Well, I am quite emphatically not pregnant yet again.

I went out to dinner with a friend last night who asked, "So... anything new and exciting to report?!"
"Nope," I said. And then I thought, not unless you're counting the crime scene in my lady garden.

One of the (many) awful parts of this whole thing is feeling like you're constantly disappointing people. I know my parents are holding their breath for me to be pregnant again so they don't have to keep feeling guilty about celebrating my sister in law's upcoming baby. (Due a week before my former due date, yay me!) My friends want me to stop being so sad all the time, and I'm sure my husband would love a respite from the monthly rollercoaster of emotions. (CD 1: I'm so sad! CD 2: Well, it's a fresh start. CD 7: I have a good feeling about this month! CD 12 - 18: OMGOMGOMGOMG inseminate me! CD 21: Is it too early to test? It's probably too early. Well, I'll test anyway. CD 22: Shit. Negative. I'm never going to get pregnant. CD 23 - 27: Negative. Negative. Negative. Hmm, maybe I should try a different brand of pregnancy test? CD 28: Still negative. I'll just be taking this bottle of wine and retiring to bed for the rest of the day. I'm so sad.)

This month, I'm trying not to try. I'm going to do my best to stay away from the basal thermometer and Fertility Friend and the thrice-daily "oil check" for fertile cervical mucus and all of that. I don't think it's any more likely to make a baby, but I think it's a lot less likely to make me crazy. So there's that.

Testing, testing...

Today is 10 days post ovulation, the magical day when your results on a First Response Early Results test are more likely than not to be positive if you are, in fact, knocked up. I went to sleep last night thinking, "Okay, in the morning, it's test time."

I woke up bleary-eyed and full-bladdered, shuffled into the bathroom and peed on a stick. Waited three minutes, held the test up to the light, squinted at it and tilted it to view every angle. Negative. Tossed it in the trash and went back to bed.

As I drifted back to sleep, I noticed the time on the clock: 11:30 pm. What the fuck? So basically, instead of testing with first morning urine on 10 dpo, I tested with a ninety minute hold on 9 dpo. Brilliant.

So now I'm back to holding onto my last shred of hope for this cycle, and feeling like this:

Not sure what the source of this image is, but it's obviously someone pretty brilliant.

I like giving up. There's a particular sort of pleasure in just saying "fuck it." It's the perfect defense mechanism - "I'm not getting pregnant? Fine! I don't care! I don't even want to be pregnant anymore! How do you like them apples, universe?" Giving up on something difficult feels good - it's the chocolate chip cookie at the end of three weeks of salads and grilled chicken, the lazy evening on the couch when you're supposed to be at the gym. I mean, in the long run it definitely sucks, but that first swooning moment when you just throw up your hands and say I don't want to do this anymore, it's too hard is kind of delicious.

Which is probably why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling right now. I'm nine days post-ovulation and I'm pretty sure this cycle was another failure. Today also happened to be a follow-up visit with the doctor who performed my d&c. When we made this appointment, I remember thinking, "Four months? Oh, I'll probably be pregnant again by then!" No dice, of course.

I'm just feeling so overwhelmed and worried about how much more I can take. It's this awful cycle of anxiety and stress about whether we're getting down enough in the fertile window, followed by two weeks of anxiety about the results of the cycle, followed by a couple of days of heartbreak as the parade of negative tests begins. This month has been a little bit better, but when the anxiety comes surging back, it still hits hard. And it's all caught up in the grief, too. Having to watch the glowing women with the huge bellies in the waiting room this morning just killed me. I should be all gigantic and uncomfortable right now, too!

I just want to stop feeling so awful all the time, and I wonder if throwing in the towel here would do the trick. I know it hasn't been that long, but the level of anger and resentment I'm feeling on an incredibly frequent basis just can't be healthy. On the other hand, isn't it way too early to give up? Lots of people take a while to get pregnant, especially at my age - maybe our baby is just around the corner?

Oy.

An Ovulation Story

This will probably read like Greek to anyone who doesn't chart their basal body temperature, but I'll try to keep it interesting.

