Grief, Strength, and Peace

Reminders for Finding Strength and Peace in Times of Grief

"So do not let the pain of a situation make you hopeless.  Do not let negativity wear off on you.  Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.  Even though others may disagree with you, take pride in the fact that you still know the world to be an amazing place.  Carry on accordingly."

I used to visit the site Marc and Angel Hack Life every now and then for a little inspiration, but until today it had probably been a good year or so since I had checked it out. I'm pretty glad that I did.

The above quote was my favorite from the post and it hit close to home. RPL really has taken its toll on me: emotionally, mentally, and physically. It's changed the way I view life and I'm certainly not nearly as naive as I used to be.

"Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness"

That's one that I need to remember. I think I've wrote here before about all of the experiences and feelings that RPL has robbed me of and how much it's changed me. But I shouldn't let it.

I hope that soon I can find peace with everything that we've gone through and I can learn to steal back my sweetness. I may not be the same person as I was a year ago and that's okay. But I need to work to get the sweetness back because it's always been of my core characteristic and I want to steal back myself.

No news is NOT always good news.

Today was the day! I FINALLY had my post-D&C appointment and I was really looking forward to it. I was seriously giddy all morning.

I called E right after the appointment and summed up the appointment really well. "In true Crystal fashion, nothing can happen easily."

Here are the highlights:

•  Dr. M is concerned because we don't have the pathology results from the baby. She was honest and said that we should've had them by now, she's put multiple calls into the lab and she still hasn't heard back. She's concerned that the lab may have lost the baby and no testing was done. Fingers crossed that isn't the case!
• She mentioned that if we do get the results, she believes they will show that the baby was chromosomally normal. This is where we transitioned to the septum. She said the septum was rather large (I think she said something to the extent of it taking up about 3/4 of the "endometrial area" or something). She believes that this pregnancy didn't survive because there wasn't enough room for the sac and baby to grow. She thinks it literally ran out of room.
• She's decided to do a hysterosonogram/saline infusion sonogram instead of the MRI. I was really excited when she told me the reason she decided on this. She said it typically takes 2-3 weeks for someone to get in for the MRI but the hysterosonogram could be done today! WOOHOO! Yes, please! 
• She's going to get started on the surgery side of things (insurance, booking, etc.) in the meantime. The surgery will be performed by her and the senior doctor of the practice will be doing the ultrasound during the surgery. She's also booking me for a laparoscopic surgery just in case the ultrasound doesn't show everything well enough.
• After the surgery, we'll have to wait 2-3 cycles before trying again.
• She put me on birth control pills after the D&C so she said to continue them but to not take the placebo pills, just continue on with another pack. The purpose is to allow us to do the surgery right when we want. Apparently it's best to do the surgery soon after the start of a new cycle, so when we have the surgery scheduled, we can manipulate my period to allow for the best timing.
• She believes the septum is the issue and didn't think the additional blood tests were necessary. I asked if we could still do them because I want to cover all of our bases and she agreed.

So after my appointment, I got the write up for the hysterosonogram (and a renal ultrasound...apparently uterine issues can sometimes signal kidney issues so she just wants to check things out), got blood drawn for HCG and my chromosome analysis and was on my merry way to the radiologist office.

Here's that saga:

• I went over, showed the receptionist my paperwork and asked if I could get in today because I was willing to wait (Dr. M has sent dozens of patients over and they were able to get in the same day). The receptionist informed me that they do the renal ultrasound there but not the other.
• I went back to Dr. M who tried calling over but she was put on hold for 10 minutes. So, she wrote "saline infusion ultrasound" on the paper and sent me over again. She said if she still insisted, we would find a different place because she wouldn't want them doing it.
• I returned to the radiologist and was told the same. Sigh. She told me I would have to go to office A for the hysterosonogram and office B for the renal ultrasound. Awesome.
• So I found my car and called the central scheduling office. That poor woman. She was probably so happy when she hung up with me.
• I told her the tests that I needed and also said I understood that I would need to go to two different places and that was fine. She put me on hold and then returned to the line after 5 or so minutes. She was happy to inform me that there was one office that had a tech who did renal ultrasounds and another who did the hysterosonogram and that they were in the office at the same time a few times a week. Perfect!
• She said the best time to do the saline ultrasound was between CD 7-11 so I would have to call back on CD 1 to get it scheduled. Uh oh. I explained my predicament (Dr. M wants me to continue with the BC pill and no placebos until surgery time). I ensured her that there was no chance of me being pregnant and that I would have my HCG results tomorrow. She seemed unsure but booked me anyway for next Monday. I gave her the date of my D&C and she said she would push the information onto the ultrasound tech. If the ultrasound tech is concerned or won't do the ultrasound then, I'll have to stop the birth control and call back on CD 1. AHHHH!

Like I said, nothing can happen easily. Best case scenario? I'll have the ultrasound next Monday, Dr. M will have the results within 3 days, and I'll have surgery during the month of April. Then we'd wait 2-3 cycles and as Dr. M said, hopefully we'll be in the second trimester at the end of 2015.

