Moving Forward

I had my post op appointment last week. Everything is healing well. I asked the doctor if she saw any evidence of new endometriosis growing when she was in there. She said she did not see any new spots and also the scarring was minimal and she didn't see any obvious adhesions. It's been two years since my last surgery for endo and the doctor that did my surgery used the laser removal that is supposed to fully remove the spots, and obviously it worked! That was a nice bit of good news in all of this. Of course, there can always be micro endometriosis hanging around, but I'm happy there were no obvious implants.

I also spoke with my doctor out in California. He told me that out of the four years his clinic has been open I am only the second patient that has ended up with an ectopic. I looked up the CDC and clinic stats and estimated the clinic has probably done two to three thousand transfers. With only 2 patients having ectopics, that put my odds of it happening at 0.07%. Talk about really shitty odds. No wonder he didn't initially believe me when I first called to say my local clinic was suspicious of an ectopic.

I went in for a second opinion from my local ob/gyn that sees all my results come through when I'm cycling. I love that she has also gone through IVF so she gets my craziness. I had lots of questions and she helped answer them and put me at ease. I had her run a few tests that I haven't had checked in a while. I wanted my thyroid checked again since there's a family history. Everything came back in the normal range and I was negative for thyroid antibodies. It helps knowing we don't have that to worry about as well.

Of course my period started on the one month anniversary of losing our baby. It was almost as gross, heavy, and painful as the period/bleeding I had after the ectopic. It has only been 28 days since I had my period after surgery so I am thankful things seem to be trying to get back to normal quickly. Hopefully my next cycle starts on time, too.

Our tentative plan moving forward is to bank for one or two cycles and then attempt another transfer. I like taking a month off in between cycles to give my body a break and by doing that if we did two banking cycles it would be September before we transfer again. That just seems like a really long time from now. Depending on how our first banking cycle goes, we may just proceed with a transfer after that cycle. We're still debating our options. Dr. Y did say I could proceed with a banking cycle when my next period starts, so I could be back in CA later in May.

Knowing we made a chromosomally normal baby gives us hope that we are getting closer to a take home baby. Dr. Y said it was encouraging that we did get pregnant, even if it was in the wrong spot. I'm really hoping our next transfer is the one for us.

I'm excited, hopeful, and absolutely terrified.

Normal

The results finally came back from Mayo today.

Our baby was chromosomally normal.

The report did not specify gender, and I really do feel okay not knowing. I almost think it would be even harder to know. It does bring some reassurance that we can make a normal baby since we have never tested our embryos. It just makes me sad our baby didn't stick in the right spot. We nicknamed our baby turtle when I was pregnant and that is the name I will always think of when I remember our  baby. Today I would have been 11weeks2days. Frustrating how I can't get that timeline out of my head. Every Wednesday I think of how many weeks I should be. I'm guessing that will haunt me until our due date in November.

One Month Since We Said Goodbye

It's hard to believe it's been a whole month already. I think I spent the first couple of weeks in shock. I still think of and greatly miss our baby every single day. It was sad watching my early symptoms of pregnancy fade away. It's also hard having the scars on my belly as a constant reminder of my surgery. I'm sure the sadness will fade over time. I'm still grateful I was able to experience pregnancy, even if it was only for a moment.

Waiting Waiting Waiting

It’s waiting season. I’m waiting for results from Mayo to find out if our baby was chromosomally normal. I’m waiting for my beta to finally hit 0. I’m waiting for my cycle to return to normal so we can move forward.

I do not do well when I don’t have specific goals and tasks with deadlines. Open ended timeframes make me lazy. For example, there are so many projects I really should get done around the house. But not one of them has a specific deadline so therefore I’ve had a difficult time getting myself motivated to do them. I’m usually not this complacent about getting things done. I think a large part is that I’m still grieving. Grieving and waiting on results.

The tears still come about once a day.  Sometimes I may cry for several minutes and other times it may be as mild as watery eyes. I have some incredible friends that recognize the importance of checking in with me even though it’s been a few weeks since we lost our baby. All it takes is a simple text message letting me know they’re thinking of me.

