So Scared I'm Not Pregnant. And Feeling So Lost...

Woke up feeling really down and defeated this morning, and like I'm making up all these pregnancy symptoms I've been obsessing over all week...like it's all in my head. The worst part is I've been telling my husband about potential symptoms and he's excited...thinks that I'm probably pregnant and what if I'm not? What if I got his hopes up for no reason? Yeah, I'm tired (fell asleep on the couch before dinner last night), and thinking my sense of smell might be more sensitive, and my stomach's upset this morning (probably totally unrelated), but maybe I just want this so bad, I'm seeing symptoms where there aren't any.

I'm also having a total existential crisis (ongoing, but it's reared its ugly head this morning...of course this can't just be about whether I'm pregnant or not...that would be too easy.) I just feel so lost. I have really since my brother's death. What do you do when you've lost your best friend in the world and a whole life that you loved, one where we were young and we lived together and surfed every day and took care of each other and nothing truly bad had ever happened to us?

What does it all mean...you know...life?

What am I supposed to be doing?

Why can't I have something good and happy and life-affirming (eg, a baby) happen...why does everything have to be about death and loss and failure?*

The two week wait is awful...just want it to be over...

*My mom would have me add here that there is a lot of good in my life, and it's true. My husband, my family, my friends, money, health (except for this infertility thing), etc. But my brother's death, leaving California, not feeling like I'm doing anything worthwhile in my professional life, and especially right now our repeated failures to have a baby...I'm mean it's just been years of month after month after month of disappointment, plus a heartbreaking miscarriage and two chemical pregnancies that were honestly almost as bad...all this is really taking its toll...

Sorry...trying to be strong and brave...just can't rise to the occasion this morning...

"The Aquarium:" Some Thoughts on Grief and Loss, Coping and What it All Means

A fish in the aquarium in Stanley Park, Vancouver, BC.

Do any of you all read the New Yorker? There was an article in there a month or so ago (June 13 & 20, 2011) that I've been turning over in my head ever since I read it. It's called "The Aquarium," written by Aleksandar Hemon. In it, he talks about the illness and death of his baby daughter, but I think a lot of what he talks about is more universal than just that particular (horrific) situation. 

For example, the isolation he feels during his daughter's illness (and I've felt, through my brother's death primarily, but also through our recent miscarriage and years and years of trying to have a child) is so beautifully described: 

"...I had a strong physical sensation of being in an aquarium: I could see out, the people outside could see me (if they chose to pay attention), but we were living and breathing in entirely different environments."

Another thing that resonated with me is how often it's so hard for people to communicate with those dealing with intense pain of some sort (and vice versa)...this is something I've definitely experienced:

"One of the most common platitudes we heard was that 'words failed.' ... If there were a communication problem, it was that there were too many words, and they were far to heavy and too specific on others. ... We instinctively protected our friends from the knowledge we possessed; we let them think that words had failed, because we knew they didn't want to learn the vocabulary we used daily. We were sure they didn't want to know what we knew; we didn't want to know it, either."

One of the things I find hardest about the tough things that have happened to me is people telling me to find the meaning/the good in what's happened. I don't believe there is meaning or good, and neither does Mr. Hemon:

"One of the most despicable religious fallacies is that suffering is ennobling--that it is a step on the path to some kind of enlightenment or salvation. Isabel's [his daughter's] suffering and death did noting for her, or us, or the world. We learned no lessons worth learning; we acquired no experience that could benefit anyone."

It's a heartbreaking article, but one that is so worth reading in its entirity.

Anyway, I hope something in these excerpts helps someone better understand/process what they are thinking/going through, the way they helped me.

XO

Excitement and Trepidation and Trying to Let Go of the Pain

I'm going to Santa Barbara tomorrow, with my husband, for a wedding. And I'm SO happy to be going, so excited for my friends getting married, it's going to be great to see them and others, and it's going to be fun to be in Santa Barbara with my husband, because we spent a lot of time there when we were first dating, him coming down from Alaska and later Seattle to visit me the last months that I lived there. I know we're going to have a great time...everything about this trip is going to be happy and positive. 

But.

Santa Barbara's where I lived with my brother. It's where he was killed. It's a place I didn't want to leave, but felt like I had to. This is kind of hard to describe, but in a lot of ways, when my brother died, I felt like I died too, like we had both been exiled from this place and this life that we loved.

I've fought hard to build back a new life for myself, and it's a good life, but it's drastically different from the one that I had, and it's hard to be reminded of that old life, you know? I usually do a pretty good job keeping the hurt I still feel over my brother's death and the loss of Santa Barbara and my beach-y California girl surfer lifestyle under wraps. But going there...it can't help but come to the surface.

I keep thinking about this quote from the TV show Six Feet Under--I love love love that show, by the way...I'm going to do a post about it one of these days--that I read on the fabulous blog Mocking Bird over the weekend:

(David is talking to his dead father, Nathaniel.)

Nathaniel Sr.: You aren't ever grateful, are you?

David: Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?

