Parents Behaving Badly

First, I wanted to thank everyone for stopping by and for the comments.  I'm having a rough month.

Now for my rant:

We had an incident:

We were waiting at a restaurant.  My husband had run to the car and I was sitting on a bench out front.  A very young mother was waiting at a table directly in my line of site with what appeared to me her brother and possible her mother as well as her one year old baby.  All three were smoking.  In fact, I think the brother blew fake smoke rings at the child, but I could have imagined that part.  I was impressed at my ability to hold it together.  I didn't even immediately head down the 'why does she deserve her baby more than me' path that I tend to run for when these type of things happen.

Then they started squabbling about where to sit.  This particular place has a dining room and a bar.  Neither had waits (I was waiting for the husband, they were waiting to finish smoking).  The girls mother was saying they should go sit at the bar so they could have drinks.  The hairs on the back of my neck started to stand up...

So here's my rant, and my stand.  I THINK BARS ARE FOR GROWN UPS ONLY.
I guess I feel like bars are a safe haven for the child free and I take it as a personal insult when the sanctity of my imagined safe place is violated.  I mean there several good reasons for children to not be allowed in bars, some of them legal.  Besides, they could have just as easily had drinks in the dining area, right?

The girl initially said she wasn't sure they were allowed.  Hairs start to settle, but mother insists and 'leads the charge' into the bar.  I sat staring at my phone.  As the brother passes me and is just behind me he nudges the girl and says. "Somebody's awfully bitchy," clearly directed at me.

Seriously?  I turned around and attempted to make eye contact.  If you're brave enough to say it, say it to my face!  He didn't oblige and ducked into the bar.

I sat with steam coming out of my ears for a few minutes.  My husband came and saved them from me approaching them.  What I really wanted was to hand the guy a note.  If I had had a sheet of paper, I would have and I think it would have sounded something like this:

Dear Random Stranger,
Apparently despite the extreme self control I used in not commenting on you and your life, you couldn't stand to leave me alone.  Since it was necessary for you to identify me as bitchy, I think it's only fair that you be told why I'm so bitchy.
Over the last year, I've lost three babies.  All desperately wanted.  My body has betrayed me and it's taken every ounce of strength not to give in to the depression that threatens to overwhelm me.  When I see children happy with their parents, I smile because I'm glad they have each other but the hole in my heart bleeds a little more.   
You are lucky enough to have a beautiful little girl in your life.  And instead of enjoying her, you choose to spend your time poking me because I'm hurting and vulnerable.  
I hope that you never have to understand how broken my heart is, and I hope you can overcome whatever is forcing you to be so catty and mean spirited.

In the end, we sat in the bar and I was happy to discover that they had moved (not sure if it was voluntary or not)

It seems that grief and exhaustion have taken most of the fight out of me, but instead it made me realize that you never know what someone is going through.  I'm not naturally empathetic.  It's not that I'm cruel, but I have a hard time reaching out to people.  Loss, and grief, seem to have also instilled some sensitivity for others in me.

But please people, keep your freaking babies out of bars. Please.  In exchange, we'll keep our sad baby-less selves out of Chucky Cheese.  Fair enough?

Thought on my first ICLW

I've been feeling so alone.  So awash in feelings of hopelessness that at times all I see is a world full of sunshine and smiling family and giggling children and then me.  *Camera Pan left, Amy, standing under a leaking umbrella soaking wet in a thunderstorm alone. *

It's this type of melodramatic mental imaging that made me force myself to seek support from a community that might have some answers, and if not, maybe at least a place to step out of the rain for a minute.  And it has.  So thank you for stopping by, for commenting, for reading, for caring.

And now for my confession on why I'm having such a hard time with ICLW: I'm a selfish bitch.  

