high risk pregnancy

tomorrow.

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Landon will be starting Kindergarten August 18th, but first he has to attend the standard Kindergarten screening tomorrow afternoon. We have to be at his school at 11 am, and check in at the office. I’m not exactly sure what will happen, but I’m more nervous than he is I’m sure. We still need to get him a few things for school; a beach towel for quiet time, and a snack for his entire class (need to find out how many kinds are in his class first…).

I hope that tomorrow we find out the class list, and maybe his bus schedule. We live about 5-7 minutes from his school, so if he will be on the bus for 40 minutes I’m just going to take him. On the other hand, I’m scared to start taking him because I know that once I do, he will never want to ride the bus (can you blame him?). It’s not like I have anything to do in the mornings, so I guess it’s not a really big deal.

I just can’t help but think that I should be stressing out about getting Kenley ready in the mornings in time to get Landon to school on time. It’s so frustrating to think about. It makes me angry and sad. I hate what happened to her, and I hate the way our family has become. I don’t like that I will never be the same. I was doing so well. I was happy. I was focused on my life, my family, our future, and in one second it was all ripped away from me- from us.

Our next ultrasound is 8/16 with the RE. He said we should be able to hear a heartbeat (with K I heard it at 6+2, I will be almost 7 weeks at this appt). It is starting to scare me to think about not hearing a heartbeat. No matter if I’m struggling with feeling attached to this current pregnancy right now, I still want it to go right. I want this pregnancy, I want this child born into my arms, and to be in my life until the day I die. I might not be able to fully digest the feelings right yet, but I know that I’m doing everything I can to make sure this pregnancy is healthy, and that I am healthy.

The past few weeks have been a crazy emotional time; I’m so thankful that I have my husband by my side. He truly understands me and allows me to feel whatever I need. He allows me to be on my grief timeline, and that’s what I need.

Tomorrow is also Tuesday- ugh. I was driving in the car the other day by myself and I thought “I’m doing better”. I’m able to control my random crying. I’m able to function on Tuesdays. I feel very empty still, but I think that is simply a depression symptom that I am aware of and work every single day to control.

I like to think I’m doing better. Maybe I’m lying to myself, but maybe I have to until I’m really doing better.

Whatever, I am doing what I have to do to survive.

normal.

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This weekend I’m in my hometown visiting my family, and helping my sister with some bridal shower things. It’s been enjoyable, and Landon has had a great time as usual. Being here makes me realize that I don’t view this as my home anymore; my home is 2.5 hours away, in a small town where my Husband is. I’ve wanted to move back to my hometown for nearly 6 years, and we just haven’t had a chance to make it work. It will never happen, and honestly I feel ok with it now. I like my hometown, but I’m ok with not living here. I wish my family were closer, sure, but that is impossible.

I went with my sister and 2 other bridesmaids today to get their make up trial run done. The plan was to have airbrush makeup done for the wedding, and I think everyone had super high hopes for today. Well… I’m pretty sure they all hated it. My sister and one of the bridesmaids washed their faces immediately when they got home, and I’m not sure about the other one. It amazes me that someone would pay for this service, when it  just looked, I don’t know, boring. I hope that my sister can decide on someone else who would do a good job, or that she is confident in herself doing her own make up. No matter what she will look beautiful.

Being around people who I’m not normally around really makes me realize how life is just trucking along, and I’m still “stuck”. I find it difficult to enjoy anything these days, and no matter how much I push myself to try and engage, I’d rather just not. I feel very lonely, even surrounded by a bunch of people. I know that’s my grief talking and shining through, but I’ve yet to figure out a way to combat it. My therapist says that I shouldn’t do anything that makes me uncomfortable; I wonder what she would say if I told her that all things make me feel uncomfortable these days?

We talked about “exposure” therapy on Wednesday. Shane brought up the idea, and asked our therapist what she thought. She said that it’s not a good approach for grief. In front of Kenley’s door stands a 5 foot tall t-rex; I have to have it positioned a certain way so that I don’t see her door handle. If I see the door handle, I know there’s a room behind there and I know that it’s her nursery. If the stand is blocking her door handle, I can almost walk past and think nothing of it. I don’t know. I know it’s weird, and it probably sounds weird to most people – but it’s what I need right now. 

