Bill and Giuliana Rancic open up about miscarriage

After seeing the The View special on infertility in which Bill and Giuliana revealed they were having problems conceiving, I started tuning in to their reality show.  Here was a , glamorous ouple that appeared to have it all- successful careers in entertainment, luxurious lifestyles, super high salaries,  supportive friends and family, and teams of fans.   I appreciated seeing infertility cross paths with Hollywood glamour.  For people who  make life look easy and are the pictures of positivity I was on the edge of my seat to see how they handle this emotionally brutal process.  Seeing how IF hit the “cool” kids made me feel less like a freaky loser.

According the news they did get pregnant but had a miscarriage and they talk about it this Friday on the View.  I will be tuned in!   I am inspired to see them forge ahead and talk about this so openly.  Their ability to remain optimistic brings me hope as well.

Yellow light, Wait another month

My cycle started on Saturday, so I thought I got a fast pass to start up again despite the test.  I just saw my RE on Monday to talk about starting again now that my cycle had started.  She recommended another round of blood tests the next day to see what changed with my new cycle.  She confirmed that the (hcg) pregnancy test is now negative but my ovary is still producing progesterone.  It likely has left over “corpus luteum” from the pregnancy.  She explained that these cysts are part of a physiological process of pregnancy and will go away on its own if left alone typically within one month. She recommends waiting another cycle before resuming treatment.

Meanwhile my pharmacy just called letting me know my prescription is ready.  I gather it is the letrazole prescription she was planning on calling in.  It is a mixed message.  She says she recommends waiting, but she did at least give me the drugs if I want to be a rebel.  My gut says I should go with her recommendation and I admit it totally brought me down to the waiting place that I dread so much.  I have had so much waiting, I wanted to just be aggressive this round and move ahead.  The last two times I waited too long and actually regret not trying sooner.  The waiting place is the self-pitying helpless place.  I am really curious what the risk is if I don’t wait.  Would something bad happen?  Is my risk of miscarriage even greater?

Thank you to the ladies of ABC’s “The View”!

I watched a Tivo’d episode of The View today and saw that Resolve gave them an award for their coverage of Infertility.  I wish I could have thanked them as well.  The award was well deserved and I was thrilled to see they were recognized for what for me was a really important/validating show.  I’ve watched the show for years and heard them talk about their children (all hosts have at least 1) and seen Elizabeth pregnant twice and heard all the messages specifically addressed to the mothers of young kids that I assume are a big part of their audience.  I felt like an outsider not able to participate/identify with many of the programs for parents.

Not only did they dedicate the whole show to infertility, but the hosts all (except Whoopi) share their own stories.  On the original program, Sherri disclosed her own story of going through IVF and IUI.  And god bless you, Barbara Walters for talking about having 3 miscarriages!  Joy, I normally am a fan of yours, but was a bit miffed when you made offensive jokes and finally cut off Sherri to change the topic to another tangent and ask about why the Octomom didn’t have a reality program.    Thanks to Whoopi for bringing it back in the end at least.

Here is a clip I found of the original episode-

Back to normal, sort of

I had my blood tests yesterday as a follow up to the D & C to confirm things were back to normal.  My  HCG level came back almost zero at 6 mIU/ml.  According to my RE this means that when I get my next period, I would likely be able to start up again with the letrazole and TTC again.   However,  it may take another 3-4 weeks for a normal period since my progesterone level is positive.  She said this means there is a corpora luteal cyst from the pregnancy still secreting progesterone. Yikes!  That sounds strange.  While this is present, my ovary will not “resume activity” and my cycle may be delayed by a few weeks. (ah!  waiting!  how we love to sit tight…)  She says we should call before we start attempting. I admit, I never really stopped.  When we finally got the green light for intercourse I wasn’t about to pull out the birth control.  What are the odds of getting pregnant?  It sounds like I am not really ovulating anyway?

Even though this is my third D & C, each one was with a different doc and they seem to handle these things very differently.  I don’t remember having any cyst issues previously.  Instead they called my mystery parts “products of conception”.

To add a level of complexity I’ve noticed that I’ve been bleeding recently. I thought – hey, maybe I am getting my period early!  Yippee, I don’t have to wait as long!    I’ve also been feeling tired no matter how much sleep I get and had the ol’ sensitive boob situation again.  This cyst may be the culprit.

