Infertility

steps.

Posted by

5

The title of this post has many meanings; let me explain what I mean.

I was sitting here trying to think of a way to title this post, and I was coming up blank. I knew the things I wanted to write about and I just couldn’t figure it out. Then it came to me – STEPS.

Taking steps moving forward in my life.

Never getting to see Kenley take steps.

Taking steps by walking in a 5k for a woman who lost her daughter, Lydie, to stillbirth.

Steps. 

If you write it out enough, it just doesn’t even look like a word. You know how if you say a word too much it starts to sound weird, or not like a word? Same for when you spell it out over and over, it just looks weird eventually. I feel that way about repeating that my daughter is dead over and over. Kenley is dead. She died. I will never have her here with me on this earth again. It just doesn’t make fucking sense.

On October 1st, the woman who lost her daughter that I mentioned above has set up a 5k/1mile/kids dash in Columbus. All proceeds benefit the Star Legacy Foundation for stillbirth research and education. I want to participate in this so incredibly much. I want to start a team for Kenley. I feel a special connection to this woman, Heather, for many reasons.

She is from our area, she has also lost her beautiful daughter, and the most fucked up reason of all? She and her Husband were the people who raised the money to donate Cuddle Cots to the hospital system where we had Kenley. Kenley used a cuddle cot, which lengthened her stay with us in the room.We spent approximately 2 days with Kenley.  Heather and her Husband only spent 6 hours with their daughter. Six Hours. For her entire life, she will only have those 6 hours with her daughter. It breaks my heart that she did not have this item and was not able to spend more time with her daughter, but I am beyond thankful that I was given that opportunity because of them.

If you’re interested in walking in this 5k/1mile walk here is the information:

screen2bshot2b2016-05-132bat2b1-18-312bpm

 

I’ve been seeing a lot of babies around Kenley’s age lately. There seems to be an abundance of them at T-ball games. It crushes my soul each time I see a cute little girl, in a cute little sundress and headband being carried lovingly by their mother. It should be me. I should be carrying Kenley around, enjoying every single second of it. Instead I’m envious of the other mothers. It pains me to look at them, and be near them. I’m not a mean person, and I’m not mad that they have their children; I don’t wish what happened to us on my worst enemy. It’s just the worst pain there is, I’m almost 100% sure of it. I look away, I look at the ground, any thing to avoid the happy family with the daughter that I should have. The families who never had an issue having their sweet daughter, who never had to hear the worst words in the world – ” Unfortunately, there is no heartbeat”.

Yeah, good choice of words doctor. Unfortunately. I want to punch that doctor in her stupid face. I will forever hold this against her as a person. Have a little fucking compassion. There needs to be a change in medical care in regard to dealing with these issues because they are real, and they happen. Don’t tell me my daughter died in the middle of triage, where the rooms are separated by curtains. Don’t let me sit there and hear the other ladies being monitored with their beautiful children hearts beating on the monitors.

Some times I literally cannot believe these things have happened to me. To my family. To my husband and my son. To my daughter.

I can’t believe that we have to do IVF in hopes that we someday get to complete our family. I can’t believe that we have NO fertility coverage for IVF and we have to pay every single cent out of pocket. It just seems so unfair after what we’ve gone through. There should be someone with an actual heart who reviews your case and that is how your coverage is decided. You will cover my child’s autopsy report, but you will not cover a single thing related to having a child with infertility issues? It’s sickening, really.

The worst part of all of this is how incredibly fucked up my “Mom” mind is from all of this.

Everything has a direct link to my pregnancy with Kenley, or the fact that she is no longer here with us. Thinking about getting pregnant again is exciting because we will be bringing another child into the world. I’m sure we will feel more joy than we can even imagine right now. But…those thoughts come with thoughts of panic about her nursery, her things, this happening again, or something else happening.

I’m pretty sure that my life is always going to be an ever changing puzzle that I’m never going to figure out – think the Gryffindor stair case that constantly changes in Harry Potter…that’s what I’m sure my life will be forever.

