Oh, the indignities

In my last post I wrote a bit about all of the undoing I had to do last week – the telling everyone “it’s over”, the throwing away of paperwork, etc.  But there was more…before I left for my trip I emptied all my garbage, because I didn’t want to come home and see evidence of my miscarriage (you know what I’m talking about) in my bathroom garbage, nor did I want to stumble upon any of the positive pregnancy tests I’d kept kicking around for posterity.  I also turned my prenatal vitamins around so I wouldn’t have to see the big belly and the stork on the front of the bottles – and gave myself a pass to not take them for a few days until I can deal with it again.  I went through the house and threw away everything, and I mean everything, that reminded me of that few days I was pregnant.  I turned all my Choice Mom books around so I can’t see their titles.  Can you say I’m traumatized?  Yes, I think that’s a fair assessment. 

But I’m afraid the indignities continue.  Kaiser just wouldn’t accept an online cancelation of my first prenatal appointment, and called yesterday and left a message on my cell phone confirming the appointment and reminding me to arrive early – this message popped up after I got off the airplane, along with one from a friend who obviously hasn’t been reading my blog calling to check in and see how I’m doing with the pregnancy.  Welcome back to LA, motherfucker.

So today I tried to cancel my Kaiser appointment over the phone with the automated system – they wouldn’t accept that, either, so I talked to a human being, who said she’d put me on hold to talk to the nurse to “re-schedule”.  So I finally had to blurt out no, it’s not about re scheduling – I need to CANCEL, I miscarried.  She was appropriately taken aback and put me on hold while she left the facility a detailed message.  I can only imagine they’ll want to call me to talk about it some more and try to get me to come in for more tests that I can pay hundreds of dollars for, which I absolutely won’t do.  It’s over, and you probably won’t hear from me again for a long time – can you just cancel the damned appointment and leave me alone in my grief, please?

I tried to make myself feel better by RSVPing for a free IVF seminar at the clinic in Irvine I’m interested in pursuing mini IVF at, if it comes to that.  I figure I can at least get answers to some basic questions and get a sense of the place, AND I’ll be entered into a pool to possibly win a free cycle.  Hey, I ain’t got shit else to do.  But then the person at the clinic e-mailed me back saying isn’t my spouse attending, because if he is they need his name, too.  I felt like writing back saying, “If I had a partner attending I would have sent his name – obviously I don’t, so how about rubbing it in, huh?”  But of course I didn’t.  As is the answer to most questions I’m asked these days, I replied, “No, it’s just me.”

THEN I had to pay my credit card today, and as I’m wont to do I looked at all the charges for the month.  Yep, there’s that ultrasound that showed I had a good follicle for the first time ever.  There’s the purchase of the sperm vial in advance before all the prices went up.  And there’s the IUI that resulted in a pregnancy.  Here’s my money, my hopes, and my soul.  Take it all.

To comfort myself I read back into some fellow bloggers’ archives about their miscarriages/fertility issues that eventually resolved into healthy babies.  It’s enormously comforting to know that I am not alone in all this – my feelings are frighteningly normal.  The worry about age, the worry that all of this will be a big failure and I’ll be left with nothing, the jealousy of married/pregnant friends, the married/pregnant friends who can’t possibly understand what I’m going through despite their efforts.  The uncertainty, the fear.  I was always afraid of achieving a pregnancy and losing it, and yet here I am.  I have had that experience now.  I can tell you one thing – I am SO glad it happened so early.  I don’t think I can compare what happened to me to an actual miscarriage – after you’ve heard a heartbeat, after you’ve bonded with the baby, after you’ve gotten used to the idea.  I think that would just about send me into a mental hospital.  For me, I was still in shock and denial by the time I started losing it – I never *felt* pregnant despite the physical ickiness; it hadn’t sunk in, at all.  There’s a big part of me that can’t believe any of that ever happened – the fact that I can use the words “my pregnancy” or “my miscarriage” still feels weird on my tongue, like saying “my yacht” or “my penis”.  It all sounds so darned adult.  I guess it gets back to what I talked about a couple of months ago – I just can’t picture any of this.  I can’t picture myself pregnant, or with a baby, or with a child.  The concept is still completely alien to me.  I never really accepted that I was pregnant, at all.  But I know that was just because I never had the chance to.  Another week or so and I think it would have really become real to me.  So, I am very, very grateful that it didn’t get to that point.  The physical part was a walk in the park, too.  So far for me all of this physically has been as we’d say in Massachusetts, “no big whoop.”  Emotionally is another story. 

But I did try to have some perspective today.  I mean, as of now, I’ve only been actively TTCSW for FOUR MONTHS.  That’s it!  That’s not long at all, although it feels like a frickin’ eternity.  Two IUIs, two canceled cycles, one pregnancy, one chemical.  That’s it.  I’m barely at the starting line compared to what a lot of women go through.  And there’s so much still out there for me – I know I can get pregnant, I know what works to get me pregnant, and I know what doesn’t work.  I know that the tools I have to use are relatively cheap and have zero negative effects on me.  That’s pretty amazing.  And there is this thing out there called mini IVF which just might be the thing that saves me – or at least lets me see firsthand what my eggs are up to so there will be no more guessing about egg quality.

There are a couple of things I will do differently if the next IUI works.  I will ask the clinic, rather than Kaiser, to do some early monitoring for me.  I’ll see if they’ll be willing to run some hcg tests for a few days so I can see if the pregnancy is progressing properly in those early days, so I can be emotionally prepared for another loss.  Maybe if it makes it to six weeks I can even get an ultrasound from them.  Then, and only then, will I get myself into the Kaiser system.  All of that was a total waste of time and money last time.  So, lesson learned there.  I will also be very aggressive about pursuing good remedies for nausea since that knocked me on my ass last time.  Oh, and I won’t be using the “rapid result” tests ever again.  That cost me a week of wondering and worrying. 

So for now I’m going to let myself grieve and experience all the yuckiness an early pregnancy loss entails.  It’s part of the process, and it’s a life experience, for sure. Am I sorry I opened this Pandora’s box and made myself vulnerable to these kinds of experiences?  No.  Wasn’t it Mao who said “Everyone should taste some bitterness in his life”?