Nathaniel Sr.: You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well, let me tell ya, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilites, and all he can do is whine.

David: Well, what am I supposed to do?

Nathaniel Sr.: What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive! What's a little pain compared to that?

David: It can't be that simple.

Nathaniel Sr. (putting his arm around David and pulling him closer): What if it is?

I'm trying to let the pain go. I swear. 

P.S. The last of our plans for the weekend just fell into place. I truly am sooooo incredibly excited to see so many people I love.

Back Monday.

XOXO

A Letter to My Brother, Six Years After His Death

How cool is it when your brother's in the band? A picture from one of his many shows...

Dear Luke,

Six years. In some ways it seems like yesterday, in others, that life I had with you seems so far in the past it’s almost as if it never happened. I hope you’re OK and that this hasn’t been as horrible and traumatic for you as it’s been for me.

Would you be surprised by the life I’m living? I had to leave our house in Santa Barbara, and all of California, behind. There just wasn’t the joy there without you. I never really surfed again after you died, which has been such a huge loss (although I brought three of the surfboards with me when I left, including the one with the panther on the nose that was yours but you always let me ride)…I’ve never been happier than early mornings in the surf with you. Once I stopped surfing, there wasn’t a good reason to stay. And I was seeing my now-husband (he had been working your old job up in Alaska, which is how we met)…he had moved to Seattle and I was so sad and lonely in the house you and I had shared…I thought maybe it would be better to go. I made the right decision to go be with my husband, but I’m still not sure if leaving California was the right thing. It’s hard to know if I miss IT, or I miss the life I had there that no longer exists. Would I be happy going back? I don’t know.

I lived in Seattle with my soon-to-be husband for six months…but it was winter and so grey and I was so sad…my husband thought I might do better closer to mom and dad, and so that’s how we ended up back in Colorado.

I’m married now, as you can tell. I work a lot less. I have your dog Dexter…I think he still misses you. I snowboard instead of surf (and sometimes when I’m out alone I sit on the side of a run and cry, I want you there with me so bad.)

My husband’s great…you would love him. We’re trying to have a baby, but that’s not going so well. I keep thinking a birth, some life, some pure joy would help me not to hurt so bad from your death and the loss of that whole happy life as a California surfer girl…I mean, I want to have a baby for so many more reasons than that, but I can’t help thinking having something happy to share with people instead of being the one who’s had to bear so many hardships…

I like to think of you in some happy and peaceful place, with a Jeep and my dog Shaye who died the year before you did, she’s hanging out on the beach while you surf the perfect waves and you don’t have to struggle anymore…you don’t have to deal with all the heartbreak you dealt with in this life, all the trying to figure things out and how are you going to find a girl to love and are you going to be an architect or stay the free spirit who can’t resist heading up to Alaska every time spring comes around. You don’t have to deal with disappointments and you don’t have to be sad when people you love die and you get to be the golden 27-year-old who did exactly what he wanted to do with this life—you’ll be that man forever.

I felt for a long time that when you died, I died too. I don’t feel that way anymore. There’s my husband now, and mom and dad and our brother, and I have such amazing friends and I’m trying to figure out something good to do with all the many years I probably have left. I do know life will never be the same without you. I’m glad it was you and not me, that you haven’t had to go through what we all have since you died (although I’m sure you would have done it with much more grace and poise than I). I’m not afraid to die, because it means I’ll get to be with you.

I love you, and please come visit me like you visit other people. I haven’t had a single sign that you’re in some way still here.

With love beyond measure,

Kristen

Genetic Testing: The Straw That Broke the Camel's Back

Really, how can you be sad when you come across cute little dogs in the nursery?

As most of you know, two weeks ago we found out that my pregnancy had ended in miscarriage. A phone conversation with my RE's office about an hour later:

Me: "What do you guys need from my local OB?"

Them: "The notes in your chart. The ultrasound. And if you can get genetic testing done, we want the results."

So the next day when I went in for the D&C, I had a list for my OB of what my RE wanted, including genetic testing if possible. 

We got the bill for genetic testing yesterday. Almost $3,000.00. Crap.

So here's the deal: I take responsibility for not asking why they needed genetic testing done and/or asking how much it would cost. But come on, I was grieving heavily, how can I be expected to think this through and ask all the right questions at a time like that? I don't understand why genetic testing was necessary. This was my first miscarriage. I don't even want to know the answers to genetic testing. I think it's going to make all this hurt worse to know if it's a boy or a girl. And if there was a genetic abnormality, I think that will be comforting in a way, because then the miscarriage was "nature's way of taking care of things." But if the baby was perfectly normal, what does that mean? I think it's going to make me scared to try again. I don't know, maybe there's a good reason to have genetic testing done that I'm missing, but right now I'm just pissed about the cost, and that I wasn't asked if I wanted to do it, I was just told to get it done if I could. 

