The Almost Year Mark.

It really has almost been a year since my miscarriage. Is that strange to be thinking about.  A WHOLE YEAR has passed and I am still not pregnant. It breaks my heart is oh so many ways that I cannot even begin to describe the feeling. I know things are moving in the right direction now more than ever but it doesn't mean that this milestone won't hurt any less.
I personally have had almost more depression about the miscarriage than anyone realizes. It has gotten better through time but when I do remember what I went through and what it felt like and the happiness that was taken without warning away from me.. it brings me back to the hurt. The hurt of the family I might have by now, the hurt of seeing other happy people easily getting pregnant and having babies, the hurt of family and friends words of encouragement...sometimes not so much encouragement.
It truly will be a year since I found out on March 11th only a couple days after my birthday. I don't know how I feel about it yet and wont know until the day comes and goes but I am realizing today that it's been a year since about conception and I wanted to write how I am feeling at this moment in time.

A few of my least favorite things

• When it seems every one else is pregnant, even that 15 year old down the street, 3 or 4 girls I work work, and the girls who just got married like 5 minutes ago
• Baby posts on fb, even if it's not your baby it is someones baby and I am a jealous hag right now. So blocked is where you are.
• PERIODS
• Being cold
• Having no control of body functions and baby making progress
• trying to loose weight. Easy to get on not so easy to get back off.

Maybe I will try and write about things that are making me happy next time but right now I am not feeling in the best of moods so.... thats all for now

Things to not say to couples struggling with infertility

The husby and I are going through a work up with infertility. We will be going on 3 years of trying soon, and almost one year since I had a pregnancy and lost it.
Currently we are working on bettering ourselves, and I am going to see a therapist for the depression I am feeling over my miscarriage, I don't share all this information with everyone but I do share some things and sometimes people's advice (as well intended as it is meant) sometimes can leave a sting. I am used to people asking questions since my husband was in Afghanistan while he served in the Marine Corps. Some of the best of the worst things said to me were

• Are you afraid your husband is going to die?   Um, no never considered that but I am glad you planted that thought in my head
• How much money would you make if he died over there?   First I don't know and don't want to know and I don't want the money if it does happen. But again husband dying that's a great visual! 
• How do you not cheat? This one usually accompanied the I could never go six months without sex. I usually just stared at these people like they are speaking a foreign language. Sooooo incredibly stupid!
• How do you even get out of bed? Again with stupid questions, I have a life and just because I am always constantly thinking and praying for his safety it does not give me an excuse to lay in bed all day. He did not marry some lazy bitty!

So as you can see I have had my fair share of dumb questions, some of these people were genuinely concerned for me and my husband, some I am afraid to say had a serious problem connecting brain to mouth, but I have been asked questions and given advice about my miscarriage and infertility that hurts. Maybe because it is still so close to my heart, maybe I am having depression because of the miscarriage, maybe because I feel not in control of the whole thing it bothers me, maybe I am just being a baby. I know that a lot of these come from a good place in the persons heart but I want you to know some do' and donts because it's getting harder for me to hold my tongue.

• Just relax, drink some wine, go on a vacation, etc. I know you mean well but infertility is diagnosed by your doctor and no amount of relaxing will make actual medical issues just go away. Yes stress does not help fertility but let me worry about my stress level. Do invite me out places that you find relaxing. I need to escape too sometimes with or without the husby. If you are going out to dinner or going to get a pedicure, ask me to come. I would enjoy the company too.
• If it's meant to happen it will, that's not gods plan for you right now, maybe it's not happening because... Again I know you mean well but my belief is that god does not control infertility because why would he let those get pregnant if he knows they will have an abortion or the are abusive parents etc. I could go on but I hope you get my point. Again this is a medical problem and even if I know the reason why it doesn't mean it will just happen after that. Do offer someone I can talk to and trust to keep my business private. I am one who wants to talk about it because I don't want to suffer in silence anymore.
• Maybe if you both lost weight it would help. Yes it would and we know the risks of being overweight but I look at my body as something broken and disappointing already and bringing up other painful areas hurt too especially because who is saying it. Do ask me to go to some yoga class you have been wanting to try or boxing or a walk, especially if there are snacks there :)
• At least you can get pregnant. Yes it's great I can but keeping it in there for 9 months is difficult and I also realize its a great thing that I have been pregnant before but let's focus on ways to keep it
• This is for my infertility friends who have gone on to have pregnancies. I am still here and all of a sudden now that I am not in the mommy club I am just forgotten. That hurts almost worse because I am still sad for me but I am genuinely happy for you and when you stop texting and calling it just makes me think we aren't really that good of friends I just fit into the same category as you. 
• Oh just be grateful you can sleep in, not have to find a babysitter to go out, you don't have morning sickness, don't have to deal with the kids yet. I would give both arms and a leg to be "putting up" with them or give up ever sleeping to have a baby. Most ask after they have to punish or "deal" with their own children, are you sure you even want them? Or have you really thought out the responsibility that comes with them. Yes and yes I have and I know it is not going to be a walk in the park but I don't like that you are putting my dreams of being a mom down with these negative thoughts.
• As a hairdresser I get people in my chair making small talk. There is nothing I can do about having strangers asking about my personal life. So when they ask how long I have been married and find out we're going on 5 years in Utah it's strange that I don't  hVe about 2 kids by now. I get people telling me I am lucky  I don't have them yet to them telling me how quickly they got pregnant even though they were on birth control. Yada yada like I have literally heard all the things about people's kids and lives within a half hour hair cut. I don't have a solution to that just saying something that bothers me
• If you are my friend and get pregnant, don't be scared to tell me. I know I am not quiet bout my infertility but I would rather hear your exciting news from you and not the grapevine. Understand it might be hard for me not because I am angry with you or mad that you are pregnant, I Am just still sad for myself and I will do my best to keep it to a minimal but in this state of mind don't ask me to throw you a baby shower either. I am so so happy for you but not sue I can do that just yet. 

