The good and the bad and all kinds of beautiful

First, I'll get the bad out of the way: the bills are coming in and they're fucking depressing. Transfer, beta, beta, beta, ultrasound (pregnant uterus), beta, the end. I would prefer just to forget about the whole thing, you know? Pretend it never happened? But people deserve to get paid, and so they shall.

On the happier side: this weekend I took Small Boy to his soccer lesson. Then we went on  a walk through the woods in the crisp fall day, all oranges and yellow and reds and crunchy leaves and good smells. We turned out of the woods and found ourselves at the zoo, where we happen to have a membership and I happened to have the membership card on me. So we went to the zoo. And we dawdled and wandered and looked at lots of animals and somewhere in there I started humming a song. Pop lyrics are the bardic poetry of my generation and it's how my subconscious communicates with me. OnceI was on an elevator and started humming "Miss Otis Regrets" and only noticed on the way out that the elevator was made by a company named Otis. Anyway.

The song lyrics I was humming turned out to be


one life
is all we ever get
and all we ever give up for it in return
is all of 
the ones that might have been
just one kind of beautiful, each in our turn...

 I walked, and thought about it. One kind of beautiful is what I get. This life is one kind of beautiful. It's sleeping in and spontaneous zoo trips and money and time and just a very relaxed, civilized way of living. Since we have him outnumbered, when one of us is out of patience it's very easy to say "here, you deal with it." I wouldn't have that luxury if there were two.  We never have to operate at the edge of our ability to cope. It's just all very comfortable and peaceful.

Would I trade for the infinite richness of a larger family? Hell yeahs. There's no question. The material and lifestyle advantages are all things I would throw away in a minute, if I could. I mean, for the past two years I've been attempting with both hands to throw them away.

But if it turns out that I can't -- this is one kind of beautiful.

If I can hold onto this feeling, I'll be fine. I know these things tend to be a spiral, passing the same point again and again on a different plane. I know I'll be back to desperate sadness, jealousy, anger, grief. But with any luck this is one of the places in the spiral and I'll see it again, the place of feeling peaceful and grateful and wistful, not angry and grieved. And now I know that this place exists, that there is a world in which I never have another child and I am okay.

The day before beta

Jest passin' the time. Every now and then I pee on a piece of cardboard, squint, and alternately decide

a) it's wayyy darker omg must start googling strollers now! now! how are we going to afford daycare? should I try for a VBAC?
b) it's wayyy lighter and I wonder if I'll get all the way to misoprostol, now my preferred abortifacient, or if it'll poop out on its own.

Neither of these reactions is either warranted or helpful.

I'm just not very good at sitting and waiting.

I'm going to be in a meeting for most of tomorrow. I've asked the nurse to email me the beta results. Probably my favorite thing about this practice is that they don't mind emailing results.  I have some serious PTSD from the hold music at my last REs. I'd be waiting and waiting and listening to the loop and my heart pound and pretty soon my blood pressure started to shoot up as soon as the music started. Plus I'm always afraid I'll hear something wrong or write it down wrong or something. With email there is only the barest pause between seeing that I have the email and seeing the results. 

So. Tomorrow.

6dp5dt (11dpo)

Annnnnnd we have a line!

Faint, but there. And while such a faint line is bad news at 14dpo, it's okay at 11dpo.  Just have to see where this one goes, if this little thing has what it needs to continue its journey.

Trying to stay quiet. Keep breathing, keep living, and if I do a bit of hoping, that's okay. One of the things I think I've learned on this journey is that almost nothing can dislodge a good pregnancy and absolutely nothing can save a bad one.  The coin is still flipping in the air as to which this one is -- but it hasn't landed yet, which means we're in with a chance. 

FET #5, the night before

This cycle has flashed by strangely. I haven't done acupuncture, and my wheatgrass intake has been quite erratic. I still got scanned with the best lining I've had since pre-Small Boy, so that's nice. I think it was the fruity pills.

I feel... quiet. Very quiet. Usually I'm frantically consulting auguries by now, but I haven't looked at a single set of entrails.  This is the last round for a while, at least. If it's not going to work, I don't want to know it quite yet.

Her Indoors can't come with me to the transfer tomorrow, as she'll be trapped at work. I actually feel fine about that. I'm not sentimental about the process at this point.  I'm just going to go in, have a couple of embryos transferred to my uterus, continue with my life. It sort of matches with the quiet I'm feeling now.

Okay, breaktime's over.

I'm ready to start again.

