Baby bumps and wedding blues

My good friend was blissfully and happily married on Saturday evening. And since this is all about me, I can share that I was reminded of an important life lesson. More wine will not lift your spirits if you are fighting the non baby blues. It just gives you a killer of a headache the next day. 

Of course the wedding was wonderful and my friend was truly beautiful in her classic white gown and veil. Early in the reception I made small talk with dear friends and new acquaintances. Unless someone asked me how I was doing — I mean really asked — I was fine. Friendly. Smiley. And looking pretty good. I sailed through a couple of potentially emotional hiccups. Like, talking to my friend about her baby of four months and sympathizing on how tough it can be. I even invited her and her daughter over next week during my day off. Like casually responding to “so do you have kids?”

Dinner came and M and I squeezed into the last seats at our assigned table and I sat beside my very good friend who is four months pregnant and her husband. Ok, feeling a little bit tougher. I drink wine because I can and talked with my glowing, happy mom-to-be friend. She is wearing an empire waist dress and it’s hard to tell if she has a baby bump or a too-many–treats bump. We talked about the house they just bought, work, health, our friends, even our pets. Not a whole lot about her pregnancy — I know she was trying to be sensitive. Her husband…not so much. There were a few times when his actions shot a little pain in my heart. Like when he rubbed her tummy. And this one:

She: Will you please get me a soda water, honey?

He: Of course, because you are having my baby.

Ow, ow, ow, ow (and a little bit of gag me). So she drank soda water and I drank more wine, convinced the alcohol would give me the happy buzz if I just had enough. I realized that the twingeworthy moments were not about my loss, but about my husband and how my miscarriages and infertility are preventing him from creating the family he longs for too. My friend’s husband is so happy. His wife, his love, is having his baby and fulfilling his dream of a family and being a dad. The fact that I have not been able to give M the same kills me.

The next day, post the greasy breakfast, rehydrating gatorade and nap, I talked about this to my husband. Well, half talked and half blubbered. I feel like I am letting him down and if I am not able to give him what he wants then he should find someone who should. He’s so damn loyal I don’t worry about this too much, but I do a bit especially after hearing a couple of horror stories. And should I not let him go if I love him so he can at least be a fulfilled family man? Round and round my brain goes. 

M said he knows I am trying, we both are. Failing him would have been if I decided after we got married that I didn’t want to have kids. Now, I am trying, we both are. And we will continue to be. 

After miscarriage 1 I was consulting with one of the fertility doctors at the clinic — one I don’t normally see. We were talking about trying for another pregnancy and I told her that the infertility issues were mine and that my husband had the boys that could swim. “This is my problem, not his” I said. She looked at me sternly. “We don’t talk that way here,” she said. 

I remember her saying it…I wish I was better at feeling and living it.

When your friends are pregnant and you’re not

One of the hardest things about not knowing if you are ever going to have a baby, is trying to be unselfishly happy for friends who, in a snap, SNAP got pregnant.

The first time I was pregnant, a good friend of mine was also pregnant and a month further along than me. She did it the natural way and it happened the first month they really tried. Just the way it is supposed, huh? When I had the first miscarriage she was the only one of my friends who did not immediately call or write. Look, I know her and avoidance is way of coping. Kind of like Marge Simpson, she puts a smile on her face even when she is completely uncomfortable and upset. It got a little better between us as her pregnancy progressed and I did the right things (generally from a distance — mail and email are helpful tools that way) when her daughter was born.

Tomorrow night I will see a very good friend of mine who also lucked out with a pregnancy. She actually was unknowingly about three weeks or so when she got married in late May. So probably very close to the time her pregnancy began, my second pregnancy was ending the same devestating way as the first. Now she will just about be showing a baby bump.

She told me via email in July. A few of our friends were together the night before and she shared her early good news with some trepidation (she was 9 weeks along after all) and lots of hope and excitement. It was well placed as she has sailed through the first trimester.

It may seem strange she sent it by email. Not very personal. But she knows me and as she said in the email, she wanted me to process and absorb this on my own time. I can’t fault that — although the timing sucked. Not a good way to start the work day especially right before a meeting.

Like before, I know this is hurting or at least interrupting our friendship. My happiness for her is tempered by my own sadness. Any excitement I might feel is tainted by my own anger. Why did she get pregnant right away when I need to cope and deal with infertility, drugs and needles? Why has it been so smooth for her when I had my heart wrenched, not once but twice by miscarriage? Why can’t I be a mom?

I asked my husband the other week if he felt like we were being punished. I know that I am a generally decent person. I try to do good and be good on a regular basis. So why is this happening to us when we want to be parents so bad? Logically, I know karma or some sick deity are not out to get me. At the same end, I also know there is at least a sliver of me deep inside that feels like I must have done something horribly wrong and this is my punishment.

And now, to make things even tougher, my good friend is going through a wonderful exciting time and I can not be there to feel pure joy and support for her. It will drive a wedge — and that means another important part of my life is on hold, crumpled. 

