A “little pregnant”

Warning- the tone of this is a departure from my previous posts.  

During my 2 year week wait I am taking progesterone suppositories.  Big fun.  Shove it up there, try not to hurt yourself with your nails and wear a panty liner because what comes up must come down.  Ick.

  

So my blood test is on a Monday- the WORST possible day by the way.  Rather than staying busy working you have all weekend to stress out.  So Friday night I start bleeding so heavily I almost go to the emergency room.  I won’t get graphic in case you just ate but it was bad- real bad.  So obviously I am not pregnant and all those shots were for naught.  So I decide, in my infinite wisdom, to stop taking the progesterone.  By this time I am on Crinone and it is far from cheap and I felt like I was just wasting money Friday night by using it, so Saturday I stopped.  Why waste it when I am only going to have it covered for three months right?  Don’t throw good money after bad- how many times have we all heard that?

  

Back then, my appointments were at 7 am on beta days and I am usually there by 6:45 waiting outside.  This day I am a bit slower, I mean, I already know the outcome.  When I told the nurse I was bleeding like a stuck pig and stopped the crinone she told me never, ever to do that.  She said there are many instances when you bleed but can still be pregnant.  Yeah- ok – after all that bleeding I am lucky my ovaries didn’t float out- I am sure there is nothing left in there.  I plan to come back at 1 pm for my baseline so I can get right back on the roller coaster. 

  

2 hours later they call….Kimberly… you are pregnant..BUT…..it is a “low positive”.  What?!?!??! Huh?!?!? I CAN’T be… I just CAN’T.  I was in shock.  My hcg was only 17.  They tell me to come back in two days for another test but make sure I take my crinone in the meantime. 

  

OH MY GOD!!! CRINONE!!!!  I STOPPED TAKING THE CRINONE!!!!!!!!!!!!  So now I have gone from 100% sure I was not pregnant and resigned to that fact to actually being pregnant to being sure that I just killed my baby by stopping the supplements.  My heart is breaking and I have to tell my husband (who is generally a big fan of- I told you so- even when he didn’t).  Thankfully, the I told you so never crossed his lips. 

  

But now begins Beta Hell.

  

I go back and have a test 2 days later- this time I am there by 6:30 just waiting for someone to open the doors.  It is a much more agonizing wait for that call this time.. my beta is up to 34 – it doubled but my progesterone is low so I get to double that too.  That is a good sign they said – oh – and come back in 2 more days… AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! Can I just be happy or sad already? 

  Two days later I am officially 5 weeks pregnant and my beta has doubled again.  Still not where it should be but doubling.  More blood tests on Monday.  Monday we doubled again but we are told we are still not out of the woods.  Come back Wednesday.  

Well, Wednesday was the day I was freed from beta hell, just not in that way I would have liked.  My hcg was back to the 30’s.  I was officially miscarrying and was told to stop the progesterone. 

  

How do you deal with the loss of a pregnancy that you never really had too much hope for?  I decided to act like it was nothing, just a blip on the radar.  A little sad but not much different from a negative.  We told no one really since we hadn’t really told anyone we were pregnant to begin with.  I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t cry about it.  I just picked myself up and went for the follow up blood tests until I was declared officially “not pregnant” which took about another week or week and a half. 

  

Then I just had to wait for my period and we could get back on the horse.  Gee- is THAT all I had to do?  So a month goes by and where the hell is damn Aunt Flo? 

  

Now I start to lose it.  All I can think about every minute of every day is that those cells that would have been my beautiful, wonderful, talented, precious baby are dead inside me and I must get them out.  I am sure that no small part of that is the overwhelming guilt I felt at have let the baby and my husband down.  If only this, if only that, if only I had not stopped the progesterone for those two nights, if only I hadn’t sneezed so much, if only, if only, if only….

  

Rationally I know that nothing I did caused it, rationally I know nothing could have changed the outcome, but it took 13 cycles to get here.  Thirteen tries, thirteen bits of my soul, and now I am left with dead cells.  I feel a bit like I am trapped in Lady MacBeth’s hell- “Out, damn’d cells! out, I say!—One; two: why, then ’tis time to do’t.—Hell is murky.”

  

I called the doctor’s office who had told me they had something that I could take that would induce my period – what they didn’t tell me was that it could take 1-4 weeks to do that – so I take the drugs and pray every day to let me out of the hell I am trapped in.  Let me stop protectively putting my hands over my stomach to protect the child that will not be – let me stop dreaming of her at night – let me stop blaming myself every minute – awake and asleep.

  

The hard lessons I learned here are

 1.     NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER stop the progesterone or any other drug until you get your results.

2.     You never truly know until the blood test- be it good or bad.

3.     Grieve the loss, feel the pain, acknowledge the sadness.  If you don’t now you will later – tenfold.  It doesn’t matter if you are 3 minutes pregnant – once those words are said you have a baby inside you and the loss is greater than you can imagine. 

 I am a pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep smiling kind of person who found out that sometimes you HAVE to allow yourself to stay on the floor for just a little while.  

I did get my period a week or two later but was left with a cyst to contend with for the first time – so I went on birth control and waited. 

Quietly and sadly this time.