Baby Steps

December 18, 2013

Today we went to OHSU (the clinic were we did all previous IVFs) to ask them questions and talk about possible future protocols for me or a surrogate when the time is right.  We have 1 paid for frozen transfer left we have to use by the end of next year.

I was fine pulling in to OHSU but then it hit me as we got out of the car in the parking garage.  Last time I was here I was leaving pregnant with three alive babies inside me.  At the 12 week mark I honestly thought the only reason I would ever pull into that lot again would be to try to give my triplets (then twins) siblings with left over embryos.  It was strange and sad.

Then we got inside the hospital.  The smell of the place brought back so many IVF memories.  The hope the fear.  I could smell that sterile smell only hospitals offer.  And coffee in the lobby.  I remembered oh-to-well to push floor ten on the elevator.  Back to square one.  Again.

It's actually rough because this year ended up being a worse parallel of last year.  Last year I miscarried early after our first IVF and had a D&C in December; I was then forced to wait to try again for 3 months.  Now, here I am, 1 year later in a worse spot.  I just delivered 2 stillborns.  It's been a month but I still am bleeding.  My stomach has so much loose skin.  Again, we cannot "try again" until I'm healed up from the deliveries.  And trying again is much much harder and much for intense for infertile couples.  It involves drugs, and shots, and money, and vaginal ultrasounds, and blood draws, and a lot of worry and fear.  Having sex to have a baby?? (insert sarcastic laugh here and imagine me slapping my knee).

Hope is a ridiculous thing.  Even in that moment that I was in labor and they had given me the epidural and then pulled out the cerclage, we were still HOPING that for some reason I would just deliver the infected placenta.  After this crazy living hell we have just experienced, we find ourselves deeply saddened but more hopeful than ever that this is not the end for us.  Hope will NOT leave me alone.  It won't stop whispering.  I can't stop dreaming of the future.  Of things going right.  Of our family.  Of Jude and Brinly's LIVING siblings.  I hope for them.

The RE was so sorry (it was the one who had done my transfer) and answered all our questions.  The BIG game changing factor will be when we talk with the maternal fetal specialist next week.  I need answers and chances of this pPROM thing happening again.  I refuse to try to get pregnant if my body is determined some death trap.  I'm 99% sure they are going to say they think I can carry again, that it was bad luck, that "these things happen," that they will monitor me closer.  The 2nd question is can I handle it mentally?  Every twinge, twitch, pull, kick will result in undescribable fear that I'm about to go into labor.  It was good to talk to my RE and will be ever better talking to the high risk people.

Whether we do the transfer, or transfer into a surrogate, based on my age she thinks there is a 50% (people in their 20s at my clinic have a 60%ish chance but she said frozen is a little less).  We have some pretty good embryos frozen.  I'm not overly hopeful for them as my FET last time was the only IVF that had nothing implant.  BUT, it's all a gamble in the IVF world. I follow 3 blogs where they just did their last FET and it worked (meaning like 3 frozen transfers before failed).  I would be sad if the transfer didn't work, but sad doesn't seem the right word based on the fact that I truly know what "sad" means.

I joined a couple of facebook support groups for women who have lost all multiples and for women who have lost due to water breaking too early.  Everyone mourns differently.  I still cannot believe what happened, it all seems like a sad scary dream, but the best way I personally can cope is move forward.  I want to meet their siblings more than ever.