Remembrances

Well tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my one and only due date. So many times over the years we had been trying to get pregnant I had known when my due date *would* be if I finally saw two lines, but this time I actually was told when my EDD was on several occasions by my RE. This time it wasn't something I merely hoped would happen, but in fact in my electronic medical chart he entered 2/24/06 as my due date. So I have had many thoughts (and tears) this week as I have let myself think about it more than I usually do. I'll just share a few of my memories.

Happy memories would be for starters thinking I saw TWO lines and then even more than that hearing the nurse on the phone tell me yes I was pregnant (barely - an hcg of less than 12). I wanted to scream from the rooftop I was finally pregnant (after three years of trying that included seven medicated cycles). The moment I had looked forward to for about 2 decades was finally here - I was going to have a baby!!! I first posted the news to the women online who had followed my story (as long as they promised not to tell Paul that I told them first, lol). After years of posting BFN as the result at the end of every cycle, I was finally able to type BFP in reference to me! Of course big fat positive was not the best way to describe my very faint line but that's the lingo used on those discussion boards. Then I went to CVS and bought a Father's Day card (which was just around the corner) and a candybar and drove 30 minutes to where Paul worked at the time and told him our happy news. His dad figured out what it was about just because it was the first time I had come to see Paul at work in the middle of the day (with a huge smile on my face of course). Then after I told Paul I immediately started using my cellphone on the way home to start telling others. I couldn't believe I got to finally say the words at the age of 33, "I am pregnant!". I remember feeling a huge sense of relief that our days of ovulation tests and shots and trying to time everything just right were over. And I remember getting my first (and it proved to be the only) congratulations card (from an online friend), and I remember sitting in the choir loft in church on Father's Day looking out at Paul and having tears stream down my face, but for the first time they were tears of JOY not the usual tears of grief I shed on such holidays. I also remember being glad when I felt nauseated as it reassured me I was pregnant.

Of course there are more sad memories than happy ones. A few of the sad ones would include the bad news we kept getting that my HCG was not doubling as fast as it was supposed to and the ultrasounds only showing the corpus luteum (pregnancy cyst). I had so longed for the day when an ultrasound would show a sac and then later a heartbeat, etc after having dozens of ultrasounds showing the progress leading up to ovulation in all the medicated cycles we had done. And yet the doctor printed out empty ultrasounds each visit, and of course he didn't give me copies like he would have had there been something happy to see in there. The worst moments of all were first when I started having this awful brown discharge. I remember Paul racing upstairs to the bathroom after I started screaming "NO! NO! NO!" in a panicked voice when I saw the external evidence that something was very wrong, and that was confirmed a little later at the RE when I heard that my hcg has stayed the same (I kept clinging to hope as long as it was going up even though it was going up too slowly). I sobbed in the RE's office after the nurse told me the number. Then on July 5 the RE said I had to have the chemo shots because my hcg had continued to (slowly) rise. It didn't seem I was going to miscarry on my own. The physical pain was horrific the next few days, but I think that actually helped some emotionally. Then I had to endure repeated bloodwork for a few weeks to make sure my hcg kept going down. I remember every time sitting there thinking for years I have longed to have hcg in my system and now I am wishing for it to go away as soon as possible????

Technically my pregnancy was never a clinical pregnancy because not even a sac was seen in an ultrasound. It was technically a chemical pregnancy although it lasted longer than a chemical pregnancy is supposed to last; so for that reason mine was labeled ectopic although that couldn't be proven. We'll never know for sure, but it seems that no matter where the embryo was - something wasn't right with the embryo because the hcg was so very slow in going up (which is not a typical sign of an ectopic pregnancy). I feel like I have such little proof I had a baby for a few weeks. I have no ultrasound pictures; no one ever looked at me and could tell I was pregnant. All I have are a few pregnancy tests that I saved, a few sympathy cards that I received in the mail after it was over, and a card I carry in my wallet saying I've had one shot of Rhogam (due to Rh incompatibility between Paul and I).