Despite having PCOS, my cycles are fairly predictable - I'll get a big dip in my basal temperature the day of ovulation, followed by a spike up to 97.1 degrees the day after. I'm usually pretty consistent about taking my temperature at 7:30 am, so it's always been easy to see a nice, ovulatory pattern. Two days ago, I got the dip; yesterday, I got the 97.1. "Yay," I said, "I've ovulated!" My husband and I went out to dinner to celebrate, stuffed ourselves with pork and whiskey and then dragged our bloated asses home, content in the knowledge that we'd already done all the baby-making we could do for that cycle.

Yesterday, though, I started getting awful ovulation pains, and this morning some regular old menstruation-type cramps came to join the party. I started worrying that maybe I didn't really ovulate on day 16 and the pains were a sign that I was gearing up to ovulate for real. I figured today's temperature would reveal the answer - if it was low, then clearly I didn't ovulate, but if it was another high temp, I was right about day 16 being the lucky day.

Of course, this morning had to be the morning that my pain in the ass cat woke me up at 4 am by knocking everything off the nightstand. I scrambled to get the thermometer into my mouth without too much motion, waited through the little beeps and... 96.8.

Fuuuuuck.

The teeny tiny Captain Optimism in my brain swooped in just then. "It's three hours before your normal temping time!" he said, "Go back to sleep and temp again when you wake up!"

So I did, after evicting the pain in the ass cat from the bedroom. I woke up again at 8 am and stuck the thermometer back in my mouth. This time? 97.8.

"Whoo hoo!" cried Captain Optimism. "You ovulated on day 16!"
"Nah," Admiral Pessimism chimed in, "You can't trust the 97.8 - it wasn't after a full night's sleep!"

They are still debating.

And now here we are - it's been four months since the miscarriage, and we're in the middle of our third cycle trying to get pregnant again. The first cycle was natural; the second one and the current one are both Clomid cycles. It's been really tough to see the negative tests in both of those failed cycles. I got pregnant so quickly the first time - why not now?! 

Six weeks after the miscarriage, I went back to the doctor for a follow-up appointment. They'd gotten the results of the genetic testing - our baby was a boy with triploidy, a fairly rare chromosomal abnormality. The doctor said it was random and unlikely to happen again in future pregnancies. "These things just happen," he said. "But your body is back to normal, and you can start trying again whenever you're ready."

"Oh, I think I'm ready now!" I said. Truthfully, I'd been chomping at the bit for weeks at that point. I knew that getting knocked up again wasn't really going to make the grief go away, but I couldn't help hoping that it would. The first two rounds of "trying again," I approached sex in the fertile window with an addict's zeal, chasing my husband around the house while screaming "inseminate me!" (Pro tip: desperation is not exactly sexy. This approach was as likely to end in tears as it was to end in attempted fertilization.) 

I'm trying to do it a little differently this time around. Tonight, I'll be heading home with a bottle of wine and some raw oysters, and I'll spend a few minutes in the bathroom trying to arrange my face into a seductive expression. (Not that easy, considering the fact that my acne has been borderline horrific on and off since the miscarriage. My dermatologist was like, "It's like playing Whack-a-mole! We get one pimple under control and another one pops up somewhere else!" Thanks, body, for that added bonus...) 

Hopefully, the wine and oysters will do the trick - considering how many of my friends have made babies while intoxicated, I'm starting to believe that booze actually makes you extra-fertile - but even if it doesn't, I think my husband will be happier to be presented with a drunk wife trying to do a sexy dance than one who is sobbing, "I'll never be a mother if you don't get it up RIGHT NOW!" (Can you believe that line didn't work?!)

Oh yes, the joys of attempting to conceive! 

My parents drove down the day before the surgery so they could drive us to the hospital in the morning. They picked us up at a quarter to six and I felt like it was some otherworldly version of that Ben Folds Five song, Brick. Except, you know, just a d&c of a baby that had already died, not an abortion exactly. Or not an elective one but one that was elected for me.

We drove through the darkened city streets, arrived early. The hospital has valet parking and the parents were impressed. "This is why you pick a hospital on the Upper East Side," I tell them. "It's the little things that make a difference."