If any if my friends ever have any questions for me about my journey I am a pretty open book and will share most of my feelings with you, but I just ask that when giving advice do so without using  any examples from the above list. 

Of course you're pregnant.

I swear if I am not seeing pictures of brand new babies all over my news feed it's pregnancy announcements and baby bump pictures.
Forgive me friends when I block you so I don't have to get sad every time I see one. Even if I love you to death and I am always so happy for you. It is just hard for me to show it at this current moment. Sorry.
I am going to start a workout regimen and start buying some fresher produce and meats and eat a bit more healthy. That should at least make me feel like I am in control of something in my life.

Starting somewhere

So I finally had a Dr appointment with Dr Donna Bennett. She was a real gem. She was kind, she answered my questions without making me feel stupid for asking, she didn't put me down for being 24 and already looking into fertility issues. So we already have a good start on everything. We are kind of going over everything and anything just to see if something abnormal pops up and if it does then we have a base line on where to go from there. I had to have an ultra sound to check out my lady parts. I don't know anything yet on that but I will document it for personal use and for those who are interested seeing my journey through this process. The ultra sound didn't go as planned. I was told to come at noon with a full bladder. At 10 I chugged a bottle of water and an our later I chugged 2 more. I was ready to burst...I can't imagine being pregnant and trying to hold it in because it was hard enough not pregnant but either way so I went in at noon and they said I was over an hour early apparently the person who scheduled the appointment told me wrong... well the sweet lady doing the paper work called up to the ultrasound techs and asked if they could end their lunch break early so I can get in and get done but the lady was a total bitch and point blank refused to end her lunch early because then she would have an  hour blocked out and she wouldn't be doing anything, so the sweet lady told me she was difficult and called over to the physicians plaza and asked if they would be able to fit me in and they were so willing to help a girl out with a full bladder. The Ultrasound tech and another lady were in there taking a look at everything and obviously it wasn't a normal ultrasound where there's a baby inside it was just a lets look inside and see if you're normal kind of thing so they all kind of got started talking about their own infertility issues and the gentleman said its taken over 3 years before the first pregnancy and the lady said she eventually had to adopt because the IVF didn't end up working. it was sad and I feel so sad because I don't want that to be me but I can identify with these people now. There are so many more who struggle with infertility and I just want to hug them and let them know god has a plan. Even if it feels like someone just gut punched you and you will never be the same. I went to the bathroom and sobbed for a second and then realized there was a nasty dried booger on my shirt and i had to laugh at myself for not seeing that until after I had been out in public all day! SICK.
Anyways today I had a blood draw to see my hormone levels on the second half of a period cycle so the next thing is to get a semen analysis done tomorrow and then one last blood draw on day 3 of my next period cycle, and then an ovulation kit for this next month. I hope this doesn't take over a year I would like to be pregnant before the end of 2013
Here's hoping that is God's plan for me and not... something else

Mothers day

Tomorrow I think is going to be harder for me I think because I would have been 12 weeks tomorrow, I probably would have told the family we were going to be having a baby... but I am not having a baby. I am not a mother. It's not like I don't have someone to celebrate I have some amazing women in my family I can look up to, but in my heart I am so heart broken for the life that I was unable to carry to full term.
I am feeling extra sad because I went out after work today and bought myself two new Utah Utes shirts because I have gained too much weight to wear my old ones and I was so excited but I was having an off night and as I was taking the garbage out of the salon tonight I think I accidentally threw it in... and if I didn't do that I either dropped it and it got taken away. I am so so sad and angry with myself I feel like I just tossed 50 bucks down the window and my dad's birthday present was in that bag with it. So it's safe to say that I am NOT having a good weekend.
I made an appointment to look into why I had a miscarriage and why It took over a year of trying to even get one pregnancy. I am scared because I don't want any bad news I can hardly handle myself as it is..but bad news is going to probably send me spiraling out of control