Really, I think that's the only fair way to put it.  I don't want to read blogs of anyone with kids right now, I don't want to read blogs of anyone who's pregnant right now.  Most of the time, I like to see that there's an 'otherside' of this for most people and that we might get there someday.  I like to cheer for well deserved victories and success stories.  But not today, or yesterday, or probably tomorrow.  I'm in a bit of a rut.  I don't regret my decision to drop dr. god, but it's left me feeling at least a little bit aimless and less optimistic.  

So reaching my daily goals becomes a bit of a challenge.  I apologize to all of the blogs that I've visited only to quickly click away.  It's not that I don't think you need support, it's not even that I don't want to, it's that I can't.  

I feel terrible writing this, and I feel like a huge jerk, but it's honestly where I'm at right now.  

My grief blanket

For each pregnancy I've had, I started a blanket for the baby.  I'm not a crocheter, or at least I wasn't, but it was something tangible to do while I sat and dreamed and didn't sip coffee or wine!

For Taylor's blanket, I bought a beautiful soft, fluffy fabric that I realized I was too unskilled to use.  My sister switched me for a plain pink and it was going swimmingly.  The minute we came back from the ultrasound with no heartbeat, I tied off the blanket mid row and wept in to it.  Later, we cremated the blanket with her.  Michael's blanket was green.  Abigail's was yellow.

The extra yarn I'd bought for each was sitting in a box in my extra bedroom.  One day I started a white blanket.  Then I decided I wanted to use all of the extra yarn to make a blanket for my husband and I.  A reminder of our angels, a thing of comfort, a labor of love.

My grief blanket, as I've since named it, is almost half way done.  It's made of stripes of white followed by a sections of each fabric for each angel loved and lost.  My husband has also helped.  Some days (mostly weekends) I work on it for hours, other days only one row and sometimes I go several days without touching it. But it's truly been comforting for me.

It's my personal grief project. I'm not sure I'll share a picture of it, but I wanted to share the story.  I'd love to hear about projects others did for themselves and their angels.

Community

I've never been a team player.  Ever.

I am competitive, possibly to a fault.  I've never played team sports.  I was the person who did all the work on team projects because I liked things done my way.  And I've always been perfectly content with that.

I've never been a member of a voluntary community.  I'm sure that I've had lots of opportunities, but it's never seemed like something that was worth the risk for me.  When I first lost Taylor, I tried several support groups, and I got hurt pretty badly.  So I built some walls around my heart and convinced myself that since deep down I was a career girl, not a mommy, I'd never fit in.  I was in this alone.

This weekend, I watched as a community rallied around one of their own when a woman began to lose the baby she'd done everything to have. My heart goes out to her, and breaks all over again.

And it drove home to me that I am a part of this community by right, but it's up to me to BE a part of it.  Which is why I joined IComLeavWe.  Because no one should have to go through this alone.  Because I don't want to go through any of this alone.  Because I want to be there for others who don't want to do it alone as well.

So, I'm sorry for the sad welcome IComLeavWe'ers, but welcome none the less.  And sorry for my awkward entry to the concept of community.

My quote of the week.

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of holding on and letting go.


-Henry Ellis

The cemetery

I haven't been to the cemetery in a month.  We went on Taylor's anniversary.  I went back a week later to check that her balloons were holding up, and I haven't been back since. 

 

I knew I needed to go today.  So I went.  It was cold, but not miserable.  I'd forgotten that Michael's brick had been installed.  I found it, kissed it.  Pondered if I would order another one now or wait until... yep.  I went there though I tried with all my might not to.  I wandered around cleaning some of the other headstones.  I hope when and if the cemetery isn't a place of peace for me that someone will do the same thing for her, for me. 

 

I just sat and let my thoughts wander.  I belong to a book club.  Once, we read Heaven is for Real.  The women talked about how they could never handle the loss of a child, and how some things they'd prayed for in the past didn't come true and they realized later that God had a reason. 

 

There is no reason that's good enough for God to take my babies.  They offered examples of great organizations founded in the shadow of a child's death that saved lives and gave hope.  It's incredible what some woman can turn their grief into, but it can never be enough to justify the loss.  

