I'm feeling depressed tonight, I don't feel like I can keep doing this. I feel like I don't really want to try anymore, that I don't want to get pregnant, that I don't want to have a baby, that I don't want to deal with any of it.

How do you handle that?

I feel like crying but I can't get it out.

A few raindrops turn into a downpour

I went to my niece's first birthday party last night. I've written about how uncomfortable I've been around her, starting during her mother's pregnancy as I lost mine.

The baby was being a pill last night, she was really clingy with her parents and didn't want to hang out really with anyone else. It didn't help that my period showed up yesterday (and wasn't it a full moon or just about as well?) After dinner we gave our presents, a dress I bought at the Lavender Festival last summer, plus a box to store baby keepsakes in and then a photo album in which I placed a bunch of our photos that they didn't have. Then my partner and his brother started playing the piano and guitar together doing old covers and my mother-in-law and I law on the couch. I was soooo tired with the cramps and drop in hormones and all, plus too much socializing all week long.

Then it started, just a couple tears at first which I subtly wiped away pretending my eyes were tired or itching. It's okay, I thought to myself, maybe just letting a little bit out will help me feel better. But as I continued to sit there, the feeling of not being acknowledged for my losses began to swell and gradually I couldn't contain it any more.

I walked over behind my partner who was facing the wall near the piano and whispered in his ear that we needed to go because I was crying. He nodded and then turned his face as he played and kissed my cheek through my hair that I was using to cover my face. At the end of the song he got up and said that it was time for us to go, I was already by the door with my things, and he quickly said goodbye. His brother came over to open the door and saw I was crying and asked if I was okay to which all I could say was its the anniversary of my dead babies not being born, how could I be okay? Which he didn't understand at all as he called after me as I walked into the darkness outside, "what? what?"

I totally lost it then as we drove back home, coughing and crying. My partner understood though, I was grateful for that. I told him that I couldn't keep holding it back, especially around his family since I don't really get any acknowledgement from them because I don't know how to talk to them about it. I told him that I thought that in some ways it was healthier for me to not be around babies and small children because then I could just focus on the me I am and not the me that I'm not, the losses that I've had in that area.

When we came home I continued to cry and it came to me that this time of year, with my two due dates going by without my even being pregnant, it's like having to keep driving past the finish line that you never get to cross.

Now that the family has seen me cry though, the first time I think, I don't know what to do. My instincts are to avoid them now because they couldn't possibly understand having never experienced this type of loss themselves. My other thought is to send them an email, my family and friends as well, and point out to them that January 23rd and February 13th are a time of mourning for me and that I just need a little acknowledgement of that. But I just don't know how that would go over.

The Boo-hoos Caught Up With Me

Yeah so I'm not invincible. Finally Friday night, when my partner came home from visiting with friends I erupted. Two of his friends are currently TTC with their girlfriends and finally he has guys to talk about it with. But for all his enthusiasm it's been an anguishing time for me personally, what with the miscarriages and anemia and all. I hate feeling like he's just lumping us in with these other women who have just started trying, even though I know enough about them to know that they both have infertility issues (a 21-day cycle for one and fibroids and a miscarriage for the other). He comes back from hanging and talks about how he told them about how I chart and all that and how so-and-so's girlfriend wouldn't do that because it would make her obsess too much. It just makes me want to scream. I'm not like them, it's been too many years, we both had surgery, I've been through two losses and seen all those doctors and charted and temped and used a fertility monitor and got bloodwork and still no baby after more than three years.

So I started crying and I cried and told him that he better leave me and I just kept crying in the dark on the pillow and so I got up and I cried more, for another hour at least. Crying and blowing my nose and all that for a good long while.

When I woke up on Saturday I pulled out a journal and made a list of all the things about our fertility that are bothering me -- and cried some more. I read it to him and the rest of the day Saturday I just felt emotionally drained. Sunday I felt a bit better though.

I'm still congested from the flu and a little queasy as well. Everyone in our office has been sick. Half of them have had the stomach flu but no one has had both. I hope that I'm just feeling the remains of the same flu and its just lingering and not because I'm going to get the stomach flu as well. Oh please no.

Talking about it

Lately I've taken to selectively letting people know, when they ask about whether or not I've had kids that I've had two losses in the past 18 months. Rather than say "maybe" or "perhaps" I figure its better to speak the truth. It's something I've wanted to do anyway, let it out there and let others recognize it. I've also added when appropriate that we've been trying since 2002, just to let them know how long the road has been (too long).

