Getting back to who I am, but different.

I worship the ground Martha Stewart organizes upon. And Bree from Desperate Housewives is my other idol (minus the whole soap opera drama). So on Tuesday I looked around my house, realized that it is now the end, very end, of January and decided that the Christmas stuff had to go.

First, I started by finally getting all of the beautiful, but very dead, flower arrangements off the top of our entertainment center. This was very, very hard. I did fine for the first two vases, but walking the second set of a vase and a basket back to the kitchen I lost it. I let myself cry for a good half an hour and then kept trucking though. As I put the last bouquet of beautiful dried and very dead tulips into the garbage bag I lost it again. I sat my butt right down on the kitchen floor and let it all out. Sometimes you just have to do that.

After that good cry was out of my system I moved on to the Christmas decorations. My brandy snifter full of blue and silver balls got emptied, cleaned and filled with red balls (Valentines day decor). I dragged tubs from the computer room and filled them with snowmen, penguins (we wish you a Merry Christmas) reindeer, stockings and tons of other things. I am just a bit obsessed with Christmas decorations.

Next, time to tackle the tree. Again, I was a bawling crying mess as I took ornaments down thinking of the conversations Jenn and I had as we decorated about how fun next Christmas would be with a 6 month old trying to pull the tree down. Refer to the first paragraph and my love of Martha and her organizational skills? I am going to really hate myself next Christmas when it comes time to put the lights, ornaments and garland back on the tree as they are all shoved not so nicely into their tubs.

I quit at this point. I cried for a bit and watched some television until Jenn came home to wipe me up and tell me “This is why I told you not to do it alone”. But see, if I didn’t do it, she would. I would rather not put the extra pain on her shoulders.

Yesterday I finished it. Well, the inside anyway. I took down the village and actually took the time to lovingly wrap all of the houses in their tissue and put them into their bins in an organized manner.

Then I started to find Heidi again. I cleaned in the dining room, and the kitchen. I started to feel like the Heidi I once was, happy to surprise Jenn when she got home from work with all the things I had accomplished in our home.

I got another bin and filled it with my maternity clothes and the pregnancy books. Another bin got filled with all of the early baby gifts and hand me downs we had received (after photographing them for Blueberry’s scrapbook of course). I stacked all the bins in the living room so that tonight when I get home from work Jenn and I can take them to the storage unit, where I am sure I will cry again, but as a good friend reminded me yesterday “Just think one day you will have to get it all back out and that will be a wonderful day.”

Let’s just hope that day comes soon.

If I can just make it to…

I have been telling myself “If you can just make it too…you’ll be okay.” This has become everything to me.

First it was…if I can make it though my first day of work….

If I can make it past my manicure (that was last night, cried a lot, but had the people at our salon were awesome and gave us lots of hugs, and post miscarriage success stories to go home with.)

Now…

If I can just make it until our dr’s appointments on the 7th.
…then it’s only 1 more week until Florida. And Florida is our “happy place”. If I can just make it there……..

Soon it will be…if I can just make it to ovulation…if I can just make it through the two week wait…woah. I’m going to stop myself there, it gets a bit scary at that point. I’m going to go back to

If I can just make it until our dr’s appointments on the 7th.
…then it’s only 1 more week until Florida. And Florida is our “happy place”. If I can just make it there……..

See, better already.

I am officially no longer pregnant.

I went twice for bloodwork last week to confirm that my pregnancy hormone levels were falling, and to check my thyroid.

My pregnancy hormones are at 0. I am happy that they fell nice and quickly, but it still hurt to hear that. I cried on the phone with Dr. Stabler-I love her. She said she has perfect faith that we can go on to get pregnant again, and carry this one full term. She also told me that she knows how much we loved our baby, and how excited she was for us.

My thyroid level is a little trickier. Normal is .5 to 5.0. Mine right now is .53 so within normal. She does not recommend changing my dosage as we are going to try again, and when we get pregnant we would just have to change the dosage all over again. She even mentioned that being a little on the hyperside of the thyroid level can often aid in conception.

So, it is official. We are back to square one, waiting for my period. Sigh.

Thank goodness for good insurance.

01/10/2008 01/10/2008 LANCASTER GENERAL HOSPITAL
329.00 APPROVED
01/11/2008 01/11/2008 LANCASTER GENERAL CRNAS
480.00 APPROVED
01/11/2008 01/11/2008 LGH PATHOLOGY
116.00 APPROVED
01/11/2008 01/11/2008 ANESTHESIA ASSOC OF LANCASTER
720.00 APPROVED
01/11/2008 01/11/2008 LANCASTER GENERAL HOSPITAL
5726.30 APPROVED

Thank you Wachovia for providing insurance to domestic partners.