Now I am sitting here in tears thinking a shot of vodka sounds like it might put me to sleep and listening to my cat meow because he thinks he's hungry, I sort of want to lock him in a room so he will shut up but that's not a nice kitty mommy thing to do. I may not be a mother yet but I am a kitty mommy and he may not like my loves but by got I am going to be giving him some tonight!!

I hate the waiting game

Now that I certainly passed all the tissue which would have been a child it's now the waiting game for the return of a regular cycle. I am looking forward to this next cycle actually because I will soon after call a couple doctors and get checked out as to why this has not happened for us in the year we have been trying and the year on top of that where we used no form of birth control.
I feel pretty open to talking to people about this topic now days because I never realized how many of my friends were going through the same thing as I did or even more so in some of my friends lives.
I know that I can't control what happened to me and I should try to be more excited for my friends who just found out they are expecting but I am still having the green eyed monster live behind my eyes. I would like to call it bitterness actually because it's not that I am mad at anyone for this happening but I still feel like I just bit into a lemon and it's a bitter taste in my mouth. I really really can't help it. So I had to hide a few friends who are going to give birth to beautiful babies around the same time I would have. Sorry it's just how it is going to be for a while.
So now it's just waiting, waiting for a period, waiting to see what is wrong, waiting for my body to return to normal, waiting to start a family.

Hurting

You may feel a mix of emotions that may include disappointment, despair, shock, guilt, grief, and relief. All are normal. Whatever your state of mind, remember

• Give yourself permission to grieve this loss. Grief is a normal response to miscarriage, and it should not be made light of or denied.
• If you have a partner, understand that he or she may need to grieve the loss, too. Your partner may not express his or her emotions the same way you do. But trying to communicate your feelings and support to each other may help each of you cope.

Give yourself time to heal from the loss of your pregnancy. The amount of time it will take is different for everyone. It is up to you to decide if you want to ask a health care provider for advice about getting pregnant in the future. You may want to know when it would be best to try again. Or you may want to know how to prevent a pregnancy until you are ready for one.

I have opened up more about having a miscarriage and I did not have an ectopic pregnancy which is good news, but it still hurts inside knowing in 8 plus months I won't be holding my first child. I don't think about it all the time keeping busy helps but when I am left to my own thoughts my mind strays back to this miscarriage. It's been even harder with several friends on Facebook are pregnant or just finding out they are pregnant, don't get me wrong I am so happy for them, I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on my worst enemy. I have mentioned to some people that I have to move on and I can't be bitter forever. I am having a hard time swallowing those words, I know I wasn't far along but it still flushed me with hormones and then wiped them away and left me asking so many questions. I don't know if I will ever be not sad about this miscarriage but I know one day I will be okay with what happened. I can't say how long I will feel sad about it but I hope not forever. I don't like feeling this way.

The next worst part is I am all mixed up on my cycle, I am usually regular but I am not now I have been thrown for a loop with this, and now I don't even know where to begin trying again and why it has taken so long to get even one pregnancy. Sometimes I just sit up on my iPad looking up what a miscarriage feels like when I can start trying , why it is taking so long, infertility for Dave and myself, then saying I need to start doing things to get my body ready for a baby, get in shape or just eating healthy, but then I get really sad again and eat a cupcake. Damn you food I have probably gained 5 lbs just from stress eating I don't even want to think about my sadness bingeing is doing.

I took a week off one of my jobs and that has released some stresses, my bosses have been really great through this and being kind to me. 

I don't know what is next but I hope I will get some answers I am looking for and am able to start a family soon which is what I have wanted most for my life since forever. Pray for me and Dave and I promise I will be taking care of my body for mr and my future family.

Ectopic pregnancy

An ectopic pregnancy, or eccysis, is a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo implants outside the uterine cavity

This is what my doctor is thinking I am experiencing. I am having heavy bleeding still and since my last blood test on Tuesday, my HCG levels have gone to almost 900 where they were 120 the first time to 180 two days later.

To say that I am terrified is an understatement. I am a wreck. I keep asking why me.... why is this happening to me. If I can't have a child why can't I just miscarry normally, why am I having complications. It isn't fair.

