I don’t normally like to share medical updates, but I think I have gone through every human emotion imaginable over the past few months that I wanted to share.
So remember when I told you that I needed IVF? (see Putting the I in IVF) I asked to take September “off” because I would be out of the country for 2 weeks for a conference and I didn’t want to miss any of the monitoring or have my trip interfere with scheduling the retrieval. My doc told me “Sure, we’ll begin after your next period.” Well…
My next period never came.
WHAT?! No way. Iv’e been seeing my reproductive endocrinologist for over a year and I was not able to get pregnant AT ALL despite using all different types of medications for ovulation induction, trigger shots and even IUI. And now, I go on a completely UNMEDICATED cycle, and I conceive???? This is unreal. The last time I was pregnant was over two years ago. This is huge! Maybe I don’t need IVF after all! What a story!
Although my husband and I were over the moon with happiness, we were also cautious about our expectations, because the last time I was pregnant, it ended with a first trimester miscarriage. But so far, things were going well. I was going in for hcg checks every few days and the levels were appropriately rising. Good sign.
Then I went for my first ultrasound. They found the gestational sac and yolk sac, but no fetal pole. This worried me a bit, because during my last pregnancy, the ultrasound was not lining up with the expected dates. But my RE told me “don’t worry, you probably just ovulated late. Come back in a week, we should be able to see the heartbeat by then.”
I was pretty nervous. I kept thinking back to my last pregnancy where the heartbeat was never detected. I went for my return ultrasound. I told them I was nervous. They said “Why? Look, there is your baby and there is the heartbeat.” They found it almost instantaneously. Oh my God. This is really happening! Finding the heartbeat is such a reassuring sign! Again, the fetus measured to be younger than expected since my last period, but again, “I ovulated late.” They wanted me to come back in a week.
So I went back, this time without the hubby. Everyone was overly cheerful. The receptionist asked “is this your last visit with us?” My doc saw me and said with a smile, “still nervous?” He proceeds with the ultrasound. He stops talking. He shows me the fetus and the cardiac activity. He tells me that the fetus was very small and did not grow appropriately. He then proceeds to measure the heart rate. It’s 90 beats per minute, which is slow. You know things are bad when you can hear your doctor say “shit” under his breath. He told me that things didn’t look good. The fetus was still alive, so there was nothing we could actively do, but he wanted me to come back by the end of the week. That would either confirm the worst, or maybe a miracle would happen and everything would be fine.
Since then I couldn’t even bring myself to go to work. My husband and I were devastated. We let our families know, and they were devastated as well. They cried with us, and the grieved with us. I went back for my repeat ultrasound, and our worst fears were confirmed. I will be having a miscarriage. Again. They sent me for a slew of bloodwork and they gave me collection cups so they can study the products of conception. So now, I wait for this dreaded thing to happen. A piece of my heart has left and will never be replaced.
What went from an amazing 2 months changed to the worst week of my life in an instant. I’ll come back and write about the coping and grieving process, but in short, there is no wrong way to grieve.
