Family

Holidays have a way of packing a wallop don't they? This time last year I was recovering from the single most traumatic experience of my life.  And a year later I am two steps forward, three steps back all over again.

I just got back from my parent's house in NYC.  The trip was great and Niblet, as always, enjoyed the energy of the city.  That's my girl.

My parents, who I have occasionally written about, continue to rock.  Don't get me wrong:  they are exhaustingly cynical and misanthropic.  They view the world through gray colored glasses really.  I am used to them, but they are tough for my husband to take in incrimements of more than three consecutive days.

But they are doting grandparents to Niblet.  And in my personal dictionary, if I look up the word SUPPORT, I promise their picture would be there for illustration.  One of the things I love about my parents is that they don't try to sugarcoat the hell and back I have been through.  They don't talk a lot about my losses, mostly because it's not a topic we bring up around Niblet.  But I've had one on one chats over the past years with both my mom and my dad about my experiences.  About therapy and about acupuncture and about vitamins and supplements.  About trying to move on with my sanity.  And it's in these talks that my parents' cynicism and anger is actually helpful.  Because with them, there is no expectation for me to move on.  Quite the contrary, I should be pissed off at this hand of mourning that I have been dealt.  "You should be angry and sad and grieve Justonemore," my mother frequently reminds me.

On the other end of the holiday spectrum, I have to steel myself for Christmas, with in-laws who persist in rambling at the dinner table about all the blessings.  As if I am not keenly and painfully aware of them.  In-laws who have never once asked how I felt after any of the losses that they knew about.  Look, this isn't uncommon, and I am not trying to grab any sympathy.  At the end of the day my in-laws are fundamentally decent people, but they are incredibly tone deaf when it comes to sensitivity and emotions.  My in-laws actually require a trip to my therapist to pregame a plan of action on Christmas Day.  The best part of the plan usually involves hiding in the bathroom.

Here's what's most notable though after spending the past four days with my mom and dad:  I walk away with hope.  I don't know if it's Trying-to-conceive sustaining hope.  I don't think it is.  We're still approaching life with the expectation that Niblet will be our one and only child.

But sitting as a passenger on the turnpike this afternoon, I had the strangest sensation.  It was like there was a voice whispering to me.  And if I were to transcribe the whispered words, they would sound something like this:

I don't expect to ever get pregnant with, carry to term, and take home a healthy baby.... But if I found myself pregnant again..... maybe there could be a teensie, tiny, slight chance that it was a genetically normal pregnancy?  Obviously not a big chance, I mean, come on, face reality, based on my past odds, I would say any pregnancy of mine is doomed before it starts.  But.... maybe the chaos overlords of the universe would determine that it was my time.  Maybe I would get one lucky roll of the dice. Bad things happen to generally decent people every day.  I can be angry, and cynical, and generally believe the bottom will drop from my life, but I can still hope a little, right?

the road not taken twice

So recall that I am fairly certain that I had a stupid annovulatory cycle last month, so taking matters into my own hands I tried using vitex (chasteberry) this last one.  The good news is that I am certain I ovulated on CD 14 on the nose, and my period started exactly 14 days later, on CD 28.  The bad news is that this period is weak.  Light but crampy and virtually over, today on day 3.  According to Dr. Google this points to an estrogen deficiency as women approach menopause.

Ok, so you all know I am "only" 41 - elderly in fertility years, but still not a deal breaker for many many women who would like a baby.  And if you saw me you'd probably have the same WTF reaction of a few others out there, who blithely assume I am a spring chicken in my thirties.

But at the end of the day, I think I am approaching menopause.  And yes, while perimenopause is less a hard date than a length of time, I think I can safely say that I am deep in the midst of that length of time.

Aside from the fact that I have been dealing with this bullshit for almost four years now, comes the stark reality that time really is about to run out for me.  I have now gone six consecutive cycles of ttc without a pregnancy.  And as I approach the self-imposed end-date of this madness (which was heartily endorsed by my therapist), I have to decide how I want to end this run.

The question of the day: Do I take my unused packs of clomid?  Ehhh, Not sure.  On the one hand I have nothing to lose.  On the other hand, I am worried about fucking up the already delicate balance of my hormones, which are clearly on the fritz right now.