I want more than anything in this world to be a mom. I am terrified that if this is a tubal pregnancy (I have another blood test tomorrow to see where this hcg level is sitting) Will I be able to conceive naturally? How will this affect my chances of having another child? What if I have a second tubal pregnancy after this? Why is my body not functioning correctly? What am I doing wrong? All the while I have been keeping this to just Dave and I but now that this could be a serious complication and could have surgery, and with the fact that I am a blubbering lunatic how can people not see that I am suffering. How am I going to go to work and be "normal" when all I want is to curl up in the fetal position and cry. 

I don't know the outcome yet, but I am praying that whatever is going on will be resolved quickly and as pain free as possible because my heart is already so full of pain that I don't know if I can handle any type of physical pain. 

How miscarriage feels

It was only March 11th 2013 that I saw the faint double lines on a home pregnancy test that indicated these hormonal changes were actually because I was indeed pregnant! How can someone not be so overly excited as soon as you see that. Especially since it has been over two years since we stopped all forms of birth control... Whatever happens happens was what we decided would work for us. One and a half years later still no positive pregnancy tests. We decided we need to start expanding our family. My biggest fear is that I will find out I am unable to conceive naturally so being only 24 I am afraid if we wait too long then find out something is wrong I could never live with myself. So we started trying...one month would go by.... Five months and at this point you start getting just a bit discouraged. If anyone has tried to get pregnant you know what the long month waits between periods feel like. We had talked about going to get checked out and find out why this isn't happening but eventually decided to go back to whatever happens let it happen. I decided this year if the year passes with no sign of pregnancy then we would get help... Until on my birthday 3/8/13 I was two days late and suspected I could be pregnant. The first pregnancy test I took that day was not positive so I waited out three more days with still no period and all these signs. I bought 4 pregnancy tests that day and took two mid day... The first one was positive, faint, but positive, second one was negative. I went home discouraged but would take one more in the morning. Positive! I woke Dave and we both marveled in the idea of having a baby. I got a doctor appointment made and we talked about how we would tell everyone and decided telling my parents early on because of insurance...and let's face it I needed my moms help, more than I knew at the time. I told a few choice people like bosses in case morning sickness got the better of me and hoping for more sympathy than just calling daily to say I am sick...at least they would know why. I was so excited, we both were, the idea bloomed in our heads before I was even 5 weeks along.
Only two days later I started spotting brown blood...to me any bleeding is a bad sign. I called my doctors office in a panic. He called me back and said 1in 5 women bleed through pregnancy but it could be a miscarriage so I am ordering a blood test of hcg to be checked today and two days after that. That was a Wednesday and I would have to be checked 48 hours later on a Friday. Guess what that meant for me. A LONG weekend of no answers just spotting and working. If someone could drop dead from anxiety and stress that would have been when it happened. Every hour I wasn't at work or bawling my eyes out of loosing something I feel like has been a long time coming and thinking about loosing it all, I spent online reading anything and everything on pregnancy what to expect and stories about how things worked out for these couples who had spotting during her pregnancy... I was giving myself a false hope in dreaming I could be this girl and everything will be okay. My mom was my best friend I know she was just as disappointed as Dave and I were but she put on a brave face for me. I read somewhere no matter how early you miscarry some women could get depressed like post party's depression of loosing a pregnancy. That's how I felt like I could never be happy, like the happiness had been sucked out along with the hope of having this baby, but I kept reading these stories of hopeful parents to be who had what I went through and had a healthy child I asked god every night that weekend to let this baby grow and be a healthy pregnancy. Finally after the weekend that lasted 3 years I called my doctor and said my hcg levels are very low at only 120 and when I got my second test it was 180. Not progressing the way it should. Again another blow emotionally. I bawled to Dave almost every night for a week, I questioned what I did wrong because my doctor was explaining what will happen when I loose the pregnancy, he had very little hope that this would go full term. I cried and cried he told me to do another blood test for that Thursday the 21st, but by the 19th I started passing large clots and had slight cramping, and I knew that is what my doctor was prepping me for so I did not receive the blood test I called and said I am sure I passes the tissue that could have been my first child. Finally I had accepted that this was not going full term and that I need to move forward with figuring out how to start our family.
I had a cervix checkup today to make sure my body has passed all the tissue and make sure all was normal. Well I am still bleeding heavily and they want my blood type so off for another blood test today for those and to check if the tissue is all passed or producing hcg still. I am also nervous that I am having an ectopic pregnancy and my Fallopian tube will be damaged and I will never have children naturally, but now I am in the waiting period again and this last blood test (I hope) will give the final word. I am now experiencing heavy period like blood flow and hoping that was the las of it so I can start trying to start my family again.
I will write more to help me remember dates and how I felt and hopefully this next pregnancy will be what my heart really wants