It's been a good extra month. I am hypertensive, and there is a rather short list of pregnancy-safe medications (which of course I've been on temporarily for, oh, two years now while TTC). I was on a high dose of labetalol, which worked okay but made me super tired all the time and also dizzy whenever I bent down.

At the start of last month I thought "fuck it, I have to start living my real life, baby or no baby." So as part of the reclaiming-my-life project, I marched down to my GP and told her I wasn't happy on labetalol.  I've found an alternative (nifedipine) that appears to be working, and omg how much do I love not dreading buying something from the bottom shelf at the supermarket. I hadn't realized what a drag constantly trying to not squat or bend down was. I feel freeeeeeee!

My energy has come back, too. I'm in a positive feedback loop right now where because I'm not so tired, I'm getting a lot more exercise, which in turn energizes me. I've also put some major effort into upgrading my diet. Her Indoors was away for a whole week and I was rather afraid I'd starve, and so bought some meal-replacement spirulina-peatmoss-whatever protein shake mix.  That got me started on a smoothie kick,and I discovered that having breakfast and lunch smoothies seems infinitely easier to me than preparing and packing breakfast and lunch. I got a one-serve portable blender and have been going wild. For breakfast this morning I had coconut milk, soy butter, kale, and strawberries.  Lunch was avocado, kefir, spinach, cilantro, lime.  Nommm! I don't really do the protein powder shakes any more, but it's comforting to have them as a backup in case I just can't be arsed to cook (in the past, when I couldn't be arsed I'd just eat whatever random crapola came strolling by my desk). I haven't eaten this well in years, and I am actually approaching a so-called-"normal" BMI for the first time in about a decade.

And yeah, did I mention more energy? I've been taking Small Boy to the playground every day, which is awful good for both of us. Small Boy is an awesome small boy, and does something side-splittingly funny at least four times a day.

I dunno, things have just been good.  The last miscarriage is far enough in the past that it all seems like a dream now. Come on, what was I thinking? Pregnancy seems mysterious, remote, something that happens to other people.  Remote feels much better than just-outside-my-reach.

So of course, now that I'm feeling calm and happy and healthy, what I need to do is fuck it all up. Get back on that crazytrain of tests, hormones, appointments, waiting uncertainty, peeing on strips of cardboard, squinting at lines.

I'm expecting my period to start in the next few days. Between days 5-15 I'll have an HSG. If that looks okay (please) I'll start another FET cycle.

Really, with that much fun? How could I stay away?

32 days later

I sort of got my period again on Sunday. It's so very, very light. Red when I wipe, otherwise nada. This is pretty much what my last one was like, and I thought it was just because it was the first one post-misoprostol. I guess not. It's not nice to have your heart sink every time you pull down your pants. I hope I'm not too broken.

Last night I dreamed that I was in a rowboat. There were lots of dogs swimming around, but I ignored them. Then a puppy¹ came paddling right up to my boat. I hauled him out of the water. He shook himself off and wriggled around and I thought "shit shit shit, I really wasn't ready to get another dog, but clearly I'm keeping this one."² I then noticed that the dog was female, not male, and was surprised.

My subconscious isn't too subtle, huh?

I am sort of conflicted about moving forward. If I try again, either I'll get pregnant or I won't. If I don't, it will hurt. If I do, then either I'll stay pregnant or I won't. If I don't, it will hurt. If I stay pregnant, either the baby will be okay or he or she won't. Etc. It's... just going to take me a little while to screw up my courage to go again.  





¹A swift google tells me that the puppy was probably a St. Bernard, possibly a Landseer Newfoundland.

²The last of our three dogs died not too long ago, and we've vowed to remain dogless for a while.

Not 11 weeks

Today I am officially precisely not 11 weeks pregnant. It's been two weeks since I took the misoprostol, three since the ultrasound where the RE said "I don't see a heartbeat".

Things are okay. I had a followup appointment two days after the misoprostol, and everything looked good and clear. That was the best I could've hoped for. My pee-sticks are still a lot darker than I'd like, but I guess it takes some women a really long time to clear out all the hCG. I can't start another cycle until my level is all the way down and I have another period, so I'm just spinnin' my wheels here. I have another followup on Friday. I imagine they'll start doing blood tests every week or two until I'm at zero.

Time floats by so aimlessly when you're unpregnant. Pregnant means that every day is an achievement, and is moving closer to Something Big. Unpregnant you're just waiting for something that may or may not happen. And if you can only conceive with fertility treatment, you're waiting to start waiting for something that may or may not happen.

