National Infertility Awareness week

I got brave and put this in my facebook status, courtesy of another IF bump member.

April 24 - May 1st is National Infertility Awareness Week. As you play with your kids today, or tuck them into bed tonight, please take a minute to empathize with the millions of couples out there struggling to achieve what you have. If you or someone you love is affected by infertility, please post this in your status this week to show your support. ♥

We will see if anyone actually comments on it.

It would also appear that I may need to move to full comment moderation, I'm getting tired of deleting random "bot" comments that say nothing coherent.

Final beta.

My beta is now negative and progesterone is down to 1.4. My chemical pregnancy is officially over. I don't know whether to cry or be hopeful about trying again. I am reposting the poem from which this blog is named,

Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there was
A time when it was not.
It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.

I can't ever go back to just hoping for that BFP. Two lines will always instill sudden fear in me...or perhaps I will feel nothing? Certainly not the simple joy of finding out you are pregnant. Nothing is simple anymore. I don't think that can ever be undone.

Tuesdays are bad days now

Because they are the days when I should be reaching new pregnancy weeks. I should be 7 weeks today. I hope I can stop hating Tuesdays soon.

Follow up with RE

Last Thursday we met with our RE to discuss where to go from here. It went pretty well and I only started to tear up once when she said there was nothing we could have done to prevent the loss and that it wasn't my fault. She did say that it is fine to try naturally and re-evaluate IVF in the fall. Since I had extreme pain with my endo, we can use that as a gauge to see if it is returning, rather than doing a Lap just because. It was also the first time I think we got a number for our natural chances of conceiving....5%. That was a bit of a blow but I am still hopeful we can do this on our own.
We talked about the genetic factors involved with losses and she said usually they will start testing after 2 losses, but she did have us get tested for translocation issues because that would be useful to know before IVF anyway.
I asked about low progesterone causing the chemical pregnancy and she said that is controversial right now, because they can't prove if the progesterone causes the chromosomal problems, or if the chromosomal problems cause low progesterone. She did say it was fine for me to take my Endometrin in the 2ww on the natural cycles.

So we are giving this natural thing a few more chances. Not too much else to report at the moment. I'm sort of charting but I haven't had even AF level bleeding yet, so I don't know where exactly in my cycle I am. Hopefully my beta will be 0 on Wednesday. It was down to 37 last week.

The grief process.

I don't know what day to call the start of the loss, it probably began before I even knew I had something to lose. I have so many different emotions running through me I don't know what to focus on, but I try to stay focusing on hope. Hope that this will happen again and that it will last. But in between those strong moments I cave to other emotions and this post is going to be a running collective of what I feel as I try to get through this. The first few days, starting on Thursday, April 8th were just numb. R and I went together to our second beta, and we waited together in the office for the results. I soon as I saw the number I knew it was ending, but it didn't feel real. I had an ultrasound and it showed nothing. Nothing. As if it was never there to begin with.
Friday, April 9th
I woke up tired and feeling like a hollow shell. Part of me felt like I could pull it together and go to work as though nothing was wrong, but a bigger part said I needed to stay home and "heal". Heal from what, I'm not sure, because nothing had happened. It was just some numbers and some words. They could be wrong, right? By 10:30 I started to spot and I assumed that was it, it would be over soon. The cramping started around 3pm and it was bad. It was like my pre-Lap AFs, except it encompassed my whole abdomen. It felt like a fist squeezing my uterus, but pulling enough to make my ovaries hurt too. Overall, it felt similar to my post sonohysterogram feeling, very heavy and achy.
Saturday, April 10th
The nurse this morning was dead fish nurse. The first time I've ever seen anything close to feeling in her eyes. Too bad it didn't help. The cramps are still here and the bleeding is minimal. My progesterone is only 2.8 it should be moving a lot more quickly than this. I skipped my nephew's first birthday. I was told to stay off my feet today and I couldn't handle it emotionally anyway. My older SIL and my pregnant SIL now know about our loss and our infertility. I don't think they could possibly understand.

I am starting to reach the angry phase. I'm mad that this happened. I'm mad that it is called a chemical pregnancy even though I was 5 weeks based on ovulation. I'm mad that people might not understand if we don't use the term "miscarriage". I'm mad that I feel my loss is downgraded in others eyes because we never made past embryo stage. I'm just mad.
Tuesday, April 13th
I went back to work yesterday, even though the end of this seems no where in sight. It wasn't too bad, at least I haven't cried since Sunday. I was even able to tell two of my close friends over the phone without breaking down. Tomorrow I have to go in for more bloodwork. That will be hard. I was fighting tears waiting for my last beta. I just want this to be over so I can focus on our next cycle (and also so I don't have to keep worrying about making it through the workday without incident).

beta is dropping.

Beta #3 was down to 247 and my progesterone dropped to 2.8 so it looks as though I will be able to pass this naturally. I started spotting yesterday and had some pretty bad cramps, which are now paired with horrid stabbing pain coming from near my cervix. The nurse told me to rest and stay off my feet to help ease the cramping. I wish I could sleep until all this was over.

beta #2 not good

Only 475. Chemical pregnancy. I never thought I'd be on the receiving end of "I'm so sorry for your loss". I've typed that out myself many a time, and I was well aware that it could be me one day, but that day was never supposed to actually happen. I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel. The title of my blog comes into play once more. Pain has an element of blank. It truly does.

beta #1

is 375.2!!! Unluckily my progesterone was very low considering I started supplements last night...only 10.5. I am still spotting off and on so I am hoping this baby can hang in there until we get it back up. The nurse couldn't tell me much, but everything depends on whether it rises by Thursday. Based on my O date, I am 5 weeks today.

Have you seen my "Not"?

Because it seems to have gone missing from this test I just took

I don't know what to think. I thought I was on cd10 and was crazy for still noticing 2ww symptoms. I peed on a cheapie and as I went to test my OPK I saw the second line plain as day. I tested with the digital and you can see the result! A FRER also confirmed it.

Unluckily I discovered some spotting when I went to take my first Endometrin pill and the few temps I've had since "AF" were pretty low. I am hoping it is not too late. I go first thing tomorrow for my beta.

I can't believe I'm one of the "I didn't know I was pregnant" people.