I would like to be the brave, selfless friend who puts aside her own hurts and pain to embrace fully the happiness of others. I hope to be in that emotional place someday. But I can not be there now. It is too soon and I am in this weird netherland where I don’t know if I will be able to have baby. Or if I never will.

Babies can change everything, right? I have heard — first hand and otherwise– that it’s hard for a mom to relate to her non parent friends. Her life revolves around this bright shiny being. What if you feel like a parent deep in your heart? What makes a mom? Someone who has hoped all of her life for a baby? Someone who went through tests and expensive drugs and miscarriages just to have one? Someone who felt twinges, puked if she didn’t eat breakfast and her body change as the new embryo, new life took hold? 

I don’t have baby to hold or care for. Technically and on every logical count I am not a mom. Outside nothing has changed. Inside everything has.

From bitter to better…how did that happen?

Just to add some variety to my ole life, last week’s depression has see-sawed to feeling just about all right. Where exactly was this switch that I inadvertently flipped from sad to good and how can I ensure I find it the right time I feel like I am shuffling along in the dark? 

I would like to attribute this to hormones. But honestly, given my irregular cycles, I can not track what my body is doing from one week to the next. After I went off the pill two years and we started to TTC I used to think my breasts were telling me something. They were sore…maybe I am pregnant (yay!) or my period was about to start. But this suretell hormonal sign seemed to pop up all over the place with no real pattern. Except both times when I was pregnant. Then they were emphatically sore and for good reason. 

So cross off hormones. Last week I felt I was putting on the mask and acting a role. The professional work face to match my suit. See me trying to entertain friends and act normal at dinner. The (sometimes) happy homemaker hanging out with my husband. Now, I have a sense of humour again. No tears, no moping, no facade.

Some of this emotional flip came from a conversation I had with a coworker, who recently decided to pursue being a mother. She just turned 39 and just had a very early miscarriage. She was only in the know about being pregnant for one day after taking the test when her period was a few days late. Even in that day, she and her husband (who was not convinced until that moment about the whole-having-the-baby thing) were excited, hopeful and emotionally attached. It won’t be easy for her to get pregnant and to stay that way. Doctors have told her this in the past. Despite this fleeting feeling of becoming a parent, her medical challenges and her age, she is hopeful that it is gonna happen. She is going to have a baby. How can I not feel better and be inspired by an attitude like that?

Paint it white

Maybe it is the fumes from painting the kitchen cabinets a nice bright white today or the sun finally peeking out after almost two days of rain, but I feel hopeful today. 

I have been thinking about August 28. That is when we go to back to the doctor’s for the results of some recurrent miscarriage tests. I also want to get a prescription for Provera to induce my period. It will be at that point more than a month since the first and only period after miscarriage 2. And given it could take months for nature to take its course that means I need the period kickstart so that we can start (deep breath) to try again. 

On August 28 we will not have the karotyping back yet. We will have the blood test results for autoimmune issues and blood clotting issues, thyroid and maybe a few other things. And I know the tubes and uterus look ok, no wonky shapes or blockages, thanks to the infertility testing. So this should cover most of the most common causes of recurrent miscarriages with just a few laggards left.  I don’t feel like waiting any longer after to try again. Otherwise I will just be spin, spinning my wheels while the eggs are not getting any younger!

It’s funny (and a sign that I am feeling better if I think this is funny) but if I do have an issue that is triggering the miscarriages, a blood clotting disorder feels like one of the best options out of a sucky situation. I mean, aspirin and even daily injections while I am pregnant are well worth having a baby at the end of it. And it is a tangible diagnosis with a treatment that does improve our odds. And it seems to fit our two miscarriage scenarios…established heartbeat followed later by slow embryo growth rate and a heart that just stops beating. 

I have read (and the dr told us) that half of the time they never find a cause. And in my especially hopeful moments I think that maybe there is no cause to find. 

So we had better continue to paint the ugly old melamine cabinet doors white. And tackle painting the deck with, no doubt, even more toxic. obnoxious fumes. Because maybe in a month or two we will back to being pregnant I will have to put that paint brush down.

How deep is your love? (the grief edition)

I continue to mentally rewind the powerful essay by Elizabeth McCracken in O magazine. And it has me thinking about quantifying grief. 

She went through birth of a stillborn son. Now she has another son. I am struggling to deal with infertility (somewhat now wrestled to the ground), two miscarriages and a horrible feeling that I may never have a baby. Losing a child at full term sounds like an unbearable tragedy. Does mine compare? Do I have a right to hold as much grief and sorrow as I do? It’s not about a grief pissing match; who loved or suffered more? No, I think I continue to look for permission to feel as strongly and deeply as I do. 

Society tells you can grieve about the loss of a child, a sibling and parent. Of course many are wrecked and torn with grief. No one expects they will put on a happy face or turn up at all social events. It’s acceptable to spend time at home, curled up with your memories.

I have never lost a parent or sibling. My life until this point has been fairly blessed, long lasting grief and its sister sorrow are new emotions for me. I can not compare one experience with another; I don’t have that emotional barometer. 