We went to the ambulatory surgery floor, where I was presented with a hospital gown (ties in the back), too small pants (skip em), a slightly too small robe (theoretically ties in the front... Am I the first pregnant woman they've ever had? I know I'm not the biggest) some non-skid socks and the famous mesh panties. Parents went down to the waiting room while my husband helped me into my ensemble and waited for the pre-surgical testing with me. They brought warm blankets and I snuggled up in the vinyl recliner to await my fate. The husband and I spent a lot of time just looking at each other. I loved him then more than I ever have before.

The nurse who came over to install my IV port and go through the pre-surgical questions had no sense of humor, it seemed. Or maybe my gallows humor just doesn't play so well in the hospital. She screwed up my IV port and there was blood all over the place. "It's okay," I joked, "I'm a criminal defense attorney. Once you see crime scene photos, a little blood is no big deal." "Oh, that must be am interesting job," she replied, in a tone that said she couldn't care less. The best part was when she asked "what does excellent care look like to you?" Mom says she was probably expecting answers like "respect my privacy" or "answer my questions promptly" but I went blank. My husband and I looked at each other and shrugged. "Come out alive?" I said, laughing. "Don't perforate my uterus?" "Good snacks in the recovery room!" he chimed in. The nurse didn't crack a smile, scribbled something down and left, giving us her packet of papers to add my signatures.

"Oh my God, look," my husband said, "she actually wrote down 'come out alive'!" We laughed our asses off.

At 8:30, they came for me. "Feels like walking to death row," I said. They made me leave my glasses with my parents, so the walk to the OR was mercifully blurry. I could make out a few compassionate smiles above the blurs of green scrubs. The OR nurses were so sweet. They got me pillows, stacked up blankets to make my back more comfy, gave me a special blanket with warm air running through it to calm me down and warm me up. My doctor came in, squeezed my hand and said, "next time we are here, it will be to have your baby."

And then the mask, and deep breaths, and sleep.

When I woke up they were lifting me onto the bed to the recovery room. I was sobbing for my baby. My body was sobbing even without being awake. It knew without me having to tell it what it had lost. I sobbed all the way to the recovery room. I could feel the sobs in my soul, in my toes, through my whole body. But then there was the kindest nurse, and more warm blankets tucked around me, and then there was my husband stroking my hair, and I felt the weight lifting. The storm was over. The rainbow would come soon.

I had to pee, and the nurse said she couldn't unhook me from the EKG and IV and all the monitors just yet, so she brought over a bedpan. "Well, there goes the last shred of my dignity," I joked, grinning at her. She looked at me and whispered, "you know what, honey? You've been through enough today. I'm gonna unhook you and walk you to the bathroom if you promise not to lock the door, okay?" And she did. We shuffled ten steps to the bathroom with her holding my arm, I peed in glorious peace and then we shuffled back and she brought me ginger ale and my mom.

The second recovery room was much more fun. They had sandwiches and graham crackers and I could sit in a chair with just my IV pole still attached. Both of my parents and Ed were there and Ed was munching on some saltines and was like, your insurance probably paid thirty bucks for these crackers.... I'm getting their money's worth! And I laughed, and we all knew once I could laugh that everything was definitely going to be okay eventually.

Recovery at home was remarkably easy. No pain, barely any bleeding. I was on on modified bed rest for a few days, which was fine by me. I wouldn't have minded staying there forever, honestly. I was scared about the future, about what would happen when life went on again without my child.

But I knew that would be okay eventually too. On the day the baby had probably died, according to the doctors, I was walking to work and I saw the most beautiful thing. It was a tree full of red breasted robins. You never see those in the city - pigeons of course, sparrows here and there but never robins. And the tree was just packed with them, and in that moment I just knew it was my bird-loving grandpa who died when I was fourteen telling me that he was here, and that everything was going to be okay. At the time, I figured it meant the baby would be okay... Would live, thrive, grow. But now I know he meant a different kind of okay. I'm here, he was saying, I will take your baby in my arms and fly him up to heaven. And you will see us again, if you know where to look.