Oh the things she says

When you first meet Jenn, she comes off as a little gruff. It is her defense mechanism. She doesn’t trust people easily so she’d just rather not stick her heart out there if given the choice. Underneath that gruff exterior is a heart of gold, and some of the most sensitive emotions, sometimes more sensitive than mine.

Last night we were sitting in bed and she laid down on my lap. Like so many nights before she put her hand on my belly. I put my hand on top of hers, I thought I knew what was coming. I realized she was crying so I rubbed her back and she said through the sobs “I only ever kissed your belly once.” My heart broke. I tried to argue with her, I swear she did it more than once, but she could even tell me exactly where, when and why she did it. Just once. That is so unfair for her.

Later in the evening we were talking about how I do want to try again, but am scared to death. I have nightmares, Jenn has good dreams-we are yin and yang. She dreams every night about our twin girls. She told me she’s okay with that, she’s got her boy.

The after the loss credo

This is exactly how I feel right now. It says everything that I am feeling, or didn’t realize I was feeling until I read it.

I need to talk about my loss. I may often need to tell you what happened – or to ask you why it happened. Each time I discuss my loss, I am helping myself face the reality of the death of my loved one. I need to know that you care about me. I need to feel your touch, your hugs. I need you just to be with me. And I need to be with you. I need to know you believe in me and in my ability to get through my grief in my own way, and in my own time.

Please don’t judge me or think that I’m behaving strangely. Remember, I am grieving. I may even be in shock. I may feel afraid. I may feel deep rage. I may even feel guilty. But above all, I hurt. I’m experiencing a pain unlike any I’ve ever felt before. Don’t worry if you think I’m getting better and then suddenly I seem to slip backward. Grief makes me behave this way at times. And please don’t tell me you “know how I feel,” or that it’s time for me to get on with my life. I am probably already saying this to myself. What I need now is time to grieve and to recover.

Most of all, thank you for being my friend. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for caring. Thank you for helping, for understanding. Thank you for praying for me. And remember, in the days or years ahead, when you may have a loss – when you need me as I have needed you – I will understand. And then I will come and be with you.

Author: Barbara Hills LesStrang

I have a problem, and I am willing to admit it.

I am an information junkie. I must read everything I can about some things. This has been proven to be a not so good thing after losing Blueberry.

I read about D&E’s…they are used for abortions.

I read about trying to conceive post late miscarriage…seems like it’s a 50/50 shot to me.

I read other blogs about their losses in the hopes that them coming out the other side okay will console me…all it does is make me cry over their stories of loss.

I read that new study that shows that caffeine causes miscarriage. Two years before I got pregnant I all but gave up caffeine, but I know I had several iced teas while pregnant. So this does nothing but cause me to place more blame on myself. (yes…I know nothing I did or didn’t do caused this miscarriage…but there will be no more tea…just water, even if I have to bring my own to restaurants.)

So…I have decided to get my information from other sources. My textbooks. I’m a pretty smart girl and will openly admit that I have never EVER actually read anything my teachers have told me to read, yet still come out with almost all A’s.

This morning for some reason, even though I am almost three weeks behind in all my classes, I decided to read my books. Of course I did. That’s just me. So it’s going to take me five times as long to do my schoolwork than ever before…but it will keep me out of Google for a bit.

Back to Reality Sucks.

Jenn had to return to work today. She called me from the parking lot crying that she didn’t want to go in, and I totally understand. She has, for the most part, set her emotions aside as a way of trying not to upset me and taking care of me. This is just how she is. Now matter how much time I have spent telling her that I need to see her cry too she just won’t/can’t do that.

I think this morning she had no choice but to let it out, and I feel terrible because I wasn’t even there to comfort her. Thankfully she does not work tomorrow, and neither do I so we can go back to our peaceful life of the last two weeks in which we lay in bed eating Grasshopper Cookies and Oreo’s and talk about what we are thinking/feeling.

If she stays at work all day (her boss told her to go home when she couldn’t stop crying, she knows Jenn isn’t ready to be back yet), then I have to hit another scary milestone myself. Going home to an empty house alone. I haven’t done that since 10/12/07. If Jenn wasn’t home, at least Blueberry was with me. I would talk to him, we’d have our little mommy and Blueberry bonding time. I was very selfish in that sense. I got to have him with me always.

