going out on a high note

My miscarriage ordeal is nearly over. Let's just say I'm not really paying attention anymore. I went in last Thursday for follow-up ultrasound and bloodwork. The u/s showed that I still had a little chunk o' tissue, but my blood level of HCG was down to 2000 so they weren't too concerned overall. I'm supposed to go back later this week for another blood draw and thankfully no u/s. I will not bore you with any more details, as I'm sick to death of it myself.

I'm still feeling gloomy, annoyed, and cranky a lot of the time. But there are more "silver lining" moments every day. Some tidbits, in no particular order..

• I swell with pride when I think of how my maxi-pad purchases over the past month have stimulated the economy. I am a big part of the economic turn-around. I purchased Kotex for nostalgic reasons, Always "Infinity" for a taste of the future, and a few of store brands, with and without wings. You're welcome, American workers.

• I found the motivation to sign up at the Federal employee gym. I easily lost the baby weight after Waffle Girl was born, but fertility-treatment-weight is a different story. I'm required to take at least a 30-min. lunch anyway, so might as well work my ass a little. I've gone once so far and have serious plans for visit #2.

• I got to drink wine and champagne at my brother's wedding this weekend! We will do likewise, as a family, at Thanksgiving and throughout the holiday season. My wonderful new sister-in-law wants to try for a baby pretty-much right away. I told her to let me know the minute she's preggo and I'll run and schedule my FET then. This way, she'll still be a couple-few months ahead of me (she deserves the first-time mom attention!) but we'll still have kids of the same age, same school year. So even though my master plan of having a baby 2 years behind Waffle Girl has fallen through, this new master plan could be even better! It's genius, I tells ya.

I won't be posting for a little while. I started this as an infertility treatment blog and while I'm "on a break" there's not much that I'll need to get off my chest. No one needs to hear me gushing about the delightful Waffle Girl, the annoying-yet-adorable Mr. Foxy, or the great things I'm doing at my fancy government scientist job. Okay, on that last point.. I'll take this opportunity to brag that my $100K research proposal beat out a couple dozen other projects nation-wide and is now in the top 5 under final consideration. Oh yeah.

Thanks for reading my blog and for offering your support, humor, and insights. I'll keep checking in on my IF buddies in the coming weeks. And I'll let you know when we're ready to break out the frosties for another turn around the dance floor.

am i done yet?!

In case you were wondering..

How did they know that the embryo wasn't viable?

Well, my inquisitive friends, if an embryo gets to a certain size (5mm) and there isn't a little fluttering heart, then they know it isn't growing right. It is inscribed on my permanent record that our embie was 5.7mm and it had "no cardiac activity".

The most common cause of early miscarriage is chromosomal abnormality of the embryo. We didn't lose a baby. We lost something that could not have possibly ever grown into a baby. We lost 4 months of time that we could have been busy getting pregnant with a real baby. I've been reading the posts on the "Pregnancy loss" board of my favorite infertility support group. Frankly, a lot of the women posting there are deluded. Some of them were pregnant for just a couple weeks and yet they've named their "babies" and are mourning their loss as if they were fully-formed people. I don't get it. Maybe I'm missing a golden opportunity to be a drama queen.

So what has the infertile breeder been doing this past week?

Dr. Snaggletooth gave us two options: 1) stop meds and wait for the miscarriage to come on naturally or, 2) take a drug to bring it on. I opted for both. That is to say, I thought I'd wait a few days and take the meds only if necessary. The doctor gave me two prescriptions - one that causes uterine contractions and a painkiller.

Here's how it unfolded: our appointment was Tuesday. Then on Friday afternoon, when I was working at home, I had a few hours' worth of cramps and (TMI alert!) passed a bunch of blood clots. The cramping wasn't too bad. I figured that this was the worst of it, but that I'd probably have more heavy bleeding and stuff over the weekend.

Boy, was I mistaken! Last night (Monday) I started cramping again and went through much of the same as Friday. I managed to put Waffle Girl to bed about 7:15 (bless her heart, she's such a good sleeper) then it just got worse and worse! I wasn't even bleeding that much.. it was like a uterine version of the dry heaves. Seriously! I didn't have any pain meds, but I did have the prescription in hand - I could've called somebody to come rescue me, but I kept thinking that it'll pass soon.. and Mr. Foxy would be home from work in about an hour. So I writhed around in pain on the couch for a while and tried to use this heating pad that didn't do any good. Eventually hubby got home and found a stash of Vicodin that he'd squirreled away. Within the hour I felt a lot better and eventually went to sleep.

But wait, there's more! I woke up at 5am, cramping again. I popped another Vicodin and got back to sleep at 6:30. Working at home again today so I slept in 'til 8. I've been on pins and needles all day wondering "Am I done yet!?" Is there another wave of cramps to come? Shit! This was much harder and more miserable than I expected! I hope I'm done. Am I done? Oh, I hope I'm done.

PUPO, it's been real

Our ultrasound today (@7wk3d) confirmed that this pregnancy is not viable. I'm sad, tired, angry, and nervous about what happens next. I feel so jerked around.

It doesn't feel like I'm really headed for a miscarriage, since we were never pregnant in the first place. Not really. It's more like our 2 week wait stretched out to a 5 week wait with the biggest BFN ever at the end. How attached can you get to a microscopic embryo that was just the faintest shadow on ultrasound? The idea of it was pretty sweet, but we never got any closer than being "cautiously optimistic" that it could be a reality. Not that I'm trying to talk myself out of being sad.. trust me, I'm plenty sad and there's no avoiding it.

The big picture is still very good. We have 5 frozen blasts, three of which are equal or better quality than the one that grew up to be Waffle Girl. So I feel pretty sure that there will be a sibling. Vain as I am, it felt pretty good when Dr. Snaggletooth opened up my file today and said "God, you're amazing! I wish I could get my other 39-year-old patients to do this well!" Yes, through my tears I am comforted to know that I have fantastic ovaries.

I've had to let go of my master plan, which was to have another kid 2 years behind Waffle Girl in school. When we went for our first consultation in March, it seemed reasonable to hope I'd be pregnant by the end of October. I though we should be able to fit 2 fresh cycles into a 6-month period, or one fresh and a couple frozens. Well, thanks to our various delays, the cancelled cycle in June, and now this extra-long BFN, my timetable has been scrapped. I know it seems like a dumb, petty thing.. but it would have been so great.

Our earliest possible FET could be in December, but who wants to do IF over the holidays? Going in the dead of winter isn't appealing, either, so I may take a break until spring. Celine Dion waited 8 years to do an FET and have her second child. I could even be one of those hags that has an IVF baby in her fifties. Okay, that's crazy talk.. but I'll be happy to keep my feet out of stirrups for a few months.