 

As long as it's been since I've been to the cemetery, it's been longer since I talked to god.  And the last time was to tell him to leave me alone (it was a lot more colorful than that).  Something I heard someone say struck me, "I don't know if I'm strong enough to be tested with the loss of a child."

 

Tested.  If this is a test, I'm probably failing.  Recently I considered another attempt at completing my sacraments.  Returning to a church that broke our hearts just in case.  Just in case it means I would someday look at the faces of my children.

 

But really, I'm not failing.  I think I've just lost my faith and that's not the same thing.    

 

 

This is a stress strain curve.  There are lots of engineering things I can tell you about it, but the idea is that if you stress some types of things along that first straight line, they will be fine afterwards.  Anymore than that, and depending on the material, it will start to yield. It won't break right away, but it will deform and it will never be the same. That's me. But since I'm not broken, I'm not failing.  So there.  Argue that logic.

Dumping dr. god.

So Friday we were cleared for a cycle, did the ultrasound, wrote the out the prescriptions, made the appointments... and canceled.

But it wasn't that simple.

The problems actually started early this week.  I emailed to let my nurse know I had started a new cycle on Monday.  And I didn't hear back.  So I called and emailed Tuesday.  Nothing.  Wednesday, nothing.  Thursday I called the front desk and asked if she was on vacation or something because I couldn't reach her.  "No, she's right here would you like to speak to her?" I wasn't very happy, but took the last available appointment on Friday even though I told her it'd be tight for me to get there.

And it was.  And there traffic, an accident, etc.  I was about 20 minutes late and felt terrible.  My husband reminded me that at every appointment we've waited 30 minutes for the doctor so I called, calmed myself down and got there was quickly as I could.  The nurse made a snide comment about my arrival time.  I took a deep breath and let it go.

So the ultrasound was great.  I had a bunch of questions for the doctor but she kept grabbing the door handle and saying the nurse would be in to talk to me.  Eventually I got most of them answered, but still no great resolution on the heparin.  She said 'let's try to get you pregnant this cycle and if it doesn't work, we'll add it next month, it's an expensive medication."  So I stopped her, reminded her I get pregnant SUPER easy, miscarriage is my issue also that if it was just cost, I'd rather pay it than have another mc and regret not taking it.  She nodded absently and said with insemination I had better odds. At which I stopped her and reminded her we WERE NOT DOING INSEMINATION.  She picked up the chart, glanced at it casually and said, "that's what it says here."  The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but I calmly told her we had always contended that we weren't doing insemination and didn't even want to discuss it at yet.  She shrugged and left, leaving the rest of my questions unanswered.

I cleaned up and went to meet the nurse.  They put me in a conference room near the receptionist who was freaking out.  Summary: they were short staffed, couldn't get all the labs sent out and calls answered, no one was working together, it was chaos and was making me super anxious and upset.

The nurse eventually showed up with prescriptions and authorizations for me to sign, for an IUI cycle!!!  Then I started to flip.  As she went through the medications, all of the research I've been doing began swimming around in my head.  In particular how dr. god had mentioned she didn't want to do heparin because she didn't like to 'overmedicate' but that every medication they were giving me (clomid with a 10 day trigger shot) seemed focused on making me ovulate which I do at a champ.

"I don't understand why I need a trigger shot, I ovulate fine on my own."
"So all your eggs will be released at the same time to increase the odds of the insemination working."
"I'm not doing an insemination!"
"Oh...."

She leaves, comes back and says I still need the trigger shot.  I don't know why, couldn't sort it out.  I was drained and couldn't argue anymore.  They sent me to check out.  As we are checking out, the receptionist hands me an IUI authorization and price form.  My patience was shot, but so was my energy, so I just slumped forward and told her I wasn't doing IUI.  Now this woman was stressing me out, but she jumped on the problem, hopping up to go talk to the doctor and nurse.  She came back, I kid you not, with IVF forms.