Anyway, our therapist said that I don’t need to rush myself into going in. She told me to go in when I feel ready. She said “Honestly, a baby doesn’t even need it’s own room until what, 6months? You are in no rush”. This made me feel better; I don’t want to feel like I’m being pressured to be on someone else’s grief timeline.  I went in her room the night we got home from the hospital, and I went in at 4 months; I haven’t gone in again. Some days I feel a desire to go in, but I don’t. I don’t know why I don’t go in, probably because I just don’t feel like being sad. I’m “sadded” out these days; I can’t handle any more sadness, please and thank you.

It’s so incredibly hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that it’s AUGUST. My entire year has flown by in the blink of an eye. I have been in a fog all year, understandably, and it’s just so odd to me how time keeps moving right along. Today just solidified how everyone else is moving on, moving forward with life, and I’m just stuck here.

Stuck in the past, present, and future. I will always have one foot somewhere else, for eternity. I don’t think I will ever be present “in the now”.

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joy.

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I’ve been struggling to feel any sort of “joy” lately; not just surrounding this new pregnancy, but in daily life. I just feel so, I don’t know, empty? It’s like I’m here, physically, but I just don’t feel very “into” anything.

I know this feeling is depression, I’m well aware. I am on medication for this, and I can tell that it’s helping, because honestly if it wasn’t I don’t know that I would be anywhere near where I am today.

We went to therapy today (haven’t been since we found out we were pregnant). Our beta was last Wednesday- Therapy Day – so we had to cancel. When we got there today, our therapist was waiting on the edge of her seat to hear our news.

When I told her that we were indeed pregnant, she screamed out of sheer excitement for us, and she cried. SHE CRIED. Our therapist was so happy for us, IS so happy for us, that she legitimately cried tears of Joy for us.

I want to feel joy again. I hope as time goes on that I am able to.

weird.

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5

This weekend has been weird. Friday, I had my repeat betas and they were great; doubling within 44 hours. I have my third beta on Monday morning and when we get those results back we will scheduled our first ultrasound.

Ugh. First ultrasound; It brings tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat. The last time I had an ultrasound with a baby in my ute, she was dead. No heartbeat, no movement, no life. To go to another ultrasound and possibly hear a heartbeat is so, so, so intimidating. It’s absolutely frightening. I want to be excited, please don’t get me wrong. It’s just causing me anxiety, and I feel zero joy right now.

I want to feel excited for this baby; for Landon and Kenley’s little sister growing inside of me. I am just having a really hard time right now. I figured I would take a test, see 2 lines, and cry. Nope, didn’t do that. I figured when I got my first beta back I would feel so great that the number was “this high” or “perfect“, but I didn’t. When the repeat beta came back more than doubled, I figured that I would feel some reassurance…But, you guessed it, I didn’t feel any. I literally just feel empty, which is so ironic because for the first time in 7 months, I’m not alone anymore…even when I am.

I’m guarded.

I don’t want to be.

I honestly don’t know if I will ever be ok during this pregnancy. If this baby is my “Rainbow baby” (side note: this word cuts through my heart like a knife. Kenley was my rainbow. She is supposed to be here, and be my fucking rainbow) I will love her with the same love that I have for Landon and Kenley, I know that. It’s just so unfortunate that the joy of any future pregnancy is shadowed by the fear of loss.

It is unfair.

I don’t care how childish that sounds, it’s the fucking truth.

This is all so unfair.

I miss you, my sweet girl. I am trying to be strong, I swear it to you. I try every. single. day. Sometimes it’s just too much.

The days where it’s too much end with me crying in bed, asking your daddy to promise me, to swear to me that he will bury your urn with me when I die.

No one should ever have to utter those words to their husband in the dark through tears.

Life is so incredibly fucked up.

8dp5dt.

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10

Landon’s spending the night with my mother in law.

Tomorrow at 9am we go for our blood draw that will tell us if we are pregnant or not. Results should be back around 2pm.

Send all the good vibes, if you have any to spare.

