Looking Back - My Random Thoughts...

*It's been 12 days since my miscarriage. And 6 days since the bleeding stopped. I had some spotting on Tuesday but it was very light and only lasted an hour or two.

*I have had two Saturdays pass without much incident. I thought Saturdays would be difficult for me because this was the day I passed from one week to the next. For the record, I would have been 10 weeks yesterday. I wonder if I will ever stop counting?

*On the other hand, last Wednesday would have been my next OB appointment. This day was HARD! From the moment I woke up that morning, I thought about the "what should have been." Dom and I had decided that if everything was okay at this appointment, we would start telling our close friends and co-workers that I was pregnant. I couldn't stop thinking about how badly I wanted to be at that appointment and have everything be okay and how badly I wanted to be able to tell our friends. I was on the verge of tears the entire day. If I wasn't babysitting, I probably would have cried the entire day.

*Going back to school is going to be difficult. The day before I am supposed to go back, is the date of our next scheduled appointment. This was the the appointment for the first trimester screenings. I was also very excited that I was going to be past the 12-week mark when I went back to school. Because I would have been out of the first trimester, I was going to be able to tell everyone and not have to worry about any pregnancy symptoms (although I didn't have too many to begin with, more on this later) interfering with work. This is going to be another few days of thinking about "what should have been."

*Dom and I have decided that we are going to tell our close friends and co-workers that I was pregnant but lost the baby. We aren't going to sit everyone down and make it a formal event, but if the topic ever comes up, it isn't going to be something we are going to hide. For the last few months, my response to the "When are you guys going to have a baby?" question has been, "Hopefully soon." or, "We are working on it." I never gave a lot of details but everyone got the idea. Now, I am going to change my response to, "We are taking a break from it right now. I had a miscarriage in July and we need some time to recover from that." I haven't figured out what I will say to strangers and those that don't need to know the details of my life. It's wrong for them to ask in the first place, but you know they will! They have for the 4 years that Dom and I have been married!

*It is amazing how many "miscarriage survivors" are out there. Not very many people know our story, but the ones that do, have a similar story about themselves or a close friend or relative. People that I thought I knew really well are telling me that they have also had a miscarriage. Although I wouldn't wish a miscarriage on my worst enemy, I find comfort in hearing these stories. I am not alone! And many of the stories end with a successful pregnancy after a miscarriage. I need to hear that too! Why isn't this something that can be talked about openly? I think it is sad that people have hide a miscarriage.

*On Monday, I took a pregnancy test. I knew this would be a form of self-punishment before I even took it out of the wrapper. If I said "pregnant," I would be sad because I am not pregnant. Another slap in the face. If it said "not pregnant," I would be sad because the test is telling me something I don't want to hear. Another slap in the face. But, the nurse at my OB's office called to tell me that they want to monitor my betas until they fall to zero. To avoid getting my blood drawn unnecessarily (remember my fear of needles), I thought I could decide when I went in based on the results of the test. Well, it said "pregnant." It took a minute or so for the results to show up, which is MUCH longer than when I took one in San Francisco when I first found out I was pregnant. After the results popped up, I realized that it didn't tell me much. I found out that my beta is higher than 25, which is expected considering that I was less than a week past my miscarriage. I threw the test away as soon as I could and didn't even tell Dom that I tested. I now know that this was a move driven by hormones and grief! My brain did not make this decision! It is not something I will do again!

*I got my blood drawn on Thursday to check my beta levels. I haven't heard from the nurse regarding my results yet. I will call tomorrow afternoon if I haven't heard from them yet. My beta started out so high that I am sure it will take a while for it to fall.

*Although I am sure I have plenty of beta still floating around in me, I have felt some changes in my body. It has helped me distinguish what my true pregnancy symptoms were. I had such a hard time figuring this out! My boobs are no longer sore and I am not as thirsty or hungry as I was. My completely broken-out face is still here, my pooping still isn't right, and the 5 pound bloat is still there. I think these are the side effects of coming off of the diuretic (my miracle acne drug).

*When I finally talk to the nurse, I am going to ask her about my progesterone levels. When I first started spotting they had my progesterone checked. When the nurse told me the results, she told me that my level was 14 and they weren't concerned about it. I didn't think much about it until after I lost the baby. I did some research and found out that progesterone levels between 9 and 49 are normal for the first trimester. Yes, 14 falls in that range but barely. There are over-the-counter progesterone creams available that might help me get my progesterone more securely in that range.

*The lab was unable to find the baby in the "tissue" that we brought them. This means that they couldn't do any of the testing and we will never know what caused my miscarriage. I am very upset about this. I really wanted to know the reason. I felt like it would give me the answers I am grasping for and help me gain closure. What is even more frustrating is that I know the baby was in there somewhere. When I passed the sac, it was completely intact. I know the baby was in the sac there because we had seen it on ultrasound. So where did the baby go?

