Healing

At our last doctor's appointment, we knew there was very little hope. Our baby was behind in growth and the ultrasound tech could not detect a heartbeat. But, our doctor scheduled a follow up appointment just in case....he wasn't ready to do anything quite yet, and thought we should wait two weeks for my body to take care of things naturally. But, it didn't.

So, we headed back to the clinic and walked to the dreaded ultrasound room once again. I think I have had a dozen ultrasounds in the last year, I am a regular there. A dozen ultrasounds and no baby. I remember when I was pregnant with Griffin and couldn't wait for my next ultrasound. Now, I drive to my appointments wishing I had the courage to drive past the clinic and land up at some happy place. But, avoidance doesn't change the outcome, it only changes my need to have to face it.

Luckily, we had my favorite ultrasound tech. She struggled with infertility for years and has three children. She gives me hope and is absolutely one of the sweetest people I have encountered at the clinic.

We followed her to the room and I noticed her shirt, it was a pretty fitted scrub shirt, and had white embroidered words on it. My eyes focused on the word "heal". Yes, that is what I needed to do, heal. I saw the word hope and my eyes moved back to healing. It's too hard to have hope right now, I need to concentrate on healing first.

She talked through the ultrasound and told me to ask any questions I wanted. At first all I could do was cry. No flickering heartbeat. I wasn't expecting it, but was praying that some amazing miracle took place, but all along I knew what the reality was, the baby had passed away and my body was holding on to him or her for dear life. I started to ask questions and she answered them, supported us and comforted us. We didn't leave with images, we left empty handed. Nothing changed, but my body was still holding on.

We walked down the long hallway to the waiting room. I commented that if felt like the walk of shame. The poor tear stained couple that has walked this walk too many times empty handed, or with images of babies that didn't survive. In the waiting room I noticed a pregnant woman who saw us and diverted her eyes. It's not hard to figure out what our tears were from.

We sat in the waiting room and I reminded myself that we had support--Jamie was close--we had each other. I thought of the flowers on our table at home and remembered that we had people that cared in our lives and that would support us through this. It's part of the healing.

We met with our doctor. We had choices, I opted for the medication. We have no idea how long my body would hold on, and although I still wanted to hold on, I know that I need to heal. We talked about all sorts of things, and he decided to do some blood work.

So many decisions ahead, but for now, we need to focus on healing.

I left and I reflected on that exactly 4 years ago, 11 minutes before my ultrasound, our perfect miracle was born.

I needed to spend some time grieving, then had to help my little boy celebrate his 4th birthday. Our precious miracle that continues to give me hope.

IVF?

One of the questions I get on a somewhat frequent basis is if we are going to try IVF again, after all we have another session paid for. I can answer that with a good, solid maybe. Pretty pathetic, huh? Here's the deal. I'm not ready to go through that again. Here's why:
1) I had my blood drawn for auto immune tests a while back. I cried and cried sitting there. It brought back too many memories of baseline bloodwork and pregnancy tests.
2) That would mean more time in the place where I found out our baby died. What if my baseline ultrasound is in that very room? No thanks.
3) I can handle stabbing myself with shots all over my belly. I can handle having my eggs retrieved. I can handle them being put back in. I can handle telling Jamie to buck up and give me another shot in my keester. I don't think I can handle the 2ww (2 week wait)--the wait to find out if we are pregnant. Then, the two day wait to find out of my beta doubled. Then, the wait to see if the baby made it to ultrasound #1, then #2, then #3. It all sound too painful. I don't want any more babies to die.
4) If we get pregnant, our adoption will be on hold. (Yes, I realize we haven't even had our home study, but we are emotionally invested in our unknown adopted child already). If we have a biological child, we can't adopt through LSS for a year.
5) If we do another IVF cycle, we will pay about $9,000 out of pocket due to meds, bloodwork, ultrasounds and embryo testing. $9,000 would go a long way towards our $22,000-$25,000 adoption!
6) After everything we've learned about adoption, including the good, bad and ugly, we WANT to adopt a baby (or 2)!

So, am I ready to cash in on our shared risk program and get 75% of the $16,000 we invested back? (Only 75% because we have a frozen embryo.) Heck no. Based on our infertility track record, another IVF cycle is likely our last hope for a pregnancy. And, gosh do I LOVE being pregnant (even though it now scares me, too!)! And, as you well know, I'm not into giving up hope.

So, for now, I'll keep giving the same answer: maybe.