The Deluge

Of the numerous terrible things about having a miscarriage, one of the worst is that even though you no longer have a baby or pregnancy, but you still have the hormones. They don't leave the body particularly fast and depending upon how far along you were, it can take an agonizing amount of time for the HCG to leave your system. I seem to recall from last time that it leaves the body in halves - so if it was 10,000 one day, it should be 5,000 a few days later and so forth. While you are waiting for it to eek out of your bloodstream, though, you are left to its mercy (and that of the progesterone) so that all of the emotions that you are already feeling are that more heightened. Talk about being hit while you're already down.
image: Earthwatcher
So, today when I felt the sadness just overwhelming me, I knew that in some part it was the damn hormones just making a bad situation worse. But, still. I'm sad. I'm sad that once again I don't have a baby to look forward to. I'm sad that we're coming up on our 5th wedding anniversary and it's still just the two of us. I'm sad because I feel like I have failed again and that we are running out of "it's-a-random-occurrence" excuses. I'm worried that there might really be something wrong with me or with our embryos.

And, I'm angry. I'm angry because I feel cheated (again). I'm angry that we had this happen again. I'm angry that I couldn't just have a normal miscarriage like last time and instead had that two week blip of hope that still left us with nothing. I'm angry that once again we've landed in that 2-10% who hear the heartbeat and still end up miscarrying (which I find particularly cruel). I'm angry that we're infertile and can't seem to make much progress. I'm angry that Dr. Uterus has had so many successes and yet I can't seem to be in that win column yet despite our Herculean efforts. I want to add my picture to the books in his waiting area holding my baby with that grin of success and satisfaction. I'm angry that he is so confident that it is yet another random occurrence which makes the whole thing doubly worse.

And, I'm particularly angry that everyday irresponsible people who have no business reproducing have perfectly healthy children who they then abuse and kill. If I wasn't already an atheist, I think this would have sent me over the edge toward the religion-free lifestyle. It makes me want to bang my head against a wall.

But then I realize that these are all feelings that are part of the process. For as ugly as they are and as ugly as they make me feel, I know that they are natural and I probably would have real problems if I wasn't having them. We like to think that we are going to handle situations with grace and aplomb at all times, but frankly, that's impossible. The most we can strive for is to have enough introspection to recognize the feelings for what they are, have them and then move on.

It helps if you don't read the article in the New York Times about nesting during pregnancy, too. I will not bother linking to it here since it will probably just cause more misery for everyone else. I already made the mistake - no need to compound it for all you fine ladies.
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In other news, we finally received the results of the chromosomal analysis that we had run on each of us. We are both chromosomally normal, although, as Sweetie sagely pointed out, we are in every other respect probably off-the-charts abnormal. This is encouraging news (yay! we have no translocations!) but it's also frustrating (boo! we still don't have that smoking gun!). Shinejil - please chime in at any time here to remind me to be grateful. I think it's my turn.

I'm also able to resume bathing - that is taking long, luxurious bubble baths lit by candlelight while Wine Boy plies me with alcohol and tries to molest me as I read Madame Bovary and other scintillating fiction. Unfortunately for Wine Boy, we are on "pelvic rest" (I just love that phrase. Who on earth thought of that to denote no sex?) for two weeks. Ouch. Well, more for him. My ovaries are screaming at the moment as they regroup back into their normal size and I have no doubt that they would be extremely disapproving if there were extracurricular activities going on in their general area.

Also, I'm slowly beginning the transition over to temporarily making my new blog my more regular blog. So, continue to check over at A Year of Inconceivable Living for new posts. It's been rather quiet because of the drama of the last few weeks, but I hope to get more prolific. I will continue to post here about infertility, post-miscarriage travails and other related topics, but I want to begin focusing on our break which I plan to do exclusively at this other blog.

And, to my dear friends in the computer who are pregnant, I must beg a favor - I'm having a hard time reading your blogs right now, so I wish you the absolute best but please forgive me for not stopping by for a while. Be well and I hope I will be able to give you the same wonderful encouragement down the line that you have given me.

bath image: amishah