Keep your fingers and toes crossed that the best case scenario is what becomes reality!!

Funnies

I know, I know. I'm not *technically* infertile...I just can't carry little ones for more than 9 weeks. But I still thought this was pretty funny and I can't even tell you how many times I've been told this.

And there's this good read, too.

Testing.

At my post-miscarriage appointment, Dr. M and I discussed our next steps. Game plan in hand, I felt much more optimistic. It included:

1. Re-test my thyroid.
2. Test for a handful of clotting disorders.
3. Karyotype testing of both E and I.
4. Check out my uterus to look for a septum.

She also said that she would be more than happy to refer me to a Reproductive Endocrinologist if I wanted, but E and I decided that we weren't quite ready for that yet.

My thyroid, once again, came back normal so we moved on to clotting testing. This turned out to be a nightmare. Once I got the list of tests (anticardiolipin antibody, anti lupus antibody, beta 2 glycoprotein, protein c activity, protein s activity, antithrombin III gene mutation, prothrombin gene mutation) I received the "OK" from our insurance company and had my 13 vials of blood sucked from my body. Seriously, I was concerned about driving because I've never had that much blood taken before!

The antilupus antibody, protein c activity, and protein s activity all came back normal. The others, well, who knows. There was some kind of miscommunication with the lab and the rest of the samples were lost.

More on this in the next post!

Silence.

A few weeks after I wrote my last post I went silent and got good news. I found out that I was pregnant, again!

Pregnancy #3. My hopes were high! To make a long story short, there was much stressing over betas, empty sacs, etc. My HCG levels rose, but they were on the higher end of the 48-72 hours but we made it to 1,500 and did an ultrasound. It was the first time we saw anything on an ultrasound, but unfortunately it was an empty sac. At the time I was 6w3d based on LMP and 6w0d based on ovulation. The sac measured 5w5d. The tech said it was probably just too early and not to worry about it. We rescheduled our ultrasound for December 1st and went on our 2 week European vacation.

We had a WONDERFUL time on our getaway and can't wait to do some more traveling soon. I spotted throughout the entire pregnancy but it got really bad the day before we left to come home, so November 29th. It was still brown but there was much more. We were supposed to return to the States on November 30th but because of a threat at the Edinburgh airport, we ended up stranded at London Heathrow and knew we would miss our next ultrasound appointment.
When we eventually left, the plane ride home was torture because I knew in my heart things weren't right. The spotting was turning pink and light red.

The next morning I went to my sister's house to watch my nephew as planned. I was lightly bleeding red at that point and had mild cramps. I called the doctor to explain what was going on and they were able to get me in for an ultrasound at 1:15. Unfortunately I didn't make it. About 20 minutes after calling, I was in excruciating pain and was bleeding through pads in a matter of minutes.

We made the decision to go to the ER because of the amount of pain I was experiencing. They gave me morpheme to help me feel more comfortable and did a pelvic exam, blood work, and an ultrasound. My blood work came back somewhere around 4,500 and my uterus was empty; I had already passed the sac. I was 9 weeks exactly.

This was by far the most devastating and traumatic loss. I thought I would handle it fine, but the pain was awful. To make matters worse, I ended up bleeding and spotting for nearly a month. But we survived!

Bean #2

The doctor told us to wait at least one but preferably 2 cycles before trying again, but we didn't completely follow the rules. I was still taking ovulation tests and trying to get pregnant again as quickly as possible, because I figured it would help me heal. Each month, shortly before my expected period, I would start obsessively testing and hoping that it was our chance.

July 12th was our day! Again, I wanted to wait to tell my husband but when the digital test said "Pregnant 1-2" I couldn't keep it to myself. He was cautiously optimistic and excited and again we decided that we would get overly excited. Yeah, that didn't last, again. We were already talking about names!

I left 3 days later for a month-long trip to visit family. We didn't want to tell our families because it was still early, so we decided that every week milestone that we met would be followed by Eric reading that information to me over the phone from a great book that we had. I was a little nervous because my tests were getting only slightly darker, similar to the last pregnancy, but we decided that we had to be in the clear because a very small percentage of women have recurrent miscarriages.

I arrived in Michigan on a Wednesday evening and Thursday morning I woke up and ran to the bathroom to test again expecting to see a nice, dark line. What I saw was the complete opposite. It was almost gone. I called Eric, at three in the morning his time, balling. We decided to tell my mom and dad since they would know something was wrong.

The next few days, I tested multiple times a day. The tests started to get darker again so I thought "Maybe we ARE in the clear". Sadly that wasn't the case. July 22nd I woke up, grabbed a digital test, took the dog out, went to the restroom, took the test, wiped and saw brown. Again. It was in that moment I knew that our second pregnancy had failed. On top of it all, the test said "Not pregnant". I was supposed to go into the doctor when I got back in a few weeks for blood work and an ultrasound, so I called to cancel. The nurse basically told me that I was crazy and I wasn't miscarrying, but I knew. The next day I started bleeding heavily and was in excruciating pain both physically and mentally.