The only reason I'm at this doctors office is because my insurance will cover a TI cycle here.  Well, after this appointment I realized it's not worth it to me.  My doctor wants to get me pregnant, she seems to have absolutely no clue that I'm a RPL patient NOT a standard IF patient.

So we sat down and talked about it, and I'm not going back.  I will not go to a doctor who refuses to listen to me at all.  I'm disappointed, but I feel better.  Today I'm going to draft her a letter (which she probably won't read) detailing why I won't be back.

I know we made the right choice.  I don't want to add the stress of a doctor I hate to an already stressful situation.  I know I need to listen to my heart and my husband, but my brain and biological clock are so damn loud sometimes it's easy to block out intuition.

I could really use a hug.  I think I'll head over to the cemetery today and just be.

doctor god

The last few days I've been a wreck.  I don't know what the problem is, although my husband offered that it may be PMS.  Triggers that I've been over for months are sending me into tears again (like the grocery story).

I think it's the upcoming month.  The one with the doctors, the pills, the shots, the hope, the fear.

(((warning, slightly irrational, possibly PMS induced rant below)

I also think it's the doctors.  I'm frustrated.  Why won't they listen to me!  So I'm going to call her doctor god.  Doctor god is the RE my insurance sent me to.  Doctor god has a god complex.  Big time.  I noticed it first when everything she talked about doing, SHE was doing.  For example, "I'm going to produce two healthy eggs instead of one."  I mean, I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty damn sure I (or at least my ovaries) are at least slightly involved in that step.

And she wants to be God big time.  In fact after our first appointment with her, she asked us if we wanted 'high tech' or 'low tech' (aka IVF vs... well, anything else in her opinion). We said we wanted answers and to focus on that.  But I still think that is a ridiculous way to phrase it.  Because who wants to say, no, I'll have the inferior one please.  I don't know everything about our current situation (although I'm trying!) but I know that when and if we face the IVF question, that's not what the question will really be.

She also has a slow, deliberate pace and when she stops to answer a question, she gets this weird condescending look and it reminds me of how some people look at very small children when they ask questions.  I suspect that in her mind she sees herself as a cross between a patient kindergarten teacher and a kindly (debatable if you ask me) ruler stooping to listen to the concerns of the mere peasants of her kingdom.

And I sort of get it, I'm sure I do the same thing with some of the more highly technical aspects of my career.  But it's not like I'm asking her where we put what to get pregnant.  My most recent question was about heparin.  She's never mentioned it, yet several other doctors mentioned it may help (Yep, I got other opinions, and not just from Dr. Google, but from real-life doctors who saw both me and my medical history).  She acted like not only did I not have a voice in my treatment, but that it was a little naive of me to question it.

Just to be clear, even after researching it, I don't think heparin is a miracle drug that will prevent all unexplained recurrent miscarriage.  But so far I don't see a good reason NOT to do it and I do know that if we have another loss and I don't press the issue, I'll regret it/blame myself/wish I had pushed harder.  That said, if the doctor had given me a good reason, I would have been okay.  Something along the lines of "Well, it's true that some believe it helps, I don't because of xyz reason and zyx risks."  Her reason was more like "Well, we'll try aspirin and folic acid and if that doesn't work, we can talk about it then."  What? Why?  How many losses it too many (besides one, of course, but I guess once you break that you're just a test case anyway?)

/end rant, for now.

That said, I agree with pretty much ever other aspect of her diagnosis (again, I know I'm not a doctor, but I am the one living this).  So we'll see.

The Christmas Letter that wasn't.

Last Christmas, I had a really hard time with Christmas Cards.  In fact, a few never got opened at all and landed in the trash still sealed.  On December 19th, the day after my miscarriage I sat down and wrote a letter I knew I'd never send.  I want to share it here:

Coming clean about 2011. 

