accept where you are...right now

I just read this somewhere and it stuck out to me a bit....

When we lost Pepper, the doctors said "wait 4-6 months to try again" The bereavement people sent us all this paper work and the ongoing theme was "wait 6 months to make major life decisions"


I get that now....

We are 4 days out from 4 months since I found out we had lost her. We're 5 days out from 4 months since she was born sleeping.

In the past 4 months, I have been all over the place with what I want to do.

On the way home from the hospital on July 15, James asked if I was ok and why I was calmer this time than I had been the first time. I told him it was b/c I knew we were going to try again soon and we would have another baby. The first time I didn't have that. The first pregnancy we lost was unplanned and things were rough in our marriage. James did not want more kids b/c of that and I really never thought we would have another baby. So I was grieving a lot of things there - the loss of a much wanted baby, my marriage not being everything I wanted it to be, the thought of never having another baby. I was also a different person then. I've grown a lot in the past two years. Two years and one day actually. Yesterday was two years to the day that we found out baby "smurph" was gone....today is 2 years to the day from my D&E.

So I was calmer this time....that's where I was going with this. Of course as time went on and things became a little clearer...I spent a lot of time in tears. But the deep horrible anger I had the first time, the bitterness at the unfairness of it all...I've not experienced that so much this time. I've been angery...I've seen pregnant women and infants and felt the horrible jealousy towards them and bitterness towards my own situation. But mostly...I've just felt this horrible sadness. And a physical ache...my heart hurts. I've talked about that before. It's a physical pain.

So....anyway - we were going to conceive right away...starting this month....

And then I had a thought....maybe I'll go back to school. And I voiced that thought to my husband who thought it was brilliant. And so that's been the plan for a couple of months.

And then about a month ago I started thinking....another baby sooner would be nice. Then we found out about the PCOS and I started thinking....waiting might be a bad idea.

All of my thoughts...all of my "decisions"....all of what I "want"....is driven by fear. Wanting to wait to have another baby - driven by fear of what if this happens again? Hell....let's take that waiting one step further...the most painful place in my heart that says "this is just not worth the heartache anymore" - it's scared of trying again ever. It's scared to adopt in case that falls through. It's scared to hurt like this ever again. Because I am so much better than I was at first. But I look back at those first dark days after we lost Pepper. And I know how much they hurt. And I'm not sure I can handle those again. So I want to put it off as long as possible.

Then the wanting to jump into again now...I'm scared if we don't it will only get harder to get pregnant. It's easy for us now...what if we wait and my pcos gets worse? What if we wait and we have trouble conceiving next time? The risk of miscarriage increases as you get older....waiting is a bad idea.....the what ifs will drive you crazy...for real.

Then there's this other part of me that says....let it go. And see what happens. And sometimes I feel like that's the most rational part of my brain. And sometimes I realize that I want the decision made for me so that I don't have to make it for myself. I don't think that's the way it's going to work either. I don't know....

So anyway - I read that about accepting where you are right now. And I think maybe in addition to accepting it, enjoying it would be important too. I've spent 4 months in "limbo" - and I want a plan. But I'm not there yet. I'm not ready to make a plan yet. But because I want a plan, I'm having a hard time enjoying what I have now...And what I have now is really good. I have a great kid, a great marriage, a husband that loves me. I have a house, a job I enjoy, a great family and friends in general. And good stuff is happening now too.

So maybe instead of trying to figure out the plan, I need to remind myself to relax and enjoy right now. I'm going to spend the next little while - however long it takes to have a clear answer - in prayer. And see if God is leading me in a specific direction. And I'm going to enjoy what I have right now. I'm going to enjoy my Mondays and Wednesdays with Corbin. I'm going to lose 10lbs. I'm going to start volunteering. Just because I don't have a plan yet doesn't mean life has to stop. It doesn't mean I have to be in "limbo"

After all...."life is what happens while you're making other plans" So I'm going to attempt to enjoy life and take the plan as it comes.

cruisin to the bahamas

Last weekend James and I went on a cruise. It was awesome! To share all the pictures and go into all the details would take forever, so I'm just gonna hit the highlights.

