Confirmed

We were able to confirm today that there was no heartbeat. And the fetus had again not grown at all. Although sad, it was also a relief to know that we can move on and get ready to try again. Unless I miscarry naturally before then, we have scheduled the d&c for Tuesday afternoon.

Our friend Brittany got lots of footage, so hopefully she'll be able to use it. I'm excited to see how it turns out!

If you're the praying kind, please send up good thoughts for our sweet friends M&J who also got bad fertility news today.

Making lemonade

After a pretty good weekend, where I felt okay with where we are, accepting of the impending miscarriage, and eager to try again, this week has been hard. Usually school is a good distraction, but I feel sluggish and tired. I'm sure part of it is normal end-of-semester exhaustion, but I also know that it's harder and harder to act like everything's normal.

But I'm determined to ensure that something good comes out of this ordeal. The state this week enacted very strict abortion laws, over the governor's vetoes. One of the laws requires women to have ultrasounds and listen to detailed descriptions of the fetus prior to having an abortion. Although emotionally painful, this may not sound particularly invasive until you realize that a first-trimester ultrasound is done internally, with a large wand. I have these done regularly to check for follicle development (and more recently, to check on the fetus). And fortunately, I have never had much discomfort. But many women find these ultrasounds to be painful and even violating. The basis of the governor's veto of the law is that there is no exception for victims of rape or incest. I just can't imagine a woman who has already been sexually assaulted being forced to have an internal ultrasound. I don't expect to change anyone's mind about abortion, but I wish my fellow citizens knew what this law actually requires. So a local politician friend of mine is accompanying us to our appointment tomorrow to videotape various aspects of the procedure (preserving as much privacy and dignity as possible, of course). She had expressed a desire on Facebook to make a video about the law, and I just happened to have this appointment already scheduled. I emailed my awesome doctor yesterday to make sure this plan was okay, and he's totally on board. I don't yet know how the video will turn out; but if I can use this experience to educate people, then I will feel like I made the best of a bad situation.

I'm turning comment moderation on. I have had an influx of readers from yesterday's posting; and I assume most of them are conservative Christians who will object to this project. If I get unpleasant responses, you don't need to read them!

An amazing journey

I have read this blog for a while, and the story has taken an awesome turn. After six miscarriages and two disrupted domestic adoptions, this family has expanded from one child (a gorgeous boy adopted from Russia) to four in 13 months! It's a reminder to keep trying and to keep our options open.

Our Dream Come True

UPDATED: The green-eyed monster

For many people, infertility causes a lot of anger. I've heard that from fellow infertiles, and we have certainly seen that in the waiting room and IVF classes at our clinics. The anger at the unfairness of it all, at the doctors for not fixing it quickly, at themselves for failing is palpable. But for me, anger is rare. Instead, my uncomfortable feeling is jealousy. It's harder and harder to feel joy for friends and family as they get pregnant and have healthy babies easily. When is it going to be my turn?

UPDATED to add: If you are one of my loved ones expecting a little one of your own, please don't be afraid to share your joy with me. I am thrilled for you; it's just more work than I'd like it to be.

Hope (or why I love my doctor even though I'm having a miscarriage)

These stories are probably not going to come across as funny in the translation as they did in the moment, but here goes:

It was clear to me from the ultrasound that the pregnancy was not viable; I didn't need the doctor to confirm it. So when we went into his office for the post-ultrasound consult, he said, "If you weren't academics, I'd talk to you about hope. But since you are, I'll be realistic."

His (or maybe the hospital's?) policy is not to do a d&c until the fetal heartbeat stops naturally. This is probably a good thing, even though I was ready to march on over to surgery then and there. So we return in a week for a follow-up ultrasound to be sure. He said that normally he wouldn't plan the d&c until then, but since it was us, we should stop by the nurse's desk on the way out and get on the surgery calendar for after next week's appointment. Her jaw hit the floor and her eyes bugged out when we told her this; even though he's still not going to do the d&c until after the heart stops, I guess he doesn't usually concede that there's virtually no hope and that the patients should go ahead and plan for the d&c. I was like, yeah, but he's never had us as patients before.

And finally he said, "I suspect I'm preaching to the choir, but we should definitely do this again." And normally he'd say, wait two months and then we'll figure out where to go from there. But since it's us, he told us to go across the hall to the clinic and get on the IVF calendar for our next cycle (late June/early July start date). The nurse over there was also not prepared for us to show up before the miscarriage, but she took it in stride.

All in all, the doctor hit all the right notes with us. He was frank, realistic, practical and gave us a plan. But he was not insensitive: I got a pat on the cheek when he came into the exam room and a big hug on the way out of the appointment. I know CCRM in Denver is the best, but I can't imagine a better doctor for us. It helps that he thinks Brent's scholarship is fascinating. Plus, we get to see his benevolent face smiling down at us from a billboard each time we drive south on I-35, and that amuses us.

As for next time, the tentative plan is to switch me to the 35-and-over protocol. I've always been something of an old soul, so that makes sense. You may recall that we had roadblocks at each step of the way this time: I didn't suppress, then I over-suppressed, and then I under-stimmed (two weeks to get 7 eggs instead of the >10 he expected). Frankly, it's amazing that we got pregnant at all. The over-35 protocol basically works with the natural cycle and the natural hormones. Among other benefits, it's about two weeks shorter than the normal 7-week cycle, and there's a lot less loopyron involved. I'm excited to try it.

As Dr. R said yesterday, we swung the bat and made contact, we just didn't hit it out of the park. (See, he can read me like a book: a baseball analogy!) Brent and I are feeling really optimistic about cycling this summer.

