I remember thinking during our "non-TTC, but not using any real birth control" years that I knew my cycles like the back of my hand. I was a pro and really knew my "fertile window". I thought it would be so easy to get pregnant because I was so far ahead of the game in knowing my cycle so well. Naive Hope.
Once we started trying, I was pretty shocked that I wasn't pregnant instantly. Typical feeling, I know. We were just having some fun with all that "naughty" sex - that OMG this could really make a baby and then everyone will know that we have sex kind of naughty thoughts. LOL.
Okay, so less than a year of this fun sex and I started charting. I had charted for a year or so for pregnancy avoidance before we married so I knew how it all worked. (This is where that original false sense of hope in knowing my cycles so well came from.) I signed up for Fertility Friend and paid for the VIP package. I wanted all those charting bells and whistles. Maybe my internal "cycle meter" just needed a little tweaking. I really thought after a few months, we would have this one in the bag. Confident Hope.
Wait a minute, WTF is with all this pain in my nether regions? Lots of visits to docs with those cracker jack box medical licenses and finally I found one that guessed it all on my first visit and both were confirmed with procedures. I had the evil twins of pelvic pain: Interstitial Cystitis (non-TTC related) and endometriosis. Now at least we were getting somewhere. She zapped the endo and I thought we were back in business. We knew what was wrong and we fixed it. Now, we will get pregnant, right? Came, saw, and kicked it's ass Hope.
Fuck. So this endo stuff will grow back, I guess. That doesn't sound good. It's now been 2 years. We will finally go see an RE so he can wave his magic fertility wand and get me knocked up before this happens. Renewed Hope.
RE #1 recommends IUI with injectables. Now we're talking. A few extra targets and sperm with a free ride to their destination. Yup this is it. How could this not work? Excited Hope.
BFN and decide to move to a new RE. Obviously RE#1 doesn't know what he's doing. RE#2 says IVF for elevated FSH. Well, that's a little concerning. I'm scared, but these are the big guns, the queen mother-lode of them all. Add in Assisted Hatching and ICSI and we are sure to create our whole family off of this cycle. Lots of freezer babies. Nervous Hope.
BFN, but at least we know how I respond to meds. Just a little more tweaking and maybe we can make this work. IVF take 2. I don't know what we will do if this doesn't work. I can't see beyond this cycle because those are scary decisions. Terrified Hope.
Another BFN and the whole donor egg/adoption speech from RE#2. I'm sorry, but all of your embryos are highly fragmented, blah, blah, blah, I can't help you, blah fucking blah, blah, blah. We aren't ready to really speak in those terms yet. We aren't sure what just happened. How did we go from "naughty sex" to 2 failed IVFs and what other options are out there? We just want one baby. ONE. We still have options though. Lost Hope.
There are other clinics with better statistics. They take the "hard" cases. Maybe we can do a third IVF cycle there for one last ditch attempt. Last Hope.
Our hope reaches a new level each time. We learn more each time. We are crushed more each time.
Dealing with the grief in the beginning was so much different. Yes, we were disappointed with another BFN every month, but we knew there were other options out there.
We grieved the endometriosis and elevated FSH knowing that we had some real issues.
We grieved when we moved onto IUI knowing that we weren't going to get to make our babies the "old-fashioned" way.
We grieved moving onto IVF because in my (somewhat limited) IF world, this was the end of the road.
We grieved after each failed IVF.
We grieved and are still grieving the loss of all 8 of the embryos that we transferred and didn't make it. I think this is a big part of what is keeping me stuck in some of this grief. These embryos are the closest we have come to creating something that is part me and part M. They were real and they were ours. These cycles weren't just more BFN's. They were different. We actually created something together. We saw their pictures. They were real.
I just haven't really known what to do with these feelings. It was not a miscarriage, but I still feel a huge sense of loss. I feel like my body let our embabies down. "Unsung Lullabies" calls it a "pre-implantation miscarriage" or "non-carriage". I'm not sure having a name for it does much for me, but recognizing that these feelings are normal does make me feel a little better.
I am hoping this "processing" can help me move forward. I am just not ready to go through this again without working through these feelings.
21 comments:
I am so sorry that you have to go through this grieving process. But I think you nailed it when you said it is like grieving a loss. The embryos are something you guys created -and of course you have love for them. As well as all that they represented, the hope, the life, the future. At least that is how I feel about the embryos from our IVF cycle. I can only say that I have such hope for you and all that the future holds, I hope that soon you find peace and are able to create your family that you so deserve. Lots of hugs to you and I'm always thinking of you.
I completely understand these feelings of loss. Of course you are grieving - these were your little ones. I hope that whatever you decide to do next brings real hope and success.
{{hugs}}
I read this with such a heavy heart cuz you documented the grieving process so well that I hurt too, just from reading what you've written. Your little ones were very real indeed and you have the pictures that represented the hope that they would give.
I will be here, B. I'm sending you lots of bright summer love from down under (we're just about to hit Spring/Summer in a week's time) and will always be here reading your blog.
(((((hugs)))))
I know that you are in a hard place right now, and I wanted to give you something to maybe make your day a little better.... Stop over at my blog to see what it is...
Rebel
That's it exactly, Brenda. All the stages so many of us have endured. You documented every moment of my past two years. It's hard to believe that the grief could get worse each time, but then it does.
