As I am writing all of this - it feels like I am watching a video tape on fast forward. It seems so weird to look back on these events and try to get them down into posts in a narrative format. I'm obviously glossing over all sorts of stuff in this very abridged version - but ultimately I'm wanting this blog to be more about my current experience (starting ivf) than my past. But then again if I ever have any readers, I'd like them to have the background too.
Anyway getting back to our story.
It took us over a year this time to be ready to try again to get pregnant. Believe me, there were so many times we thought of just giving up. Getting back to being a normal couple - not constantly dealing with grief and pain. But in the end we decided we could do it once more.
It was September of 2005. I went back to monitoring my cycle and we had our well timed sex. Boom - I was pregnant. First time. I look at our record and am amazed. Two times out of three, we have gotten pregnant on our first try. The other time it only took 2-3 months. SO many people have said - "well at least you know you can get pregnant!" I suppose that is meant to be comforting in some way. But its just not.
And this is where the title to the blog comes from. So many doctors we have seen, people we have spoken to . . . have told us we aren't infertile. We've had one doctor tell us we were actually very fertile! How can you consider yourself fertile when you have been pregnant three times and have nothing to show for it but a very long nightmare?
Well this pregnancy seemed to go more smoothly than the last, at first anyway.
We went to the doctor at the usual 7-8 weeks. We were terrified. I remember thinking how this could not possibly happen to us again. Not three times in a row - this one HAD to work. We went to the ultrasound room grudgingly. My heart was pounding. And soon enough - there it was, the little flicker on the screen. Our baby had a heartbeat! I was relieved! Thrilled! This had to be it - the one that would stick!
Unfortunately within a week, I started spotting. This led to many more ultrasounds. Some just for reassurance, others regularly scheduled. We were seeing a doctor - either the perinatologist or the regular ob - once a week. Lots of stress and anxiety. It was awful. Before each ultrasound, I noticed I was steeling myself - bracing for something bad to happen. I would let this scene unfold in my head - how I would react when the doctor told me that something was wrong.
We went through a few weeks like this where at each ultrasound, things continued to look ok. But yet I was still spotting. I did let myself relax A LITTLE, but still continued to worry.
Finally one night, around 11 weeks - we had an appointment with the regular ob. It was an evening appointment, and the u/s techs had gone home. The Dr. wanted to reassure me about the bleeding and rolled in a little portable ultrasound so we could see. He spent a good 15 minutes poking around but couldn't visualize much. I was only 11 weeks and had just emptied my bladder so I was not surprised.
The Dr didn't seem concerned and said what he could see looked "good." But he also made me schedule an internal ultrasound for the next morning so we could see for sure what was going on. I was fairly worried now because I figured he wouldn't have told me to come back the next day if he thought everything was ok. But then again he kept saying things looked ok to him. So I had another sleepless night and headed back to the office the next day.
Well, I think you all know where this is going by now.
The next day was not good. Awful, in fact. After much poking around with my best friend the vaginal ultrasound wand, the tech said simply, "I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat today."
Devastated, I cried - no, make that wailed, on the table. Uncontrollably. Very unlike me to have such a public display of raw emotion - but there you have it. I guess that ultimately - I just never believed it could happen again. That this could happen to us now - three times. THREE TIMES!
From there we were told once again how important it was to have a D&E, get the chromosome analysis on this baby, etc. Unfortunately the couldn't schedule me for one until the following week. Well, I showed them - started bleeding a lot on a Saturday, so I had to go to the hospital and have them call in a surgical team just for me.
Oh, the sheer joy of it.