When Jenn and I email back and forth from work we always ended it with 143=I (one letter) Love (four letters) You(three letters). Once Blueberry came I started ending mine with 243 (We Love You) as I got to have Blueberry with me all of the time. I sent her one this morning with 243 at the end. It hurt. But Blueberry is with both of us all the time now, as a piece of our hearts.

We are so wanting to try again. Neither of us feels that we can really get through the pain unless we have something big and new to focus on. And then at the same time we are scared to death to move forward. When we do get pregnant again how will we ever get through a day without wondering if our baby has left us? Is it possible that from the moment we find out we are pregnant that we could be put in a coma until the baby is obviously moving about so that we can feel it?? No?

Michelle did call Jenn on Monday, and suggests sitting out two cycles, trying again on the third. That’s like April in Heidi cycle world. April would have been baby shower season for Blueberry. I need out of this misery now.

And then I feel guilty that I want out of mourning Blueberry. Can he see/feel that I don’t want to mourn him any more? Does he know that I love him soooo much that I can’t see straight due to the tears? I know that he wouldn’t want me to be sad. I know that he would love some siblings. But he better be willing to share them, I don’t want to send him anymore siblings. They must remain here on Earth with Jenn and I first.

Yes, I know that reading this blog lately is a downer. But we’re downers right now. We don’t go out with people, I don’t even talk to my two best friends on the phone. I’m still avoiding life. But alas it must go on.

I’m giving myself until February 7th to remove myself from “the funk”, before I get concerned about falling into a real depression vs. just mourning the most difficult loss I’ve ever faced. We have our follow-up appointments with Dr. Martin that day, me to follow up on the D&E and Jenn’s to follow-up from her surgery. I may also try to make that day the one where we meet with Michelle to discuss the goings forth. If I can get a new plan into position, maybe we’ll be able to focus on something else.

We’ll get there, it’s just going to be rough. When we signed up for this TTC (Trying to Conceive) journey we knew that it would be rough. We had no idea it would be this rough.

Getting Angry

I have questions about life after D&E so where do I turn?? Google. Did you know that almost everything I keep finding about D&E’s has to do with abortion?

Do you know how angry it makes me to even see the word abortion?

Edited to add:This is one of the only pluses about being back to work. No one (aka Jenn) has the power to take the internet away from me. Oh, maybe that’s not a good thing??

Tiny Steps

Jenn called the Fertility Center for us yesterday. I’m very grateful that she did it. I know it must have hurt so much to have to say the words, I know I still can’t say them.

Anita, one of the receptionists, talked to Dr. Filer and he said that we should only have to wait one cycle at the most before trying again. They like to have a cleansing cycle in between. He also said that since he didn’t do most of our treatments, he would rather have Michelle (the awesome nurse) call us and discuss the next step for us. She may not even need us to wait the one cycle.

I still think we will though. If my body goes back to “normal” I should get my next period while we are in Florida. This would not work for monitoring and so forth.

They of course expressed their condolences, and almost more importantly reminded us that we are not the only ones this has happened to. When other people tell me that I want to scream shut-up. I know it’s happened to others, but this is my grief right now. But having them say it, and tell us that so many of their patients have tried again and been successful is a huge help.

I will never be a comfortable pregnant woman again. I will not rent a home Doppler this time, I don’t need the added stress of not being able to find the heartbeat on my own. But you can bet your left butt cheek that I’ll be harassing Dr. Stabler for a weekly if not daily appointment to run in there and listen quick.

Jenn is calling Dr. Stabler on Monday to see if I can get in to see her. I want to get blood draws to 1-make sure my pregnancy numbers are falling (I started bleeding again yesterday) I don’t want there to be any retained tissue, 2-check my thyroid-I had to up the medication while pregnant, I don’t want to be in a hyperthyroid mess, I want everything to be ready when we are ready to try, 3-just to talk. Find out what, if anything, can be done differently for the next pregnancy. I think I may be given to the high risk dr due to my advanced maternal age and second trimester loss.

We are slowly healing. Every night Jenn and I have laid in bed reassuring each other and listening to the other one get their feelings out. Nighttime is most definitely the worst. It means we have to face another day, it means I have to face the nightmares, and it means that another day has passed since we lost Blueberry. But morning comes and we still have each other. Right now that is the only thing holding me together.

I had bought Blueberry his first teddy bear, a cute little Michigan Wolverine, and we sleep with it every night. Two nights before we found out I had told Jenn that I sleep holding the bears hand, like I would soon be holding Blueberry’s. I’m glad to have the bear now, while it will never replace our precious Blueberry, at least I’ll always be able to hold his hand.