And then I start thinking about how we're going to pay for it (if insurance doesn't cover it, which I'm praying they will). I can work more hours to get the money, but I'm so sick of working like crazy to get money to do fertility treatments that fail. And this is on top of all the other bills for this pregnancy (meeting my insurance's high deductible, all the blood draws for my RE that aren't covered by insurance), and we also need to get the money together for the FET this summer. Ugh. We can do it, but there is so much more I'd rather spend the money on (plus I don't want to work the extra hours needed to get the money).

And then I start thinking about how hard fertility treatments are to go through and how scared I am of our next round of this not working and what happens if in the end we can never have a family...ugh...just going to the darkest place imaginable.

And THEN, I have been having a terrible time working. I'm just now getting to the end of Monday's "TO DO" list on Tuesday afternoon. One of the things I do for work is put together websites, and we have a big presentation tomorrow and a website that doesn't have a headline...I called my Art Director (who's also a close friend) in tears earlier, I was so frustrated with my inability to write anything remotely usable. She talked me off the ledge and sent me thinking in a different direction and I finally, finally got it done. And then my mom brought me lunch and listened to me talk about my fears and took me to the nursery to buy some flowers for my garden this summer. This is all after my husband had me crawl back in bed with him early this morning and held me while I cried.

So the point of this long, rambling post is: I am just barely holding on, and something like a genetic testing bill can totally send me over the edge. But there are people to pull me back. And what do you do but tell the people you need that you need them, and then just try to keep soldiering on?

XO

What If They Were Wrong?

I put away the baby sweater I was working on and started knitting this happy rainbow-y cotton cowl instead. Although it’s probably going to be too warm to wear it by the time I finish. Another little story about people being nice…my next door neighbor and I are in the same Saturday knitting group, and my colored thread was getting all tangled…she put aside what she was doing to help me untangle it and wrap it around cup warmers. Such a little gesture but so sweet and so nice.

All kinds of crazy thoughts going on in my mind this week (reference Tuesday’s post), and today it is: what if my new OB was wrong about the baby being dead? I mean, I know that’s not really a possibility, and it’s nothing personal with my new OB, because I trust her and don’t have any reason in the world to doubt her competence. It’s not about her, it’s just…what if there were a mistake? I felt this way when we went home after her telling us the baby had died. And I asked her right before they started drugging me for the D&C.

“There’s no way you could be wrong, is there?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “Unfortunately it’s a very clear diagnosis. There’s no question.”

So why do I have this nagging fear that with the D&C we killed a perfectly good baby by mistake? Is this the denial phase of grief or something? But it’s not really denial because I know the baby’s gone. Ugh, can all these crazy thoughts just go away? What’s going on with me?

Does Anything Good Come Out of All This?

My dad brought us daisies the day of the D&C...he brought me daisies when I was sick when I was little, so they have a really personal meaning. And my mom brought us this lovely little ceramic angel.

When my brother died, something a lot of people told me was you have to look for the good that came out of the situation. Like they would say, "If your brother hadn't died, you never would have met your husband," (which is a story for another post). I personally believe I would have met my husband anyway, but that's beside the point. Or they would say: "Think of how this has made you a stronger and more compassionate person." Well, I'm sorry, but nothing you gain is worth a person you love so much being killed at age 27. Nothing. Nothing made me madder than that comment.

And although I haven't heard that yet with the death of our unborn baby, I've been thinking about it a lot, for some reason. And while I'm still going to maintain that no good comes out of this situation, if I try to understand what the people who say this mean, I think it would be something like this:

People can be so kind, and you really don't always get to see that in day-to-day life. But you do see it when something bad happens. Like with my parents bringing us gifts last week and saying, "Let us know what you need, we're here for you." My friends listening to me cry and calling and texting to check up on me. My work and my husband's school making allowances for us. The kindness of the doctors and nurses the day we had the D&C. The love and support from everyone in blog-land. And back with what happened to my brother, all the people who helped the best they knew how--his best friends who moved in with me so I wouldn't have to live those first few months alone (my brother and I had lived together). My husband who I'd just met making sure I got the help that I needed. The 17-year-old who lived with me over the next year (another story for another blog post) helping me heal in his kind and gentle way. Etc.

Bad things remind me of the good in the world. Is it worth what you have to lose to find this out? No. But it is a nice thing to know.

PS. My brother seems to be sneaking into a lot of my posts lately. The anniversary of his death is next week, and right now he's pretty constantly on my mind...

Did My OB Take My Baby?

The "bleeding heart" blooming in my yard. Always makes me think of my brother who died...and now my baby, too.

So will you guys let me get all weird and metaphysical today? Just for this post, I promise...

As I wrote about a few weeks ago, my OB recently committed suicide. And my baby died at essentially the same time. And I'd just seen my OB and had an ultrasound and talked about the baby a few days before.

So here's what keeps running through my mind, and it's really upsetting me. What if when my OB left this world, she took my baby with her? I don't mean it like my OB did it intentionally, I don't think of it like that, I just think maybe there was a connection between her and my baby and if she couldn't stay, maybe my baby couldn't stay either. So if my OB hadn't taken her life, my baby would be OK.