I was on the phone with my mother last night and mentioned that we were going on vacation to some place tropical and that we might as well since we don't have kids. She responded in a way that sounded negatively to me, like I was lame or not trying hard enough to have kids. I think it is just her own disappointment at not having grandkids to spoil but it felt a bit selfish and mean to me. It was probably due to what I said, though you know that hidden behind that cavelier phrase is a lot of pain and agony over the same subject.

If my mother only knew that basically my heart is broken and that Christmas feels oddly hollow to me this year. That psychologically I'm bracing myself for the fun weeks ahead in January and February when I get to live through my EDDs of my two dead babies. That I'm in the middle of my luteal phase and trying not to think about it, about how my sore breasts mean nothing, how my period will show up again -- that my body feels like a punishment to me right now. Maybe if she knew she would be a little nicer. But who wants to go into that level of depressing details with me, no probably not even my mother.

Infertility/Miscarriage Grief and the Holidays

I've been still going through a lot emotionally right now -- I don't know what I'm supposed to think anymore, and just the morning I realized that knowing that I was going to be around family (my partner's family) this weekend was really starting to stress me out. I don't really know if he told them or not about our second loss (I keep getting vague answers so it makes me think no) and I don't like feeling like there might be comments made about our fertility -- when I'm trying so hard to deal with the stress of the infertility as it is. Ya know?

I found a few links that I thought might be of help, we should all take time to read them and make sure we are doing what we can to protect and prepare ourselves as we go through the next few weeks.

Managing the holidays

What Can I Do to Get Through the Holidays?

Coping with the Holidays (RESOLVE)

Dealing with Infertility in the Holiday Season

Dealing with the holidays after a miscarriage

When Grief Comes Home for the Holidays

Silent Grief - lots of articles, though I didn't see any ones specifically about the holidays.

Today's my birthday. I'm 35 now. That means that in Western medicine I'm now considered advanced maternal age. Whatever! I can't believe I'm 35 and I don't have any children. Life just pulls you along sometimes and there you are, not where you expected to be.

My partner got in the "mood" this morning so I thought why not. I don't really have any sex drive right now but that shouldn't stop everyone from having a good time. In the middle of it though I started crying, tears kept running down my cheeks. It wasn't anything in particular, just happened. I think it is everything starting with having to use a condom during BD to prevent pregnancy, yeah that's what I want to do right now. I have to manage my fertility. Why, because the rational part of me knows that my body needs a break and I need to make sure that I'm not hurting myself by throwing a possible pregnancy at my tired body right now. I need to wait. But waiting just makes things feel even less normal right now. Then there's so much else hovering. Like all the people who don't know. I feel like I'm putting up a brave face and all but I want everyone to know what hell I've been through. Hardly anyone IRL knows the challenges we've been through in our pursuit of a child. And now, losing my second pregnancy, I just want a little more love and kindness. But I don't want to have to tell them. Can't they just know?

I've continued feeling weepy all day and my right ovary is aching; I fairly feel like I'm going to explode somewhere inside. I think the crying is the hormones, probably the biggest drop in my estrogen level that I've had in a couple months as my body prepares to ovulate. I've got to just ride out the hormones, wave by wave, somehow. But mostly I just feel like I wish I didn't have to feel it at all.

Whoa.

I had acupuncture this morning and after reviewing more about my history (emotional as well as physical) she said she would like to try an acupuncture treatment called a Dragon treatment. It comes from Japan she told me and the points don't make sense in a traditional channel sense but they seem to unlock where we hold onto grief in the body. She wanted to clear out the grief from my body. I told her aside from the early weeks after this BFP where my mood lifted, that I had sadness for the better part of the past year.

She told me to ask my body to let it go, ask my mind to not fight it and if I could, to ask a higher power for help.The needle points were at the crown of my head, two just below my neck on either side of my spine, two in my lower back and two in my ankles. Then she opened the window and told me that was a part of the treatment.

She left the room and I started weeping. I lay face down on the treatment table and the room was silent. Everything was running, tears and my nose. I cried for having this happen to me. For my dead babies. For not being pregnant now. For having two, my twin angels, due within three weeks of one another. For both times being able to start planning for what was to come in my life and then to have it dashed away. I asked God to help me. Not in any particular way. Just to help me. I thought of the footprints in the sand. I thought about how my partner doesn't want to think of them as dead babies. I thought of how I had all the gushing surprise and expectancy last time though the baby seemed less real to me. This time I felt less gushing but since my fibroid was gone I felt more like there woudl be a baby at the end. I cried for having to manage my pregnancies and fertility to this degree. I didn't blame anyone though.

Next she will have me take an herbal formula but the one she wanted originally wasn't in the office so she wanted some more time to review my case and then try to come up with something that's a good fit. We're going to try to clear out any remaining stagnation from my abdomen, any blood stasis, etc. My tongue shows signs of digestive issues, I feel that as well. I'll be eating more blood building foods going forward, redoubling my efforts.