Hopefully I can sort all this out with a call to my doc.   Alas, it is Saturday afternoon, so need to put these questions on hold til Monday.

Mini milestone- back to teaching

I taught my first high impact aerobics class since I first got pregnant tonight.  It was great to see everyone. I was nervous about what I would say when they asked about where I went.  It was a valid question.  My bad answer was that it was complicated- travel and medical issues.  When you say medical people give you the look of worry and ask if you are ok.  I don’t want people to worry, so it may not have been the best answer.  Two folks who talked to me after class asked how I was doing and where I was and I told them a little more of the truth.  I mentioned we were trying to start a family and their faces just beemed.  “I knew it!” one person said.  From there they were interested in just encouraging me to keep coming to class.  They looked so excited I didn’t explain that the emphasis was on the “trying” and that I’d already lost it.  They were more interested in my new low impact moves and then we walked out the door.  I admit, I didn’t want to bring the bad news, so I just let it go.  If it comes up again I can either tell them, or they can figure it out as I won’t be pregnant.  I did miss the class though and it was great to do some real exercise for a change.  I needed it!  Despite my intentions to get into great shape during my “time off” from TTC, I’ve been extremely lazy and worked out even less than usual.  I swear if I didn’t teach my 2 classes/week I wouldn’t go to the gym at all.  Here’s hoping I can get in at least one more workout this week (maybe 2!)

Happy for friend, but damn that stings!

Just when I was feeling more accepting of the whole childless status I get an email reply from a friend who is now pregnant with her second and thrilled.  We bonded when she experienced a miscarriage when she was trying for her second.  I am really really happy for her.  I know she went through a tough time with her miscarriage and must be so happy to be so far along.  She even knows it’s a girl (23 weeks).  While I know she’s totally deserving, I find myself thinking- hey, what about me!   There is no comparison in our situations. For her to feel like me she would need to subtract her 1 living child, multiple her miscarriages by three and stretch the whole thing out.  Having a miscarriage or multiple with no living children really makes you wonder if it will ever work out.  Since most repeat miscarriages are unexplained I have little confidence going forward that anything will change.  However, I manage to blame myself- why did we wait?  Now I am 37.  We started when I was 34.  Things will only get more difficult as I get older.

This month we are not TTC.  I have to wait for my cycle to start up again in a few weeks.  This week I go in for an hcg test to confirm my levels have dropped and my body has stopped thinking it’s pregnant.  Next month we are back on the horse again.  I think there is a good chance we can have more repeats and get pregnant again- but my confidence in keeping a pregnancy to term is just completely shot.  I know it’s just blindly rolling the dice at this point.

Of course I can’t say any of my feelings to her (or anyone else, except for this blog).  I’ve decided to just plead the fifth and just say Congratulations.

Drinking, Facebook and Christmas Cards

I went to bed last night very drunk after attending a very fun party in the city with friends.  It was pretty awesome to get to join in on the party after being so careful while I was pregnant or TTC. That’s probably the last big event like that for a while.  It was fun getting dressed up and joining in for a bit.

Yesterday and today I’ve been spending a lot of time on Facebook.  After months of complaining that it was full of fertiles and their constant kid pic uploads I decided to just  browse around and write nice comments and click “Like”.  I think having this blog actually helped me get back into it.  For a while I was bitter that I couldn’t post what was really going on with me on Facebook and was jealous of other folks who had less taboo issues they could share and get support for.    For me Facebook was more like Envybook where I would see photos- esp. of people with kids and families and it felt like a punch in the face and it would ruin my whole day.  This year all those first day of school status messages started killing me too.  Whenever my husband caught me looking at it, he would say “oh no” sensing the inevitable moaning and complaining that would follow about how unfair life is, etc.

Now that I’ve joined in this blog community I feel less marginalized and cast out (totally self-inflicted emotions, I know).   It’s just healthy for me to see other people’s lives as interesting and complicated and to be supportive.   We’ll see how long I can keep it up.  For now it feels good, so I will try to be more active there.   I know these past few years, ever since this all started I’ve spent too much time isolated and full of self pity.  I am grateful for my friends who’ve stuck with me as I haven’t always been the most receptive or available often cutting myself off and not answering messages.  I recognize that my ability to be available for others and to handle their baby/family news varies every day- sometimes throughout the day.

