I committed to sharing a bunch of the details of our recent loss this week. I admit, I feel so heavy even thinking about writing these posts, because as open of a person as I am and as much as I hope our pain and loss somehow reaches someone in a helpful way, vulnerability is hard. It just is. Its great, but its hard.
Today’s post will be going back to even before we conceived. Be prepared for me to get long winded. This whole week will likely be long winded… You guys know that about me by now.
Here we go.
Having Waverly brought such immense healing to our family. She was the ultimate baby in every way. She just fit. She was so content and warm, and the most popular girl in school, so to speak. Everyone loved her. She made it easy. Brady and I both felt strong in our hearts that we were to jump back into the baby-making game as soon as we were able. I had such a specific picture in my head of adoring this new member of our family, plus the current amazing members, with a big ole belly. We felt this dream confirmed when I physically healed at warp speed, and felt back to my old self in every way at about the two-week mark. (For the record, I am aware that no body is technically “healed” for years, actually! But I was seeking advice from my doctor and physiotherapist, and I got their blessings early to go again, if we felt so inclined. And we did.)
Right around six weeks postpartum, I got a faint positive test. I was blown away!! Could it have happened already?? I was completely beside myself with excitement. I took a test the next day, and it was kind of the same. Still light. Being that I hadn’t had a cycle yet, I wasn’t confident in the dates, so I gave it time. My tests got lighter and lighter until I started bleeding. I spoke to my doctor and saw her in person. She consoled me a little and said it was likely a blighted ovum or something like that – where my body tried to conceive, but an embryo never formed. She let me feel sad about it, regardless of the fact that I had a six week old baby in my lap. She knows my heart.
This happened countless times over the next year. I had light but visible positive tests at least six times over the last year. But I spent all year cursing my stupid cycle and how it was never regular anymore. I wrote it off every single time. How I wasn’t actually conceiving. How my body was just so stupid now. How it wasn’t even clear when I was ovulating anymore. How everything I had learned about my body in the past 30 years had changed. And how I was still in the realm of “normal” so it wasn’t worth investigating. And how, maybe, the tests just sucked. All the different kinds I tried. They ALL sucked!
I. Was. Furious.
At one point in the year, my body just flat out quit ovulating. When I had survived four periods in the span of two months, I threw the towel in and called my doctor. I cried, and told her I knew I had already complained about my period to her recently, and I knew we couldn’t refer to a specialist until it had been a year of trying, and I didn’t even know if I wanted to do that, but this was just too much for me. She booked me in right away and listened to me fuss and cry with nothing but compassion in her eyes. She told me I had every right to be mad, and we would absolutely try and see what was happening in my body. She sent me for a batch of bloodwork to check my hormones, thyroid, and a few other things. All that resulted it was low iron, because obviously, ALL the bleeding. I was SO mad. She gave me ultrasound requisition, but of course, the next time around my period came at an actual “normal” time so I was bitter and never booked the scan.
We rounded the year mark of trying with nothing to show for ourselves beyond an exhausted, discouraged couple and a beautiful crew of children positively itching for another baby.
As it tends to happen, once that year mark came and went, and we felt just about completely hopeless, we got our positive test. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow. This feels like enough for today. But there’s your background to us trying to conceive. Please keep judgements to yourself. You’re welcome to them, but my heart isn’t open to hearing them at this point. Nothing but respect.