There's also the fact that I went down this road before.  As a matter of fact, I got pregnant on my third clomid cycle (with an IUI).  I also miscarried.  I also found myself with a dangerously high FSH when I emerged from it.  While my then-RE said that one had nothing to do with other, I am not so sure.

Interestingly, my acupuncturist doesn't view taking the clomid as a bad idea.  Lots of AMA+DOR women use clomid on mini-IVF cycles.... but not a whole lot of them are walking around with five rings on their middle finger representing lost babies. 

While in theory I am not opposed to exploding my ovaries to increase my chances of pregnancy, a tiny little part of my brain is screaming  "Stop that madness.  YOU HAVE DONE THIS BEFORE."  It's a little nagging voice that lives in the wisdom of my experience and and for some reason it's telling me this could do more harm than good.

I am a strategist in my day job.  People pay me first to research things and then to use that research to come to a conclusion on what steps to take next.

I'll admit it now:  I was completely stumped on this one... that is, until my pathetic period a day ago.  My lining is thin.  Clomid is well known (over time at least) to have a bad effect on the uterine lining, thinning it, actually.

Bam.  There's my answer.  My disappointingly thin lining means that clomid is a non-starter.  At least this month.

Blood and stuff

So check this out, I am pre-diabetic.  Can you believe it, Dr. Cuddles was right all along so many moons ago that I was developing insulin resistance.  Crazy, right?  I've said it before, I am pretty fit.  I don't look like someone headed towards Type 2 Diabetes. I eat my greens, stay away from sodas and juices, and try not to mainline the cookies and donuts.  I don't drink, barely a glass of wine a week.  But apparently this isn't enough to carry on as a lifestyle because my hemoglobin numbers came back troubling.

Sigh.  They just opened an "artisinal donut" shop near my house and on a day off I partook in my first  - and now last - chocolate creme filled moment of ecstacy.  So much for life's tiny pleasures.

The trickier one for me is bread. I have done a pretty good job of curbing the pastas and potatoes.  But being of French extraction, I splurge on piece of baguette with cheese, or a croissant, on a weekly basis. I live near an amazing french bakey and I sometimes feel like it's my mothership.  Meme Celine, my paternal grandmother, introduced me to the joys of pain au chocolat,  or a breakfast of just some bread and a slice of brie.  Curbing this weekly indulgence will feel like a true sacrifice.  My Dad, who just shared that he has also had similar hemoglobin numbers, advised that I turn my weekly treat into a monthly one.  We'll see how that goes.

And don't get me started on my husband, who drinks like ten beers over the course of a weekend, could easily stand to drop a ton of weight, and still has pristine sugar numbers. 

On the other hand, my Vitamin D levels are now normal and the 5000 IU/day appears to be doing the trick.

I also appear to have ovulated at the right time, just a few hours shy of CD 14 in the middle of the night, so the vitex could be working too.

If I get a normal period this month I will call it a success. 

Talking it forward

Friday afternoon (CD 32) after feeling really broken, I started to see red blood.  it materialized into a short little period, but it was better than nothing and I don't think I need to fly to Boston to have my cervix poked at with sharp little scissors. Hallelujah.  I ordered some vitex to see if I can't try to re-regulate my cycle a little, here goes nothing.

So I was recently wondering if maybe I didn't need to see a therapist anymore.  I have survived the past year with most of my sanity intact.  Well, we spent the weekend with some really nice friends and I realized that I really have a lot of anger to work through and have to talk it out with someone neutral.

Long story short, my friends recently purchased a new house.  Let's just say they are well off.  But we learned there was a lot of financial drama leading to the purchase of their new home.  Now some of it was legitimately stressful, involving threats from contractors to put a lien on their old home, financing difficulties, all of the day to day business in life that can truly bring you down.  But going beyond the issue that these are pretty first-world problems, the whole time they are relaying this story to me and my husband, and using terms like "devastating" and "stressful" and "worst experience of my life," I am trying to nod my head slowly and emphatically, but really I'm thinking "Jesus, get a real problem.  You are living in a house that cost nearly nine-hundred-thousand dollars.  Want to experience devastation?  Try growing a baby in my uterus a few times"  And then I felt guilty about even thinking such ugliness, because if I am being honest, my husband and I have provided a comfortable (though not nearly as lavish) existence for Niblet, all while I advocate for people with some really fucked up financial problems, like "Do I pay the electric bill or do I buy food for my kids?" kind of problems..... So who am I to even have such obnoxious thoughts.