 

2dp5dt.

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We had therapy this morning as usual, and I always leave us so exhausted. It is so incredibly hard to sit there for an hour and talk about Kenley. It inevitably always turns to sadness, or things surrounding her death that make me so incredibly mad. Today we were talking about how I like to destress. Our Therapist asked if I was the type of person who believed in “visualization” of something- If you imagine it for long enough, and hard enough that maybe it will come to fruition. Well, I’m not that type of person…at all. I’m a very matter of fact person. If I am pregnant, it’s because this bundle of cells that the RE implanted into my uterus attached to my uterine lining- that’s all. SCIENCE.

I cannot visualize that and make it happen.

Anyway, we talked about that  and I told her that I feel like I’ve been better about not randomly crying anymore. Shane chimed in and said that he sees a big improvement in my attitude and tolerance toward babies (I don’t agree with him though). He referenced the GoT episode we watched last night in which a baby cried for literally 3-5 minutes of the segment. He said he saw me pick up the remote control like I was going to mute it (I actually did pick it up to mute it but then the show ended). He said it was frustrating to him as well and he could it tell it bothered me. He didn’t mention it to me at the time during the show, but he said it today. I told him that he should have muted it because 9/10 we are feeling the same exact thing- I just don’t have a filter and say what I feel.

Then, the Therapist said ” Of course that is hard for you two, you didn’t get to hear Kenley cry. It wasn’t how it was supposed to be, or how people expect it to be.” And I lost my shit. I started crying pretty hard. It’s true, I didn’t get to hear her cry; I NEVER WILL. I grew this beautiful human inside of me and I will never get to hear her sweet cry. Things from there just went to more sad things- her nursery, using her things for future baby, moving and being faced with the feelings of leaving her only home behind. It’s just bullshit- all of it.

Back to decompressing/ destressing- I told her that meditation and things like that don’t work for me. Destressing comes from hanging out with Shane. He is my best friend and being with him is relaxing. When we go on a date, or watch tv and hang out it’s literally the best time for me. Nothing else calms me down more than being with him. He’s like my giant safety blanket I guess. So anyway, today just sucked. I have a love hate relationship with therapy.

We got home and went to the grocery store, and I passed the pregnancy tests. I decided not to buy any right now because they’re so freakin expensive. $20 for a pack of 3? Like I haven’t spent enough money already, people. My blood test to tell if I’m pregnant is Wednesday at 9am. Some (most) people test at home before their blood draw so they know what to expect. I’m pretty sure I will do that…but I guess that means I need to buy a test before Friday. Can someone just knock me out, and wake me up Wednesday after my results are back? Kthx.

So far I’m feeling tired; I think it’s probably from my PIO shots. I’ve been having cramping since the procedure, but I figure that’s probably normal, too. Yesterday night I got so hot that I had to take my robe off in the middle of Game of Thrones and stand there cooling off. It was like a serious hot flash.With Kenley I was sick immediately. She implanted, and I was sick until the day I had her; I threw up the morning she was born. If this baby has implanted, I assume that I will be sick again. Maybe that is why I’ve been feeling nauseous today? A girl can hope, right?

PIO.

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I started my PIO (progesterone in oil) shots the other day, and for some reason they hurt really bad this time. After my egg retrieval my RE had me start the same shots “just incase” our embryos sucked and didn’t make it to day 5 for PGS (can you tell my  Dr has like, zero faith in my body? I don’t blame him, really) and they didn’t hurt at all! Shane was a pro then, maybe he’s just rusty. He says when he’s doing it this time there is resistance. Yeah…I know. I feel it.

I watched a few videos today of others giving themselves the shots, and I feel like I could do it but I figure we’ll give it one more shot with Shane doing it. I think tonight when he gets home, I will warm the oil by rolling it in my palms for a few minutes, and have him give me the shot while I’m laying down.

 ( * I ended up holding the vial of progesterone for a while to warm it up, which made the withdrawal so much easier. Once the syringe was filled I held it in my hand for another 5 mins and laid on my bed when Shane gave me the injection. Perfection! Didn’t even feel the shot at all *) 

For those who don’t know about PIO, it’s to support the uterine lining during the luteal phase of a FET (frozen egg transfer) or a fresh transfer.