Right now, it's in my heart. I can see it - Grandpa Ed cradling our tiny thing in his big, strong, kind and loving arms, with Grandma Rose peeking over to pinch its cheeks and Grandpa George trying to convince the baby he has eleven fingers.("See, on this hand I have ten, nine, eight, seven, six... and on this hand, one, two, three, four, five... five plus six equals eleven!") I carried my son when I could, and when I couldn't anymore, they took over. That's family. That's love. Just like the friends coming by to just sit with me and listen, my parents saying prayers in the waiting room, my husband being strong enough to watch them poke my vein over and over while just giving me his strength through his gaze and his hands. That's family, that's love. It's everywhere now.

My next appointment was at eleven weeks. My husband and I both took the day off from work. The appointment was early in the morning; we figured we could go out to lunch afterwards, hang out in Manhattan for a bit, maybe check out the Yayoi Kusama show downtown. I was feeling strangely optimistic - I'd made it to eleven weeks, I wasn't bleeding or spotting, and I could feel my uterus beginning to pop up through my pelvic bones. I was nervous, sure, but I honestly expected good news.

We waited for the doctor forever. I joked with my husband that if he didn't get back soon, I'd just turn on the ultrasound machine myself and take a peek. He laughed. It would have been his first time seeing the baby live on the screen, and I was excited to show him how amazing it was.

The doctor came in, finally. He was in a good mood. "Let's say hello to the baby again," he said. I laid back on the table as the nurse dimmed the lights. My husband stood near my head and we all watched the screen together, holding our breath.

We saw the baby right away. It wasn't moving. The little flicker that had been there before wasn't there. The doctor fiddled with the instruments, and we waited for something to happen. It had taken a few moments to find the heartbeat at the last scan, and I prayed that the doctor was just having trouble finding the right angle to see it. We were all quiet.

Finally, I said, "There's no heartbeat, is there?" Even asking that, I was still optimistic. I was sure that he would tell me to just be patient, we were getting there, not to worry and so on. Instead he said, "No, there isn't. I'm sorry." My husband stroked my hair and we looked at each other. I was grateful for him in a way that I had never been before.

We went back upstairs to the big machines for a second opinion. I texted two of my best friends. My husband called his mom. They took us into another dark room, did a vaginal scan, then an abdominal one. The ultrasound tech brought in the radiologist, who looked over the images and then said to me, in the kindest voice, "I just want you to know that I'm so sorry, and that this isn't your fault. There is nothing you could have done differently."

They left us alone for a few minutes so we could be sad in privacy. A dark room, illuminated mostly by the pictures of our fetus-who-was-no-longer. I sobbed and grabbed onto my husband like we were on a sinking ship. I remember thinking, at least I still have you.

We went back downstairs to wait for the doctor in his office. It was full of pictures of babies he had delivered. Someone's birth plan was on his desk, full of demands for their perfect delivery. Fuck you, I thought. They could have sliced me open from head to toe if I got to take my baby home afterwards. And fuck them for making us wait in this baby-filled office. 

After we'd scheduled the d&c for five days later and I'd collected all of the paperwork and prescriptions and notes for work and condolences from the doctor and his assistants, we left the hospital in a sort of daze. Wine and food, we said. Wine and food will make it better. We walked downtown and stopped at Dylan's Candy Bar, where I filled up a couple of bags with enough chocolate to ride out the next few days in a cocoa-induced coma. Then we went to my favorite restaurant in midtown and ordered some expensive Sauvignon blanc and huge, rare, bloody roast beef sandwiches: all of the things I'd craved and couldn't have over the last couple of months. We mostly sat in silence. There was very little to say, and of course the worst was still yet to come. I still had to figure out how to go home, how to tell the people we still had left to tell and how to get through the night without falling apart entirely.

My best friend came over to sit with me after my husband fell asleep that night, exhausted. I told him that I was afraid of having the surgery, mostly because it would mean my baby was no longer with me. I knew he wasn't alive, but just knowing that his teeny little body was still inside of me gave me some strange comfort. The d&c would be the beginning of the road to recovery, but the end of the link between my body and my child's. I wasn't sure I was ready for it. But of course, it had to happen anyway.