All of this long-winded diatribe goes to say is that I am carrying so. much. anger.  It's really dangerous territory to walk around feeling like your shitty experiences entitle you to more stress and anger than other people's shitty experiences.

Waiting and angry

My period is late and I am most definitely not pregnant. How many times I have I posted this?  What the fuck kind of life is this?

You know, I was noting to a dear friend that I used to be much much funnier on this blog.  Sure, I was discussing topics ranging from the horrible to the miserable, but could pull it off on the page with darkly comic flair.

Well, sorry if I am unintentionally conjuring up images from the movie Office Space, but I have lost my flair.  Maybe the gravity of endless dead babies sucked it out of me.  Why is this my life?  Why can't I just get a period on time and not worry that I have to fly to Boston for a really fucking painful hysteroscopy?  Why is everyone on facebook posting pictures of their babies or hugely pregnant bellies?  I've been in the thick of this hell for nearly four years, you would think that I would be hardened to it but I am not.

There's a new boss at my office, I'm talking the big boss, our President.  She runs the entire region.  She chain smokes like a chimney.  She has one teen-aged daughter to whom she is a doting mother, but makes her staff constantly listen to how she sacrificed a great deal of her personal life for her work (in social justice-y, mission-driven work, you actually often hear comments like this).  She's made public pronouncements about women having babies "too old to have fun with them" and while I respect her tenacity professionally, personally I try to avoid her like the plague.  I ran into her outside our building (smoking) and not thinking, I had clasped my side because well, my ovary was throbbing and this is the pain I deal with regularly now, and she asked if I was ok.
"I'll be fine."
"Do you need to see a doctor?"
"Nah, I'll be ok.  I've seen a lot of doctors."
"What's wrong with you?"
"I have a chronic health condition.  There's not much they can do."

And there you have it folks.  That's is the best I can do.  Five miscarriages, four D&Cs, three hysteroscopies and a bajillion ultrasounds, and I was able to cut her off at the chase and end the third-degree with the phrase chronic health condition.  BAM.

Brilliant or pathetic, I'm not sure which.  

My Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

 

Let's see, I awoke on the 15th in another City and State, because I was attending a staff conference in NY.

What I thought the day might hold:
 - Quiet introspection in my hotel room about my babies - so many babies - especially Celine.  Maybe I would grab a cup of coffee and sit and watch people go by, before my 9:30 meeting.

How my day unfolded:
 - At 8am I was brushing my teeth and one of my stacking rings fell down the hotel bathroom drain.  I frantically called the concierge, ugly crying, bawling.  Ten minutes later I opened the door to a Dominican maintenance dude who was out of his emotional depth and definitely not prepared to see such a hot sad blubbering mess wailing about a lost ring and dead baby.  Thankfully he took the pipe apart, cleaned the tiny band with a face towel and handed it to me.  And got a $20 bill for his efforts that he reluctantly accepted.

What I hoped the day might hold:
 - Maybe I would feel some signs of pregnancy.  Some sign of hope for something to rise from the ashes of this deep deep despair.

How the day actually unfolded:
 - Despite my best efforts, I symptom spotted all day. Not a twinge of a feeling.  Tested BFN last night (and again this morning).  I am anywhere from 9 to 12 dpo?  Either way, my fantasy of waking up tomorrow, on the anniversary of Celine's termination, with a new pregnancy is pretty much relegated to fantasy.

what will be blah blah blah

This cycle was so wonky I could be 5 dpo, I could be 2 dpo, perhaps I never ovulated at all.  Who the hell knows.

All I do know is that I am out of town for a good chunk of next week.  And the one-year anniversary of when I said goodbye to Celine falls on next Saturday, the 17th.  I am still trying to figure out what I can possibly due to memorialize her 

I'll be mourning my little girl and peeing on sticks in desperate futility.  Joy.

On other fronts, I found this fantastic piece written by an RPL warrior.  I LOVE how she grapples with the word hope.  It's like she's been sitting in on my conversations with my therapist for the past few months.