First: Saying Goodbye
In order to move on I felt like I needed to say goodbye. Goodbye to the beautiful little baby girl that was growing inside of me for however short of a time. (Yes I believe that baby scuba was a girl and I will tell you why later in this post.) I took the photo down off the dresser by my bed and I held it and cried. I said I was sorry that I couldn't keep her growing and that I couldn't protect her. I said that I was sorry I couldn't be her mother. I hugged the frame and through my tears I sang to her. In my song I asked God to take her safely to heaven to be with her brothers and sisters who didn't make it either. I sang "He will raise you up on eagles wings, bear you on the breath of dawn, make you shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of his hands". Then through my tears I removed the picture and put it with all the other hidden memories. Good-bye Baby Scuba. You were mine only for a few short days, but I love you with all of my heart.
Second: Unwritten memories
There are many things that happened during this journey that I didn't write about and I don't want to forget about them. I feel like if I write them down I can stop worrying about forgetting them so I won't think about it as often and moving on will be easier.
- The Double Poke:
- So when I was doing my menopur in the abdomen, I would get really nervous because I knew it was going to hurt. So I would get the courage to go for it and then lose the nerve at the last second, but not before the needle went in to my skin about 1/4 of the way! Then with one little bleeding hole I would have to start all over again! OUCH! Mr. Scuba and I laughed a lot about this, because really it is pretty funny. He would make me laugh as I would start the shot saying OK now only 1 poke, no test poke this time. I still ended up double poking at least half the time, and it was always the "test poke" that ended up bleeding and bruising the worst!
- The Only After Hours RE Call:
- One night in the two week wait, about midnight I was asleep and Mr. Scuba was about sleep walking to bed after playing video games until he probably couldn't even see straight anymore. I realized that we had not done my progesterone shot yet. So I roll over, bared my ass, and Mr. S gets to work. As he is doing the shot something feels wrong, and when he removes the needle he says "Oh Shit". This is not what you want to hear after a needle comes out of your ass! Turns out he put a sub-q 1/2" needle on the syringe instead of the 1 1/2" Intra-muscular needle that is needed! So neither of us have any idea what to do or how this is going to affect things. What will happen if I don't get the right amount of progesterone? Is the progesterone being in the fat instead of the muscle bad? So off to call the after-hours line for the first time ever. At least we got our Doctor's partner and not our actual doctor! I made Mr. S make the call. Doc said to do another shot and not to worry. So I get 2 shots in the rear that night. Oddly enough, the sub-q shot hurt way more than the IM one. Go figure!
- Why I think Baby Scuba is a Girl:
- So for some reason unknown to me my Mom was absolutely convinced that this was going to work and that Baby Scuba is a girl. I just laughed and thought it was cute. Then after our transfer we scanned the picture of our embyro and I put some words on the border and asked Mr. Scuba to print it out on the printer so that I could frame it and have it by my bed during bed rest. This is a completely black and white print. So when he printed it everything on the picture printed just fine except the embryo printed bright pink! Ever since then I thought of Baby Scuba as a she.
- Thanksgiving:
- Since most everyone there knew what we were doing, Mr. Scuba wanted to bring up the framed photo (we had one printed in the right color at the store). I agreed and loved that everyone was so excited about it. When a few people who were there asked if I was pregnant it felt wonderful to say yes.... technically. We would then explain the situation. But for those few seconds when they would look at me asking that question I felt amazing. Everyone was really positive and of course sure that it had worked and that I was going to have a big belly at my little brother's wedding in June. At that time I was really positive and optimistic too.
- The Bird:
- I am not a very superstitious person, and trust me I know how ridiculous this story is going to sound, but the whole bird/window/soul thing really gets to me. Probably because the morning that my ex-boyfriend's mother died, we woke up in her house to a massive extraordinarily detailed outline of a huge bird across the bay window in front of the couch bed. We could see the intricate patterns of the feathers, the outline of the beak, the details of the feet. There was no bird found beneath the window. At this time I didn't know the superstitious meaning of this, but then he explained that a bird tapping on or imprinting on a window is a message from the other world that they are there to take a soul to the next life. Anyway, the evening after Thanksgiving this year, I was sitting on the couch and I heard something by the window. This bird was sitting there looking straight at me tapping on the glass of the door. My Dad went over to see what it was and said that was really weird. The bird would have had to work really really hard to get to that area including navigating through a very large wood pile. It flew off very easily and I felt terrified and sick. I felt like that bird just flew off with the soul of my baby. Ridiculous I know.
- Beta:
- When I went in for my beta blood draw, I knew it was negative. I was so upset I could not stop crying. I was sitting in that chair with uncontrollable tears streaming down my face. It just seemed so unfair. The phlebotomist was wonderful though. Mr. Scuba said he has never seen a quicker blood draw in his life!
- Another One of the Million Reasons I love Mr. Scuba:
- A few days after we got the official word that the cycle had failed, and a few days after we got pretty drunk, I was still pretty depressed. Not only was I dealing with the hormone crash after stopping the progesterone and estrogen, of course I was pretty sad this cycle didn't work. I don't eat very often when I am sad and Mr. S really wanted me to eat. He couldn't get me to agree to eat anything, so he went into the kitchen and fried a big plate of bacon and placed it next to me in bed. He knows that I can not resist bacon. It is the chocolate of meat after all! I ate the whole damn plate!! Those were my first steps out of bed and moving on.
- Flowers:
- After our bad news, I sent an email. I couldn't really talk about it and told people that we didn't want to talk. A few people called anyways and of course we loved them for that. A few people simply respected our space and we loved them for that too. Then there were a few that sent flowers and that made me feel really special. My BFF and her boyfriend, and my little brother and his fiance both sent us beautiful flower arrangements. It felt like such a beautiful hug from afar.
Third: The Plan Forward
The last step to moving on for me is always having a plan to move forward. It looks like we will have to wait until January/February to cycle with our snow babies. The super huge silver lining in that is that I can do this cycle without any drugs. No Birth control pills, no nothing! I get a whole cycle to just be me and live life and hopefully have lots of non-drug interfering sex! What a concept, I might get to have fun sex with my husband! It also means that I get to drink during the christmas parties, that I can go skiing, and maybe even scuba diving somewhere! So I am happy for the few weeks of drug free me.
It does mean that we won't have a set schedule for our FET because I have never had regular cycles, but that is a consequence I am willing to take. I will call the RE when my next period starts and we will get going again. Hopefully 2012 is a much better year!
For now I am probably going to be on the bump boards a lot less and I am going to be blogging a lot less. I just need to live my life and move forward. These places have been my lifeline for a long time, but I need to step away for just a little while. I will be here on and off and back for sure when I start cycling again, but for now I just need some time.
Thank you all for your love and support. It means the world to me.
