3/30/2017 0 Comments A New ChapterWhere to start? I don’t really know. It’s hard to grieve the loss of someone you never knew. Someone you love more than anything, but you will never meet. It occurred to me that we’ve lost 3 babies in less than six months. What’s an appropriate time to grieve this kind of loss? What behaviors are appropriate? I have no idea. I don’t care what anyone says. Having an ectopic pregnancy and losing two embabies is the same pain as losing any naturally conceived pregnancy. Maybe it's even worse considering all the time, money, and physical and emotional energy spent creating those lives. Even though I wasn’t sure and didn’t really believe we were going to actually get pregnant, it doesn’t mean I didn’t want it. I wanted it more than anything. It doesn’t mean baby names hadn’t started floating around my mind again. Dreams of Matt kissing my growing belly … Feeling a life growing inside me...Dreams of redoing our spare room into a nursery. Dreams of being a family of 3 people and 3 cats. They were all there.
So to my unborn babies wherever you are… If you are… I am so sorry my body failed you. I will never say you weren’t meant to be in this world, because you were. You were meant to live and breathe and grow. I know in my heart you were meant to learn and read and experience the world. You were meant to be loved by your father and me. Your precious, perfect little ears were meant to discover the wonder of music and good lyric. You were meant to experience love and heartbreak and the comfort of a faithful cat (or dog…I wouldn’t have forced you to choose a side). You were meant to be rebellious or straight laced. I was meant to be your mother and you were meant to be whatever you were supposed to be and I’m so sorry I couldn’t do that for you. Just know that any time anyone ever says you “weren’t meant to be,” I will remind them that you were. It’s just that it didn’t work out that way and I’m so sorry for that. You were so precious to me and you always will be so important to me. If the world has taught your mother anything, it’s that things don’t happen for a reason and there is no good reason that your life had to end too soon. I keep reading articles and blogs about people who are grateful for their infertility experience. I’m not there yet. How does one get there? I could sure use a map. I also notice these women who write these kinds of stories have already had their miracle. Where are the blogs of angry, bitter, jealous women who wish they could somehow strangle infertility and watch it die? Well…here’s one. I wish I could somehow eradicate infertility. I wish infertility could be something that never exists for anyone. At this point, I kind of wish I had brain cancer because at least that can kill you if you don’t win your battle. Instead I’ll likely live a very, very long life. Although, I am at a much higher risk for ovarian cancer now thanks to my diagnosis. That kind of really sucks. I feel like you should only have to have one thing. Infertility or cancer. Why both? Thanks universe. Also, I hate that people who have cancer first also usually wind up unable to have children. It just seems too cruel. This may seem like a ridiculous comparison but there have been studies to show that an infertility diagnosis is just as devastating as a cancer diagnosis. I absolutely believe those numbers. They’re both extremely personal illnesses that require a lot of time off work and significant amounts of money. The treatments wreak havoc on your bodies (although I am well aware chemo/radiation is far worse than progesterone or Lupron). But if I had to choose…I would choose to have had a healthy baby and then brain cancer. Instead, I’m getting no baby, early menopause, and probably cancer anyway. Great. Thanks body. Knowing the number of people with breast cancer in my family, I’ll likely have that too. Full disclosure. I have a very small will to live at this point in our journey. Right now, I feel like I’ll never be excited by anything. I honestly don’t know what happiness would look like in my life--especially without a baby. But, after carefully considering just about every conceivable way one could kill themselves, I discovered I’m not particularly fond of that option either. This may seem like an overreaction or silly or self-ish or whatever you want to label it. But, unless you’ve been down this road you have no understanding of how awful it is. I saw the term “agonizingly lonely” used to describe infertility. That term almost describes the hell of this journey. Even that doesn’t quite seem to capture how debilitating this is. I don’t think there is any possible way for someone to imagine this journey. The constant up and down of emotions. Living on hope from month to month. Believe me, hope was not meant to be lived off of. If I could have it my way, I’d like to be in a medically induced coma until things feel better. But, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. I have to figure out how to live in the hell of my current reality and make the most of it. I should probably just focus on the living part for now. I am beyond thankful I found an extremely skilled therapist when I did. I’m not sure I could get through this without that support along with the support of my husband and friends. So, now I have to figure out a way to pick up and rebuild. Let go of the dream of seeing myself in someone. I’m so thankful we have the opportunity to attempt egg donation. Science is truly amazing. I’ve been in close contact with our new clinic. I must say I’m incredibly impressed with how quickly they respond and the quality of the answers/support I’ve received so far. Yesterday morning, I received word that our first choice of egg donor agreed to cycle right away. We aren’t officially matched until her blood work comes back good and our contract is signed and our deposit is paid. But for now, she’s gearing up for all of her blood work to make sure everything looks A-Okay. This process takes about two weeks. If everything checks out, then she will start her stimming medications after she has her next cycle. When her eggs are ready, then she will have her eggs retrieved. Matt’s sperm will be used to fertilize the eggs and then on day 5/6 they will freeze however many embryos make it. The cool thing about this clinic is they guarantee six eggs. If we don’t get six eggs we either get reimbursed or we can have some other frozen eggs from another donor to make up the difference. I have learned this week you can actually mail in sperm. WHO KNEW THIS?! I will always look at Fed Ex trucks in a new light. For about $350 we can overnight Matt’s sperm in some kind of fancy box. When they receive it they will freeze several vials to use. This is amazing because now we only have to make the trip to Syracuse once (hopefully). IF things stay on track (but we all know they don’t—especially in the land of infertility), I will have an embryo transfer in June. Which to me seems like a really far away date. But the frozen embryo transfers “only” cost $9,000 (plus the unknown cost of medications) and if we did a fresh transfer that would cost us $12,000 plus the cost of medications. Apparently the statistics aren’t as bad as they seem online. For whatever reason they don’t have their new stats on their website. Apparently for a fresh or frozen transfer the odds of it working are about 50-55%. So, not great…but much better than 16-27%. So, now we go back into the black hole of waiting. Hopefully in 2-ish weeks we will be officially matched to our donor. I feel like I should be more excited about this part, but I’m just not sure I’m all that excitable these days. I’m still not feeling totally optimistic about this, but I know our odds of having a baby are 0% if we don’t at least try. Fifty percent is a far better likelihood than 0 percent. I would love for there to be minimal bumps in the road. Maybe I’ll feel more comfortable once we are officially matched. “She’s got her jaws just locked now in a smile, but nothing is all right.” –Third Eye Blind.
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Heather Joyce
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