Turbo catch up - From heaven to hell and back again (misdiagnosed miscarriage)

Hi ,

Oh , where do I begin ?
The last six weeks have  probably been the most dramatic and overwhelming weeks in my life.

In  the middle of March we went on a holiday to Thailand as I wanted us to get some stress free time together in order to increase our chances of TTC .
I felt rather hopeless as TTC was really getting to me and  the trying for a child had become something unromatic " Do what needs to be done "  kind of thing .
I was close to giving up hope on conceiving naturally and thought that we try once more while on holiday and then call up the IVF clinic as we cannot wait anymore trying naturally.
So off we went and ended up in sunny and relaxed Thailand and basically slept most of the time the first 3 days.AF was later than I had predicted and it made me irritated as we now  probably would miss the right time for TTC while being on holiday which was not  part of the plan.
After a few more days still no AF and I began to suspect that Im am pregnant ....went for a test and it came out negative ( a strange Thai test that I was unfamiliar with but I assumed the 2 lines should appear as on our usual tests ; )   )
We  took a flight to an island to spend a week there  but I couldnt totally relax as I was wondering why AF didnt come ......so after a few days waiting we got another test and ...............................
there was 2 lines !!!!   OMG !  I  had became pregnant before the holiday !
Oh and  thats  so much for all my planning.......
More stress because I had flewn so much  and had a long flight ahead of me on the way back home  ! WORRY WORRY ;WORRY   was I going to kill my baby with all the flying ?
Pregnancy after  loss is not easy and I know I will  probably never be my old sane self again....
Back home I couldnt get myself to call the midwife to enter the pregnancy program again  after having done that twice and then miscarried after .......I was just waiting , paralyzed , unable to upbring much hope   "holding my breath " 
.I couldnt even post on my blog because of the fear of another loss.
Week six passed and no bleeding and now I became more nervous as I miscarried  between w 7 - 8 before.
Finally I got myself to call the hospital to plan an early ultrasound only to talk to a horrible person who informed me that " even if you see a heart beat  there is no guarantee for the future anyway  " this after I just told her that I miscarried twice before at week 7 - 8 !!!!   (  I will tell you later how me and hubby handled this )
I was somehow prepared and calmly asked her if she is not up to date with the litterature in her area as I know that once you have seen a heart beat the risk of miscarriage decrease with 80- 90 %  and I got an appointment for that  ultrasound .
When the 5 th of April came  the U - day  we were extremely nervous. Hubby came with me and we were in agony while waiting for my name to be called .
The doctor was a stressed lady that was on call and she had a student there .When I denied him to make a gynecological examination on me she got annoyed  but went on to do the ultrasound  only to find a sac but no fetal pole .. ...
Our hearts sank as we heard this is a blighted ovum and I was offered cytotec to get rid of the tissue .....we were facing our third miscarriage.

I was shocked as this time I had no bleeding at all and had built up some hope to  get to see a tiny heart beat at week 7 +1 as I was then.
I decided I didnt want cytotec  as I took it the first time I miscarried and it led to a severe bleeding and I had to spend a night at the hospital which I didnt feel up to right now so I  said I want to go home and see if I will miscarry spontanously .
That week was the worst week in my life , I was grieving  my third loss and the loss of my dream to have children , I lost hope for a while and was lower than low and the same happened with hubby.We were devastated and our world totally collapsed .
The days went on , the weekend came and went and still no bleeding , I was considering going back to the hospital to get cytotec just to get rid of the tissue as it was mentally very hard to know there was a dead baby in me again.
. After six days I called up the clinic to get an ultrasound and go for the cytotec as I couldnt wait anymore for a spontanous miscarriage .
Hubby came with me this time too , on the 11th of April , and we got to meet a different doctor this time and asked questions on further testing to determine if there was a reason for our multiple losses .He said  : Lets make an ultrasound first and then we can talk .
I undressed and laid down and turned away my head from the screen and closed my eyes as I didnt want to see the dead embryo and a few seconds passed until I heard the doctors voice :  LOOK HERE WE HAVE GOOD NEWS  THERE IS A NORMAL FETUS MEASURING 8 w +1  AND THERE IS A HEARTBEAT !!!!
This was the biggest shock in my life !!!! I laughed and cried and asked him like 3 times if he is sure there is a heartbeat until he just  looked at me and said I wont say it again and shook my hand and welcomed me to the maternity ward in 7 months ......
We left the hospital in shock ............HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN ?
If I had followed the first doctors advice I would have aborted a living baby ..........
It was a shocking thought ......
I had been so close to terminate a healthy ( Please God ) pregnancy !!!!!And this because my doctor didnt want to wait a week and see  but recomended me to take cytotec based on one ultrasound  examination ! Knowing my age (37 then , now 38 ) and my previous history of two losses ....
This is at our university hospital ,  and is supposed to be one of the 5 best in the country .....
It took us a week to recover from the shock and then we decided to write a letter to the management of the clinic in order for them to investigate this and make sure they change their routines so that this will NEVER happen to someone else .
In that letter we also adressed the fact that we feel that people that have gone through miscarriage is a patient group that is largely neglected  by this clinic and we are asking for an improvement .
We got a short reply from the manager to confirm he received the letter  and are awaiting the final response  .