What is the appropriate response to losing your baby — an embryo really– before the first trimester ends? He or she never took a breath, kicked or grew much beyond a collection of forming cells. And yet I do grieve and sometimes it feels endless.

Am I over- reacting? Should I just be grateful that a loved one in the here and now has not left my life instead of a someone who never got to be? Does the formula for grief say pain is magnified if you have two miscarriages instead of one? Does it rise expotenially when infertility is thrown in the mix? And then how does a decay in baby hopes tie in? 

Recently I was at a close friend’s bridal shower. We each took turns telling stories about this bride-to-be and how she made our lives better. Some were funny, many were bittersweet. My friend knows grief, sorrow, depression. She lost a brother and father in the last 10 years. 

Another friend who lost her mother just two years ago, talked about what a comfort this bride had been. She spoke her language of grief. They talked often. She recalled asking the bride once achingly: will it get better?

I ask the same question. Do I have a right to?

Let the recurrent miscarriage testing begin!

July 31. My appointment with my doctor to talk about recurrent miscarriage testing. I have been waiting for this day since I made the appointment five weeks ago (when July 31 seemed like an agonizing eternity. I wanted to know now!). 

But don’t believe the hype. We walked out of the clinic with not much more knowledge or optimism. When my husband and I left I felt confused, tired, frustrated and sad. Again, with the tears flowing as we got into the car and headed to my work. I could cry for a few seconds in front of him or at the folks at work. A somewhat easy choice. 

First, the waiting room. It was still cycle monitoring time, a completely new concept to me a year ago. Dozens of women on their own, with husbands or with their female partners waiting for the role call: blood tests, ultrasound and chat with the doctor. I didn’t mind the waiting — i have done it many times before. This time, and this may completely be my projection, the longing in the room felt palpable and powerful. Each women and each men was striving for the same thing; something so easy and natural to others; yet puzzlingly and painfully hard for us. They want a baby. First timers at the clinic. Couples taking the fertility step of IVF. And no doubt others like us who have come heartbreakingly close to have to start all other again. 

My doctor is a good one. Funny, empathetic. Busy and technical too though like others. She grabs my file and reads it on the fly, refreshing on my fertility history. I am a suit with a work life filled with meetings with time to prepare whether it is in depth or a quick scan. She holds medical decisions in her hands, steps that could determine our ability to be parents or not and yet she, as a doctor, has no time to review a file in advance. There are too many of us.

Quickly she ran through the potential causes and their corresponding tests. The sound of one (uterine biopsy) definitely had my legs tightly crossed. Lots of blood tests. Lots of medical words and a few X Files- sounding one (Protein S? Factor V? creepy). I have a headstart at least. I got the HSG or whatever the one-where-they-shoot-dye-in-your-tubes- to- see- if -they -are- blocked and a few other much less painful ones when they did the infertility testing last year. Oh my god, that one hurt. It felt like my tubes were bucking like a rodeo bull in protest. Today, it was quick discussion with the dr. Much more to come, I hope, with the results.

One question threw me for a loop and later in the car with my husband, I wondered if I made the right choice. I asked him to go through the very sound reasons why he and I made the right choice. My period started Saturday — she wanted to know if we wanted to start another cycle, start to try again, right at that very minute…What? I thought it would be too late for this cycle. I went with my instincts which told me, almost screamed at me, you are not ready yet. You can not go through the ups and downs without some mental cheerleading going on first (gimme a b…a…b..y). I wanted to be practical and first see if there was something we could fix or make better, and not go through this hell and pain again. She looked pleased and nodded. Some couples, she said, could not wait and wanted to try right away. 

Just minutes later my heart piped up. You are already obsessed, it said cheekily. Why not do something about it? Move these forward, try try to have that baby now. Maybe the two miscarriages were simply bad luck and badder luck. Is that way I felt dissatisfied? Or just one of the reasons? It’s not like she can read my palm and predict my fertility future. What magical medical advice was I expecting?

Now my parts will be probed, a piece of my uterus snipped. Blood taken, our karotypes analyzed. I am a collection of parts. Some of them used to be private, but are now getting used to being displayed on cool long metal tables, covered in sterile paper. Anonymous and capable people in labs across the city will test our parts and compile reports. 

I don’t want to be a collection of parts (mini temper tantrum in my head). Trying to have a baby is supposed to be fun, right? nudge nudge. Have lots of sex for a month, maybe two, maybe three and then you’re doing a happy dance with a positive pregnancy test in your hands. This is not fun. Trying is not fun. Sex, ok that can be fun. But not like this.

A month from now we will meet with the doctor again. She will try to take all the data on these parts and paint our roadmap. About fertility, miscarriage but also our life, our fortune. She said they only find a cause in 50% of the cases; the rest remain a mystery. Nonetheless, I will want to try again in the fall. We have gone through 4 cycles; and got pregnant twice. We are pros (with medical assistance) with this. Maybe by end of August she will have an answer for us. All the poked, probed and bled dry parts will be a faint, uncomfortable memory if we can have our baby in the future.