Grasping at straws

I just spent the better part of the last 2 hours looking at books on Amazon. Books about miscarriage.

How to prevent it - yeah right. How to move past it - not likely. How to deal with it - ok, maybe. How to understand it - only if you've never asked your doctor any questions at all and if you don't know what Google is.

I guess I'm just looking for more. I have friends who have been through an eerily similar battle and offer me more insight and support than you can even imagine. I have an RE who is gentle and brilliant. I know how to research like only a true academia addict does. And still, I'm left wanting more answers.

I find myself irrationally hoping that eventually Amazon will intuitively suggest (after searching for every combination of the words miscarriage, recurrent, repeat, loss, and causes) a book for me titled Lauren, Here Are All The Answers You've Ever Wanted About Your Fucked Up Body Even Though, To Date, No Legitimate Medical Test Has Discovered Any of The Aforementioned Answers.

And even then, I probably still would spend hours searching Amazon for books that won't ever exist.

A new perspective

I'm the oldest of 5 siblings. A big family is all I know - and I love it. I love having a sister who is one of my best friends. I love having 3 brothers who all dote on and fawn all over their neice. I love big family dinners, holidays and celebrations. I love knowing that I will always have someone(s) that I love, that loves me, closeby.

My husband comes from a smaller family and while it has its advantages, I still wanted a big family.

In the midst of all of this trouble, we had to come to a point where we decided we couldn't have more than 2 children. Not only because this battle has been the hardest thing either of us has ever faced and the thought of possibly having to go through it again makes us sick, but because we simply can't afford it. Infertility testing and treatment is enormously expensive and we pay for all of it out of pocket. We have already burned through a good chunk of our health care savings and we haven't even started real treatments yet.

Coming to terms with the fact that I'd never have the big family I had always dreamed of, was difficult to say the least. As if the other ongoing struggles weren't consuming enough, as if we hadn't already had enough taken away from us, I was now having my idea of a complete family taken away as well.

As I was driving to work the other day, I had a bit of an epiphany. I only call it that because it felt like a huge weight had been lifted and for the first time, in a long time, I cried happy, relieved tears.

The family I've always wanted, the family that we can't have here, that family is still a reality. Because there are 4 babies waiting in heaven that I get to meet one day. That day might not come for a very long time, and it doesn't erase the pain of losing them, but they aren't gone forever and that makes me feel a little better.

It feels like a hole

I probably get asked "when are you giving A a sibling?" on a weekly basis.

At first, I'd laugh it off and casually re-direct the conversation because, while it was only a slightly presumptuous question, it was still something we were working on and didn't have an answer to. Now the question can send me in to a tailspin where I say inappropriate things or cause an incredibly awkward silence because at this point, I don't even know how to respond. At all.

After my first miscarriage, the pain of having to "un-tell" family and friends was a sadness I'd never felt before. While I was trying to make sense of what had happened, and grieve the loss of our baby, I was getting excited calls and emails asking about a due date, giving congratulations and generally just receiving lots of happiness from unaware loved ones. Just when I thought it couldn't hurt more, I'd be reminded of another excited friend who had heard the news, and I'd have to tell her what happened.

I feel pretty confident saying that the grief of miscarriage and infertility is unlike any other grief in that time doesn't heal the wounds. Not even a little bit. Quite the opposite. The more time that passes, the more painful it becomes. That hole in your heart that started off sad and small, grows larger and more ominous with each failed cycle, with each new loss. It doesn't go away, it's not something you even learn to cope with very well because the cause of that hole is still very present and more aggressive than even 2, 6, 13 months ago.

Someone asked me today when we'd be giving A a little brother or sister.
I started crying.

Four

I found out on Thursday that my fourth pregnancy in the last 15 months, would not be a viable one.

A positive pregnancy test Monday, a low HCG beta result on Tuesday and the news of a dropping hormone level by late Thursday.

I knew in my heart that something wasn't right when that first HCG came back at only 8.5. I went through the motions of trying to hang on -- progesterone supplements, upping my folic acid intake, no more caffeine, all of it -- but I didn't get attached and by Thursday I was hearing what I already knew to be true. That this one wouldn't stick. Just like the others.

I had come to a crossroads. I needed to make a decision about how I was going to handle this. And that was just it...I realized I had a choice. That had never been clear to me with my previous losses. I always felt so overwhelmed with sadness that the thought of taking control of my emotions wasn't even on my radar. I was busy grieving, but even more so, feeling sorry for myself... feeling entitled. Life's not fair, why me, the standard bullshit of mourning. Not this time.

Of course I'm still sad, mostly disappointed, but I know that my body can do this. I just have to remember that and keep fighting for my baby.

Testing...testing...1..2..3...

I just did the math on the number of vials of blood I've had drawn over the last year.

For each miscarriage, it was generally at least 3 vials. One to test for my hormone level, another to make sure it was dropping and one more to make sure it had dropped low enough/went back to zero. For the first one, it was 6. The second, 3. For this last loss, it was 5 vials for the HCG testing alone.

For my first round of fertility testing, they took 13 small vials.

My second round took 7 large and 3 small. 10.

For my day 3 testing it was 1 more.

And I'm going to go ahead and make a guess that there were about 3 or 4 other blood draws for testing that I can't even remember right off the top of my head.

40. That brings my total to 40. 40 vials of blood. About a pint. The same amount as a donation. I feel woozy thinking about it. What's more crazy than the number of vials is realizing how many visits to LabCorp it took to rack it all up. I'm well known there by now. Old friends, the phlebotomists and me.