I can breathe a little better now.

Last night I was so tired and not hungry. I ate a small dinner my partner cooked for me (he's trying so hard) and then after a while I was exhausted and went to bed at 9:00pm. I was emotionally exhausted and completed uncomfortable. I was having cramps and feeling awful in no particular way. I used a hot water bottle because I was so freezing and couldn't get warm. I used my lavendar eye mask for a while but then I started crying. Eventually I passed out asleep and had weird dreams. I dreamt about my sister and a doberman and Christmas at my parents and the Girl Scout house where I grew up with my two employees who just quit doing a religious ceremony. I woke up this morning covered in sweat and it's cold here (60 degrees).

I have a cough and post nasal drip today. I've got hives on my face, neck and shoulders that are itching me. My eyes feel a bit puffy and coming in to work I kept getting misty.

I am grief.

And I know it's over still I cling I don't know where else I can go it's over, it's over, it's over I know it's over and it never really began but in my heart it was so real

I Know Its Over, The Smiths
from The Queen is Dead (1986)

I'm feeling like working from home today. Talking to my SIL really stirred up some emotion for me and I feel like I need to be away from people right now. My partner said to me last night that I've been grouchy for days, though I've only noticed that I've been very tired -- though I do get grouchy when I'm tired. I didn't tell him about my conversation with my SIL, just telling my online buddies about it was hard enough -- each time it just opens up the waterworks again and I just need a break from it. I've been almost feeling like I should take a break from charting and even the board too, though I know I couldn't do it easily. I think I need a vacation -- 10 days in Europe sounds nice. Do you know that I'm having a hard time at work right now too, I'm supposed to right all these proposals for new work and I just can't do it. I feel like nothing matters and I don't even understand what people in business want anymore -- it all seems so trivial and petty to me, like "who cares". It's probably just another phase of grief, recovery and acceptance.

My Ghost Pregnancy

I had a massage appointment yesterday, the first one with this practitioner since my loss in July, though I did have a massage after my m/c just at a spa with a couple friends. I highly recommend getting a massage after you have a miscarriage especially one with some abdominal work, you will probably cry during it but you are crying anyway so why not let it out while you reconnect and take back your body. It really helped to get rid of the pain in my abdomen.

After my appointment my practitioner asked me about my massage. I talked to her about it in great detail, from the physical pain, to the emotional anguish, the heightened physical sensations I experienced and the continued sorrow. I cried and used up quite a few of her tissues. I told her about how most people want miscarriage to be as long as the word is -- over in an instant. But miscarriage as we all have seen is a process and even after your body heals there is a lot of emotional trauma of the experience that needs to be worked through.

I told her about my ghost pregnancy now, the one that has me comparing calendar dates and events to where I would be in my pregnancy, should I have stayed pregnant. I told her how hard it was as I approached the dates around the end of my first trimester, and as August closed and I should have been shopping for maternity clothes.

I also confided that I can stand the thought of seeing my pregnant SIL who is due a week later than I was in February. And how every pregnant belly jumps out at me. Or how I can't really look at babies anymore because it hurts.

I talked about things that people had said or done for me that were helpful, more than half of them were things that women said to me here on the Internet. We talked about how miscarriage is combination of life and demise, birth and death take on new meaning in this process.

She thanked me for sharing with her, and admitted that she had never really known what happened in a miscarriage or that it could take so long. She also asked if there was anything she could do, or that I could do to make sure others in my life knew how I continued to feel. I'm not sure though writing a letter comes to mind. I also feel, though perhaps it isn't fair or nice, that I should share this experience in such a way to make it a tear-jerker, like in the movies where they make you cry. Then I would know that I had gotten through to them and made them hurt too.

Last night I had a dream, I've been having such vivid dreams this whole summer. In this dream I was in a clinic and I was losing a second pregnancy. In the next bed over was a woman who was losing a baby in her second trimester and there was blood everywhere. I remember wrapping my arms around her and crying into her hair and she wailed on my shoulder and I told her how sorry I was. It isn't the kind of dream one can forget about easily. I know that it was triggered in part from talking about my miscarriage in such detail, but it shows me how changed I am in that I had no horror at the blood, only sorrow.

It's raining, it's pouring...

After I found out about my fibroid I cried a lot. I cried for 3 days when they told me about my fibroid. I was so upset that my eyelid twitched for 3 months after that! After every doctor's appointment I had I was an emotional wreck afterwards.

