Happy Tears

Crying. For three and a half years I have been crying. At the shock of my first loss. The devastation of my second. The crushing hopelessness of my third. The depressing never-ending months when I forced myself to wait to try again. The bitter sorrow of my fourth loss. The year following it, in which I tried to distract myself in any way possible-but often lost the battle to sudden and intense outbursts. I cried as my confidence was snatched away as we had our fifth loss, when we had felt SO sure we had found our cure. The pregnancy after that was somewhat unexpected and so we thought it a MUST be our miracle. That hope fell flat with our sixth loss. Our hearts were ripped out and shredded right in front of us, leaving us wondering what do we do with what remains.  What could we possibly do? And so I cried.

For another year I kept my collective sorrow and grief tucked away, just slightly behind my eyes, ready to burst out and make a scene in public at the worst possible moments. So many times in this journey I have been brought to tears.  The injections I was too afraid to administer at home. Every time I thought, "I'm not cut out for this." I cried on the way to every appointment with every specialist, and usually on the way home too. At the bills that came and costs of treatments that didn't work.  At every baby shower invitation. In my car- trying to get the guts to walk up the stairs to my first grief counseling session. Waiting in agony after every blood draw to see how my baby was growing. Every due date that passed with empty arms. Every time my son asks for a baby brother to play astronauts with. I've begged, I've been angry, I've felt slowly crushed to death by depression, and suffocated with anxiety. And I've cried. And cried and cried and cried.  

Today, once again, I am crying. But for the first time in so long, I am feeling the tears of joy run down my face. What a welcome difference, what sweet relief. Tears of joy. 

Kevin's final post-surgical results are in. The DNA he is carrying is normal. Normal. The most beautiful word I've ever heard. I know my tears will continue to fall in abundance. But I pray and I hope with more than I am, that they will continue to be tears of joy. Because I just can't give up.  

I don't know how to thank God enough.  This surgery very easily could have changed nothing.  Honestly even the fertility clinic wasn't even sure what to make of all this.  We have been so blessed.  

I feel heard.  I feel loved.  All I have to do is look at the differences in these three results to see God's hand.  It is a miracle.

 

2/18/15

12/17/15

3/18/16


Or in other words, this year has brought us these results:
.

Ten Months Later...

Three Months After That...

HOORAY FOR NORMAL!!

Countdown to Our Rainbow

What a beautiful thought- our very own rainbow baby.




For those of you unfamiliar with the term, I'll let the wonderful all-knowing internet define it for you:

A “rainbow baby” is a baby that is born following a miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or infant loss. In the real world, a beautiful and bright rainbow follows a storm and gives hope of things getting better. The rainbow is more appreciated having just experienced the storm in comparison.

Next week, we should receive the results of Kevin's final post-op ASR. Those results will tell us if the amount of fragmented DNA he carries has improved again into the "normal" range or if he has continued to stay in that "borderline" category. Still, the borderline area is a great place to be considering how far abnormal he was last year. Basically, our chances are either going to be good, or better. That is welcome news! Which means, either way, it's time to try again. It has been a long, drawn out year, full of waiting of every kind since our 6th loss.

For the first time in a long time, we have real hope that we've fixed the major cause of all our losses. It might just be that our doctors were so focused on all of my contributing risk factors, that we missed the actual cause all along. Still, I'm grateful for the journey because we now are able to treat all of my risk factors too.

Real hope is a beautiful, uplifting, exciting, and terrifying thing. That joy we're starting to feel just imagining a light at the end of this tunnel is deathly afraid of reality creeping in the corner- reminding us of our "statistical chances." Fortunately and unfortunately, it is completely out of our hands and we get to turn it over to God and hope He chooses to bless our best efforts. We have given our all every step of this journey. And more. I have given more than I even knew I had in me.



I love my support groups because I can post something like this and drown in the support and love given back immediately.

Ovulation should be in about three weeks. I'm so impatient and also so scared for it to actually happen. Sorry if any of that is TMI- but fertility blogs tend to have a lot of that! Conceiving becomes so clinical sometimes it's easy to forget it makes people uncomfortable! Haha!

I can take all of these medications faithfully and do everything right- but I know I have no actual control of the end result. I’ve learned the key is just accepting it, and doing your best in spite of that fact.

