I am having strong cramps fairly regularly. I just don't know what to think. It's only a few more days and we might get a better picture of what is going on. Maybe not.

I just didn't expect to find myself back in this position again. I guess you really can't ever tell what the future holds until you're there. My only hope is that on Wednesday we have slightly more answers... not just more questions. We'll see...

Drum roll please

My sincere apologies for the delay. I wanted to sit with the news for a little bit before shouting from the rooftop.



My blood results were:

beta - 136
progesterone - 37.4
E2 - 424

Two days later:

beta - 209
progesterone - 45.9
E2 - 257

The doubling time is slow but that is how it was for me with the girls. It wasn't until the third beta that my numbers started to double on a more normal schedule. So it looks like my body is doing what it needs to do!

Everything looks great!

It's a mixed bag for me making the "big announcement" so early on. If I were not an IVFer I would definitely keep the news to myself (especially with a history of 2 losses). Unfortunately IVF does not lend itself to being tight lipped about the news. Top this off with people being offended to learn via my blog and you can see my apprehension. BUT... so many of you have been pulling for us for so long that you should know our happy news!

Repeat beta Monday and probably ultrasound sometime late next week!

The waiting game

I know I haven't posted much but during the two week wait there isn't much to say. You can have "feelings" and "symptoms" and "signs" but when you are loaded full of hormones it's anyone's guess.

Right now I am in the midst of PIO hell. Every night, at 8 o'clock, Brian searches my hip for a spot that has not yet formed a massive (egg sized) keiloid scar under the surface. Some of them are so hard they bend the needle. Fun, right?

So that's where we are. Waiting, waiting, waiting...