Somedays I don’t have it in me to keep climbing, I won’t lie. I’m hoping as IVF moves along, I will feel more hopeful, more positive.

I just need to work on not letting my guilt pull me under.

 

 

baseline.

Posted by

0

Landon stayed with my mother in law last night for a sleepover with his cousin, Madison. They are a year apart, and get along so well. I’m so thankful that Landon has her to play with. I don’t know what I would do if not. It also give me less anxiety when I leave him there while she’s there as well. It makes me feel like he is going to play with her, and stay out of MIL’s way. I know she enjoys having them both there, but still. I just worry.

We went to the movies yesterday afternoon. We saw X-men: Apocalypse; to anyone who said it was bad, you’re dumb. It was really, really good! Since being with Shane, my movie taste has changed; I’m a super nerd in the movie world now. I guess I like to think of it as he’s shown me what good movies truly are 😉 We had popcorn, and pretzel bites; It was probably the worst we’ve eaten in like 4 months. So worth it! After the movie, we went to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants. I enjoy spending time with Shane anywhere we are, but the movies and dinner are my favorite places. We have to drive in the car together to go to those places and I enjoy that as well 🙂

After that we came home and just relaxed. We watched the Cavs suck it up big time, and went to bed.

This morning we were up at 7, and out the door at 8 for my RE appointment. After waiting about an hour to be seen, we were taken back to the room. I always fear that they’re going to put me in Kenley’s room; the room where we had our IUI and got pregnant. Thankfully they didn’t put us there this time. Although I’ve been in there since, so I guess it doesn’t really matter; just another one of those “things” that happens to your brain after a loss.

We waited for Dr. J, and when he came in we started the scan. 8 follicles on my right ovary, and 5 on my left. I will take that – AFC was 13 total. My lining was 4.4 which they said was fine. I had blood work drawn, which came back ok and was cleared to start shots on Sunday night! I had the IVF nurse show me how to mix my Follistim and Menopur to make one shot, and we were on our way.

I feel better.

I was anticipating a terrible AFC count or something being wrong that would stop us from starting IVF; I was dreaming up this awful scenario in my mind of what was going to go wrong. Can you blame me? I didn’t think so. 

So, things look well. We set up all of my monitoring appointments for the next two weeks .( 3 trips to the RE in 5 days. 40 minutes each way. All appointments during rush hour….) So now I have to give my MIL a new copy of the calendar and set up with her to keep Landon during these appointments as Shane wants to be with me for them if at all possible.

I feel K with me today. I feel her telling me it’s ok to move forward. I know she would want me happy, but I can’t help but always think of my desire for her.

I really wish I didn’t have to give her back. I would have been the best mother to her.

I miss her so incredibly much.

random thoughts.

Posted by

2

I feel like I have all these things to say that are so random. So many things on my mind, and no real structure to write them out in. It’s so annoying; I shouldn’t have these types of things on my mind. No one should have to think them. Forgive this post as it is very very random and probably makes no sense. I just need to get it out.

Tomorrow, I go for my baseline ultrasound (the RE checks my uterine lining, checks my blood work, and answer any questions I may need answered). If everything checks out well, we will start our shots (Follistim and Menopur) on Sunday. Stabbing myself with needles does not scare me; what scares me is the simple fact that we are moving on. We’re doing this again.

IVF is intense; it’s a lot to take on without the added grief of losing Kenley. I think starting IVF (had we not lost K) would have been seen as exciting, and given me so much hope. Now, in the after, it just leads to stress, anxiety, guilt, fear and exhaustion. I’m excited at the possibility of having another child, obviously. I’m very lucky to be able to even go through with IVF. I know all of these things. It doesn’t matter; I can’t help the way I feel when thinking of going through it all again.

