Thank you so much to the thoughtful commenters to my "Another wait" post. It helps me more than you know to know that this is not such a freak occurrence and that it can be overcome through 'normal' avenues. Thank you, thank you for sharing your experiences. This is one of the primary reason I started blogging and it has given me some much needed perspective and hope.
I've been back on prenatals for a few days and I'm going in for a beta draw tomorrow. Crossing my fingers, but my gut feeling is - no appreciable change. I almost don't even want to know the number since, if it goes up to 10 or 15, I'll be in utter despair when really, it's still a plateau. I don't expect it to have gone down. As Tash and Jen observed, something generally has to come out before the numbers go to zero. After my first MTX injection some tissue was expelled and there was a precipitous drop in my HCG levels. No more tissue since and no change in beta levels. Coincidence? Don't think so. I am hoping that the provera helps with this (only two more days worth of pills! I'm so excited to see if AF comes, it's like Christmas!) but understand that surgery may be in order, though I will do almost anything to avoid it.
Salt was poured on the wound today. One of my bridesmaids had a m/c shortly before I did. It was awful to hear (I was still pg which must have been difficult for her) and she was a great help to me when I ultimately had a similar experience. She was the first person I called from the Dr's office when I found out there was no live baby inside me. I thought of her before DH even. She had gone through a D&C and I needed to hear support and advice from someone who had been there. She had a fairly uneventful recovery from the D&C and waited a couple cycles. She's an eternal optimist. She's four years older than me. She is now announcing her pregnancy. I really am happy for her. In a way that I can't be for friends that have no concept of how difficult a loss can be to overcome. I have noticed lately that I definitely have a happiness bias against people who are so blissfully ignorant. Like my bridesmaid deserves for me to be happy for her, but my due date buddy that announced her pregnancy at 7 weeks, had no m/s and is having a blissful time of it - I cannot be sincerely happy for her, try as I might. Although I am happy for my bridesmaid, genuinely, it hurts too.
Update on the furbabies, my primary distraction these days - they are getting along pretty well. I left them alone together for about 5 hours today. I hadn't planned to, I was hoping to work from home, but not only could I not get internet at the house this morning (rare) my cellphone also broke. It was like the universe had conspired against my wanting to make sure I was a good dog mommy. DH is out of town so I left them alone. I have observed them alone together periodically over the last two days and was fairly sure everything would be fine, but not as sure as I wanted to be. So I was under undo stress all morning and bailed from work as soon as physically possible which probably impressed no one. But ensuring the health and happiness of my pets is something I take very seriously so it was important. Luckily, everyone is fine. They're getting along with minimal jealousy and annoyance. It's funny how much pressure I put on myself to make sure the dogs are perfectly happy when there is probably a normal, albeit trivial, amount of stress or unhappiness that is perfectly acceptable and won't scar the dogs for life. For example, I always feel so bad when DH and I leave for work in the morning and DH reminds me: "why don't you feel bad for us? we have to go to work all day." And I put so much energy into making sure fur baby 1 doesn't feel like he's being replaced that I am giving him more attention now than I did before we got fur baby 2, if that's possible.
To be perfectly honest, I have had my moments. I imagine this is a little like postpartum depression would feel. We anticipated getting a second dog for over a year. I stressed over every decision we've made about every dog we've looked at, I've scanned the shelter websites daily. I find "the one" and have anxiety for days that we won't be able to make it happen, they might not accept us as adoptive parents. Especially since we have to convince them that fur baby 1 and fur baby 2 are a good match. We finally bring her home and I am scared out of my mind at every yelp and every instance of the new dog pushing the old one out of the way, every time I struggle to handle two dogs on the leash instead of one, I am ridden with fear that: I did the wrong thing. One of my new mom co-workers had a similar sentiment about her new baby. She said that for the first 2 days after his birth she thought, "I have made a huge mistake." My other new-mom coworker swears this will not happen to me because of what I am going through to conceive a child, but I am totally, utterly prone to depression and I have no doubt that I am at risk for PPD. At least a mild case. And that is what I think I am experiencing with fur baby 2. What the eff have I done? But as the minutes and hours pass, I am more and more encouraged that this was the right decision. She is a puppy (10 months) and brand new to the house and has abandonment issues and has been cooped up in a 6 x 8 kennel for the last month (for a part border collie, this has to be a clinical form of torture) so I have to keep reminding myself that the few characteristics I have reservations about will work themselves out, just as they did with fur baby 1. But this is not a blog about dogs so I will try to wrap this up by saying, I love them both and am excited for all the days and years we will be spending together.
15 years ago