I’m still waiting for my mother to acknowledge my loss. We’ve never gotten along due to her horrible treatment of me since forever. Some may wonder why I even still communicate with her. But cutting off communication with her would likely mean losing touch with the rest of my family and I’m not willing to do that yet. I definitely set boundaries with her. Because of the issues I have with my mother I didn’t tell her about our miscarriage until two days after it happened. She always adds to the stress in my life and I just couldn’t deal with her on top of emergency surgery. (It should be noted that both of my siblings completely agreed and supported my decision on this). She’s pissed I didn’t tell her sooner. And that’s probably why I haven’t heard anything from her. No text, no email, no phone call, no card, nothing. She was even in town a couple of weeks ago and stopped at my house to pick up something and she hardly said a word to me. The way she works is that this is my entire fault because I didn’t tell her. She obviously has mental health issues. The most frustrating part is that she has no self-awareness when she hurts other people. Instead it’s their fault or they’re being too sensitive and blowing things out of proportion. If I decided to even try to discuss this with her my head would probably explode with the asinine reasoning she would come up with. It’s a no-win situation for me. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. You can’t reason with her like a normal person. She doesn’t get it and is also good at making completely ridiculous assumptions. You would think after a lifetime of her treating me this way I wouldn’t care so much. I guess I just keep giving her the benefit of doubt. Because what mother wouldn’t be supportive after hearing her daughter went through something so horrific? Mine, that’s who! After discussing things with my husband I will be keeping an even greater distance between me and my mother. And I will not say one word to her about any future infertility treatments. If she doesn’t want to even try to be a good person, then she doesn’t deserve to be a part of my life.

I’m lucky that despite having a crappy mother I have a really great group of close knit friends that I can rely on whenever I need to. They’re there for me and they understand what I’m going through. All that matters is I have people that love and care about me. Those are the friendships and connections I need to put my energy into.

Frustrating Recovery

I've been making progress, but it's of course been slower going than I like.

It took until yesterday to finally be able to button my jeans AND be able to sit with them buttoned without pain. The bruising below my belly button was quite extensive. It's also very annoying that the other two incisions are right on the front of my hip bones. I get the point in putting them there to disguise the small scars they will leave behind, but any pants I wear rub against them. The red rash and bumps on my butt from the PIO shots are finally fading. My butt still hurts from the shots. The pain has gone down, but it still hurts when it gets bumped and I have random sharp shooting pains. I went for a walk the other day and I attempted a mild jog. Not a good idea. The pain in my butt was unbearable. I was planning on starting running this summer, but that just isn't going to happen. I tried to do some digging on the internet and it looks like the pain from PIO shots can last for many months. I know one good friend that did them and two years later she can still feel the scar tissue when she runs. Not cool. Not cool at all.

I had another beta today to see if my level was negative yet. Last week it was down to 15. Today it was 3. I was all excited to be done with them until the nurse told me the doctor that did my surgery likes to see it at 0 or 1. So I have to go back next week for another beta. I'm incredibly frustrated by that. Next week is also my surgical follow up appointment. I'm guessing that won't be much of anything. I'm really hoping my cycles get back to normal quickly. I know it can take awhile after a miscarriage.

Our plan moving forward is to do more mini-IVF banking cycles before transferring. We have been blessed to have insurance coverage for IVF, however we are getting close to maxing out the benefit. Last year we spent over $20k on medical bills, including the cost of travel. I'm guessing we will spend more than that this year. We're going to do the three cycle package my clinic offers for around $12k. It includes three retrievals and three transfers. The monitoring will be covered by what we have left of infertility insurance money. We are going to do two mini banking cycles and then a transfer. If that transfer doesn't work, then I'll use up our last retrieval to bank again. Then we will proceed to transfer the remaining blasts. If none of them stick, then I think we will be done. I can't keep doing IVF forever. It's been almost a year since we started at our current clinic. Frustrating to feel that we haven't gotten anywhere. I'm guessing the earliest I will be able to do a banking cycle is the end of May, then another one in July and then a transfer in September. I prefer taking a month off in between cycles to give my body a break even though it does stretch out the timeline.

And of course, as always, I will be hoping and praying for a miracle baby to just pop up on its own.

After an Ectopic

Our situation still doesn't feel real to me. I'm beginning to think it never will.

And maybe that's okay.