I could be pregnant very soon. So what does that mean? Oh, Right…vomiting, food aversions, food cravings, more vomiting, pubic bone pain (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction) and a lot of other really uncomfortable things, like peeing every 3 minutes. I get to be pregnant, again, approximately 6 months after giving birth to my dead child. I get to spend 9 months in straight fear of losing this child, if were even lucky enough to get pregnant again. I loved being pregnant with Landon, and I loved it even more with Kenley. Sure, she made me sick up until the day I had her, but I enjoyed every second she spent inside of my body.

There are just so many random things going through my mind. A woman who I follow on WordPress wrote about her son, and his “things”. His physical things; the crib, the clothes, the grave, the ashes. She spoke of them and how it was hard for her to go to his grave; that she just did not find comfort in it. It breaks her down emotionally for days to come after she leaves. I get that; it is exactly why we did not bury Kenley. I couldn’t because I know for a fact that I would be there, every day, crying. I don’t think that I would be able to function. I would feel incredible guilt not going, or when I left.

I don’t know if it’s any better that she was cremated and sits on my dresser. I don’t know…Is there any good way to lay your dead child to rest? Nope, there isn’t. No matter what, you’re always going to feel some sort of guilt, or shame about your choice. Someone commented on her post and I swear it could have been me writing the post. It made me think; I know logically that Kenley is not her ashes. I know that they are just that- her ashes. But it is physically the only thing I have left of her. I think that I cling to them, and feel connected to her when I kiss them goodnight. I have nothing else, what else am I to do?

I printed her picture out and it’s now sitting on my night stand. I looked at it on my phone every night, but taking that step to actually print it out and physically have it took a lot of courage. I cannot tell you why it took me so long to do that; I literally have no idea why. I just couldn’t do it for some reason. Maybe it made it feel too real. Maybe I wasn’t ready. Maybe I didn’t want to take on the task of finding a picture frame that was fucking worthy of holding my dead daughters picture.

It’s never just as easy as taking the step; there are 1,000 things to think of before you move your feet. And sadly, it’s going to be that way for a long ass time. I’m sure the things I “need” to do before taking steps will decrese. Maybe one day it will be 500 things,then 200 things, and maybe one day I will just be able to take that step with out all of the other shit in my mind. Maybe one day I will have clairty and be able to make choices without considering ALL the things first.

I hate that I think of IVF and think anything other than “I’m so excited to try and get pregnant again”.

I don’t know that I will ever be “excited” to try again. Maybe one day I will feel that twinge of excitement, but for now I’m fucking terrified.

And I’m allowed to feel that way.

So please don’t tell me I should appreciate the opportunity, or be happy that I have a living child already. Don’t tell me that I need to feel hopeful; or that “life goes on”.

Because I know those things.

I shouldn’t even have to worry about those things. 

 

starting ivf.

Posted by

5

Well…It’s that time. Tomorrow I will take my last birth control pill, and Friday I go in for my first monitoring appointment of this IVF cycle.

Shit is getting real.

To say that I’m terrified is an understatement. I’m in the “so much terrible shit has happened to me, why would it change now?” camp. I mean, realistically, I know that the “odds” are in our favor; the chances of a future child being stillborn are not increased. We will be seeing an MFM (maternal fetal medicine high risk OBGYN) doctor at OSU, and will be very closely monitored through the entire pregnancy. I will deliver at 37 weeks. I feel that things will go better this time, but what if they don’t.

Shane and I are both feeling the intensity of IVF. Maybe not IVF itself, but the whole uncertainty of it all. There is so much that goes into an IVF cycle. My infertility plays a huge role in the way that I’ll respond to medicine, and the eggs we will retrieve. I could have nothing. We could have paid all of this money, gone through all of this stress just to end up with no good quality eggs. I know that this is something we are risking, but I do feel “hopeful” for this cycle because of my age, and the fact that I carried two children to term.

