How Did We Get Here?

Last week I woke up at 3:00am to pee and I took at pregnancy test at the same time.  I bought the digital test and I am glad because I would never have been able to read the plus sign/two line type test at 3:00am.  My eyes were all foggy and blurry and I wasn't awake yet.  I stayed in the bathroom until the test processed.  It was positive and it said PREGNANT

I kept waiting for the NOT to show up in front of it.

I flung the bathroom door open and yelled to Lou.  He sat up quickly...I think he thought I was hurt or something.  I told him we were pregnant.  We sat up in bed and held the test and hugged.  I don't think we cried.  I was seriously in SHOCK!

We were both so happy that we couldn't go right back to sleep.  I sent a quick message to my friend Michelle, who spent 8 years trying for a baby before she and her husband had Katelyn.  I said something like...Guess what?  I just took a pregnancy test and it was positive. Please think happy thoughts and pray for us.  She wrote me back within an hour or so...she must have been up early with Katelyn.

I sat up in bed and told Lou..go get the cheesecake!  We had been to Cheesecake Factory for dinner and I brought home a piece of cheesecake for dessert.  I never ate it.  4:00am seemed like a perfect time for cheesecake.  Lou brought two forks and we ate cake in our bed to celebrate!

I had bought a little newborn baby onesie that said Daddy Loves Me.  I had bought it quite a while ago.  I was taking a chance buying it, but I remember thinking if we never get pregnant and I end up wasting $7.00 on this...I've wasted more than that before.  I kept it in my car hidden for a few months.  After I told Lou that we were pregnant I went out to the garage and dug the onesie out of my hiding place.  I brought it in and gave it to Lou.

We knew we would wait a little bit to tell people.  Not too long, but just long enough for the doctor to tell us that the lab work looked good.  My lab work came back really low after our first blood test.  I was worried, but trying to stay positive.

Yesterday I had my second blood test and before it even came back I started bleeding pretty heavily and I knew something was wrong.  The doctor called about an hour or so after I started bleeding and confirmed that I was having a miscarriage.

I am so sad and so shocked.  I really didn't think this would happen to us.  How did we get here?

It's been over a year since I posted an entry here.  I'm going to try and work backwards to document what's been happening on our journey to now.  Right now I am just sad...and hurting.  What happened?

I'm just going to get down to it...

Well, my second round of Femara didn't work as well as the first round.  I did have 1 follicle, but only 1 and...yep...on the right side. 

Lou was going in for pain block injections in his back during ovulation week.  He was thinking he'd be fine and we could get right down to business as soon as he was done with the shots...So cute and so sweet.  Instead, I surged on the day of the injections and the shots were NOTHING like we imagined.  In fact he's feeling worse now than he did before he had the shots.  So needless to say we didn't really "try" this month, but at the same time I felt like our chances were pretty slim anyway.

So second round of Femara...Nothing. 

Over the last two weeks of my last cycle I started to feel very depressed.  I was really starting to question my ability to put myself through this month after month.  I don't even know how it came or how I came to realize, but all of a sudden I knew I was falling apart.  I really couldn't stop crying. I didn't want to see anyone, call anyone, go anywhere.  For the first time in a long time I felt horribly depressed. 

I went back and forth on this next cycle and if I would continue the do the Femara.  Jane said the last time I saw her that Dr. Swanson would only probably let me do one or two more cycles before he referred me out to someone else.  I think the thought of that made me really sad and I thought if I stopped everything I could somehow control this journey.  Like controlling it myself made any of it more easy???

Anyway, I finally decided to do the 3rd cycle.  So when Aunto Flo came I knew I needed to get my prescription filled.  The thrid day of my cycle was on a Saturday.  I waited until the last minute to go to the pharmacy and when I did it was just an hour before closing. I waited at the counter and the girl working the register said that my prescription had been declined.  Our insurance is really weird...It will only pay for a medication (most medications) two times before it identifies it as a "maintenance" drug and requires the doctor to dispense it in a 90 or 100 day supply.  In the past my Clomid had been approved to dispense on a monthly basis because of the nature of the treatment and we never had any problem.  Well, Femara is not on the "approved" list of fertility drugs (to be dispensed monthly) so the "system" would not clear it.  AND...it was Saturday at 5:30pm. Cash pay for 10 pills...$158.  I was not prepared to pay for that.

I started crying in the pharmacy.  I called Dr. Swanson...not on call. I called the insuracne company...no one to override the hold until Monday.  I tried taking it to a different pharmacy...Nothing. I felt like I had sabotaged this whole month. 

All I could do was wait until Monday. 

Monday morning I started calling our insurance company and gafter about four calls got someone who understood what I was asking. By that afternoon our benefit coordinator had said she could override it on a monthly basis if it was only going to be a few more months.  I called Dr. Swanson's office (since now I was day 5 of my cycle) to see if I could still take the Femara this month.  He called me at about 5:30pm and I told him the situation.  He was so sorry that I had had that happen, but also said that I could not start the Femara after day 4. 

So here I sit.  I'm on a break...and truthfully I don't know if I want this break to end...at least for a while.  I go back and forth every day...and sometimes two and three times a day my mind changes about what I want to do with this journey.  I still have an appointment to see Dr. Swanson (to "talk") on the 15th on March.  I am concerned that I might get a cycst and/or that I won't get a period.  I will most likely keep my appointment just so we can talk about that.   I know that I do not want to go on birth control for any length of time even if that means I won't get a cyst and my periods will be regulated. 

That's it for now...I'm done.  I got nothing else.

What Might Have Been

Nine months ago I was pregnant.  I remember calling my sister to tell her that we were going to have a February baby.  She was especially excited because my baby and my sister might have shared birthdays. 

Brit's birthday is tomorrow, but I won't be having a baby anytime soon. 

I can't help but think about how different our life would be right now.  In a way it would probably be more hectic and complicated, but oh how different and exciting it would be. 

For a long time after my tubal pregnancy I didn't really know what to think of everything that had happened.  I didn't know if I was supposed to feel like that pregancy, that embryo, that baby was already a part of our family...I didn't even know what you called it at that stage.

 I do know that it was part Lou and part me and I absolutely loved everything about it.  I have often thought back to that special time of my life and smiled so big just remembering how happy I was.  When the test read "Pregnant" I cried happy tears in the bathroom stall at work. And when the nurse called to tell me that I was definitely pregnant I smiled so big.  Telling my family and friends was so wonderful. 

I don't know if I will have that experience again.  I definitely hope that I am able to have that again someday.  Sometimes I think about naming that little bean just so that I never forget how happy she made me feel, but then I think that sounds ridiculous and I just push the thought out. 

Name or no name I will always have a special place in my heart for that first pregnancy, that beautiful happiness that I felt.