Weird, I know. But the only time I've cried really hard about this (there's been lots and lots of kind of normal sobbing, but only one big freak-out)...anyway, the time I've gotten really, really upset about what's happened is when I've been thinking about this.

I sound like a crazy person today, but just had to put this out there.

Thanks for humoring me.

xo

"It Could Be Worse"

Got outside to work in our yard this weekend. Flowers blooming like crazy. It's good to get out...I've been so cooped up all winter. My mom was over the other day and said, "Wow, are you ever pale." Good to be out in the sunshine again.

My husband to me over the weekend: "How are you doing?" (A question we've been asking each other multiple times a day since we found out our baby had died.)

Me: "OK. You?"

Him: "OK." Pause. "It could be worse, you know."

Me: "What do you mean?"

Him: "If the scale of bad is 1 to 100, with 100 being the worst, I figure this is about an 80."

Me: "Yeah, it feels about like an 80 to me too." Pause. "What would be 100? You dying? Me dying?"

Him: "Anyone we love dying."

Still feeling pretty raw a week after everything went down. Dealing with a lot of money stuff today as bills for the pregnancy have started coming in (I have a high-deductable health insurance plan so we're paying the first few thousand out-of-pocket), and we've talked with the clinic about the price for an FET (expensive, not as much as IVF, but still a lot of money we weren't expecting to have to spend.)

Just trying to keep telling myself, "It could be worse."

FAQ Fridays: Missed Miscarriage: What Happened?

Q: What is a missed miscarriage?

A: It's where the baby dies, but your body doesn't recognize that that's happened so it doesn't expel the baby like with a "normal" miscarriage. Apparently, it's very rare.

Q: What happened with your pregnancy?

A: I had a positive beta on February 17, which rose nicely on February 19. I had an ultrasound where they saw the heartbeat and the baby measured right on track at 6 weeks 5 days (March 7) and another at 8 weeks 6 days (March 22). Went back to my OB at 11 weeks 5 days (April 11) and they told us the baby had died right after the last ultrasound, so somewhere in the 9^th week.

Q: Did you have any clue something was wrong?

A:  At 11 weeks 1 day (April 6) I had a tiny bit of bright red bleeding. My RE asked that my hormone levels be checked, and they were very low. They upped the medication and told me everything was fine, not to worry, there would be a lot of bleeding and cramping if something was wrong. My local OB said the same thing and that I didn’t need to be looked at…they’d just see me in a few days at my appointment. So with all that reassurance and the fact that I still felt so pregnant (nausea, exhaustion, etc.), I didn’t really worry. Maybe I knew though and was just trying to stay positive and not scare people around me (my husband, our families). I really wouldn’t let the thought that something might be wrong into my head.

Then on April 11, right before my appointment, I had my blood drawn and got the levels back. Still low, which made me really scared. And then my OB tried to find a heartbeat and couldn’t, and then looked on the ultrasound and told us.

Q: What did you do?

A: Went home and cried. Scheduled a D&C for the next day. Called my RE’s office, and they didn’t really have any explanation for what went wrong; neither did my OB. “These things happen,” is essentially what we’ve been told. 

Q: How was the D&C?

A: Awful, of course, but everyone was really kind, and it didn’t hurt other than getting the IV in. I don’t really remember it to be honest. After, my husband sat with me while I was monitored for about an hour, and when we got up to leave he hugged me and said, “We’ll never be in this room again.” It was such a sweet thing to say to me.

Mild cramping that day and the next. Pretty severe cramping that came in waves 2 days post-procedure. Feeling pretty OK today so far.

Q: How have you been since?

A: Beyond sad. Heartbroken. This is a really horrible thing to have to go through.

Q: Have you gone back to work?

A: I work at home, and have done a few hours here and there, but not much this week. Haven't been able to concentrate. My husband took the week off school.

Q: Were there a lot of people you had to tell?

A: Our parents knew we were expecting and are so sad as well, of course. We’d also told a handful of friends about the pregnancy, and they have all been really caring and loving and supportive about the miscarriage. One person where I work and my husband’s professors at school knew…they have all been wonderful, as well. We’ve gotten a ton of love and support this week, for which I am grateful. I’m also glad we didn’t tell more people than we did about the pregnancy so there aren’t a ton of people we have to explain this to. We were going to start spreading the news next week…so heartbroken we don’t get to do that.

Q: Do you know what’s next?

A: We’ll do a regroup with our RE, try to get a better understanding of what happened. We have frozen embryos--a fact that I am so, so, so, so grateful for--and we will do an FET as soon as they’ll let us…looking like July at this point. Pray that things work next time around.

Ugh, what an awful, awful week. So glad it’s almost over.

Miscarriage: Packing Up the Reminders

Just feeling wretched today. It’s three days after the miscarriage (or at least when we found out about it), and I’m trying to pack up the reminders, to put away anything baby-related. The ultrasound pictures are the hardest. The “congratulations you’re pregnant” bag my OB’s office gave me a couple weeks ago with formula samples, bottles, diaper rash cream samples, etc. The knitting book of baby clothes and what’s left of the baby sweater I was working on until my dog chewed it up. My list of what not to eat while pregnant. The baby name book. The list of baby stuff we wanted to start getting after the first trimester was over (which would have been next week) that my husband and I made at lunch on Monday, right before we went to our OB appointment and found out that our baby had died. The yellow-and-white baby blanket we received in the mail from my mother-in-law the same day. This sucks.

