Double "Blessing"

Some of my friends deal with infertility, some of them have overcome a miscarriage, but it is a special few who of us who are "lucky" enough to deal with both. I have always been taught that you are never given more than you can handle in life, but the past 19 months have left me to wonder. I set my mind to overcoming my infertility caused by my PCOS, and after twelve months, I did.

With my second try on Clomid (100 mg), I got pregnant and was back in the drivers seat. (Big sigh of relief - one year of being out of control for Mrs. Type A drove me almost to my breaking point...or so I thought). 8 week ultrasound revealed we were on track to a healthy pregnancy - after hearing the heart beat, my doc said less than 5% chance for loss. Ha, loss I thought, I could never lose something that I had worked so hard for. 12 week visit changed all of that. We discovered that we had lost the baby around 9 1/2 weeks. Needless to say, we were shocked and devastated. I allowed myself to be really sad for a few days, then I picked myself up and refocused on the future...we had another baby to make. It was that goal that kept me moving everyday. Of course, the weeks seemed to crawl by as we waited for my hormones to return to normal and to get the all clear to begin Clomid again.

Three full months later, we were back on the Clomid (50mg). Pregnancy test on day 28 of my cycle was negative, I wrote it off and cursed my doc for making me start on the 50mg even though it had not worked the first time. A persistent nurse at my OBs office insisted I do bloodwork before starting the next cycle. Not wanting to upset the gate keeper to my doc, I agreed and on day 30, had a HCG quant. It came back at 6, for those of you who are not insanely familiar with female reproductive hormone levels as I am, on a typical home pregnancy test, you have to be at a 50 to get a positive. My doctor wasn't even sure what to make of it....maybe a chemical pregnancy, maybe residual HCG from my prior pregnancy or maybe, just maybe, really early in the pregnancy. A repeat blood test two days later would crack the code. So, I went along with the chirade....frustrated at the days we were wasting in not moving forward with the next cycle. Day 32 bloodwork, HCG went to 28...again, in case you are not familiar, this is VERY GOOD - HCG should double every two days or so. Mine had more than doubled - twins, I thought in my ecstatic state of disbelief. But after that first ecstatic weekend, I sensed that something wasn't quite right...I prayed that it was my paranoia from our first loss. I insisted my doc repeat the HCG quant a week later...all looked good. Maybe I was just being paranoid. After what seemed like an eternity, 8 week visit finally arrived. My hunch proved accurate, the ultrasound tech pointed out my uterus and the gestational sac....but we didn't hear anything...I finally asked, no heartbeat?? No heartbeat. No embryo developed, it was what they call a "blighted ovum"... Here we go again.

The grieving process was WAY different for me this time - I wasn't sad, I was mad. What had I done to bring all of this on to me!? And to add insult to injury, it seemed everytime I turned around someone else was announcing their impending pregnancy. My OB recommended a fertility specialist, at first I was reluctant, maybe I thought if I saw a specialist I was acknowledging that this was more than bad luck, that there really was a problem. After talking to my husband (who was taking this all harder than I was), we decided to see the new doctor. We were so impressed with the specialist, he spent over 45 minutes with us, getting to know us and explaining all of the possible reasons for pregnancy loss and potential diagnostic testing and treatment for each of them. The wildcard was the fact that about 50% of the time there is no indentifiable cause for the loss, so we could do all of this testing, find nothing and continue to have miscarriages....ahhh, how hopeful.

We are eager to move forward with the testing, but of course, another reminder that we are not in control, we have to wait for my pregnancy hormones to return to normal. We are on week five of the wait, last HCG check was around 2,000....again, shooting for 5!! So the days crawl by, as I try to distract myself from the gigantic elephant in the room...my ability to NOT have a baby. I am scheduled for bloodwork in another week, fingers crossed for a major drop. Why do I feel like I have spent the last 20 months in quest for two things and two things only, trying to get pregnant, and trying to get "un" pregnant...ironic, huh.