Grief

I have to admit, I am having a much harder time accepting this loss and moving forward than anything else I have experienced in life. I cry ALL THE TIME.  For the first two weeks I literally cried all day long, I would have a few moments where I was able to be distracted and then BAM something would make me think about it. I have talked to other women that have experienced this pain of failed transfers, miscarriages and the infertility struggle and they all say that this pain is the same.  You lost a child, you lost the thought of the child that you already love with everything that you have.  It is very hard to pick yourself up and move forward, but in the end you have to.  You have to find a way to be ok, to remember why you are on this journey and to begin to have hope for the next time. 

I am trying to heal my soul.  I am trying to take some time, and listen to myself.  Not control everything, not try to find an answer because believe me that is all that I want to do, but try to be in the moment and feel what my soul needs to feel. 

I have done some research and spoken to my doctors about additional testing which will soon follow. But we made the decision that we are not ready to jump back into another cycle, that we need some time to heal.  So I am trying to heal. 

I have started to use more meditation and relaxing thoughts to soothe me.  I was having terrible nightmares for weeks and couldn't sleep.  As soon as it was time to sleep I would start to feel anxious,  my subconscious is still struggling and needs more time to process this loss. During the day, I am able to rationalize and calm myself down, but in my sleep I am struggling.  I have always been a vivid dreamer, but these nightmares are terrible.  I am always loosing a baby in one way or another, of course miscarriages, other failed transfers, but also just loosing a child in a mall, or having them kidnapped, or dying at an older age... its just terrible.  So I started to listen to some meditation to help me fall asleep and calming sounds to help soothe my subconscious and it is working.  I am still very sad and cry more than I would like to admit, but I am also feeling a little better. 

I have to keep reminding myself that we are on this journey for a reason and we need to be grateful for that. We are growing closer with every obstacle, we are learning more about each other through the process and with every loss we want a baby more.  So I know this is something that we both want with all of our heart and soul and all I can do is have hope that it will happen for us in one way or another, the hard part is the waiting, being patient and staying in the moment. Let's just say I am work in progress, but I am strong and I will find my strength again. 

Our transfer

First off I would like to start off by saying that I am so very sorry for taking over a month off from writing.  I am sorry to myself as I use this as a form of therapy and I'm sorry if there is anyone out there that follows this closely!

Where to start... well Progesterone shots suck!! They hurt me so bad, I basically cried every night in pain, and I could even feel it through out the day when walking around... but we got to take them. I will say that it was another small part that brought Chris and I closer through out this process.  He gave me the shots every night as they are taken in the upper part of your butt. I would lay down with an ice pack to try and numb the injection area, Chris would as always prepare the medicine and then he would inject me... this is a different process than all of our other meds, because they recommend that you inject it very slow as it is a thick oil... it hurts! I could feel it going in no matter how much I tried not to. After a few minutes Chris would massage the area and try to work the oil into my system, this sounds like it would be relaxing, but really it just made it hurt more as the muscle is so bruised.  I have read other women do not feel anything... so I think its like everything else on the journey every woman is different and your body will feel it differently. But we were both strong and took this injection every night for 18 days leading up to our beta (blood test results) day. One thing that I will remember forever about this specific process, is Chris who never cries, was very emotional doing this nightly, he still never cried but he did say to me "You are a much stronger person than I am, if I had to do this every night, I would have asked you to quit already, I would be asking you if we could just adopt a child, because I could not take this pain nightly or let you stick this HUGE needle in to me every night." Then he said "So thank you for giving your body and enduring this pain for me and our son, I love you and you are so strong". Of course I cried even harder the particular night...

As a side note- my friend Danielle Kolachik who owns a nonprofit called The Dkol La Femme Project photographed pieces of our story, in part to raise some awareness and also to help us through this journey, she even came to the transfer with us. Check that our here...  https://thedkollafemmeproject.org/blog/2018/8/29/the-dkol-la-femme-project-embryo-adoption

Chris's smile in this picture both warms by heart and breaks it at the same time. He was so purely happy. He like myself loved that little embryo like it was already his son, and he was. 

I broke down on 9 days past the transfer and took a home pregnancy test (hpt)... we were both home and feeling super positive.... worst mistake ever... it was negative... as much as I swore up and down to Chris that I wouldn't be upset... I wad devastated... I cried myself to sleep. The next day I decided to be super positive again and tried to convince myself it was to early to test.  But I knew in my heart that it most likely did not work.  I decided to enjoy "being pregnant" for a few more days- because I was, all my friends and family treated me like I was, at work people barely let me do anything, at home Chris and my mom took care of everything, letting me rest.  Then Christmas came and our family came to our house and took over letting me rest and enjoy the company, but the whole time there was a little hole in my heart that I refused to pay attention to. 

On 14 days past transfer I woke up around 5 am, I decided that I couldn't wait all day for the blood results, so I took our final hpt, a digital one... it revealed that I was once again... NOT PREGNANT. It has to be the worst image in the entire world, I literally fell to floor in our bathroom and cried hysterically until Chris came and found me.  He carried me back to bed and held me while I lost my whole soul.  Even now typing this I shed more tears for our loss. He promised to stay with me all day, taking off of work and took me to the appointment.  The nurse drew the blood and told me its not over until the doctor calls with the results, but I couldn't even pretend to believe that. We left, relaxed at home and waited for the dreaded phone call.  It finally came later that night around 5:30 and our doctor confirmed that we were not pregnant. He told us to take some time and come back when we were ready and I got my period. 

Even though I knew it was coming, there are no words to explain this loss. It is the worst pain I have ever felt in my life. Its the loss of our son, the loss of our future sons' sibling, the loss of the image of the family of four I have been seeing mentally since the day we received this donation.  It's the loss of hope.  It's the loss of my strength and I am just so sad.  This is why I have not been able to write to anyone, the feelings are terrible to explain and there are no words of comfort.  I came across this letter and it expresses a lot of my feelings and if you have had a failed transfer, you might be feeling the same way.  http://www.scarymommy.com/ivf-embryos/

Im working on myself, gaining the strength and having hope.  I am leaning on my husband, who I have NEVER seen so sad and broken, but we will grow together and build our family one way or another.