Nine Weeks Not

Still waiting. Feeling less and less pregnant, though there are moments when I feel nauseous and tender. Strange how these little surges tease up hope, even when I know there isn't a chance.

On the other hand, the very fact that I got pregnant again raises my hopes.

Supposedly I was done trying, but very soon after I found out I was pregnant, I found myself thinking, if this one doesn't work, I might want to give it one more go. I told J~ my thoughts, and he agreed, he didn't feel quite done either. Another year, we agreed. We'll give it one more year.

I'm not sure yet when the clock starts on this One More Year, but certainly we're in the grace period now, while I'm waiting to miscarry, and probably for a cycle or two after that.

In the meantime, I am collecting inspirational stories - there are a nice bouquet of them in the comments of the previous post - thank you all so much!

Anybody else? I'm particularly interested in women who miscarried repeatedly in their thirties and then had a successful pregnancy after forty. I am learning that it happens much more frequently than I previously imagined. Details are welcome and encouraged!

I'm also on the lookout for good medical support. Long time readers might recall that I went to an RE two or three years ago, the only one I could find in my state (Connecticut) who focused on miscarriage. This doc had an air of defeat around him which I found troubling, though I couldn't quite put my finger on it until I got his form letter several weeks later announcing his retirement.

I'm also going to start charting again - I'm suspecting a luteal phase deficit and I want to gather evidence. I'd love to hear about any natural approaches to remedying this, if any exist. I have Clomid-phobia, though progesterone is looking less scary these days...

As for my age-old ambivalence about having children, it isn't exactly gone. I am clear in my desire to succeed at pregnancy, but the next part, where I give myself over physically, mentally, and financially to raising a child, that's harder to wrap my mind around. I really want to cross that bridge. I can imagine the triumph and joy I would feel to have done so. But the landscape on the other side? It still looks pretty darn challenging.

The Waiting Game

What a strange thing to be pregnant, yet not. Queasy, sore, bloated, tired. Waiting for the tide to change.

Top that off with running into an old miscarriage-survivor buddy in the store this afternoon - she's pregnant and glowing. I am hopeful for her, but it's bittersweet.

In some ways, this pregnancy's demise has been the easiest to come to terms with yet. After all, I've got lots of practice, and a rich life to fall back on. But I'm forty now. The future doesn't exactly glow with the promise of a shiny new possibility. I am having to face reality in a way I haven't before.

I talk a good game about moving on, but the truth is, I had my life crammed overfull of commitments and distractions. This time in life's waiting room is my free pass, an opportunity to disentangle, weed out the overflow and come back into harmony with the life I want to be living. If it takes a while to move through it, so be it.

Beta Two

Not good. 18,538. Sorry it took me so long to report this.

I was devastated for about ten minutes but then, surprisingly, I felt so much better, exhausted but better.

It has been a hell of a week. Every time I anticipated a test, or a test result, I would be doubled over with nausea for hours. Not the kind of nausea where I'd actually expect to throw up, not the kind of nausea where I'd get my hopes up about the pregnancy (though I did get my hopes up anyway), but the kind of nausea like someone's boot in my gut, like the week after my first husband admitted he was having an affair, like I can hardly breathe and the only cure is sobbing, sobbing my guts out (which I did, several times).

I will not have a D&C. I will not take misoprostol/cytotec. I will not blame myself for this misfortune in any way.

I will garden. And swim. And walk my dog. And paint. And make beautiful salads. And count my blessings, of which there are many. And Babies or Not, life will go on.

Beta One

I got my first hCG count today: 16924. According to my calculations, this was at 6 weeks 6 days pregnant. The lab lists the six-to-eight week normal as anywhere between 15,000 and 200,000. So yes, I'm in the range. It's low but I'm in the range. I was told not to assign any meaning to this number unless it was drastically off target. It is tomorrow's number (which I'll receive on Friday) that will give us a clue.

I expected today's number would be low, though possibly in range. And I expect tomorrow's number will also be low.  For those of you who haven't ridden the fertility roller coaster, in a healthy pregnancy, tomorrow's number should be double yesterday's.

Wouldn't it be cool if I could come back to tell you 36,000? That a second ultrasound reveals all is well? I would love to give hope to those of you reading this who are worried about your own pregnancies. Though I still have moments of hopefulness, I must admit, I've mostly resigned myself to believing it's all but over. I am expecting to hear a number in the range of 12,000 to 17,500.

I've had to slog through some dark emotions, but I'm doing it. The brightest spot of the day today was realizing that this too shall pass. Funny how easy it is to lose sight of this fact. I will move through this, put it behind me, and go forward to embrace the myriad blessings that are my life.

Limbo = Torture

I'm an emotional wreck this afternoon. My dog doesn't know what to make of me, though she enjoys licking the snot off my face.