What a roller coaster of emotions I have been experiencing this month! I'm no longer taking any medications for sleep, anxiety, or depression. Since my anxiety has been mounting it has been difficult to even get out of bed most days. I'm without that help my body has been used to. But I'm finding the strength to do it. I actually thought I was going crazy because I've been feeling these horrible "electrical surges" going through my head all day every day. I didn't even know how to look it up or if I needed to ask a doctor about it. Turns out it's a real thing. Brain zaps. Yep. Side effect of quitting the meds. That's been fun. I keep telling myself they won't last much longer. The nausea and aches were unbearable the first week but they have finally started to subside.

Hooray I'm not crazy!

I wish I could explain the immense amount of stress that comes just thinking of going through a pregnancy again. But I also know I am not ready to give up and I have to fight through that fear. The best analogy I can explain it with is imagining your child is in the PICU after an accident- and you're forced to wait for weeks- not knowing if they will live or die. Even though it’s NOT the same, this is the closest I can come to describing the feeling as a mother, carrying life, and not knowing if they will survive. It is all consuming all the time, no matter how much you try to talk yourself out of it. So when I’ve been told not to stress, because it hurts the baby, it just makes me feel guilty, because not feeling stress in that situation is actually impossible. But I do my best.

I've been working really hard to keep my "triggers" under control, and to breathe through them when they happen. Just for funsies I looked up birth rates per capita and wouldn't you know it, Provo has the HIGHEST birth rate in the entire country. Hahahahah. Of course it does. It didn't surprise me at all. The irony is fantastic. The birth rate is obviously explained with the huge concentration of a Mormon population in the area. The church has a huge focus on families, and large families have always been a part of Mormon culture. It's not something I'm ashamed of- it's something I love. I love when I'm surrounded by big families. Since I'm from a blended family, I'm one of ten kids, and there is nothing better. It's just a tradition I wish I could be a part of. When Kevin and I got married we imagined six kids, and at LEAST four. It's no surprise that life doesn't go as planned- but Provo is a hard place to live if you are dealing with recurrent loss. Reminders are literally everywhere as the community tailors to the needs of so many mothers with young children. Again, not a bad thing. Just a hard thing to escape when I need to.

I felt God's love and comfort when I found this song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQJX4QWO74I

This fitting tribute reminded me that even if this next little one doesn’t make it- that God holds them in a perfect place. They are in His hands- we are all in His hands. He will carry us through this.

Once we are pregnant- I know my whole job will be keeping baby alive, whatever it takes. So I'll have to cut myself some slack in all other areas of my life. My next baby deserves to be loved and celebrated, no matter how long I get to keep them. Perhaps even more so because we don’t know how much time we’ll have together. Our hearts are broken and humble, and our fingers are crossed. I hope that within a couple months I'll be sharing the news that a rainbow is on the way to our family.

He Can Make My Burden Light

14 And I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs, even while you are in bondage; and this will I do that ye may stand as witnesses for me hereafter, and that ye may know of a surety that I, the Lord God, do visit my people in their afflictions.

15 And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.
-Mosiah 24:14-15

Every day is a struggle.  Every day is a fight.  Every day I try to win this exhausting, drawn out, cruel and ugly battle that confronts me.  But the point is- I'm trying.  I'm still fighting.  I haven't given up- and that means I am winning.  I struggle daily with sadness and crying, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, feelings of despair, loneliness or a combination of any of them.  Sometimes I feel an overwhelming sense of failure.  Sometimes I feel abandoned and wonder if God has forgotten me, or if I've done something (or not done enough) to deserve this.  In the same breath, I disgust myself if I complain.  I have a good life.  I have so many wonderful blessings and so many reasons to be happy every day.  All I need to do is watch the news, then I wonder how I've ever felt sorry for myself.  I'm very fortunate- even in the infertility world specifically, I have been very lucky.  I chalk it up to exhaustion and wonder if it's just my thyroid acting up again.  However, I can't shake the feeling that it may be something more that's troubling me. I did some reading in Psychology Today and was struck by some of the information I found:

One of the less recognized forms of PTSD results from the trauma of having a miscarriage. While a period of grieving and sadness is to be expected after losing an unborn child, it's important to recognize when normal grieving ends and clinical PTSD begins.