The true challenge is handling the photo Christmas cards.  I know, I know.  Those are months away, but my gut is already wrenching thinking about it.  While I love people’s children in person, the photos just send me over the edge as if they are saying- “Look at us!  We have a family and YOU DON’T!”.  I know they mean well, but I struggle with those.

What does 3 mean?

I went to bed last night excited to sleep in for the first time since we got back from our trip after a long work week and instead I woke up with my head spinning about what else- family building and miscarriage emotions and the usual bitterness that the friends I used to hang out with on the weekends are all waking up with their little ones and how unfair it is that we have been at this for almost 3 years and have nothing to show, etc.

I was listening to a British podcast (Best of Talkback: Is Miscarriage a Taboo subject?)  about  miscarriage yesterday and they discussed the taboo subject of miscarriage.  One of the guests who had 4 miscarriages was saying how she was actually not traumatized by the experience.  She had 3 kids with no trouble at all and then had 2 miscarriages when trying for a fourth.  Since she knew her body could produce healthy babies she said she still had confidence that she could do it again.  And after two she had a fourth child.  Then later she was pregnant by accident and lost the baby.  She was so upset she realized she really wanted a fifth (and the 4 kids wanted another sibling) so she tried again and miscarried and finally had a successful pregnancy on the last try. Her odds of miscarriage had increased partly because of her age.

I am feeling a bit like I just jumped on this train at the late stage and hence I went straight into the repeat loss department.  The difference is I don’t already have 3 kids so I really don’t have that confidence that I can have healthy babies ever.  Supposedly there is happiness in the future when I resolve this situation.  According to another podcast (Have a baby.com live: Treating Recurrent Miscarriage) either we finally have a healthy baby or we realize we can’t- and I am not sure a doctor will ever tell us that so they may just tell us to keep trying and we will keep miscarrying.  Is this a realization that we have to come to on our own?   Apparently a lot of doctors just tell you to keep trying and there is a good chance you will just keep miscarrying each time.  The doctor on the call said that there is a test (CGH embryo testing,) you can do during  IVF that confirms if the embryo has chromosomal abnormalities- so you can rule this out when they implant.  Your odds of miscarriage drop way down when you do this.  If you miscarry after this test then it is probably you, not the embryo that has issues.  (In which case you may not be able to carry or use your own eggs or both).  My doctor collected tissue from my last D & C for testing in the hopes of learning something more.  What I learned in the podcast is that these tests that they do after the third D & C usually tell people nothing because the sample is usually contaminated with the mother’s tissue.  So I know now not to get my hopes up on that one.  If we learn anything it will be a bonus, but I am not counting on it.

So the options are 1) keep trying knowing you are likely to miscarry again, 2) try this IVF test and basically do IVF 3) explore adoption and avoid dealing with another loss.  In general, I feel much bleaker about all this then I did when I started.  The first two were treated like flukes, this is a sign of a pattern that is likely to be about me -meaning there is a good chance either my eggs are messed up or my body can’t carry.  I now I don’t want to have someone else carry the child.  It’s $100K and the thought of someone else carrying and giving birth to “my baby” is just disturbing.    I honestly just think I am too insecure to be “replaced” and admit to the world I can’t do it and there is something wrong with me so I need to pay someone else to do it.  I would consider the egg donation if I had some guarantee that I wouldn’t miscarry.  Otherwise it feels like a giant gamble with bad odds, making the loss all the greater.

Pondering being “childfree”

I have lately been very interested in hearing about couples who are “childfree”.   I am not totally comfortable with the expression as it sounds like having children is something to avoid like “sugar free” or “smoke free”.  However “childless” sounds much worse,  like you are lacking and empty, so I am not using that term.  Whether it is for the short term or the long term I recognize that having examples of happy couples without children is just plain healthy.  I have this ridiculous idea that a complete family includes children.  As much as I would like to have one or two immediately, I recognize that it’s still a while away – a min of 10 months or more.

Lately I’ve been hearing about studies on happiness and they all seem to confirm that having children does NOT make people happier.

Daniel Gilbert in his book Stumbling Upon Happiness suggests that having kids actually makes you LESS happy and that parents actually delude themselves into thinking they are happy.  The book reviewer grabs your attention in her review  “Don’t Worry Be Happy ” in Forbes by saying “If you want to be happy, don’t have children.”