TMI ahead...

We continued the PIO shots after surgery. Sadly, about four days after, I started bleeding. The next day I started passing clots and a lot more blood. We stopped the PIO shots at that point since it was obvious my body was already expelling my lining. Sadly, no miracle baby popping up in the uterus for us.Those first several days of shedding my lining were h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e. I would be resting in bed and suddenly feel a warm slimy sensation and would find a massive puddle of tissue and blood. If it's this bad after such an early point in pregnancy I don't think I want to know what it's like after giving birth.

Recovery has been about what should be expected. Part of me thought I should feel normal already. But then I remember that this was my third laprascopic surgery in five years and realize there is no way for me to be back to normal less than two weeks out. My boobs finally started getting the message and stopped hurting a few days ago. They're still bigger than normal. I had lots of hot flashes and night sweats the last week. I'm sure it's from my progesterone level dropping and probably my other hormone levels dropping as well. My poor butt is still a bit itchy and has red spots from the PIO. The pharmacy gave us needles that were too short the last time and so the PIO wasn't getting in deep enough. It gave me awful itchy rashes around the injection sites of my last several shots. My butt still hurts from the shots. It's still sore and occasionally has sharp stabbing pains. I wonder how long that will linger. Not fun at all.

My incisions are healing fairly well. Although, now I have an internal stitch poking out of each incision on my hips. The three incision sites are still tender to the touch, however, the bruising is finally starting to fade. Post-op I also had two red spots near my belly button. After a couple of days they scabbed over so we figured they must have been burn marks. I'll be asking about those at my follow-up since it's not something that should happen. I remember in recovery and back in my hospital room the nurses being concerned about those spots. I'm guessing the doctor will know more. Overall the swelling in my abdomen has gone down enough that I can finally button my pants. Although, I still leave them unbuttoned and hooked together with a hair tie since when they're buttoned it puts too much pressure on my belly when I'm sitting.

I have a repeat beta Monday. I got to skip one this last week since we were out of town. (I don't recommend going out of town for any reason in the week following surgery, but it was planned months in advanced and the doctor cleared me to go). I have to do them weekly until they're negative. Since I had my period and it's done now, I'm hoping I'll just have to do the one beta. My poor veins are getting so beat up. 

I'm going to wait until I have a normal cycle, then we'll do another mini-IVF banking cycle. Hopefully we will be ready for a retrieval by the end of May. We're down to four blasts, three of which are very poor quality. We will eventually transfer all the blasts we have, but obviously the poor quality ones don't have the best chance which is why we want to bank some more first. I'm guessing it will be the end of July or early August before we're ready to try another transfer. That seems like a very long time to me.

For now, I'm just taking it one day at a time.

p.s. (Fuck you to the stupid grocery store that still had St. Patrick's Day cards on display today. The holiday was two weeks ago and your evil reminder made me cry for two hours straight. Assholes.)

Close Call

The emotional shock has slowly been wearing off. The reality of our situation has been sinking in a little more each day. Two days ago it hit me how close we came to a very disastrous situation. I never had any obvious signs of an ectopic. No cramping, no bleeding, and no one-sided sharp pains. Had we not been monitoring this pregnancy with early ultrasounds there would not have been any warning of an impending rupture. When I finally went in for surgery the doctor said my tube was already starting to rupture - there was already bleeding going on. She was shocked I still wasn't having any symptoms. They even asked me on the OR table before I went under if I was having any symptoms and I wasn't. Makes a person think about the what-ifs....

I have been struggling with the loss of our baby. I know an ectopic is not viable and we did what absolutely needed to be done, but I still struggle with the loss. My husband who has been so close by my side had a thoughtful way of putting our situation into perspective for me. He said with this ectopic he was either going to lose both of us or one of us. And he's happy I'm still here by his side. Why yes, I did dissolve into tears hearing that.

There is no way to even begin to make sense of our loss. It's one of those very unfortunate things that can happen. All we can do is be thankful for the time we had with our little one and start picking up the pieces to move forward. This baby gave us hope. We have hope that we still have a chance of someday having a healthy baby. Even in the depths of our sorrow we can still look forward to our future. For now we will grieve, and when we're ready, we'll start working towards our next baby.