A story of loss and healing

It’s 10:30 am on a Thursday. It’s been one week since we heard the news that our first Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) failed. I hadn’t thought that I would use this blog for something so personal, it’s intent was to be used in conjunction with my online teaching business, but I just felt compelled to write. I have all of these emotions bubbling up inside of me. I try to keep them in check, but then they just come bursting out all at once. It’s not good for me, and it’s not good for my family. So I decided I needed an outlet, and if this blog post can help someone else going through this by seeing they aren’t alone, then at least something good has come from all that I’m experiencing.

First, a little back story. My husband and I met in 2018. We fell in love and were married the next year. Along comes 2020 and with it brings the best and worst of times. The best of times is our sweet baby boy. The worst of times is, of course, the pandemic. Having a baby during a pandemic isn’t ideal. It felt scary, because I wanted to protect my baby from this unknown virus. At times if felt isolating, because of all of the quarantines. Mostly, it was wonderful, because I have the best baby in the world! And through it all, my husband has been there by my side, my rock, I don’t know what I would do without him.

2021 rolls around and we start thinking about baby #2. I was all too aware from my first pregnancy that once you hit 35, you are considered advanced maternal age, and your whole fertility starts going down hill – and even quicker as you march towards 40 – so I knew that I didn’t want to wait too long to start trying again. September 2021 we get a positive pregnancy test! But then in October, I miscarry. It was very hard. My heart was aching, I was experiencing pain from the miscarriage, but my husband and I leaned on one another and got through it. Now it’s the end of November and we get another positive pregnancy test! I surprised my husband with it on his birthday. We wanted to surprise our families with the great news, so we made ornaments with the sonogram and hung them on their Christmas trees. However, come January 1, I miscarried again. This led us to IVF.

We met with our first Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) on Jan. 19. After 2 miscarriages, and with my age over 35, we met the criteria to be candidates for IVF. We began the process with multiple tests and lab work. We had gotten to the point were we started meds for the egg retrieval, but were surprised when we were told their lab does not accept insurance, and we would have to pay high out of pocket costs. So we changed REs. We jumped feet first into starting a new plan with this new doctor. It pushed us back a month, but we thought it was worth it. We go through the meds, and the egg retrieval. We finally get the call that we have 4 embryos. We were over the moon!

We begin meds for the transfer cycle. These meds really do a doozie on me. I don’t feel like myself; I’m agitated, depressed, you name it. I start to ween off of those drugs and I start to feel better. Finally, it’s the day of our transfer. We watch the embryo being placed in my uterus through the sonogram, and we hope and we pray.

Our doctor urged us to not test before the BETA HCG test. Home pregnancy tests can be unreliable and give either false negatives or false positives. But I am a part of a IVF support group and I kept seeing people talking about how they had positive home pregnancy as early as 3 days past transfer. Our BETA was scheduled for day 9. I waited until day 8, and I took a home pregnancy test. It was negative. My heart sank. But I didn’t give up hope. The morning of Day 9 I took another home pregnancy test – after all, maybe it was a late implantation. Another negative. I went to have my blood drawn for the BETA, feeling defeated, but praying for a miracle. We got the call later that afternoon that the test was negative and the transfer had failed. As soon as I hung up the phone I broke down crying.

Three losses in a row is hard to take. I have seen all kinds of responses to this type of grief. I’ve sought out blogs, chats, discussion boards on failed FETs and pregnancy losses, hoping to find solace in knowing that others have experienced this, and come out on the other side. People say to give it time. They say to talk it out. They say to let off steam. Some people say that it’s not a lost baby, because they were never going to be babies, something wasn’t right with them, and they were always going to fail. But even so, for the small amount of time that I knew them, they were babies, they were my babies. They were inside of me, needing my protection and my help to allow them to grow. And I can’t help but feel that I let them down. The guilt and sadness of these losses is weighing on my heart. What could I have done differently to give them a better chance at life? Maybe I could have rested more. Or maybe I wasn’t active enough. Maybe I needed more pomegranate juice and leafy greens in my diet. Or maybe it was the sheer fact that the quality of a woman’s egg drastically decreases after the age of 35. There’s no way of knowing, all of these losses have been “unexplained”, which still doesn’t give me peace of mind or peace in my heart.

It hasn’t been that long since the phone call telling us about the failure, and maybe I can’t expect myself to jump back up and be fine this soon. But all I know is that I’m struggling. I burst out in tears at random times of the day. I try to keep it together, but then my husband will do or say something that might warrant being irritated or having a discussion, but I go off on him. Why did I do that? That’s not me. That’s definitely not who I want to be. I feel like I’m not being the best person I can be for my family. So now, on top of the pain of these losses, the guilt of the losses, the feeling of being less of a woman because I’m having trouble carrying babies, I have the the knowledge that I am not being who I need to be for myself, and for my husband and child.

I know that I’ve searched for other’s stories about their journey, their pain and their loss. I’m hoping for each and every story that I have read while searching for a human connection through loss, that they have a rainbow at the end of their storm. Right now I am smack dab in the middle of that storm and can’t even see the end of my nose, let alone a rainbow. But I’m hoping that by typing these blog posts that I can help myself heal by getting my thoughts out on paper, so to speak. And if it helps someone else grieving along the way, even better.