Im kind of still in shock after all that has happened , on Easter Sunday I got a bleeding which led me to go to the hospital again for an ultrasound as the private clinics are closed for Easter . Thanks God the baby was fine and measuring 10 w +1  which is a huge milestone for us as this is the furthest I have ever came in a pregnancy . Today I am 11 w +2  and I am waiting for the next milestone  on the 9 th of May - the genetic test and the end of the first trimester .
I have pregnancy symptoms like nausea and fatigue and my body is changing but I cant get myself to buy maternity jeans yet .....
I went in to the maternity section in a store and tried on some jeans twice only to leave it and get out of the store .....
I wish I wasnt like this but I am , I am still afraid to believe after all that happened .
Thanks God I have the pregnancy symptoms and my belly is already growing so that gives me a little reassurance but I know its not for 100 % sure ....
I try to live my life day by day and hope for the best  knowing that I am not in control of this , it is a higher power , this has been proven to me so many times now ....
It has indeed changed the way I look at life and it has changed me deeply .
Please pray for me and hubby as we need support going through this .

Love  Angie

another BFN

Hi ,


I dont even know if I want to post this post .
I know this blog is my outlet of all " forbidden " feelings  like anger ,sadness ,depression ...
its all the feelings that I dont want to burden my near and dear ones with .
I WANT to cope well , I WANT to be balanced and do the right things but sometimes I just have enough of everything and thats when I write here ....


I hate that I feel guilty for having those feelings and often I  try to hide them and " move on"  and " be normal "   but then eventually I explode  like today when I got the second BFN this week

Im just so fed up !!! I hate this horrible pattern :   AF   - TTC on demand - nerve wrecking 2 WW and then the big dissapointment !!!!
Oh how I hate it !

I had so much hope for this cycle ....

I think Im giving up the idea  of conceiving naturally now and move on to IUI  but it doesnt come easy ....
I have always wanted to conceive a child in a romantic way .
I know so many people before me have done  ART  and its great that I have the opportunity to do  IUI / IVF  but yet its so hard for me to give up my dream.

In my mind I have decided that its time to move on and I will have to navigate a different path now .
Tonight Im having a glass of wine feeling sorry for myself , I hope tomorrow will be a better day .

I

wow ! I feel better !!!! Blogging is healing .

I have posted a lot of sad  posts lately  but I wanted to be honnest about how I feel , this blog is not made to create a picture of how I would like to be but to write about how I really feel.
The last three days I have spent at home ( took some days off , and today is a holiday anyway here)
I didnt do much those days - I have spent hours reading blogs and reading my previous posts , looking at old photographs .
Some people would probably call it a waste of time but this is what I wanted to do and I decided to do what I want and need , to give myself some " me -time "
Somehow it  worked out well and slowly I began to feel better .
I found many inspiring  words on other blogs and my heart changed and I feel hopeful again.