I’m feeling really sad today about the fact I’m not going to be pregnant this summer. And that we’re not going to have a baby in October…I was really excited about the fact that the due date was right around my dad and grandfather’s birthdays (they have the same birthday) and my mom’s birthday and my brother who died. It would have been so cool for the baby to share a birthday with one of them. We’re looking at a winter pregnancy and a spring baby now, assuming (and this is a big assumption) that all goes perfectly next time around.

And speaking of next time around, the fact that it might not work is killing me. The fact that there’s going to be no joy or hopefulness or excitement in the first trimester is so sad to me, that it’s just going to be this terrifying black tunnel we hope and pray we make it out of. I can’t imagine not getting pregnant. I can’t imagine getting pregnant and then 3 months of being scared every single day that my baby may be dead. And if I’m as sick as I was this time on top of it, ugh, it just sounds like the worst torture imaginable. I know I’ll probably feel better about everything in a couple of months. I don’t have to do it today. It’s going to be manageable and obviously, I’ll go through any sort of trauma I have to to be able to have a baby.

Just feeling really beat down and exhausted by this whole process today. But like I was saying yesterday, I know I just need to get through today, try not to worry about the future.

I am just so, so, so sad, and there’s no way to make the sadness go away. I just have to sit with it and it’s so very painful. I’m tired of being in pain. When is it going to be my turn to have happy things happen? I don’t expect my whole life to be happy, but there’s got to be some good things that get mixed in with the bad, right? There have got to be more happy days for me somewhere down the road. Or is life just going to continue to be one horrible thing I have to deal with after the other? I need a break from the bad, please, God. I need something good to happen. It’s been 8 years of one trauma after another in my life, and 5 years of month after month after month of heartbreak with this infertility thing. I feel like I’m reaching the end of what I can possibly bear.

Dealing With Miscarriage, Day By Day

First of all, thank you SO MUCH to everyone who's been reading and--especially--commenting. Your presence and support really mean so, so much to me right now as I deal with the awfulness that is this week.

Today's been OK. Tried to work, which went OK, although it wasn't the most productive day on record. I work at home, so my day went something like this:

Answer emails and voicemails.

Go lie down in bed with my husband and cry.

Get everything in order for a regulatory review.

Talk with a friend who's called and cry.

Get on a conference call.

Go downstairs and sit with my husband and cry.

Etc.

My husband's in school, and they've been so nice to him...told him to take the rest of the week off. I'm probably not going to work much more this week either.

I slept through the night last night maybe for the first time since I started the IVF meds back in December. Yay for small victories! And physically I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. I've been trying not to complain, but really, I've spent a good part of the past two months in bed dealing with a LOT of nausea and exhaustion. Today I'm up and alert and don't feel sick (although there's some residual cramping from the D&C, but it's minor). I forgot what it's like to feel like this...didn't realize what a fog I was in with this pregnancy.

Overall, today's been better than yesterday, which is all you can really hope for. I'm so glad my husband and I have such light schedules between now and Monday, and can really spend some time together. I just want to be with him. Having him with me and knowing how much he loves me and how he wants to try for another baby as soon as we can (and we have frozen embryos from this last IVF--I can't even begin to tell you how grateful I am for that) is what's saving me right now. That and not thinking beyond today. My mantra has been:

"Just get through today."

Thinking about what's next and pregnant again and maybe more losses and what if this never happens for us what are we going to do then is just way too overwhelming.

But I'm going to make it through today.

D&C Today

Wow, I don't even know where to begin with the last 24 hours.

First of all, did not sleep a wink last night, just could not stop picturing my OB trying to get a heartbeat and failing, and then doing an ultrasound and saying, "I'm sorry, it's not good."

I can't get it out of my head that my OB might have been wrong, although I know that's just wishful thinking.

I don't understand how I could have had a dead baby inside me for 2 or 3 weeks and not have known.

I haven't really cried hard, it's more like I just start oozing tears for no reason. This has happened like 20 times today. I remember this happening in the days after my brother died, too, although that was mixed in with screaming crying fits, which isn't happening right now, mostly because I've got to hold it together for my husband, who's hurting as much or more than me.

Had the D&C today, which was pretty easy considering, except for the fact they had to try five or six times to get an IV in...I was cold and scared and shaking, crying and just generally a mess. But once that was done they gave me enough painkillers I don't really remember the rest and now I'm home resting and the discomfort is minimal.

My husband has been wonderful. He's so sad...breaks my heart. 

Friends and family have been wonderful.

I got to eat eggs over easy this morning, which I've really, really missed (no half-cooked eggs while you're pregnant).

I called in sick to work today but am going to try and work tomorrow.