The set up looks like this (not my photo):

needles

The one closest to the bottle is an 18g needle. It is used to draw up the medicine. The one on the right is a 22g-1.5 inch needle used to administer the injection. The shot is intramuscular.

And the shots go here:

shotsite

Um Ouch.  

If our embryo sticks, and we are indeed pregnant, we will continue this for 12 weeks. TWELVE. Every. single. night. I’m sorry – I know I should feel so pumped and excited, but it’s just not that simple anymore. I’ve lost my naivety toward the situation; I know too much.

 I know what can go wrong if your hormone levels are off, or if you start spotting. I know that you can have an ectopic pregnancy and lose a tube, or an ovary, or fucking die. I know that your cervix can “not do it’s job” and you can lose your baby at any time even when you think you’ve past the scary points. I know that, even a week before you’re scheduled to have a normal repeat C-section, you can hear the words that will shatter your world forever; “This is where her heart is, and unfortunetly there is no heartbeat”. I know that you can truly feel like you want to die for the foreseeable future because your child died inside of you when you were in the clear; your daughter died when she shouldn’t have.

Those things could happen to us again. Any of them could be a possibility and I hate that I even have to worry about it.  I know that we will be monitored so intensely, but my mind just goes back to “well, shouldn’t I have been monitored this well anyway? I am growing a human for fucks sake”. Sadly, that’s not the case. Monitoring for normal pregnancies is a joke. I had a shitty NINE MINUTE (yes, nine minutes…normal scans can range from 20 mins to an hour for some people) anatomy scan, an intake scan at a new OB that was probably 25-30 minutes long, and a scan at 36.5 weeks…and somehow, no one detected a possibly anomaly with Kenley’s cord. Maybe, just maybe, if a Biophysical Profile Ultrasound was done on me my daughter would be here. Maybe, if my doctors sent me to an MFM because of my history with Preeclampsia, they would have done one on me. I should have been sent to an MFM. I was failed by doctors. All of my doctors failed us during Kenley’s pregnancy.

There is a standard of care, and a general guideline to follow when sending your patient to an MFM…and I ticked many boxes, yet I wasn’t sent.

I will never forgive myself for not advocating harder for my Daughter.

The medical field needs to get their shit together. 26,000 stillbirths a year, and yet we just can’t figure it out?

Unacceptable.

Medicine failed my sweet girl, and it’s hard to believe that anything positive could happen for us now.

next.

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Tomorrow, if everything looks good at my scan, I will be a week away from my Transfer.

A week.

7 days.

I will hopefully be carrying our next child, soon. I don’t even know what to call this child. Kenley was my rainbow, yet…she wasn’t.

If anyone knows the answer to this, I would love to hear it. I suppose this next child would be my rainbow…but what would this make Kenley. Life is weird.

The RE has my beta set for 8 days after our transfer. I’m almost 100% positive that I will not be able to wait that long to find out if it worked or not. On the other hand, I don’t want to test early and get a false negative. There’s just so much to think about, but in all reality I should just calm the hell down and wait for my beta.

I don’t think I can wait though. Dr.Google has shown me that a bunch of ladies have gotten + tests as soon as 4 days past a 5 day transfer. I don’t know how I can rationalize not testing early.

I really want to talk to a loss mom who is a few months ahead of me. I want to pick their brain, ask them a few questions. How did you control your stress? How did you not worry every second of every day? How do you make yourself feel that you are worthy of this pregnancy? Did you have issues connecting to this new pregnancy?

Just a few things I think about whenever I think about becoming pregnant again.

I did feel something like excitement today when thinking about another child…so there’s that.

day 5.

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The Embryologist called me early today – 7:30 am!

He once again explained to me how the embryos are supposed to look on this day:

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The part labeled embryoblast is also called the “inner cell mass” which will become the fetus.

ALL SEVEN OF OUR EMBRYOS MADE IT TO BLAST. 

vpll0

I am blown away! I never imagined this to be the case, ever. I have diminished ovarian reserve, this is not supposed to happen. I am just sitting here with my jaw on the floor in disbelief.