Nothing special happened in my real life ....Im still in the 2 ww and pending between wanting to be pregnant and fear of being pregnant and risk another loss ...yet I feel more balanced and hopeful .
I am even thinking of what fun things I can do this year with or without being pregnant ...
I have only one life and I have to enjoy the things I can enjoy , not let my life pass me by and give in to depression.
I have to surrender to God and acknowledge that I have no control over this .
I have heard and read so many times that its good to give your pain and grief to God , to surrender and admit that HE is in control , not me, but it has been so hard for me .
I always thought that if I try harder , if I do more , learn more , become a better person  and so on then I can influence things
My therapist has also tried to show me that not everything that happens is in my control , but it has been so hard for me to comprehend as its scary to let go and acknowledge that over some things I  HAVE NO CONTROL....
The last few days I began to really SEE what this means .
It doesnt leave  me hopeless as I do believe in a higher power ,a God and while reading blogs I have came across wonderful bible texts that are so full of hope and this fills my heart with hope and a cautious joy .
Those texts  I have read  before  but I have never been able to fully embrace the meaning of  them  and feel it .
Now I can and its a miracle and all this is thanks to blogging and those wonderful people out there sharing their thoughts and insights .
I am forever grateful for all of you that have left comments for me when I was sad and down and struggling with my grief  all of you have contributed to the miracle of healing .

I guess I just moved on in the grieving proces that I hate and would like to skip but yet cant escape .
I really hate this grieving proces , I wish I knew  a way  to walk around it  but I dont  , you just have to let go and feel all you feel and let it shake you  until there is less hurt and sadness and you  are ready to move on .

I know that even if I hate the steps of the grieving proces , it has forced ,me to develop and become a better person  and I am so happy  and  grateful for all those people here in the blogosphere that I have met and that have inspired me .I know I wouldnt be the same person without you.
My blog has been a sad place the last few months but I hope I will be able to fill it  also with positive , hopeful and optimistic posts and I want to enjoy life to 100% again.

Do I dare to hope for a Happy New Year 2011?

I dont know how to start this post ...

First I want to wish everybody  a Wonderful  New  Year .
I hope that  the babylost mothers that are trying to conceive( one of them is me )  will go on to a happy and healthy pregnancy and have a baby to take care of  this year.
For those that are expecting a baby I hope and pray for a normal pregnancy and that you will welcome a perfect child to the world  this year.

To be honnest ,thinking about the New Year  fills me with both hope and fear ....
I would love to write about how positive I am  and how much I look forward to the new year but I cant help feeling fear too , will it really be better ?

What will happen ?
Will we conceive naturally as I wish to do or will we move on to IVF ?
Will IVF work ?
Will our relationship survive the pressure of infertility and TTC " on demand"

Immediately after writing this I realize how negative it sounds ....but how can it not when I look back at the last two years  and remember the loss of our first angel Adam , the loss of my father and  the loss of our second angel baby .
If somebody had told me this was going to happen to me lets say  5 years ago it would have been hard to believe , but here I am and I have survived all this.

It has changed  me forever and in my good moments I am proud of myself for having survived it .
I have grieved but I have also tried to live and keep myself busy and keep up a normality .
Today I looked through our photographs from the last two years and it was a strange feeling :
we have done " normal " things , we have travelled , we have had family gatherings , we celebrated Christmas and New Year this year too .
I look at myself on the photographs and I look " normal "  nobody can tell by looking a t me on the photograph that I have gone through so much heart-break the last two years:
I can still smile and look " normal "
The thing is that I am not " normal " anymore or maybe I should rather say that I am not the person I used to be .
I miss the person I used to be , I was happier then ...
Now I struggle to have hope when it used to come to me spontanously before ,
I used to take for granted that I was going to have a wonderful life , but now I´m not so sure ...I nearly expect another disaster in my life instead of expecting the good....
When I look at our photos from last year my life looks great : we have gone to nice places ,we have enjoyed meeting family and friends  and I know this is also a true picture and I am grateful for being able to do them - we have done many nice things but it is as I cant believe that I have done all that , that I am the smiling person on the photo...
In one way I wish I could forget about the last two years but at the same time they are now a part of me , insepereable .
I want to believe  that this year will be a good one , that I will eventually feel happy so much that it will take away the pain from the last two years .
I want to feel positive and optimistic thinking that now it should only get better....but  its hard for me to do ,there is always the little doubt that says " what if its not going to get better ? "

I am thankful that I spent Christmas and New year  on the 2 ww and still wait ....as it at least gave me some space to hope and keep up my spirit.