A mean RE at the local university fertility clinic told us on a Friday that we needed IVF with ICSI and that we woudn't be able to conceive on our own. The next day we had to go to a wedding and someone from asked me discreetly about my fibroid (we lied and said that was what the Dr's appt was for, we didn't want any one to really know about our fertility problems) and I lost it and had to leave the wedding before the toasts. My partner couldn't get out of there as quickly for social reason so I just sat in the car and cried for 20 minutes by myself on a side street.

I had another time last spring, right after my HSG when I found out my uterus was wrapped around my fibroid and my doctor told me I should probably have the fibroid out. I went to dance class a couple days later -- surely dancing would help me feel like my body was mine again. But there was a guest instructor and when she wanted me to correct my pelvis alignment and I left the class sobbing.

Over Christmas my OB that I had made 2 months beforehand come up so I decided to get another opinion. Aside from crying the entire time in her office when I left I started sobbing in the parking garage and had to wait a long while until I was settled enough to drive.

Another time, at the beginning of the year, after yet another Dr appointment I had to leave dance class again and just cried in the hall while I waited for my partner to finish. It was all so stressful, I was unclear as to what to do, and it seemed like we would never have children without some major medical interventions.

Grieving Loss

I think the hardest part about early loss, especially for us first time mothers, is that we are just starting to get used to the idea of being pregnant and beginning our plans for the next year and then suddenly you aren't expecting anymore. One book I have talks about how it is helpful to recognize that you and your husband are grieving different things -- you each had your own hopes and dreams about your baby. Over the past week my partner and I have had some ups and downs, sometimes he's the only one I can talk to about it and other times I hate how he acts about our loss. Try to use your extended network for support and not just your husband, it can help a little in my experience. But do let yourself grieve.

These were some of the more useful links that I've found in understanding what was going on with my blighted ovum/early miscarriage. I thought I would share.

GENERAL MISCARRIAGE

Understanding Miscarriage

Early Pregnancy Loss

Miscarriage Explained

Early Miscarriage

Miscarriage and PCOS

Missed Abortion

Post-partum Bleeding (lochia)

Miscarriage Information


BLIGHTED OVUM

Blighted Ovum

Blighted Ovum

Anembryonic gestation


DILATION AND CURETTAGE - D&C

Dilation and curettage

Dilation and curettage 2


MEDICAL MANAGEMENT (DRUGS)

Methotrexate For Noncancerous Conditions (Systemic)

Pharmaceutical Induction - Pitocin and Cytotec (Misoprostol)

Medical Abortions

Completing A Miscarriage


I found this study that was published earlier this year and it was interesting because it was both effective, used a lesser dosage than is commonly used in the US currently for abortion purposes and had fewer side effects.

Medical management of first trimester miscarriage (blighted ovum and missed abortion): is it effective?


NATURAL INDUCTION – NOT RECOMMENDED

I did find this link with information from midwives on ways to medically complete a "missed abortion".

Completing A Miscarriage

Here's someone's reading list from Amazon.com on herbal abortions -- no I don't recommend going that route, I found some other links that talks about how toxic it is for the mother.


RETAINED TISSUE

Detection of retained products of conception following spontaneous abortion in the first trimester

GESTATIONAL TROPHOBLASTIC DISEASE/ MOLAR PREGNANCY

Gestational Trophoblastic Disease


Gestational Trophoblastic Disease (Sloan Kettering)


"Of utmost importance is careful follow-up with serum beta HCG (BHCG) weekly until less than 100 mIU/mL and then every two weeks. The patient should have a careful pelvic examination every other week and a chest x-ray every 4-6 weeks. Once the titer of serum BHCG has fallen to normal levels, these two examinations need no longer be done; however, BHCG titers need to be repeated every 2 weeks for 3 months, then monthly for 3 months, then every 2 months for 6 months, then every 6 months for 3 years. Each patient should be counseled in the use of a reliable birth control method." (from the NIH site)


"Women should be advised to avoid pregnancy until hCG levels have been normal for six months following evacuation of a molar pregnancy and for one year following chemotherapy for gestational trophoblastic tumour. The combined oral contraceptive pill is safe for use by women with GTT (III-C)."
(from: http://sogc.medical.org/sogcnet/sogc_docs/common/guide/pdfs/ps114.pdf)

Embolization of Bleeding Residual Uterine Vascular Malformations in Patients with Treated Gestational Trophoblastic Tumors


Molar Pregnancy



GRIEVING, SUPPORT & RECOVERY

http://www.pregnancyloss.info/

SHARE – Pregnancy and Infant Loss Support

Pregnancy After Miscarriage (PAM)

Hygeia Foundtation & Institute for Perinatal Loss and Bereavement

Coping with the 5 stages of grief and bereavement

October 15th - Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day

What is Grief?