Shock

I'm counting down the days at this point until my consultation with the infertility specialist. Four more days. I'm also in my "two week wait" between ovulation and the start of my period.  Aunt flow should be visiting starting the day after my consultation. Perfect timing I think, this way I can start right away getting all the bloodwork done and maybe we will have a plan for the next cycle.

I'm nine days post ovulation. I decide for the heck of it to take a test since we still tried this month, just not as actively. Who am I kidding?  I tracked my ovulation, we had sex every other day, I was just a little more relaxed because I knew answers and help were coming. So I peed in a cup first thing in the morning. I unwrapped the First Response Early Response test. I dipped it in my urine for 20 seconds. And I looked.

Was that what I think it is?!  Is there a faint line?!  I take a picture. I text it to a couple friends. They all see it too. I take a digital test. It confirms it with a "pregnant 1-2" result. I'm in shock. I'm scared. I'm shaking. It's happening again, but hopefully this time it won't have the same outcome.

Of course it's a Saturday.  What do I do about my upcoming appointment on Tuesday?  Do I keep it?  Cancel it?  I call the office first thing Monday morning and tell the receptionist my news. She is thrilled for me. She's never met me, I'm a name in their computer system and a voice over the phone, but she is genuinely happy for me. She tells me they will dance the appointment, but if I ever need them in the future not to hesitate to call. It makes me kind of wish that I did actually have to go there and be an active patient just because of how nice she was.

My next problem is finding a new ob/gyn. After my experiences over the last two months with my current provider's office I do not want to go back there. I called a new office that was recommended to me and they get me in for a "new patient" appointment in 2 days. It's just a "get to know you" kind of thing so that they can order bloodwork for me to check my hCg and progesterone levels due to my previous miscarriage. Great!  I get my bloodwork drawn on Wednesday and again on Friday. My hCg results are 101 and 306, respectively. My progesterone is 25.8. Everything looks good!  So the journey begins again of being pregnant. Hopefully this time I carry a baby to full term

Time to move up...

So June marks one year with no birth control, actively trying to conceive. Still no successful pregnancy. My cycle came back July 11th after the miscarriage.  I made a call to my ob/gyn about what our next steps are. The receptionist and nurse I talked to sounded like they never have people with this issue!!  They didn't know what to tell me the next steps are. I'm thinking clomid!?  Bloodwork!?  The doctor wasn't working that day, but they promised me a call back the next day. So I waited.....

And I waited....

Four days later I got a call back. The answer?  Call this number and make an appointment with this doctor. I was being sent to an infertility specialist. 

I called the infertility doctor's office. The receptionist was so nice!  I made an appointment for 2 and a half weeks from then.  I was sent a packet to fill out and return to them a week before my appointment so they could review my information. And then I wait some more.

I still can't believe I have an appointment with an infertility specialist. I'm shocked it got to this point. I'm relieved. So relieved. I can dump my worries, my fears, my problems about trying to conceive onto someone who will help me!  It's their job to figure out how to get me pregnant.  We will move forward.  Do tests. Get to the bottom of it. Make a plan. I can't wait! 

And so the end begins.....

 Sunday morning June 5th I woke up in our tent. We were camping for the night after my husband raced his snowmobile in some dirt drags so that he didn't have to drive home drunk after (yeah, when we made the reservation it was so that neither of us had to but hey, things changed!). Now, I'm not gonna lie, the bathrooms were a loooooooong walk and I really had to go to the bathroom, so I just squatted between our Jeeps, did my business, wiped (doesn't everyone carry toilet paper in their car?? Lol), tossed the toilet paper into a bag for garbage in my car, and went back into the tent. We were in a rush to get home, so we started taking down the tent and packing up. At some point, I looked in the bag with the used toilet paper and I couldn't believe my eyes. There was pink alllllllll over the toilet paper!  I looked down, and there was blood in my underwear and had soaked through into my pajama pants. How did I not notice this!?  Now I am panicked. I want to get everything torn down and into the cars so we can get home, I can shower, and go to the emergency room. We left the campground and headed home, which was only 5 minutes away. And it would be just my luck that my Jeep would break down on the way home. The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. Unfortunately, I knew exactly what this meant, as it was the third time since last August that it happened. I pulled over, turned the car off, texted my husband who was behind me, and then texted my best friend with a picture of the bleeding on the toilet paper. She tells me it's a lot of blood compared to when she spotted with her second baby, which just got me even more worried. I turn my car back on, at this point it is in "limp mode" (it's a jeep thing, it won't shift out of a single gear so that it doesn't do any more damage) and get it home about a mile away. 