I try to be proud of myself for making efforts to celebrate Christmas and New Year , to decorate our home , to host my family for Christmas and to get dressed up and go out to celebrate the New Year .
I hope it will be a good year this time .

                                         Ready to celebrate beginning of 2011

                                                   A sunny winter day (view from our balcony)

                                                   Christmas flower arrangement with angel

                                                   Flower arrangement to honour our two angel babies

 

After the snowstorm outside

EDD blues ( trying to honour my angels and all angel babies)

December has been a terrible month for me .
I didnt look forward to it at all as I found it hard to prepare for and celebrate Christmas at the same time as Im grieving my losses still.
Im am sad because of the broken dreams , I am sad because I dont have a one year old baby in the house as I should have had as today is my EDD for baby angel Adam that was due 16 th of dec 2009.
I am sad because me and my husband are so different in how we handle the situation ....he tends to keep his feelings within and I feel left alone . I am sad that Im not pregnant as I should have been if it wasnt for my second loss in August this year.
This Christmas we are still two people in our family  and no child.
To be honnest I havent coped well at all this month.
Me and hubby have argued a lot but thankfully also had some good conversations in between and hopefully we have come closer to eachother.
I went on sick -leave this week as I couldnt keep myself together , I felt that I dont have much to give at work right now  and decided to stay at home and mind my broken heart.
I have been grieving for 3 days and I hardly left the house .
I was feeling sorry for myself and was wondering why  me ? why does this happen to anyone ?
What if I will never be able to conceive again and have a healthy pregnancy? Why do I have to experience the loss of two babies ? Why is my husband so different to me ? Why cant he comfort me the way I want to be comforted ?
The fear took me over and I was so sad .

But then a miracle happened ! I began to think about my angels and their little spirits and I began to think that I cant  continue like this as I dont think they want to see me like this .They dont want their mother to suffer and be depressed , that Im certain of.

My grief turned into energy and I decided that I must keep going and try to be the best person I can be .
While grieving I forgot about this .
I do need to keep going and do my best in order to honour my angels so that their short existance in this world will have a meaning .
Even if I have suffered a lot and still grieve  my book is not yet closed and i DO have opportunities .
I have called up the IVF clinic to talk about their policy and they do treatments until you are 39 ( thats if you want the costs covered by the state  and then  after age 39  you can also try but have to cover the costs yourself)
That means  that I , at age 37 can still do a few stimulated cycles but without IVF and I still have time to do IVF during this year and even next .I need to do a few more stimulated or natural cycles to feel that Im ready to move on to IFV  as I dont feel  like that right now.I need to find out what stimulated cycles can do for us first.
Theoretically  I could even have 2 children if it works.... the thing is that I dont know IF it will work BUT i am going to go ahead and TRY and do my best and HOPE  for the best .
Yesterday I started the " DO MY BEST "  life and I have started to decorate our house for Christmas ( Even if I previously had intended not to do anything at all and skip Christmas)
I have bought flowers  and cushions and will go into town to try to get new curtains .
I will send Christmas cards and buy presents .I will find a charity and try to help someone in need.
I will try to do my best to celebrate Christmas  being in the place I am and I will try to keep HOPE for good things to happen in the future .
(And yes we did / do  TTC this month)

My prayer

First  I want to say that I am so thankful for all support , often I see this blog as a diary but it has its special beauty as wonderful people stop by and leave comments that lifts me up .
I am forever grateful that I live in times when this is possible.I hope I can  help  other people in the same way in the future.
Thank you all  for  taking time to make a comment.

I have had two difficult weeks trying to sort things out with hubby and we have had some good conversations among the arguments and I see that he is trying to make peace.I know its not easy for him either.

Now its soon time to TTC again and I decdided I need  to ask God for help :

Please God help me to get rid of the fear to conceive again - I am so afraid to suffer another loss , I dont know if I can take it once more .