I have also been thinking about the "embryos that were" lately. Like you wrote, that's the closest we've come to having a real family. The word "family" has been causing me problem lately. Although my husband insists he and I are a "family", I fear we will never truly know the joy of being a family. Families have children. Yes we have a marriage license, photos, and my pretty wedding gown to prove it, but somehow I fear we will alway be that college couple that never ascended into the adult world. As you know, it's lonely here.
Love, E
I am so sorry for your losses. I hope taking time to work through your feelings will help in some way.
I am so sorry for what you have been through. You're a wonderful writer and you really illustrated not just grief, but that back and forth roller coaster of grief and hope in IF. It's funny how they can sometimes exist in the same day, the same minute together.
You also opened my eyes that when/if I pursue IVF (it's likely) that I, like you, will witness the creation of life-little lives formed from my husband and I, and then I too will most likely have to mourn their loss, the reality that they existed and the 'what ifs'. I am so sorry you have been there and I hope that whatever comes along for you in the future will be filled with more hope and celebration than grief.
The names have never done anything for me either. They were ours, they were growing, they could have had his ugly feet and my red hair, they could have been. The scientist in me comes out and says the RE is right when he says that if it were a natural cycle they wouldn't have developed and we would have just gotten a period and never known. But I did know. We know. And that sucks.
To see it all laid out like that is a little overwhelming, my heart aches for you and all of us who are going through these stages. It's great that you are writing everything out and trying to work through everything.
You can grieve for those embryo's, they were your potential children, they could have been so much. But I hope that you find some peace and hope once you have grieved.
(ICLW)
I think it is great that you are getting in touch with those emotions, and I think it is only fair that you give yourself ample time to process. Pain has no boundaries, but we can filter through the emotional side of the pain to find the boundaries that work for each of us.
Thanks for the update. We're all here for you, Brenda.
I am so sorry you are having to grieve for your lost little ones. I will be thinking about you
Not having your embryos implant IS a huge loss. It is most definitely a loss that you need to grieve. When I've talked to the counselor at my RE's clinic, she has said that very thing -- that our losses are very real and need to be recognized.
You are so right about how our hope changes as we go through this whole process, too. In the beginning it seems like it will all be so easy. At this point, I wish something, anything, was easy.
I'm really sorry that you are having to go through this. Your post has me crying. I just want everything to come together for you and your husband. I hope something changes for you in the near future.
Lots of hugs.
I am so with you on this entire post. Have had, like you and like many, the same exact feelings way too many times.
Seeing the embabies, moving and lookin good in video did it for me this last time, grade A or One or whatever, gave me so much hope! And a blastocyst transfer what could have been better?
I have had many say "you are so strong..." I am so not strong. It's just that after five times on this rollercoaster, you kinda start to lose hope. Not lose hope, but rather expect the worst.
At the same time, I am hopeful, somwhere inside me, that I will be a mom someday and hold on to that hope when I feel shitty.
I cried the other day on my birthday...we were sitting outside enjoying the day and all of a sudden tears. DH knew instantly, and said we will try again soon. It's amazing how they just know and support us so......thinking of you girl and miss u too! xoxoxoxox
What a beautifully written post. It brought tears to my eyes because you so aptly described the cycle of hope and despair that those of us with infertility experience. I've been where you are, or in a place like it. I know it's a dark place, and that hope just highlights the pain and darkness. You're right: if we didn't hope so much, we wouldn't hurt so much. But it's the hope that keeps you trying, that keeps you moving. It's what will get you, one way or another, to family you want so badly. "Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent." As much as you're hurting now, you will get through it. It will get better. This pain is not permanent. My hope for you is that you find peace.
Many, many hugs.
Aw my friend, this process is so hard to go through and well process... one cannot call failed cycles miscarriages but they really do feel like they are like miscarriages cos you KNOW that living embryos were put back inside your womb...
The thing about hope is that it does have SO many different levels and as one passes each level the hope evolves to your current situtaion... I for one am glad that hope adapts though cos without hope why the heck are we going through the motions of treatment... to me hope and faith are so closely interlinked cos both need each other to survive and sustain...
Thinking of you my friend! May your next bout of hope yeild the fruits of your labour...
HUGS!!!
I think that it is a huge step get through the feelings before you move on... and an important one that get's overlooked. Take all the time you need to sort through. I can relate to the feeling of hope... then getting that hope shattered... then building hope again.. just to have it shattered again.
Lots of hugs.
Your post should be part of a book somewhere. You so accurately described the various stages of hope/grief with IF and brought tears to my eyes. I am so sorry that you have been through all you have. I keep hoping for you. For everything.
Thank you for writing this from your heart.
Ironically, it does give me hope. It also gives me a real example of what to potentially expect.
Thank you very much..
I am sorry you are going through this. You have gone through two losses and grieving is very much a part of that. I know it is hard when in the fertile world it might not seem like a loss. But it is real and you have every right to feel the way you do and grieve.
((hugs))
You absolutely perfectly described the downward spiral that starts with that first OPK and then just continues to drag you down into the complicated depths of ART.
It would be so much easier if you knew for sure that it would never work - it's that tad of whatever kind of hope you have left that makes it so hard.
Lots of good wishes to you, and may your next hope be the one that is perfectly fulfilled.
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