Now that I'm finally home, I tell my husband that I'm bleeding. I take a shower and get ready to leave again. Since we are down to one vehicle at this point I take his Jeep to the hospital.....alone. I told him that he could come with me, or he could stay home, but I was going to the emergency room because something isn't right. And he stayed home. What?!?!  Are you kidding me!?!  What husband stays home in their recliner when their pregnant wife is bleeding?!  Apparently mine does 😡. I get in his Jeep to leave....and the gas light is on. Seriously!?  I really don't need this right now!  I stop to get some gas and am on my way again. 10 minutes later I'm at the ER and my mom is on her way to meet me because my husband is being a jerk. 

At the emergency room the registration nurse doesn't even complete the process before she takes me back to a room because of what is going on. They give me a urine sample collection cup. I go in the bathroom to collect the sample. The bleeding has gotten worse and now there are small clots mixed in. When I come back out the nurse has to draw blood and insert an IV. Well shit. This is my biggest fear. I hate needles going into me for blood draws. I've never had an IV before, but he thought of it being inside of me and possibly feeling it freaks me out. And I'm alone. She tells me to put the gown on "in case thing get messy". Now that really didn't help!  I tell her how scared I am of this. She swabs my arm, talks through it all, takes multiple vials of blood, and inserts the IV. Phew!  That's over!  I still can't look at my arm and am scared to bend it. The doctor comes and asks me a few questions about my last period and how the bleeding is. I'm told to sit tight and wait about half an hour for the blood work results (which, she says, will probably cut down on the amount of blood I have to have drawn for my first prenatal appointment yay!). I wait and I wait and then she comes back with the bad news. My hcg is only 17. At 6 weeks (even though I really am only 2-3 weeks based on when I ovulate) this should be much, much higher. She diagnoses that it probably was a blighted ovum. A what?!  I look it up after she leaves the room. Basically, the egg was fertilized, it attached to my uterine wall, the sac developed, but an embryo did not. At this point I know there is no hope. The doctor comes back and she has consulted with the gynecologist on call, who just happens to be a practitioner from the office I go to and have an appointment with in a week and a half. They have decided that I need to have my hcg level checked again in 3 days to "give it time to increase slowly, if at all".  They do an abdominal ultrasound since there is not an intravaginal ultrasound in service on the weekend. Of course nothing shows up. It's too early for it to show up anyway on an abdominal ultrasound.  She proceeds to tell me what to expect for the next few days of a miscarriage....heavy bleeding, cramping, shit like that. I've heard stories, I think I know what to expect.  Doctor leaves, nurse comes in, takes out my IV and I'm on my way to go home and miscarry naturally. On the way home my mom stops to get me pads since they said I will go through several of them at least, and I use a Diva Cup, so I sure don't have any at home. 

Throughout the next two days I don't do much of anything besides sit at the Jeep dealership for 4 hours (just what I want to do when I'm miscarrying) and lay on the couch watching endless hours of tv and YouTube videos of people's miscarriage stories. I just keep waiting for this horrible bleeding and cramping to start. The worst of it is when I go to the bathroom. This is when I bleed. It's mucosy thick blood with clots. I never even fill a panty liner, let alone all the pads I was told I would need. I wait for cramps. They never come. Is this it??