Tylenol PM picked up at the drugstore a few hours ago is my plan to get some sleep tonight...hope it works.

And bottom line...God, we are just so incredibly sad. My heart is just broken. I can't believe we've got to go through more of this infertility crap before we end up with a baby (right now I just have to assume we're going to end up with a baby at the end of all this...otherwise I just can't function).

Why why why why why why why????

11 Week 5 Day Ultrasound: It’s Over

My worst fear in being pregnant has been a missed miscarriage, which is where you’ve lost the baby but don’t know it. I haven’t talked about it, because in a weird way I thought doing so might make it happen.

Well, it’s happened anyway.

No heartbeat today at our OB appointment, and our baby hasn’t grown much beyond the 8 week ultrasound we had where everything was totally fine.

I had some scary stuff happen last week (which I’ll talk about at some point), but before that nothing, and after that I convinced myself that everything was going to be OK because I still felt so pregnant. My fertility clinic now says the placenta’s still in there making hormones, which explains why I’ve still felt like everything was going along as planned.

D&C tomorrow.

We are pretty much just numb at this point.

Ugh.

Oh, and PS, yesterday our dog Newton chewed the baby sweater I was knitting to shreds…the needle that was in the knitting is now in 10 pieces. My husband and I have been joking that the dog was trying to let us know.

And PPS, I can’t believe I missed the entire snowboarding season for nothing. My brother said he’ll meet me, though, if something (A Basin?) is still open once I’m recovered from the D&C. Bless him.

We’ll be doing a frozen transfer as soon as we can. Need to be nice to ourselves in the meantime.

Oh, and I know this post sounds kind of flippant and devoid of emotion…the shock and grief and anger are coming, I’m sure. Right now I just can’t believe this is happening.

A Day Full of Emotion

Bianca, the Jeep that I've had for 9 years. Decals, top to bottom: San Francisco Russian Hill parking permit, Channel Islands Surfboards sticker, my Santa Cruz parking permit for when I was down there surfing all the time. Hope you find a happy new home, Bianca!

Wow. A little too much for a girl to handle in one day. (Especially a morning sick one on the verge of throwing up all day.)

First, my OB. I had my first "real" OB appointment scheduled for today (vs my checks for the IVF clinic). This should be a happy, exciting appointment, but my OB died a few days ago, and are there ever a lot of tears in that office. My OB's nurse, who I absolutely adore, walked into the waiting room at the same time I did and we hugged and both started crying...this is before even checking in. This nurse is probably the work person most affected by what's happened--certainly the one whose day-to-day life is most disrupted. I feel terrible for her. And I'm sad because she's not going to be able to be my nurse anymore, as I'll be transitioned to another doctor in the practice. I love her and really wanted her to be with me through all the baby stuff, after helping so much with all the infertility stuff over the years. Emotional morning.

Then, OMG, we bought a new car! Big enough for a baby or two! Which is awesome! Yay!

BUT, I had to trade in my little Jeep Wrangler...I loved that car so much, I bought that car back when I was surfing every day and it's been up and down the California coast a zillion times, plus surf trips to Baja, and back and forth to Colorado. And my dad taught me how to 4-wheel in that Jeep, and not wimpy girl stuff either. Plus trips to Moab, and up and down the mountain to snowboard...I've got so many, many great memories in that car.

I almost started crying at the dealership. Why do people (or anyway, me) get so attached to cars? 

"You don't feel this way about your computer, do you?" my husband asked.

"No, not at all," I said.

"Think of it this way," my husband said. "Your Jeep's expanding with your waistline" (we got a new, bigger Jeep.)

Which made me laugh.

We're going to make lots of happy memories in this new Jeep, too. :)

Lullaby Playlist

Anyone who's actually been to Graceland has to have Elvis on their baby's playlist, right? This is a close-up of the stained glass in Elvis' living room. My dad and I went to Graceland last summer--had a blast.

So my husband said the other day that he read somewhere that if you play music or sing songs to the baby before it's born, when it hears the same music after it's born it'll be soothed by it. 

"The baby can hear by Week 8," he said. "Maybe we should make a playlist," which has by now evolved into separate playlists because what he wants to play for/sing to the baby is different from me. (Although he's got some good ideas. "Journey, Don't Stop Believing," he says. I can respect that.)

This weekend, I made my lullaby playlist (which my husband says is too hippie chick, lol). I love making playlists. I tend to make one every three or four months, and listen to it pretty much exclusively. Then that music is so embedded in that particular time and place in my life...it's really interesting how music so quickly takes me back.