By far the most common PTSD symptoms that result from miscarriage are depression and anxiety. Other symptoms may include fatigue, sleep difficulties, lack of concentration, loss of appetite, and frequent episodes of crying.

This article mentions one miscarriage, singular.  It's no wonder my counselor told me, "There's no way you don't have PTSD."  After six.  Add regular grief to that and I actually feel relieved that I'm still functioning somehow.  The struggle now, is that it's been a year since our last lost, and we're only about a month away from trying again (with hope that the surgery worked) thus, I have to go off my medicine that treats any anxiety/depression/PTSD symptoms.  So it's no wonder that as I take less medicine and am exposed to more stressful events and plans that I feel out of control sometimes. 

Psychology today also says:

 "Current research has shown that the stress levels of women with infertility are equivalent to women with cancer, AIDS or heart disease, so there is no question about infertility resulting in enormous stress." 

Now, I am in no way comparing myself to someone with cancer- I can't pretend to know anything about how that feels.  But I thought the comparison can help explain how all-consuming infertility or recurrent loss can be.  I brought this fact up in a support group of mine and another woman said, "I've had cancer. This to me is worse. At least I knew the cancer would be over at some point."

I feel guilty even writing about these feelings in my blog.  I don't want to be a pessimist.  I don't want to be miserable all the time. I don't bask in the melancholy and try to feed off sympathy. I keep writing because there are only so many vices available that aren't self destructive. So I turn to writing. On my worst days, most of my support group will kindly suggest a cocktail and I don't even drink. So I write.  It's not easy, but I know any self-destructive behavior in the end will make everything worse.

I hate feeling despondent, like I'm out of touch with my old self.  I wish I could stop thinking about it for a little bit, take a break, move on, whatever. But the heart just doesn't work that way. My doctor wanted me to continue with counseling because he said the less medicine I take the more support I'm going to need.  Especially as I am nearing a new pregnancy (hopefully.)  I haven't been able to work it out with my new insurance yet.  Luckily for me I have an amazing support system in place at home, and with my extended family and friends.  One of my very good friends told me, "You think you're broken because of how you feel, but you're allowed to feel however you want, and the feelings are going to be what they are. You can't change all of them, or wish them away, or fool yourself for more than a minute. And if people don't understand that, you don't have to justify yourself."  That is real advice from a real friend.  Thank you. 

We're hopefully a month away from a new life and my heart is already breaking.  I feel like I'm already having another loss.  I can't help it-our minds learn from experience.  That's the science.  SO far my odds have been 1 live birth out of 7 pregnancies.  How could I feel any other way?  I've been told, "Hope for the best but prepare for the worst."  Has anyone ever had real hope for the best AND prepared for the worst? It's actually impossible. Only one of those feelings can exist in your mind at a time.  Swinging back and forth is the most emotional roller coaster you can experience.
Elder Holland's talk "Like a Broken Vessel" has brought me so much peace.  It is so reassuring to see someone I admire a great deal talk about struggles with depression.  He explains it in a way that gives me hope, but also reminds me that "It's ok.  It's ok that you feel like this- keep going.  Keep trying."  If you'd like to read or watch this talk, I highly reccomend it: 

 https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/like-a-broken-vessel?lang=eng

When I start feeling guilty due to my difficulties I like to remember the words of Elder Uchtdorf, 

"God is not waiting to love you until you have overcome your weaknesses and bad habits.  He loves you today with a full understanding of your struggles."

Some days are happy and go by just fine. Many days are even enjoyable. Then suddenly it's like I've endured it for too long and I just don't feel strong enough. I'm literally at my breaking point at a moment's notice. I know I catch Kevin off guard when I'm suddenly sobbing out of nowhere. I hope God really understands what I can handle. At this point I feel like the rest of my life is going to hurt like this and I've started to blame it on myself. Guilt. Like it sounds ridiculous- but basically thinking things like, "I haven't read my scriptures enough lately, now the next baby is probably going to die." I know how that sounds- but it's the only way to put that "feeling" into words. My brain knows better than that- but my soul aches and looks for reasons, and I blame myself.