On Friday my RE (reproductive endocrinologist) will check the lining of my uterus. He will check the way my AFC (antral follicle count is a transvaginal ultrasound study that measures a woman’s ovarian reserve, or her remaining egg supply) looks.  In April my AFC was 13. When I got pregnant with Kenley it was 12. So, I’m happy to see that it’s not drastically declining. I’m hoping that this means I will have a decent response to the meds.

I am considered DOR (diminished ovarian reserve), meaning I have low egg counts. My blood work is all normal, with the exception of my AMH being low for my age (AMH blood levels are thought to reflect the size of the remaining egg supply).

IVF isn’t just about “getting pregnant” for me, it’s about completing our family. It’s going to be incredibly difficult to be pregnant again; I just know the anxiety and worry I will feel. I think about things like what will happen when it comes time to put that child into the crib that we purchased for their older sibling who died. How will I feel using that room for a childs nursery?

I think about the brand new hand-me-downs. 

Just hearing that is like a stab in the heart.

This whole process is going to be so long and intense for us. I know that we can survive it, because we’ve survived this far.

Here we go again, Life.

bd42e911a64483ca9a8752915b4fbd7d

book. 

Posted by

4

Today I noticed that Angela Miller’s book “You are the Mother of all Mothers” was offering it’s 6th edition memorial page printing. In this, you are purchasing a spot for your child’s name in the back of the book on the memorial page (along with 2 copies of the book). All these books will be printed with your child’s name. 

We bought Kenley a spot.

It means so much to me to know that people all around the world will buy this book and see her name. Say her name out loud. I can’t wait until the book is in print. Once it is, I plan to use the gift card from TCF to buy 20 of them to include in my donations for stillborn mothers who give birth at Mt.Carmel. 

Angela’s writing has helped me in ways that I don’t think can be put into words. She speaks from this place of all knowing that I wish no one had to know of. Every word she types could have come from my hands; could be from the sadness in my heart. In the early days after Kenley’s death, I didn’t know what to do; life felt like a cruel joke. 

Finding Angela’s work on Still Standing brought me comfort. It made me feel less alone. In the early days after a child’s death you feel lost. You are in this black space and there is no light; you don’t know if there ever will be light again.  Reading articles from still standing, and seeing that there were mothers who went through what I currently was, and survived –however broken and bruised- gave me a sliver of hope. Hope that maybe I can pull through this after all. 

I will never be the same as before, but I will survive. 

Today, as I get ready to go to my in laws for a small get together, I can’t help but feel empty because we are missing her. I know we will never forget Kenley, obviously, it’s just hard to see life moving on without her. She is my first daughter. My second born child. She will always have a gigantic piece of my soul with her. 

On the day when we are reunited, whenever and wherever that may be, I will be whole again. 

dreaming.

Posted by

6

There is a song by The Black Keys called “Your Touch” that is one of my favorites. There is a place in the video where they stop the song and show the band sitting at a diner table talking. One asks the other “so, how do you feel about being dead?“, at which time the other member replies “I don’t know, my neck hurts”.

It made me laugh today; Yeah, I straight up LOL’ed. In my mind I was thinking, “that is so fucking funny”. I’m not sure why; in the “after” I usually get weird feelings when I hear things about death/dying. This was different, like…I don’t know.

It was like he was saying “whatever no biggie that I’m dead, I’ve just got this terrible neck ache”.

I guess that’s just my humor, and I’m pretty happy that I laughed at it to be honest. I felt like myself for that 2.5 seconds during the song.

Last night I had a dream that my Grandma died. (Grandma, if you’re reading this, this is why I’ve called you 2 times today! Answer your phone!) Since I’ve lost Kenley, I can’t sleep at night without medicine. I don’t want to lay in bed and think about the tragedy that came about in my life; I want to lay there, and fucking fall asleep. Zero thoughts in my brain. The medicine works about 75% of the time…the other 25% of the time I cannot shut my brain off. I am overcome with the most terrible thoughts; It’s like the worst day of my life is on a loop. All I can hear is the Doctor telling me “this is where her heart is, and there is no activity. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a heartbeat”over and over and over. It cuts through me like a knife.