On the day to day, I can understand that, because of the demands, but in the larger scheme when you are reflecting on your life and looking back I hear again and again from people that their single greatest joy and satisfaction in life came from raising their child.  So maybe happiness isn’t the right word.  It is more about deriving meaning and a sense of importance.  I don’t see myself being happier by not having kids.  Now that I’ve been at it for almost 3 years it feels like the one thing I need to get back on track and feel normal again.  This whole process of trying to have a baby is hands-down the single most miserable experience I’ve gone through in life- so unfortunately I don’t see being child free as much of a ticket to the easy life.  Perhaps if I was someone who truly didn’t want them and then never tried to have them this is true.

In “All Joy and No Fun: Why Parents Hate Parenting” in New York Times magazine they talk specifically about the negatives of parenting and the toll it takes on your life and your marriage.    The author writes “This is the brutal reality about children—they’re such powerful stressors that small perforations in relationships can turn into deep fault lines.”  If anyone quoted either of these stories after I confided to them about my repeat pregnancy losses I think I would slap them, but finding the stories on my own I admit I was slightly fascinated and also frightened that the road ahead is hard on both sides.  Unfortunately, having trouble having kids doesn’t let you off the hook for everything after (although in fairness, it seems like you’ve earned a break somewhere down the line!).  For years I was focused on that and worried about how hard it would be, no idea how hard this first part would be.

So for now we are childfree, not by choice.  On our vacation last week we visited historical homes on Nantucket and occasionally there was an example of a couple  that never had kids.  I was fascinated with what they did with their time.  I think of other famous childfree people like Oprah and Julia Child.  Unfortunately I don’t have quite the same level of career ambition.  If anything I feel a bit guility that I haven’t been using my childfree time to be more productive.  Since I  don’t have an amazing career or a family I admit to feeling a bit lacking.  (Supermoms who have both- I hate you!)  My career is pretty low key and a great fit for a family.  I work from home for a large high tech company doing web marketing.  On the side I am pursuing a Masters degree in counseling psychology and part-time I teach aerobics (got certified last year).    I am interested in any other great examples of childfree people.  I know they are out there.

Telling the friends and family

Thank you guys for the support!  I did tell a few folks on my “trusted” list.  My mom tried to be supportive in her own way.  I think she gets that it makes me sad, but she doesn’t really get the experience as she’s never gone through it.  She has more of a deer in headlights look when I discuss it with her.

What gets me is the taboo of it all.  If I had a different illness I could talk about it more openly.  For example, my mom spent lots of time talking openly about her acid reflux.  I’ve never had it but I was sympathetic to going through pain and how it affects eating and her quality of life.  There’s nothing weird about it as a subject and people can talk about it openly without shame.  Infertility on the other hand has an element of shame/embarrassment and helplessness.  Noone has any REAL advice unless they’ve gone through it and bringing it up makes everyone feel really awkward.  I limited the telling to my mom and left it up to her to use her discretion to tell my dad.

I told my friends who had mixed levels of support.  My friend who is in  medicine and sees this all the time was REALLY supportive.  My single friend kind of ignored it, like oh yeah, that’s too bad, now lets focus on my problems again.  Part of me feels guilty complaining about it to her because she’s still going through heartbreak and not in a relationship where she can try to have children, despite her dating efforts.  Another friend of mine who now has a 6-year old just has really thoughtless advise/tips that she nonchalantly throws out that land like bombs.  When I mentioned chromosomal abnormalities as a potential cause she informed me that there are even more that are not testable and started telling me about people she knows with babies born with mental/physical problems.  Just what I needed to hear!  Way to hit someone when they are already down!  I don’t know how she thought telling me that was helpful.  The message I got from her comment is that in case I am lucky enough to get pregnant again and actually give birth that I should stay on edge worrying about all the potential problems even at the end.  Personally, I’d rather not know/think about more problems that can happen that are out of my control.  You either try to have a kid or you don’t and those are the risks we are all aware of going into- it’s clearly a crap shoot the whole way.  This is also the friend who told me adoption horror stories when I confided in her about considering adoption.    Clearly, telling her is pretty pointless, but I felt weird NOT telling her when I visited.

I also told my manager at the Y.  She was matter of fact about it and was focused on me keeping my timeslots filled, etc.  She told me – “I hope it works out better with your next try”.  Short, but too the point.