The Christmas Cards have started rolling in.  Greetings and cheers and all of the things you are supposed to see in Christmas cards. 

You won’t get a Christmas card from our family this year. 

No one writes about the shitty parts of their year in their Christmas cards, at least no one who has ever sent me a card.  You read about the very best of every one’s year, and that’s the way it should be right?  Christmas makes us stop and reflect on all of the good of the year, looking forward to the next year.  

And there’s always good, there’s always something positive to reflect on.  But this year, to be honest, we’re having to dig pretty damn deep to find it.  And that’s a lonely place to be.
But I take responsibility for that.  Sharing is hard.  And I’ve had some pretty serious rejections when I’ve tried to share this year.  But I’ve also had some great support.  So with great anguish, and quite a bit of fear, I am sitting down to write an explanation of my 2011.  It’s my attempt to share, as honestly and completely as I can. 

2011 was supposed to be entirely different for us.  In July of this year, we were supposed to welcome our first child into our family.  Instead, in January, we buried the remains of her body at the xxxxxxx Cemetery.  In June, we lost our second.  Today, as I write this, we are in the process of losing a third baby.  Three miscarriages in the last year.  Even as I write it, it’s hard for me to believe and remember that it’s actually my story that I’m trying to tell. 

Almost no one knew we were pregnant.  You’re supposed to wait.  But at 12 weeks it’s supposed to be safe.  And when you get pregnant you’re supposed to get a baby. So easy to suppose. Plus I’ve never been a big sharer.  I’m more private, I’m more cautions, and I don’t want to be the train wreck that everyone stops to look at. 

But the honest truth is that I barely survived this year.  My marriage barely survived this year.  Every day has felt like an uphill battle.  I feel completely drained, physically and emotionally.  I look around and wonder why I’m so alone and realize that I haven’t really given anyone a chance to be there.  

There’s a lot of reasons for that.  Miscarriage is a tough topic.  How do you share that you are grieving baby who never got a death certificate, let alone a birth certificate?  And how do you do it without pushing people in a corner about their personal moral convictions?  So it’s double scary to share.  But I was surprised when my biggest support was a prochoice woman, and a my biggest disappointment came from the church who alleges that it protects the rights of the unborn.  I’ve realized that it’s because the woman cared about me, and my hurt is undeniable, regardless of your political leanings.

This burden is impossibly big and heavy.  I can barely manage it.  I could never ask anyone to look at it, let alone help me with it.  But with that decision, I drift further away, alone, without ever giving the people who care about me a chance to decide if our friendship is worth that price or not.
 I know that no one knows what to say to me.  For the last year I’ve thought of almost nothing other than our losses and I still don’t know the magic words that make it stop hurting or even hurt less.  I know the words that don’t help. For example, don’t tell me it was for the best.  It wasn’t.  Don’t tell me god has a reason.  Maybe, but I don’t care what he wanted.  Don’t tell me we can have another, first of all, apparently we can’t, and even if we could that wouldn’t replace what we’ve lost.   

So if I've seemed distant, different, sadder, more broken this year, it's because I am.  But we are muddling through the best we can.  I only pray I have a different story to share next year.

Infertile

I said it out loud for the first time a few days ago to my husband.  I said it as nonchalantly as I could manage, and in our typical morbid joke fashion.  I needed to say it, and I thought it would pass mostly unnoticed.

He stopped and looked at me. "I don't like that word."

I don't blame him, I don't like it either.  But for us, at least for now it's a fact.  I keep trying to hedge.  "Oh, next time will be different." "They didn't find anything wrong, so we just got unlucky." etc etc.  Maybe that's how I cope, but I know deep down, I know.

My transition from 'loss' to 'ALI' has been mostly a mental change, followed by a perspective switch.  And honestly, it feels better here in a lot of ways.  Much like it felt better to be an an RE's office than an OBGYN's.  I don't want to be here, and neither does anyone else, but more than any one else, we get it.

I just hope that this state is temporary.