Anyway, I wanted to use music I already had (so no buying new songs). Below, the annotated list, in order of the year the original version of the song was released:

• Over the Rainbow, Willie Nelson (1939)--this song so reminds me of my childhood
• Young at Heart, Frank Sinatra (1953)--we listened to a lot of Frank Sinatra when I lived in Seattle right after college
• Love Is Here to Stay, Ella Fitzgerald (1956)--from my brother Luke's music collection
• (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear, Elvis Presley (1957)--Elvis reminds me of my grandpa. Love him. Miss him
• Blackbird, The Beatles (1968)--God, I love the Beatles. I used to play this song on my guitar in the months after my brother died
• Your Song, Elton John (1970)--I'm sure I heard Elton John growing up, but what his music really reminds me of is college
• Rocky Mountain High, John Denver (1972)--my mom was a huge John Denver fan. I can sing entire albums start to finish. And every kid born in Colorado needs this on his/her playlist
• The Rainbow Connection,The Carpenters (1979)--again, a song from my childhood
• Old Pictures, The Judds (1987)--the Judds remind me of my dad for some reason, this song especially
• If I had a Boat, Lyle Lovett (1987)--I've always thought of this as a cute song for kids
• Take Me to a Place, Little Sister (1994)--a kind of obscure Austin, Texas band I saw live about a million times when I lived down there after Seattle. This might be my favorite song on the list
• Wonder, Natalie Merchant (1995)--these next three songs remind me of living in San Francisco, putting music on the stereo and going for a drive
• Heaven's Here on Earth, Tracy Chapman (1995)
• Dance With the Angels, Lisa Loeb (1997)
• Starfish, Sister Hazel (1997)--again, a song I've always thought of as a cute little kid's song
• How Do You Fall in Love, Alabama (1998)--so the baby will know how much his Mommy and Daddy love each other
• Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key, Billy Bragg and Wilco (1998)--this is such a great album...reminds me of driving to Burning Man with my lovely friend Chris the first year we both went
• Life Uncommon, Jewel (1998)--more songs that remind me of San Francisco...mixed in with driving to Santa Barbara to surf with my brother Luke, and then moving down there to live with him...
• The Lucky One, Alison Krauss (2001)
• Godspeed (Sweet Dreams), Dixie Chicks (2002)
• Nightingale, Norah Jones (2002)
• Blessed to be a Witness, Ben Harper (2003)
• Love Is Everywhere, Bob Schneider (2004)--another Austin musician I adore
• Wildflower, Sheryl Crow (2005)--this was on my iPOD on a long bus ride in Chile, down with a girlfriend of mine a few months after my brother Luke died. I sat in the back corner of the bus and sobbed. What an amazing trip that was, but I was just a wreck at the time
• Upside Down, Jack Johnson (2006)--A happy little Santa Barbara song...this reminds me so much of the 17-year-old who came to live with me after my brother died (long story for another time)
• Come Alive, Foo Fighters (2007)--oh, how I love the Foo Fighters. Need to see if there's an acoustic version of this song...might work a little better for lullaby purposes
• Umbrella, Rihanna (2007)--I wanted to have this be the song at our wedding (but we ended up having a really simple wedding where we didn't do that kind of thing). I love its message about standing together and helping each other through things
• Stars 4-Ever, Robyn (2010)--my best friend recommended this album to me...it makes me think of her...
• We Are Hot Dogs, Danielle Ate the Sandwich (2010)--again, a silly little kid's song is what I thought when I first heard this. And I love the refrain: "And I can't recall a feeling better than this."

Photo Credit: Growl Roar.

The Last Thing You Expect to Hear When You Call Your OB's Office

Me: "Hi, I'm a patient of Dr. Smith's*. I was wondering if I could reschedule my ultrasound appointment so that my husband can come with me...he really wants to be there."

Receptionist: "No problem rescheduling. But I should tell you--Dr. Smith died over the weekend."

I've been going to my doctor for years (she's also been my gynecologist). I saw her last week. She's young--not that much older than me. They won't tell me what happened, but I know it must have been something bad. I feel so terrible for her family and friends and co-workers. I am totally freaked out by this. Life is so very fragile and could end at any time for anyone. I already know this--I don't need to be reminded.

Some people see death as a normal part of life, and I guess when people who are older and have lived a full life die--like my grandparents, for instance--I'm sad, but it doesn't make the world feel like a horrible and scary place. But when someone young dies, I don't know...it just feels so wrong. 

This is part of my personality, too...I've talked about this here before...that when something happens to other people, I don't really see it as having nothing to do with me; instead I put myself in the shoes of the person who died. Did it hurt? Were they scared? Did they know? Was someone with them? (I have this awful fear of dying alone.) And I put myself in the shoes of the people who loved them--I know what that's like from first-hand experience. And my mind goes back to that April day, in the hospital in some cramped ER doctor's office with him telling me that my brother, who I just said "bye, love you," to that morning and had tons of plans with that evening is dead and I have to call my parents and tell them...

Ugh. April is going to be hard, I can already feel all the horrors of that situation bubbling to the surface. On the other hand, I can't let it be hard, because I can't let myself get too upset--I know that can't be good for the baby.

Tough day today.

*Names have been changed.

Dreams of the Dead, and Is a Baby Going to Help This Situation?

I've written a little here about my brother's death, but not much. Mostly because the pain of it is still so close to the surface, even almost six years after the fact. (Kind of an unusual situation: we were living together/spending all our time together when he died.) My guess is I'll be writing a bit more about him over the the next month or so...his death was in April and this time of year that's where my thoughts seem to go.