I'm mostly back in the TTC mindframe (as opposed to the pregnant mindframe). I know how to do this; I've spent a lot more time trying to get pregnant than I have actually being pregnant.  But some part of me, maybe 10%, is still stunned and saying wtf happened here?  See, it all just seemed so right. The transfer was exactly on my birthday. The due date was exactly my mother's birthday. My BFF is pregnant right now, and we were going to be pregnant together. Some things are just meant to be, you know?

Some things, but apparently not this one.

A poem has been stuck in my mind: A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London. I don't know why. I have only a weak affinity for poetry, and almost none for Dylan Thomas; most of it just reads as word-salad to me. But this one has been drawing me back. I guess "unmourning water" is really a pretty good description of the resting place of those two tiny embryos, poor miniscule brine shrimp, released unto the municipal sewer system.

Yesterday and today

Yesterday I felt serenely, even smugly confident that I was pregnant. I could just feel it, you know? I even peed on one of my cheapie internet pregnancy tests. Yes, for anyone keeping score, that was two days past transfer, and no, no excuse about "peeing out" the trigger; on a frozen cycle there is no trigger. That was all crazy me. So was the test I took this morning (all snowy white, of course).

Today I feel very sure that I'm not. My excellent piece of evidence is this: I have a promotional Magic 8 ball that I got as a trade show giveaway. It has been very accurate in the past. It said I'm not pregnant. Q.E.D.

Of my positive pregnancy tests, I got one at 5dp5dt (miscarriage), one at 4dp5dt (Small Boy), one at 8dp5dt (chemical), and one at 4dp5dt  (miscarriage).

This part is... hard.

Waiting.

The good news is that I finally, finally, finally got my period, a cool 65 days after the D&C.

The bad news is that my blood pressure has inexplicably gone crazy, and I can't start an IVF cycle until it's under control again. If my cycle goes back to being regular (please please) then that means probably another 32 days.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

On the interesting side, apparently two miscarriages and a chemical pregnancy adds up to "three losses", which won me a karotype and a recurrent loss panel.  I had about a pint of blood drawn; we shall see if anything turns up. I'll be surprised if it does. I honestly think it's just been a bit of bad luck. I mean, theoretically I know that for some people the ratio of positive pregnancy tests to babies is 1:1, but... it seems like a frankly ludicrous thing to expect.

I guess I'll spend this month, I dunno, inhaling lavender and doing yoga breathing and drinking pomegranate juice and stuff. I let a lot go by the wayside in order to survive the whole becoming-unpregnant thing:I guess this month is my chance to get as sane and healthy as possible before I get back on the crazytrain.

Fingers crossed

The senior director for benefits at {my very large employer} is confident that it's a mixup, so I feel a fair bit better. I know I move to "what if" too quickly, but I'm just crappy at waiting and seeing, you know? Far more important to start freaking out immediately.

So -- there is hope. Everything crossed.


ETA: After the official email, the director wrote me a separate email, wishing us success and a baby in 2012. I'm all verklempt.  I do love my workplace sometimes.

4DPO: a.k.a. the day before transfer

I've swallowed the doxycycline, the methylprednisolone.  The progesterone in oil (well, thankfully, in ethyl oleate) has been sunk deep into my gluteals each evening by my lovely partner. Transfer is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. tomorrow.

Nothing to do now but wait, wait for my uterine lining to be synchronized, wait for the embryologist to (please) coax those little frozen things into life.

Tonight we will drink a toast of pomegranate juice, and wish the Tiny Frozen Americans a safe journey from the dark frozen underworld into our world of light and sound.

9dp5dt:: No beta today, weirdly enough!

Morning pee-stick report: FRER (First Response Early Results, for those not on the crazytrain), faint but definite positive. Reputed to have a sensitivity of 12.5 miu. IC (that's Internet Cheapie, wondfro, to be precise): darker than last night, but still exceedingly faint. Reputed to have a sensitivity of 25 miu.

I'm not going for my beta today; I'm going tomorrow. It's not as crazy as it sounds. My doctor usually tests at 10dp5dt (15 dpo), but he offered me the option of doing it a day early because 10dp falls on a Saturday, and it's a bit less convenient to get to the lab on a Saturday.

Of course I assumed that neither man nor beast could keep me from my day-early beta. That is just not who I am. Like Pippin, I always have to look. But now... I'm strangely moved to wait.

For once, I have a feeling that this is out of my hands. Maybe I'm just reluctant to crack open that box and make the cat alive or dead. For whatever reason, I'm just sitting quietly at this crossroads for one more day.