Anyway, the dream.

Grandma died, and was somehow able to attend her funeral. It wasn’t the actual funeral, but the gathering that happens afterwards. It was in a giant room with rectangle tables, and all of my family there. Grandma sat across from me at the table, me sobbing uncontrollably (I remember the crying in my dream being the exact cry that I had when I lost Kenley- uncontrolable sadness…), her holding my hand gently and talking to me about anything and everything. I asked her when she had to leave me for good, if she would make sure to tell me that Kenley was okay. I swear to god, at that exact second in my dream, someone sat on my side of the bed and woke me up; startled me awake out of the deep sleep I was in.

In the dream, I remember hearing myself ask her that question and seeing a beautiful wooded trail in my mind. She looked at me and said ” Randi, don’t be sad. How could I be sad; I get to be with Ron (my grandpa), Puffy Joe (their dog), and I get to hold Kenley. As she said those things in my dream I remember seeing in my mind that she was sitting on a bed, with Ron and Puffy Joe; she then stood up and walked to a crib and picked up my baby girl. I saw her.

I haven’t dreamt of Kenley since I lost her.

This gets even more weird…

When I woke up, I had a text from my sister asking me ” Do you ever dream of Kenley?”. She said that she sent me that text earlier in the morning when she was looking at her back deck and saw a Cardinal.

Coincidence? I’m not sure.

I’d like to think that was my baby girl just letting me know she was okay.

who do I have?

Posted by

3

Last night we went for a little walk around our property. We walked back to our garden, and checked out what it looked like from last summers terrible season. It is grown up, and dead; tomato steaks still in their rows. I don’t know why, but our christmas tree was in there. Maybe it blew over there off of our burn pile some windy day, or maybe it decided to walk itself over there (weirder things have happened in my life, hello). Ugh…upcoming Christmas; That’s a post for a whole different day.

We talked about if we wanted to plant a garden this year. Usually we plant tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, cucumbers, corn and a variety of pumpkins. We also plant giant russian mammoth sunflowers; these are my favorites because they grow super tall and the bloom is bigger than my hands! After we looked at the garden, Landon started chasing a bird through the yard. Wilbert ran after him, and Shane as well. As I stood there watching all 3 of them playing, I couldn’t help but feel sadness.

Sadness that I should have her in my arms, and she should be sucking on her little fingers; she should be cooing and squirming all around just begging for me to put her down in the grass. But, she’s not. She’s not here, and she will never experience those things. She won’t get up from wrestling with her daddy in the grass and have it all in her hair. I won’t be able to wipe it off of her clothes like I had to for Landon. When I see Shane and Landon interact and play together, it breaks my heart into a million pieces.

Shane has Landon…who do I have?

No one.

She was stolen from me; ripped from our lives without any fucking warning. She was going to be my forever best friend. I didn’t just lose my daughter, I lost so much more.

I lost so. much. more.

The love that I have for Shane and Landon is immeasurable; they are the reason I am still alive and trying to rebuild myself through the aftermath of this storm. I love seeing them together, and watching Landon enjoy Shane’s company.

I just thought that I was going to have that with Kenley…and I never will.

It hurts to think about it; like the kind of hurt that burns your chest and gives you the lump in your throat. Except the pain doesn’t pass; I have to feel this type of grief forever. Yeah sure, life goes on. We will hopefully have more children someday, but what about this everlasting grief? I know it will lessen. I know that a new child will bring joy to our lives like we never expected. But, I have this round hole in my heart that life will try to fill with square pegs forever.

It will get better, but it won’t quite fit right. 

 

21 weeks.

Posted by

5

I can’t believe it’s been so long, sweet baby girl. It’s impossible. Some days it doesn’t feel like you were ever here, but part of my soul is missing so I know that you were. You were real. You are loved. You will always be my daughter.