Please help me to find peace and balance so that I can take a step forward and try to conceive with hope and not fear.

Thank you God for all the wonderful people that surround me and  are so generous with love and support .

The worst week during our TTC journey ( Midcycle fight)

The last week has been one of the worst ever .
I have been so sad and upset.
Upset because of the fact that we were fighting and it led to not TTC  this month.

This upsets me so much as this month I was doing a clomid cycle and the follow up ultrasound showed a nice follicle of 19 mm on day 14 .
My gynecologist was happy and I was happy and exited so I sent a text to my husband about the good news and expected some enthusiasm when coming home and expected an effort from his side to make things nice and romantic despite the totally nonspontanous nature of our situation  as we do timed intercourse in order to maximize the chance to conceive.

None of my expectations happened as he sat down on the sofa after supper to watch sport on Tv.
I swallowed my pride and made an effort myself   that night but then got an attack of fear of conceiveing  and  we ended up sleeping with our backs turned towards eachother.He felt rejected not realizing that I felt terrible and needed comfort and support .
The next day I was so upset , I was mad at him for not comforting me while I had my fear , I was so angry for not getting any understanding so we ended up figting that evening too.
The third day , last Saturday he made  an effort and made dinner for us and things looked really good as I got over my anger and was ready to TTC again .
But after the dinner he went back to the sofa to watch some more TV - not talking .
After a few hours sitting with him there I gave up and went to bed alone and refused to let him hold me when he eventually came to bed .
After that it all went downhill and we are still arguing and Im still mad at him for not coperating , for not trying to make this as nice as possible, so that , if we conceive , will remember that we conceived this baby in a loving and romantic way .
I feel this is important to me , I want to know that if I get pregnant the " normal " way I want it to be nice and romantic
So here I am so angry and frustrated  as I feel I do more than him in order to conceive a child .
Im the one reading up information on infertility , Im the one booking doctors appointments , I was the one taking Clomid this month AND taking time to go to the gynecologist office for a check up on the follicles ALONE without him having to take time off from work to come with me AND then go to the farmacy to get the HCG-shot ( Ovitrelle)) .
And Im doing all this in order to try to conceive once more without IVF and I had planned to do so for 3 cycles as I of course dont want to wait too long as I am now 37 and dont have years to wait even if my hormone levels are good still but you never know when that can change  .
The worst thing is that as we have male factor ( high scsa DFI ) I think its definitely up to him too to  cooperate as this is his problem too  but he seems to be in denial ....leaving me feeling so sad and lonely as he doesnt open up and share his feelings much either .Somtimes I feel that Im married to an unsensitive person with a heart of stone even if I know deep in my heart its not the case but I just hate his way of not opening up and be honnest with his feelings leaving me feeling alone and like a freak that have so many feelings  as opposed to his calmness.
Ok he is not in total denial as he went to acupuncture and is taking vitamins and reduced drinks  in an effort to improve the sperm quality but so what if we cant make it to TTC....

Oh I feel so miserable and I dont know what to do .
I dont look forward to the holidays at all and I feel anxious even thinking about Christmas and New Year .
I wish I could just go to a remote Island and dissapear from the rest of the world for a few months ...
Im so stressed with having a fear of TTC I hate it but I cant help it .
Maybe Im not ready yet to TTC after my second loss  as it was only 3.5 months ago and maybe I need a break from TTC but because of my age I cant make that break too long .
I am seriously thinking of taking a break as I cant imagine to try again next month given the circumstances .
I know that I might change my mind several times until then but this is how I feel now .
But then deciding not to try for a while makes me feel like a failure too as it is a missed opportunity for a miracle ....
This post is very private and intimate but I just felt I have to get it out otherwise I will explode ....
I have found some helpful information on the topic on RESOLVE `s website so it made me understand Im not the only one going through this ( I should have known by now ...; )    )
Here is the website if anyone wants to read more , its seven pages so there is a lot to read....
http://familybuilding.resolve.org/site/DocServer/14_Sex_Marriage_and_Infertility.pdf?docID=5704