*When we talked with the doctor about trying again, he said that we shouldn't do anything different the next time around. As you can see from my last bullets, I am not going to be able to do this. I need to know that I am proactively avoiding another miscarriage. I wish the doctors would too. It is standard practice for further testing to be done after 2 or 3 miscarriages, but not after the first. Yes, I understand that many miscarriages are total "flukes" without a real cause. These women would undergo testing that is totally unnecessary. However, if there is a cause, particularly a cause that can be treated, the doctors are making women and their babies suffer through multiple miscarriages. I fell into the unlucky 3% that miscarry after having a completely normal ultrasound and seeing the heartbeat. THREE PERCENT! That's enough for me to want further testing (and this coming from the one that has fear of needles/procedures/doctors!). Treatment can be as little as taking extra folic acid, baby aspirin, or progesterone. How easy is that? I would do that at the drop of a hat! Yes, there are causes and treatments that are not that easy but I would go there too if it meant that I would have a pregnancy that resulted in a living baby!

*And about those statistics...for the good and the bad, we were on the "smaller" side of the statistics the entire time! We were the lucky 20% that get pregnant the first month trying (and it was our first month off BCPs, I don't know what the does to the statistics), the lucky 20% that didn't have morning sickness, and the unlucky 3% that miscarry after seeing/hearing the fetal heartbeat. I'm sure there are more, it just don't know all of the statistics. I hope the trend stops and we are in the 90% that have a healthy pregnancy and baby after a miscarriage.

*After reflecting and analyzing this pregnancy piece by piece, I have come to the conclusion that we were doomed from the beginning. I KNEW something wasn't right when the first ultrasound told us that the baby was 3 days smaller than I had calculated. Yes, there are many logical reason for this to happen but it didn't make sense to me. I knew when I ovulated and when we had sex. When you are talking about the baby's total age being 41 days, a difference of 3 days is significant. Even at my second ultrasound, something wasn't right. When the tech first measured the baby, she said it was measuring 7w0d (I was 7w3d.). After I had a mini-freak out, she remeasured and said that it was measuring 7w4d. At that point, we forgot about the first measurement and ran with the second. But what if the first measurement was the accurate one? It had fallen even further behind with it's growth. I am also stressed about my lack of symptoms. I wouldn't have known I was pregnant if I hadn't missed a period and seen the results of the tests/ultrasound. I was relatively normal.

*I wish I could have known if the baby was boy or a girl. This information would make the pregnancy seem more real for me. I wouldn't have to refer to it as "it" or "the baby." I could say "he" or "she." It doesn't help that I think it was a boy and Dom thinks it was a girl!

*On Friday night, Dom and I had sex for the first time since the miscarriage and only the second time since we found out I was pregnant. It was a total disaster. I knew it would be emotional but I had no idea I would cry the entire time! I think fumbling with the condoms threw my over the edge. I hate condoms more that most males hate condoms. I think they are gross, uncomfortable, and totally unnatural. We didn't even use them early on in our relationship and here we are, together for over 7 years, trying to make condoms work! We eventually took it off but I was too far gone for the moment to be recovered. Dom was pretty freaked out by my reaction. He didn't expect me to fall apart like I did. Hopefully next time will be better!

*Dom has been absolutely amazing through this. He took days off from work to be with me. He has let me cry to him and he sends me emails and text messages telling me that he loves. It has been wonderful to have him be so supportive. But one thing that has been very obvious is our differences in grieving. I should have known this when we were sitting in the doctor's office after we found out the baby didn't have a heartbeat, and he was deleting all of the ultrasound and belly pictures from his phone. He didn't want any reminders. Even now, I want to talk about it, but he doesn't. He will listen to me but I feel like I am torturing him but making him do this. I have a stash of things from our month of being pregnant (pictures, cards, a letter that Dom wrote me) in the top drawer of my night stand. Dom doesn't want to see any of it. I think he would prefer that I throw it away. I want these memories. Right now it is hard to look at, but eventually, I will be glad we have them.

*Dom started a blog when we found out I was pregnant (by the way, he doesn't know about this blog, it was his own idea to create his). It was the cutest thing I have ever read. He wrote it as if he were talking to the baby and told him/her about us, our, family, and doctor's appointments. He wrote about how excited he was to meet the baby and how much he loved the baby. I cried and cried when I reread it after we found out I was going to miscarry. I shouldn't have read it but I couldn't help myself (again, not the brain making the decisions). Dom deleted that blog that same day.

*I spent 5 weeks of my life knowing I was pregnant. Therefore, I have 5 weeks of posts on this blog about the pregnancy. I have glanced through them but haven't reread them. I am going to leave them up. Much like the stash in my night stand, I will be glad to have the memories of these posts when I am ready to relive the memory.

*Wow! I guess I had a lot of random thoughts! I'm sure there are more but I need to get on with my day. Lot of homework for my online that needs to get finished! I got a little behind over the last few weeks!