Tuesday is my least favorite day of the week; It should be my favorite. Shane is off work at 1:30, he comes home, we go out to dinner and go shopping. It’s a very very good day. But, I had Kenley on a Tuesday. She was with us every time we went out on a Tuesday. After we had her, we tried to go back to “normal” and went out. I’ll never forget it; We went to BW3’s and the host said “just you three today?”… Ouch. It made me ugly cry right when we sat at our table. That was one of the first triggers I had when we started going out again.

We usually go to Toys r us and let Landon buy something or get him a book. We went there every week while I was pregnant; Start to finish. The same women worked there the entire time. They saw us each time. They commented on my pregnant belly, and saw me waddling around. They knew I was pregnant. What do they think now? Now that it’s just us three again…after 9 months…we don’t have a baby, but they knew we were pregnant. Same goes for the restaurants/other stores we would frequent. The same people worked there and took care of us. They saw me; they knew we were expecting.

I’m not expecting those people to be like “hey! where’s your baby?”…I’m assuming they might know deep down what happened. It all kind of comes back to the “do I look better than I feel” thing. I feel awful; empty, alone, and just like complete fucking shit. I’m able to carry myself better in public now, and I don’t cry randomly over things anymore. I still cry, a lot, but I really try to hold it together when we’re out.

I don’t know; this whole thing is just so hard to navigate.  Like I’ve said before, it just feels like everyone should know. I’m sure this is the case with other people and their losses (of children, parents, friends, etc…). You just feel so shitty that you expect everyone to just be able to pick up on it. But, even if they do pick up on it…what am I expecting? Am I expecting some random stranger to be like “I’m so sorry you lost your daughter“- No. But on the other hand, yeah, maybe I am.

Wouldn’t it be helpful if we just had giant neon signs we had to wear above our heads that alerted the other humans what we’re going through?

The closer I get to the 6 month mark, the weirder everything gets. Six months is coming up. She will be dead for six months. That’s 75% of the time I carried her. How is it almost June? I have not been present the past 6 months; it doesn’t feel like my time is moving like other peoples. Has this past 21 weeks gone by super slow for some people? It just seems like my life is in fast forward; like I’m emerging from the aftermath of a tornado.

I feel like I’m constantly having an out of body experience, but it’s just my life “after” Kenley.

 

5.V.cinco.cinq.

Posted by

2

Last night at Landon’s T-ball game there was a stroller on the other teams side. I tried to avoid it like the plague. I mean, not even glancing in that direction. Well, that proved to be impossible; it was like a fucking magnet for my eyes. I couldn’t stop glancing over at it. Of course it would be a little girl. Of course she would be approximately 5-7 months old. Of course.

Kenley should be 5 months old today.

I heard that little girl cooing, making the typical baby noises and it cut me like a knife. I mean immediately made me feel hot, anxious and dizzy. Fucking anxiety. I eventually was able to focus on Landon’s game once the baby stopped making noise. The rest of the night I just felt down and out; completely hopeless about the future. Sometimes it hits me harder than others. I will think about the past, about what we have gone through already and where we are headed. It is all so heavy.

I shouldn’t be here; I shouldn’t be worried about anything but my two beautiful children. Instead, I’m here…in this weird place. The place that I now call home; my new life after the loss. I have no concept of time, and I don’t know that this will ever change. The past 5 months have been a blur, yet felt so slow. Every day that I wake up I realize what my new life is. I realize how truly sad I am. The medicine does a good job of taking off the edge, I won’t lie. But I miss her more than anything in the world. I never expected to feel the depths of a loss like this.

It’s dark in the “after” ; my heart and soul feel so empty, and completely…I don’t know. Alone? Sad? Hopeless? All of the above, I suppose. I recognize that there are better days now; the early days were terrible. Scary even. I have never felt that pain before, and now I carry that pain daily. The grief is a daily occurrence. The guilt is a daily occurrence. The sadness is a daily occurrence. Saying her name, without her being here, is a daily occurrence. It is a life sentence. It will never be the same; never like before.