I've had two dreams about my brother since he died--one many years ago, one last night. In both dreams, he was dead. The first one I don't even want to go into...the one last night he and my other brother, who is still alive, died by 4-wheeling way out into the desert where no one could find them, freezing to death (my brother who died actually died in a motorcycle accident).

Lots of people I know dream about my dead brother, and in their dreams, he is alive. My best friend had the following exchange with my brother in a dream:

Friend to brother: "Luke! Why don't you go visit your sister!" (My friend--his friend first--always used to boss him around; he loved it.)

Brother: "Nah, she's too sad."

I wonder if when I truly start to feel better if my brother will come to me in dreams. I really am doing so much better...the first few years after his death I was totally paralyzed...I'm not so much that way anymore...but the pain's still there and it's still very raw.

And I wonder: is this baby we're expecting going to help heal me? Will life and rebirth and joy in my life for once crowd out some of the death and isolation and grief?

Will I ever be healed enough to dream of Luke alive? I pray that will be the case.

Fear of Loss

So I watched a documentary called Exit Through the Gift Shop over the weekend. Great movie. (I love documentaries, especially when they involve creative people as subjects.) It's about a guy who spent years filming street artists, and actually before the street artists, spent years filming everything (family especially), went everywhere with his camera. 

One of the questions raised in this movie was, what was this guy's obsession with filming? It's revealed halfway through that his mother died when he was 11, and he hadn't even been aware she was sick, so her death came as a total surprise/shock. And now he's got this compulsion to document everything--because he knows from experience that at any moment without any warning life as he knows it could end.

I keep thinking about this guy and what he lived through and how he responded to it. Poor thing--I can't even imagine losing your mother at age 11. But I do know about suddenly losing someone incredibly important to you, whose day-to-day life is woven into the fabric of yours. And since that loss (my brother, nearly 6 years ago now), I can't do a thing without having the thought that this might be the last time everything is OK. Tragedy could strike at any minute. Must make an indelible record of this time as it could end so suddenly, so easily. I don't film, but I write things down, and save voice mails, and take pictures. And there's never a time I talk to or see someone I love that I don't think maybe this is the last time ever, and what can I do to fix this moment in my mind just in case that's true?

Probably not too healthy an approach to life. But the guy in this movie, he made me feel like I'm not quite so crazy--and not quite so alone.

Transitioning From Being an Infertility Patient to Being Pregnant

I so want to decorate a nursery already...

This is a big shift for me. Some of the stuff that's on my mind today:

• Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting for my clinic to call with my second beta result, for which I had blood drawn this morning. A good result means I'm pretty solidly pregnant. A bad one means I'm probably miscarrying. There's no reason to think it'll be bad, except that things have gone wrong over and over and over again...it's hard to have faith that everything is going right
• Laying down for an hour or two in the afternoons...lovely. How much am I loving my work-from-home job right now? Haven't been sleeping well, so really need that rest. Plus, who knows what my body's doing/needing at the moment, aside from the insomnia?
• All the restrictions I was hating during the two week wait (no yoga, no hikes, no wine, no tea, no snowboarding, no baths, etc., etc., etc.) are no big deal if there's a reason for them, like it's good for an actual baby/ies
• Feeling all of a sudden like being social again. I've really isolated myself, with this cycle in particular and this past year over all the cycles I've done in general...and really the not wanting to be around people much goes all the way back to when my brother died...it's been hard for me to do things feeling like tragedy has changed me in a way that sets me apart from the world. It's a good sign I want to call and see people...that's not a place I've been for a while
• Speaking of my brother, it's progress in me getting over his death that my first thought after finding out I was pregnant was not about him. It was about my husband and our parents and a few close friends and my brother who is alive who is awesome...it's only when I called my alive brother that I got sad thinking I couldn't call my dead brother. But this is big for me...even my wedding two years ago...it ended up being an incredibly happy day, but I was hesitant to get married because my dead brother couldn't be there (my hesitation had NOTHING to do with my husband...he is wonderful), and the whole day was planned around making it so it would be OK if I lost it (very small, reception at our home, etc.) That feeling of not wanting to do something because my dead brother can't be a part of it--it's not here with this. Which is as is should be. I have to let my dead brother go, or I'm not going to ever have any chance of being happy
• I know a lot about what to do with infertility, almost nothing about being pregnant. Some baby books or some such may be in order
• My husband has already picked out boy and girl names. Too cute
• Overall, there is such a feeling of lightness that's coming along with all this...like I don't have to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders anymore
• I promised myself no matter how sick/uncomfortable I am during this pregnancy, I'm not going to complain. Not one word. (Well, I might talk about some things on this blog, but not one negative word to my husband. I'm just so incredibly grateful to be in this position)
• Pretty much all I want to eat right now is bean burritos
• Still waiting, waiting, waiting for that call from the clinic. It's 5:30 PM...geeze. My clinic's great but this is ridiculous...

Photo credit: Conor Keller.