I wonder if my baby is in heaven. David's statement in the Old Testament is used to support this idea. If it's true, how will I recognize my baby? We are not sure if we will recognize people we've known on earth once we're in our glorified bodies, but what about a baby we never laid eyes on and never held? Well I know there are no tears in heaven so either I'll get to meet my child or it won't bother me that I won't be able to do so. Does this brief pregnancy make me a mom already? I don't feel like a mother, and people don't think of me as a mother.

Well if I've learned anything through this hard journey the last five years I have at least learned all the things NOT to say. Such as not to tell a woman it's good news she got pregnant because this means "at least she can get pregnant." I was told this so soon after my loss by many people "in real life" and online who viewed it as a "step in the right direction." How is me losing a baby a step in a good direction? We did the same shots and IUI that brought about that pregnancy three times since then, and it never resulted in another pregnancy. Not that it's impossible that I might be pregnant again some day, but I haven't in the 20 months since that pregnancy so I don't see that it was a step in the right direction.

Well I've rambled on enough. This event encompasses both the happiest and saddest moments of my life; so it's hard to be concise. As the tears stream down my face as I type I am just hoping against hope that my arms will not remain empty for too many more years.

Baby shower

Well I think it's a blessing that I have almost no friends who are my age. Most of my friends are 10-30 years older than me which means they are not of childbearing age. Many of them are grandparents. For example, in choir there is only one other woman under the age of 40 besides myself. And she's in her early 20's and is expecting her first baby (due the end of March). They are having a surprise shower for her (and her husband) next Sunday night; they both joined the choir a few months ago. I planned to just skip the rehearsal that night (as almost the whole rehearsal is going to be the shower). Baby showers have been emotionally hard for me for many years (actually even before we started trying 5 years ago) so I have only been going to those of people I am close to. Since I have never spoken to this woman (she's a soprano and sits far from where I sit as an alto), I don't feel this is one I need to attend (although I did give money toward the gift and sign the card).

Well this morning we had rehearsal at 8:00 due to the Superbowl tonight, and during the rehearsal the director asked me (in front of everyone) if I could play the flute with the choir on the 18th. I said yes as that would be no problem. Then it hit me that the only time I will have to rehearse my flute with the choir would be next Sunday night. Later in the morning I pulled aside a woman who I knew would understand my plight. She had many miscarriages (a couple of ectopics, etc.) and adopted her first child and then had a successful pregnancy after that. So although she's been a mom for over 20 years, I hoped she'd understand why this was a hard decision for me as I think it took she and her husband something like seven years from when they first started trying to get pregnant until they adopted their first child. So I burst into tears and explained my situation. I couldn't decide if this meant I should go to the baby shower after all? I didn't see how I could attend the rehearsal for 10 minutes and then leave. That would seem far more awkward than just not going at all. I thought I guess I have to sit through a baby shower and try my best not to cry, but then I thought why do I have to do this for a woman I don't even really know at all??? I kept going back and forth in my mind and wishing that this wasn't so hard. Most women love going to baby showers, and I loved going to them myself say 15 years ago, but I haven't enjoyed them for a long time. I haven't been to one since my miscarriage in 2005, and my due date anniversary is coming up in 3 weeks which just made the timing seem even harder for me.

I know we might adopt from Ukraine sometime this year, and that does give me hope that I might become a mom in 2007. But I assumed that would be true in 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006 also, especially in 2005 and 2006 since we started pursuing adoption in 2004. But even if we adopt there are still things I will grieve...not feeling a baby move inside me, not seeing a beating heart on an ultrasound, not looking at a child and seeing how that child resembles Paul & I in some ways, not nursing a child, etc. And if we only adopt from Ukraine I will grieve not being able to parent a child under the age of 2 (or maybe under the age of 6 for all we know). I know the main thing is we will finally be parents, and that will be a very happy thing, but it doesn't mean all the loss and pain will disappear.

Well this lady at church suggested I tell the choir director I wouldn't be at rehearsal that night but that I would practice with the pianist and/or organist between now and then and of course practice with the choir a few minutes prior to the service. I just left a message to that effect. I hope I am not causing a big problem. I really thought it would be simple to just skip the baby shower, but that didn't end up being the case.

Well on a happier note hopefully tomorrow we can schedule our time to sign off on the home study, and also we plan to redo our audio clip for Lifetime tomorrow morning.