Wednesday comes. Hcg blood test day. I still don't have a car, so a friend offers to take me. Here we go again. My favorite thing ever blood draws. Shit. At least this time it's only one vial. Now that that's over, I go home and I wait. It shouldn't take long for the results. They put it as a STAT order. I should have the results in no time. Let the waiting begin.....

I obsessively check my lab work through the online patient portal for the health system that I'm a part of. Wednesday passes and nothing. Thursday comes and goes....no results. But the bleeding has stopped!  Really!?  Only 4 days of bleeding for a miscarriage?!  That's shorter than my periods are. I really am not that far along, so it makes sense I guess. I was expecting to bleed for weeks!  

Friday morning the results are online. Confirmed miscarriage. Hcg was down to 3, low enough to be non-pregnant. Well. It's done. I'm expecting my OB/gyn office to call and tell me the results. I mean, they should right?  Apparently I thought wrong. They closed at noon for the weekend. Seriously!?  They were aware of what was going on. They never once called me to see how things were going. They didn't even call with my blood work results to tell me for sure that I miscarried!!!  I'm outraged!  I have decided that I'm changing doctors. I don't want to be treated this way. I shouldn't find out my results on my own! What if I didn't have an online profile to see my results?  I'd still be waiting at this point. 

Monday comes. I get a call confirming my first prenatal appointment for Wednesday. Really!?  You mean to tell me that nowhere in my chart it says that I had a miscarriage!?  Unreal. I call back to tell them that I actually had a miscarriage last week, so I'm not sure I need the appointment Wednesday. The receptionist just says "oh, okay, we will just cancel Wednesday and see you in November for your annual" click. Uhhhhh....shouldn't I be going in for a follow up?  Shouldn't they be checking to make sure I passed everything?  Shouldn't they be checking to make sure I don't have an infection?  Wow. I'm shocked. Calling tomorrow to where I used to go before we moved to see if I can go back there. I will drive the extra 30 minutes to fee like I matter, to get the care that I deserve!

The journey begins

Let me start by saying this is how I found to deal with my loss.  I decided to write about it.  I thought that maybe, by me putting myself out there, I could help someone else.  The journey has been long already, and it continues now.  I went off birth control last June, I was 32, I had been married for just over 4 years and with my husband for 7 years.  It was time to start trying.  We sure weren't getting any younger!  My cycles never became truly regular.  I had one cycle that was only 27 days.....then the next was 40 days.  I usually ranged between 33 and 35 days, ovulating 3 weeks after the first day of my period.  I had a friend who was trying also, although she was nearing the one year mark already and the start of fertility tests and treatment.  I had my yearly exam in October and told my midwife that we were actively trying.  She pretty much told me good luck, and if I didn't have any luck within a year, we would move forward down the long road of infertility.  Fast forward to May 2016.  The friend who had been doing fertility treatments became pregnant in April.  I just knew this was THE month.  I had a feeling I would get pregnant this month....and I did!  I couldn't believe it!  I had taken 4 tests starting about 9 days post ovulation right up to the day of my missed period, all were negative.  I woke up 3 days later and just said to myself I was going to test again for the hell of it, not expecting a positive result.  And there it was!  I used a Clearblue digital test, and it said "pregnant 1-2 weeks".  I told my husband, I told close friends who had known  we were trying and would ask me every month, I told my parents and one cousin. I really couldn't believe it, so I took 4 more tests over the next few days, all came back positive.   Everything was great!  My breasts were sore, I was exhausted and sleeping so much more than I normally would.  I called my midwife's office and made an appointment for June 15th.  My mom insisted on going shopping for a "little outfit" for the baby, so we picked out some cute onesies and grey pants from baby gap and a gender neutral sleeper with duck feet at Carters.  I got What to Expect When You're Expecting and started reading.  I was ready!  It was finally happening!  And I had a friend to go through it all with!  Things were moving forward!  Until they weren't.....