I don’t want it to be like before. That means I would have never known her; never have loved her. If it was like before, I wouldn’t have held her, or known what her body felt like against mine. I wouldn’t know her beautiful face. I would have never traced her lips with my fingers, or ran my hands over her beautiful auburn hair. Never known how much she looked like her Big Brother.

My Sweet K. I wish I could have saved you.I would do anything to see you one more time.  I would have given my life in a split second to give you life. I wanted nothing more than to be your Mommy. I wanted to love you forever, and I will…just not in the way I could have ever imagined.

Today is a hard day.

starting again. 

Posted by

4

When we first started trying for Kenley, I figured I’d get pregnant immediately. How wrong I was. Two and a half years, multiple medicated cycles and a few procedures later we were pregnant. Finally! I don’t think I’ve ever felt as happy as the moment I heard her heartbeat. 

When we lost her, Shane and I were devastated. I knew in the back of my mind, behind all of the shock, that we would try again for another child. When you have a stillborn child, I think you go through about 1,000 emotions all at the same time. Very high highs, and the lowest of lows. This beautiful human being that you carried for the last X amount of time is coming into the world; not in the way you want, but still arriving. 

All of the love and effort I put into making her was finally being realized. When they placed her into my arms it was the best and worst moment of my life. It will forever be that moment, I’m 100% sure of it. To finally see her beautiful hair, and to see if she matches her 3D ultrasound photos was the moment I had longed for the entirety of my pregnancy. I just wish I could have kept her. 

As time is ticking on, we’ve decided to move forward with IVF. We have no insurance coverage for IVF, so we are taking on a loan to pay for this. In a dream world (ha!) this process will give us enough good quality embryos to freeze 2-3. I’m not sure what will happen, but if we get more than one, I’m pretty sure we’re going to have all of the babies. If I get 4, it looks like we’re having 4 more kids. 

Losing Kenley made me realize just how much I want a big family. Sure, I’m probably not the best mom, and I’m sure I lose my cool more than I should…but I try. I make the effort- day after day. Every day I wake up, love on my child, feed him, get him ready for school, and the rest of the day goes the same way. I take care of Landon and help him learn. It’s the greatest feeling in the world; that is why I will be trying to complete our family with the embryos we are lucky enough to freeze (if any…).

Thinking about IVF is exciting. Terrifying. Amazing. The best and worst all in one. I few as if we are moving forward without Kenley. Leaving her behind; forgetting her. I know this isn’t true, as this future child will be her sibling, too. It’s just hard to think about. She should be 5 months old. Rolling around, enjoying bath time, growing up right before my eyes. But she’s not, and never will be. Shane and I know we want to give Landon (and Kenley) a sibling. Landon deserves it. Our family deserves it. I fucking deserve it. 

I should be going in for my baseline ultrasound and blood work this week. I’m hoping everything looks phenomenal, and that possibly things have improved even slightly; anything to improve our chances. I’m doing everything in my power to help our chances, so here’s hoping it pays off. 

I’m taking so many vitamins it’s ridiculous. 600 mg CoQ10 ubiquinol, 3,000 mg açai extract, 75 mg DHEA, 2,000 IU Vitamin D3, 500 mg Vitamin C, 400 mcg folic acid, and a prenatal. I am hoping that the full 4-5 months of these really helps our chances. If IVF fails for us, I will be crushed. I have confidence in my doctor, and his lab. But, confidence does shit for how the body actually responds to medication. 

I’m hoping this week will provide us will good news, a new IVF calendar, and hope. The all consuming hope. Hope is a fucked up thing; it leads to false confidence in a way. Quite honestly, I don’t have it right now and probably won’t feel hopeful until the MFM takes my baby from me at 37 weeks to avoid letting me get to my loss milestone (for sanity reasons). 

I don’t know how you’re expected to hold onto hope when you’ve lost a full term child, and you struggle with infertility.

There is no “hope” anymore. 

It seems an impossible feat.