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My story has a happy ending. My journal does not.
I was in my thirties when my husband and I finally decided we were ready to try to start a family. Well, he was finally ready - I'd been ready since I was born, it felt like. Anyway, like most couples, we got naked and believed it was going to happen like we were warned about, then feared and now wanted... easy and intoxicated :)
It didn't. I don't know if I was really that surprised. For whatever reason, I needed two hands at the time to count personal, real life friends who were pursuing some sort of reproductive assistance. So I guess I didn't feel all that bad. A little disappointed, yes, but I never felt hopeless. Truthfully it never really mattered to me HOW I got pregnant.... just that I DID get pregnant.
The naivety of it all was that I just kept thinking about getting pregnant. It never occurred to me that getting pregnant would be the least of my worries.
Its my nature to attack things I want head on. So I went about getting pregnant as if it were my job. From day one, I was charting and using opk's and that expensive fertility monitor. Sex immediately lost all its spark and excitement- and this was before we even knew we had problems. I couldn't understand why we couldn't just get pregnant. After 8 months.... we did. For two days. Then the line got lighter, not darker, on the test and then it went away. My doctor told me my HCG was 6 when we did a blood test and told me it was a chemical miscarriage. I remember falling apart and thinking the world had come to and end. I'd been pregnant for two days..... I thought it was the worst day of my life. It was not.
For the most part, after I stopped crying, I was just pissed off and done with the old fashioned way of getting pregnant. I was convinced something was wrong so I went to my doctor. Like any OB, he gave me the standard (it takes time and the average couple blah blah blah line.) Whatever dude, order the damned tests. Within a week we were doing sperm tests and tube tests and water sono tests and all that good stuff. My sono showed a uterine septum. Surgery removed it and we were off an running again. Doc recommended IUI's. I refused. I know the liklihood of an IUI working and I wanted a baby- not another month of waiting. But he told me I needed to do 3 iui's before he'd recommend IVF. So fine, that's what we did. What do you know...... they failed. Shocker:)
Since starting the IUI's, I had begun a journal. I wrote it in the form of letters to my future baby. Every entry began "Dear Baby" and I talked to him or her like she was already on the way. I told her about our family and her grandparents and cousins and explained how her father and I met. It was cathartic. After each failure, I just ended the entries with "Please hurry I can't wait on you much longer". After the IUI's were over, I was THRILLED to start IVF. Most people are sad they have to do IVF. I was not. I was so excited. I just knew in my heart that this was the way I was finally going to get my family. So off we went. We chose what I believe is one of the best doctors we could choose and we qualified for a shared risk program. He gave us great odds of pregnancy. We actually considered not doing shared risk and just buying one session because we believed it would work. We chose the shared risk anyway and purchased 3 fresh cycles.
IVF is expensive. But it never crossed my mind. I would've sold my kidneys. We are fortunate that we were able to afford this without too much sacrifice. I decided that this was what I'd spend on a car I might keep a few years..... my baby was certainly worth it. Anyway, moving on.
With our IVF cycle, we quickly learned that my ovaries don't respond very well to the medicines. Although I had plenty of follicles, we only retrieved 5 mature eggs. We decided on ICSI and only 4 fertilized. We transferred two embryo on Day 3. Then we prayed.
Holy Shit..... IT WORKED! My beta was 131. I will never forget that day. I DO NOT PEE ON STICKS. I waited on the blood test. So when that call came in, oh I can't tell you that feeling.
At 6.5 weeks, we were so blessed to see a strong heartbeat and a growing baby. The dreaming began. The planning. The hoping. My journal entries were taking more shape- you could tell I was almost seeing the baby's face as I wrote to him or her. Then, week 9 came around and we went for our second ultrasound. I could tell from the tech's face that something was wrong. Then she called the doctor. Everyone confirmed that there was no heartbeat. I don't even think I cried at the doctor's office. I remember just feeling black. Nothing. On the way home, my husband and I went to a bar. Then I went home and cried for 3 days.
The last entry in my journal simply says "Dear Baby, You Died. Please Come Back I Miss You."
My D&C was that weekend. To this day, THAT was the worst day of my life.