The embryologist said that currently, 3 embryos are perfect and ready to be PGS tested. He said 2 additional ones are more than likely going to catch up to the same stage and will be able to be tested, too. I’m not sure what will happen with the other two, so I guess we will see what he says tomorrow morning when he calls us.

snl-excited

I’m stopping my PIO shots, and all my other medications. I will start birth control again, and we will go from there. I am a little confused right now as my IVF nurse just told us we are transferring in AUGUST (uh…no?!?!) because my Dr said July. I have an email in to her, and I hope we get this cleared up because HOLY ANXIETY. The whole point of this is to transfer in July. I had this whole thing planned in my head of how it is supposed to go (a terrible idea, I know…life hasn’t gone according to plan yet so why would it now?) so I just hope that she was reading the wrong date or whatever.

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The Embryologist is supposed to call us again pretty early tomorrow morning with the biopsy news! I’m nervous, excited, terrified, guilty, worried, scared…you  name it.

I just want this to work in the best way possible.

Today marks 25 weeks since our sweet girl left our lives. It feels like it’s always the same thing every week; Its Tuesday, I can’t even begin to wrap my head around it all, and then I get sad. I know she wouldn’t want us to be sad, and would be happy for us that we’re getting stronger and moving on. It makes me sad to think about bringing a sibling into Landon’s life who isn’t her…but it also makes me feel a little excited. I know she would want that for Landon.

Life after loss is just a fucking mess.

I miss you, sweet K. I’m so thankful I have you looking out for me. I love you baby girl.

day 3.

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This morning the embryologist called at 9:53.

He explained to me that on the third day they like to see the embryos dividing into 7-9 cells, with 8 cells being “perfect”. He said that our embryos have little to no fragmentation which is a very good thing as well.

We have 6 embryos that are in the 7-9 cell range, and we have 1 embryo that is a little behind at 6 cells. The embryologist did tell me that there is a very good chance that 6 cell embryo could catch up though. He even said “I could go check on it after we get off the phone and it could be in the 7-9 cell range”.

Hell yes. I just cannot believe it! 

 

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Here is a chart to show you the stages of Embryo development along with a description of what should be happening.  

I truly credit some of this success to the book “It starts with the egg” by Rebecca Fett. She discusses specific studies that have been done for Diminished Ovarian Reserve women; She then gives you a suggested list of supplements and vitamins to take (all with the approval of your doctor, obviously). I seriously think that all of those have made a huge impact on my embryo quality (also, the fact that we have no Male factor infertility issues what so ever helps a lot).

I started taking the following supplements 4 months before our cycle:

  • 600 mg CoQ10 Ubiquniol
  • 75 mg micronized DHEA
  • Prenatal + DHA
  • 81 mg baby aspirin
  • 400 mcg Folic Acid
  • 500 mg Vitamin C
  • 2000 IU Vitamin D3
  • 3,000 mg Acai berry extract

In the book the author states that DHEA is supposed to do wonders for women with DOR. I spoke with my RE and he had never really read any studies about it, but agreed to let me take it as long as I kept him updated on if I stopped or whatever. I’m pretty sure if this cycle yields ALL good quality embryos, I’m going to buy him the book as a gift 🙂

Now, there is a chance that the eggs all fertilized because we chose to do ICSI instead of regular IVF fertilization.  ICSI is a process where one single good quality sperm is injected into the egg (see below). This is always done for people choosing to do PGS testing (click the link to learn more about PGS testing), and often used when you have Male Factor Infertility as well.

icsi

From here, we wait until they call me on Tuesday morning. The embryologist said he would call me before 9 am, just incase we needed to come in for a transfer later that afternoon.

He told me that he recommends that we push to day 5 even if we decided to do a fresh transfer instead of freezing them and transferring in July. I’m really happy that he seems to think they are all good quality; What a great feeling for us! I guess we will see what happens on Tuesday when he calls. If we are looking at only 1-3 being good quality and growing normally, I think we may look at transferring fresh, but if they look good we are going forward with the day 5+6 biopsies. The PGS testing results should take about a week to get back.