I don’t remember ever having been both as excited and nervous as I was that morning of the first ultrasound. Naive optimism. One of us had “Ultrasound” on the calendar and the other had labeled it “See the babies”. As you know by now only one of those was correct. My wife was more worrisome than usual while we sat patiently in the waiting room, but I shrugged it off as simple nerves and nothing else. We eventually were led to our room and the nurse came in to perform the ultrasound. I had my iPhone out and my camera app open getting ready to record the heartbeat of the fruit of so much love and hard work. The nurse was silently staring at the black and white circle for what seemed like hours. That is the part I remember the most, the silence. In reality I am sure it was just a few minutes, but she certainly wasn’t seeing what she expected. We could tell that something wasn’t right, and she went to get another nurse and finally the doctor. They tell us that the little guy stopped developing at some point and that’s about all I can remember them saying. I know they went on about what we can do next or something along those lines, but in my head that same silence took over. I honestly don’t remember much about the rest of that day. I am not sure if it’s due to the numbness or if I am just blocking it all out. Either way calling it one of the worst days of our lives would not be overstating it.
We have since accepted what happened and can talk about it without weeping. There have been more “this is not fair” and “why us” thrown out than I can count. My mother always told me growing up that life isn’t fair, and this is one hell of a showcase for that. Last week we had another ultrasound performed to confirm what we already knew. Nobody was surprised this time and it helped give us some closure before performing a D&C on Friday. Tests have been sent off on the tissue from that surgery, and time may give us an answer to what went wrong. The reality of it is that it was probably just one of those things that happen for no reason. There won’t be an answer and we’ll just have to move on in life.
There is a silver lining in all of this however. WE CAN GET PREGNANT. We had said all along that if this round of IVF didn’t work we were going to start looking at other options such as adoption. We are definitely calling the IVF a success in that regard, however, so we are going to move forward with a third round. A little part of the naivete and excitement has certainly left the building, but we’re also still stupidly optimistic that this will work out in the end. We have to wait a cycle before we can try again though, so logic dictates that we of course must go to Vegas to clear our heads (and maybe have a few glasses of wine), which we will do in less than 4 weeks.
So we are getting ready to go through all of this insanity again hopeful for a positive outcome. If we do see that little pink line on that little stick we are most certainly going to worry ourselves indefinitely. (Has it actually come down to worrying about worrying?) But in the end it will all be worth it.
So we are getting ready to go through all of this insanity again hopeful for a positive outcome. If we do see that little pink line on that little stick we are most certainly going to worry ourselves indefinitely. (Has it actually come down to worrying about worrying?) But in the end it will all be worth it.
A lot of questions were asked over the past few weeks. One of them was “Are we going to be OK?” It is an amazing feeling to know the answer to that question without having to hear it. I can certainly see how going through something like this could break people and relationships and marriages. I honestly think that it has made us stronger. I am very proud to say that I am in love with the strongest woman in the world. She makes me smile just thinking about her and I can’t imagine making this journey with anyone else. Although I still wish this journey was more like a weekend road trip and less seeing how many times we can circle the globe.