So Friday we got on the boat. The boat left Miami, we got settled in, and then we went to check things out. It was way rainy and windy:

Saturday morning, I woke up to this view from our window::

We got up, had breakfast, and then got off the boat to spend the day in Nassau....



We walked around for a while

and then got a taxi to Atlantis::

We found a bar and had a couple of drinks:

Then we caught a taxi back and went to have some lunch::

 

 After lunch, we walked on a beach to get back to our boat:

 

Sunday we spent the day on the boat.

We rode the waterslide:

 

Bought a fruity drink in a coconut (his name is Fred lol):

 And laid around in the sun:

 

 

Then we got dressed for dinner:

 

And finished the night out with a surprise encounter with Spider Man:

 

All too soon our trip was over. When we woke up Monday morning, we were back in Miami:
 

 

We had a great time and can't wait to do it again :)

reproductive endocrinologist and test result updates

I got my test results back from the doctor on Friday. Everything looked good, except I had about a gazillion cysts on my ovaries. Ok not quite a gazillion...I can't remember the exact number, but it was at least 12 (what you have to have in order to have polycystic ovaries). That, combined with slightly longer cycles and later ovulation earned me a PCOS diagnosis. I can't say that I was super surprised. At my first appointment with the reproductive endocrinologist, the nurse practitioner made it quite clear they didn't like that my cycles were consistently longer than 35 days. And I have a history of ovarian cysts. No one ever said anything about PCOS at that time, but when the NP showed me my u/s of my ovaries, I knew what was coming.

PCOS increases your chances of miscarrying to 40%-45%. Most women have a 15%-20% chance of miscarrying. They are not saying this is why we are miscarrying. But they are saying this is not helping our chances of having a take home baby. So they are treating me with metformin. From what I understand - with pcos you don't always process insulin correctly and that can cause the cysts. Metformin is typically prescribed for diabetics b/c it helps you process insulin the right way. The hope is that will help control my pcos and it won't get worse. It may help my cycles be a normal length and decrease my ovarian cysts. It may also make it a bit easier to lose weight - something that I can do now, but have to work really really hard to do. The RE would like me to lose 10-15lbs, so I'm hopeful it won't be as hard now. 

The other thing that concerned my RE was the fact that I tend to ovulate later in my cycles - usually b/t cycle days 20-30. Ovulating later in your cycle can (it does not always) increase the chances of "genetically abnormal embryos". Obviously this increases the chance of miscarriage. For lots of women, this is not an issue, but with our history of pregnancy loss, the RE wants to try to get me ovulating earlier in my cycle - preferably before CD 16. In order to accomplish this, he will be putting me on a medication called Femara when we are ready to try to conceive again. I'm hopeful that the metformin will regulate my cycles, since they're only slightly irregular and we can avoid the fertility medication. But if not, the RE feels this will give us a better chance for a take home baby.

This is all based on a couple of assumptions - the biggest one being that James has normal genes. So we are hoping to get chromosomal karyotyping on him in the next week or so. We will have those results in about 6 weeks. If they all come back normal, then we go on with the medicine and trying to have a full term baby. If his are messed up our options are pretty limited. We will discuss those if it happens. 

The other assumption we are working under is that something has been genetically wrong with our losses. I had originally been told that was not the case - that the babies were genetically fine. I recently found out that they never tested chromosomes on the first loss. The pathology was normal, but we don't know more than that. With Pepper, the chromosomes would not grow and although the autopsy was good and she looked normal - that does not mean genetically everything was fine. The loss in between was very early and losses that early typically are b/c of genetic stuff. So we're working with the assumption that James and I are genetically fine, but maybe making genetically abnormal babies.

So basically the plan is take some small steps to increase our chances of genetically normal babies and to control my PCOS in hopes of getting our take home baby.

That's our update....