I was spoiled for quite a few years- it's like I got all my good things right in a row. I married Kevin within a year of meeting him and Jack was born less than a year later. I graduated with my Bachelor's degree ten months after that. Life was going as perfect as life can go. We decided to try for baby #2 when Jack was 12 months old. That feeling and desire for another baby was so sudden and strong that I had no doubt it was the right time. I was so happy and so excited. That was in the fall of 2012. Since that time, I got sick- my thyroid crashed. I gained weight, I got depressed, and started having panic attacks. I lost six pregnancies along the way. All my symptoms seemed to get worse with each consecutive loss. I just want to start heading back uphill emotionally. I would like to be stable instead of hanging on for dear life the majority of the time. I feel like I've lost touch with that person I used to be. I know I am a stronger person now. I would like the stronger me to meet the happier me. Together we would be unstoppable.

The worst turmoil is waking up feeling defeated and so overwhelmed. First thing in the morning- before a single thing has happened. You feel a literal weight pressing on your chest and think, "I literally can't get out of bed today. Please ground swallow me up so I don't have to feel this sense of dread about just existing today. I want to go back to sleep to escape these feelings I can't deal with." Those thoughts are immediately met by overpowering guilt. "You are making excuses for being lazy, it's not "being kind to yourself" or "giving yourself a break" it's avoiding your responsibilities."

I feel ashamed and disappointed in myself. I know better. I pray to be released from it, but don't know what the appropriate action is. Is it better to face the day and risk a total meltdown? Or regroup and try again tomorrow? Anxiety and depression together, when they aren't being managed properly, is being imprisoned in your own mind. It's hell.  Some days I just pray for energy.  Because if I had energy, I could keep myself busy and that would help.  If I could feel accomplished that would help.  But when I'm so tired that my house is a mess even when I'm home all day- it only makes me feel worse.  

You have self loathing, feel defeated, and yet you are desperate to fix it, but don't feel strong enough to try. You make yourself ill in order to have a"valid excuse" to lay around all day, but you know deep down that it's still "your fault." I am so tired of fighting this battle.  The difficult part is recognizing the problem as depression, but having a hard time changing anything about it.  I can't seem to just wish it away.  I want to fix it so I don't feel like this anymore andI know it won't be overnight.  I know it's only natural to feel like this because I'm afraid of what is coming.  But I can be brave- I'm ready to keep trying.  If I do nothing else, I know I need to keep close to the Lord.  If I can keep my faith strong, then come what may, everything will be alright.  I don't have to earn love from my Heavenly Father.  He will take me through it.

Perhaps all of this struggle is indication of good things to come.  Things rarely get better before they get harder.  Perhaps this year will hold miracles for us and blessings that we continue to wait on to be realized.  I still know it's possible.  Somewhere deep down I know that our next baby could live long enough to be born.  And even if we lose our next baby too- I'm glad that I have the chance to at least try, to carry them even for a short while.  Many will never even have that chance.

We continue to get good news in other aspects of our lives. Our Jack Jack was accepted into private school and will start kindergarten in August. What?! I'm so excited for him but the earth seems to move under my feet when I think about him being in school all day five days a week. It will be quite an adjustment. He's also doing great in Speech Therapy, and is amazing all those who work there. I'm really hopeful that if we keep working at it, we may be able to avoid having to get his tongue clipped again. They had to test all of his language skills with a two hour test at a desk, which seems like a lot even for an adult. After the test the therapist came to me and said, "In 18 years, I have never seen a child score so high on this test. The preschool test can't even accurately score how high he is, all we can say is that he's at least above the level of a 7 year old. He's an amazing child- I've never seen anything like this." I almost became emotional. I have known for a while that he is a miracle baby, but to have a professional confirm that he is gifted just renewed my faith and my determination to be the best mother I can to him. I hope I can focus my time and energy more on this aspect of my life.

Thank you all for your love and prayers (really I do mean that.) Kevin's final ASR test is scheduled for March 18. We'll get results a few days after that and hopefully we will see that our chances have improved even more. Either way, we're hoping to see that second line on a pregnancy test sometime this spring, and hope even more to have a healthy baby in our arms early next year.