Such a strange experience, going back to the scene of the crime, the same waiting room, three years shabbier, sitting next to J~, feeling excited, optimistic (I'd been nauseous since last night, first time in weeks); it had to be a good sign. Or nerves.

There was little to see on the ultrasound - something that looked like it could be the fetal sac, something that looks like it could be a yolk sac, "but not quite right" said the ultrasound tech, a calm, careful woman in her late forties. She focused in on a little lump, but said she could see no fetal pole. No heartbeat. The "sac" measures 6 weeks 2 days, she told us, then she measured my ovaries, a protrusion in the fallopian tube, asked me repeatedly if I'd had any pain on one side or the other (no) and then took the pictures to the doctor.

His pronouncement? Possibly too soon to tell. Order hCG quants today (Tuesday) and again on Thursday.

So many things I didn't think to do: I didn't ask for progesterone testing. When she mentioned something about thickened endometrium, about a possible cyst, I didn't follow up on these either, just like I didn't ask if my ovaries looked as they should to support a pregnancy at this stage, didn't ask what exactly was wrong-looking about the sac? How much variation is normal according to dates? After all, I'm pretty sure I'm 6w6d, not 6w2d...

I did say, "I'd rather hear now that it's a long shot than hold out false hope. You've seen a lot of these. Do you really think there's any chance?" The tech took a breath, a moment to think. I know she can't contradict the doctor. I was asking an impossible question. Finally she spoke. "It took me seventeen years to get my one child. I wouldn't want to rule out even the smallest thread of hope."

I cried in the parking lot, explained to J~ my hunch, that the big concern for the doctor is that if my numbers are still going up, to make sure the pregnancy is developing in my uterus rather than in the tube or outside. If my numbers are hovering around the same or going down, then the highest likelihood is confirmed: the pregnancy is not developing as it should. Sooner or later, I will miscarry.

J~ went on to work, I went on to the lab for the blood work. And then I came home and ate lunch, scoured the internet for information, hopeful or not. Didn't find much either way. Talked to a loved one on the phone, the best kind - someone who offers no advice, encourages me to cry, and listens supportively while I do.

Next, I'll write an email to my client telling her I'm going to give myself the rest of the day to be an emotional wreck (she knows what's going on). I'll plant some string beans and beets. And then I'll go to the plant nursery where I'll buy basil, parsley, and flowers. I'll take the dog to the water so she can splash around. And then I'll come home to hug my husband. And to move forward with life.

Ultrasound, Here We Come

Three years ago, when I was 6 weeks 4 days pregnant, J~ and I went together to a doctor in hopes of receiving good news about a pregnancy I felt sure was doomed. We did receive good news that day, saw a fetus of just the right size with a good heartbeat on the ultrasound screen. (I wrote all about it here). We went home stunned and elated. Actually, J~ was elated. I was thrilled but also shell-shocked, unable to shake my fears. As you may know, ultimately, things did not work out with that pregnancy.

Tomorrow morning at 8:45 we will revisit that same waiting room, that same ultrasound machine. I will be six weeks six days pregnant, forty years old instead of thirty-seven. I feel very much as I did three years ago, though less distraught. Whatever the news, I will spend the afternoon tending to my garden, my dog, my newest design client. I will eat a nice lunch from tonight's leftovers: green salad, curried chicken, and brown rice. I will probably cry.

And then I will update the blog.

Lifting the Veil

It's decided. You've convinced me. I'm calling a doctor.

The tricky thing is, who do I call? I haven't been seeing any doctors in a long while. The one fertility doc I saw (almost three years ago now), Dr. M,  retired shortly after my first appointment.

If my calculations are correct, it's 6 weeks 4 days since my last period. Pregnancy symptoms are much less than they were two weeks ago, much less than they were at this point with other pregnancies. Staining has graduated to spotting. I've told everyone who asks that it's over, it's just a matter of time.

In order to spare myself the emotional rollercoaster, I thought I would simply skip it altogether, assume the worst, accept it. When bleeding begins, I resolved to weather the storm with a few DVDs and a hot water bottle. And then move on.

Oh who am I kidding? I still have surges of pregnancy symptoms, and of course I'm thrilled when I do. I still fantasize that everything is actually okay, and appreciate the veil of mystery that makes this possible. And yes, I'm afraid to have some stranger take that away from me.

But I don't want to live in fantasy any more. If this pregnancy is over, then I want to know it. If there's hope, if there's something that can be done, I want to know that too.

I'm going to call Dr. M's clinic first thing tomorrow (Monday), in hopes that my medical records are still on file, that someone else will take on this orphaned patient and respond to the urgency of my plea. Cross your fingers for me.