The end is in sight

The fetus had essentially not grown at all. Last week it was measuring 5 weeks, 6 days, and today it was measuring 6 weeks. So it went from being 6 days behind to 12. The heart rate was 94-95 bpm, where it should have been 150-180. All this is to say that it is not a viable pregnancy. We are looking at a d&c around May 4.

We are both doing okay. Mostly right now we're feeling relieved to know for sure. We both feel better than we did before the appointment, although we know the sadness and grief will come. But as usual, I cope better with facts than with uncertainty.

And I have some good stories to tell from the appointment that will hopefully make you laugh! More to come soon....

7 weeks, 5 days: The day of days

It has been a long, hard week. I have been hunkered down, hiding out, avoiding phone calls (yes, that's you @msharp -- forgive me!) and emails. I had every intention of sending personal replies to all the sweet messages I've received over the last couple of weeks. But instead, I've been focused on remembering to breathe and putting one foot in front of the other. Perhaps if I stay curled up in a little ball, I can keep bad things away from me and the baby. I feel this way now; how will I feel when I have a real, live little baby to love and protect?

The ultrasound-of-truth is today at 3:15. It will be a long day, but since it's a teaching day (as is every weekday this semester), at least the teaching will be done before we get the results. For most of the week, today couldn't get here fast enough. But now that we're hours away, I'm thinking maybe I'd prefer not to go to the appointment. If bad news awaits us, I'd rather just not know.

This has definitely been the hardest week, days, hours of this infertility story.

6 weeks, 6 days: The Day After

Thank you for all your sweet, supportive messages yesterday, here on the blog and over email. I haven't written back personally to everyone yet. I'll try to do so over the next couple of days. But if I don't get to it (I have a final to write!), please know how incredibly grateful I continue to be for your love and support.

Although yesterday morning was awful, by evening I was feeling much better. Having been raised by an engineer and a math teacher, I need data. So even though the data we got yesterday morning wasn't what we were hoping for, I am happy to have some information so I can calibrate my expectations realistically. I know there are people (maybe some of my readers?) who can handle uncertainty with hope, but I have a really hard time with that. I'm more secure knowing exactly where we are, what has to change, and what our chances are. I took a restful nap yesterday afternoon and slept well last night, for the first time since Saturday.

Don't get me wrong: I am hope, hope, hoping that we get surprisingly good news next week, that the fetus has perked up and gone through a tremendous growth spurt. But I am not expecting it; it is one thing to overcome slow growth OR a slow heartbeat, but being faced with both is a significantly higher hurdle. And I'm mostly okay with that. This is the best we've ever done in two years of trying. Seeing the heartbeat was awesome; if nothing else, it was a signal that we can do this!

6 weeks, 5 days: 50-50

We were able to see a heartbeat this morning. But the fetus is much too small (almost a week behind) and the hb is very slow. Based on the ultrasound, Dr. R. put our chances at 50-50. He then sent me for bloodwork. The bloodwork, big surprise, came back borderline too. My hormone levels are consistent with the size of the fetus, but are too low for 6 weeks, 5 days.

Seeing the heartbeat was really exciting! I could see the little blinking light right away; there was definitely no mistaking it.

But I am feeling sad, discouraged, frustrated, and exhausted. It's like we can't catch a break. This cycle has been borderline all along, and I know that our pokey little guy could still catch up. But I was really ready to see a strong heartbeat and to graduate into the 5% chance of miscarriage bracket. I feel like it would almost have been better to see this morning that the pregnancy had already failed; then we would at least know and we could move forward. But instead we're still in limbo.

We go back in a week. Hopefully we'll learn something more certain then.

6 weeks: The Right Start

Last night, a student group I advise hosted a benefit for OKC Youth United, a support group for GLBT youth in the metro. In particular, we helped fundraise for the alternative prom they're throwing later this month. We figure we got this kid off to the right start by taking it to a gay club and exposing it to drag queens and burlesque dancers. Got to start the open-mindedness early, right? Hopefully we'll be forgiven for the secondhand smoke I inhaled in the process.

Still no symptoms; I've never wished for vomiting more in my life!

5 weeks, 5 days: Still here, still anxious

One week since the last blood test, one week to go until the u/s. As far as I know I'm still pregnant. But I sure would like some reassurance that things are progressing! I'm just a bundle of anxiety all the time. I wish my nonstop exhaustion could be reassuring, but worrying causes exhaustion just as much as pregnancy, I suspect!

But I will continue to distract myself with brainstorming baby names and imagining nursery decor. There's a fun Motherlode post today about picking the wrong baby name. Oh the pressure!

5 weeks, 2 days: T minus 10

Ultrasound is scheduled for next Thursday, April 15! Can't hardly wait!

5 weeks: Thank you

Just a quick note to say thank you for your joy and support yesterday. We feel so blessed to be surrounded by so much love. And we're a little overwhelmed by how lucky this little bean is to be so loved already.

Of course, after 22 hours of the giddy, I woke up this morning to abject terror: why do I have no symptoms? did something go terribly wrong overnight? This is going to be a long, long six weeks. I know from reading other IF bloggers that this fear is normal; but it doesn't make it any easier!

17dp3dt = 4 weeks, 6 days pregnant

Yes, indeed, we are counting pregnancy now! The hCG this morning was fantastic: over 800! We needed a minimum of 300, so this is awesome. There are many big hurdles left, starting with an ultrasound in about two weeks when we'll need to see a spinal cord and hopefully a heartbeat (though the heartbeat can wait a few more weeks, as long as we see the spinal cord). It's still pretty scary, but I think I might be able to relax for at least a few hours!

Estimated due date: December 4, 2010.

16dp3dt: Yesterday and tomorrow

As of yesterday morning, I was still pregnant, according to a home pregnancy test. (Honestly, I should have bought stock.) I'm going in tomorrow morning for the re-draw, since next week is crazy. I'll have news by the afternoon.