Please help...

To: Anyone, Everyone

This is the worst thing I've ever been through.  No one should have to go through this.  My heart is breaking right now - for myself, and for all of you.  Here's my story, for what it's worth.  And I'm sorry for writing a book...but this is the only place I feel I can vent about it.  No one else understands...

DH had a vasectomy years ago after having 3 kids in a previous marriage.  He is 43 and the love of my life.  The fact that he's willing to have kids all over again with me...at his age...geez he loves me a lot.  HOWEVER...we knew up front that we needed to have kids soon, bc (understandably) he didn't want to be 47-50 chasing a toddler around!  So...We paid 10K for a reversal that didn't work, then he lost his job.  We emptied our IRA in order to do a cycle of ICSI (costing over 20K), so this was our only shot.  Everything went BEAUTIFULLY!!  I'm only 28 with no prior MC or pregnancies.  I've wanted a child for so long...

DH and I recently found out that we were pregnant from the ICSI.  Unfortunately, last Tuesday Oct 12 the sonogram showed that we were pregnant with twins, but that it was a heterotopic pregnancy - one in the uterus, one in the Fallopian tube.  I had emergency surgery same day to remove my left tube and baby.  Exactly one week later, we found out  that the remaining twin didn’t make it through the surgery with me.  There was this little body laying on it's back...this little bitty body that I've waited my whole life to see, but no heartbeat.  The day of my surgery, the intrauterine twin had measured at 6 weeks, 0 days.  Exactly one week later, it measured 6 weeks 1 day.  That tells us it’s life continued until around the morning after my surgery.  I was two months pregnant.

The obvious concern now is my health.  My body hasn’t let it go yet.  My Dr didn't give me the option of DC.  He wants me to pass it naturally if possible, then will opt to medicate me in order to induce contractions of the uterus to force my baby out.  If that doesn't work, then he'll schedule the DC.  The wait is torture. So naturally, I lay my hand on my belly, then remember it's dead in there.  The first morning after the news was the worst.  I woke up at 4am giggling because "baby needs to pee again"...then got the wind kicked out of me when I remembered that it wasn't a nightmare, it's real...and its gone.

The pain is all consuming.  I lost 2 babies and my left tube in 7 days...and one is still inside me dead.  Why should anyone have to go through this.  I'm a good person.  I swear!  Has anyone else gone through this??  

Most of the posts I read...the ladies get to try again.  People that don't know we did ICSI try to comfort us by being positive and they say "it's ok...it doesn't mean you'll never be a mom!  it just means it wasn't the right time!  But yall can grieve as long as you need to and then try again!!"

I just wanna scream!!!  "NO WE CAN'T!!!!  WE HAVE NO MONEY!!!!  IT'S OVER AND I GET TO MOURN TWO BABIES, BUT NEVER EVER BE A MOM!!!!!"

I've always been able to FIND a positive out of the worst situations, and pull myself up and go on.  But I'm seriously having trouble doing that this time.  I'm strong, so I know I'll survive...I don't really have a choice.  But I desperately wanted to have a baby - i've wanted that for years and years.  I get my chance and they're ripped from me???

Ugh...ok, I'll stop.  I just needed to vent.  

Is there anyone that can help me?  I've never gone through a MC before and I'm terrified.  It's been 4 days since I stopped the Progesterone.  Tonight I started spotting a bit.  I've had someone with me for almost 2 weeks non stop - first because of the surgery, now because my Dr worried about hemorrhaging.  But tonight, when I started spotting, I sent my mom home.  My DH is at his son's high school football game.  But I really want to do this alone.  No one knows what I'm going through.  No one could've loved it already as I do.  When it happens, I selfishly want to grieve alone, but I'm also scared.  I have NO IDEA what to expect.  If I just started spotting, does that mean I for sure will pass it naturally?  How soon will it happen?  Will it hurt?  How much blood is too much blood?  Will my baby come out all at once?  Will it look like the pictures of a 6 or 8 week old fetus I saw on the internet?  What do I do with it?  Freaking bury it in the backyard?  Hold it in my hand for a while to say goodbye?  I realize it would've only been the size of a blueberry at 6-8 weeks...but it's my little blueberry and flushing it down the toilet doesn't seem right!!  

Please, if anyone can answer these questions...please help me!
And if anyone can give me hope...I'm listening.  I just can't fathom a world where good people can't have the chance to be good parents just because we don't have another 20K lying around...seems so unfair.

Thanks for letting me share, and my arms are around all of you who've gone through similar experiences.  There just HAS to be a special place in Heaven for those who've suffered like this...

Love to you all.
~2angels1wk

[laci25]

I honestly do not know the answers to your questions, however, I wanted to let you know that I feel for you and my thoughts go out to you and your husband that you will one day be able to have another child.  I am sorry that you have to go through this and I hope it gets better.  I have 3 kids myself and I couldn't imagine losing one or all of them.  I did have a friend that lost her child very close to the end of her pregnancy and it affected her and her husband greatly and I was there to see how badly it affected them.  My thoughts and feeling truely go out to you and I hope things get better for you soon!

[AnnieBrooke]

I am so sorry for your loss.  When I lost my twins at 9 weeks, I began to spot about three weeks after learning their hearts had stopped, and then passed them after a week of bleeding and spotting.  Just because you have begun to spot, doesn't mean it will happen tonight, you can spot for a while.  

The pain was not great, even though I was passing both twins together, not just one, and they were three weeks farther along than yours.  The only thing that was tough was the amount of bleeding.  I was worried about getting dizzy and fainting.  It's a good thing that I didn't rely on my husband, but went to the ER, where they monitored me (i.e., put me in a quite comfortable little roomlet and checked in on me every now and then) when I was passing all the clots and blood.  All told, I was at the ER from 1 am to noon, and walked out on my own feet, not dizzy or wiped out or anything.  They kept me that long only to do ultrasounds and stuff.

You can in fact take the embryo to a funeral home and have it cremated, odd as that sounds.  I wouldn't have thought that made a difference, but when I got that choice, I jumped at it.  Didn't want my babies to be treated as "human parts" by the hospital and comingled with amputated limbs and stuff and incinerated.  We sprinkled their ashes in our daffodil patch, and every spring I think of the babies when the daffodils bloom.

You don't have $20,000 to try again now, but this doesn't shut all the doors.  You needed ICSI this time, but that does not mean that after this pregnancy something might not just 'click' and you might have a natural pregnancy.   Even if not, you in fact have time.  My husband was well over 50 when we had our son, and it is no problem for him to chase a toddler around.   Re-think your idea of the appropriate age for being a parent.  Re-think also, if you get to a point where you feel *you* are too old for your eggs to be used ... God never shuts a door but he opens a window, and donor eggs are a possibility.  Don't reject all of these possibilities out of hand in your immediate grief.  Other ways exist to get a child into your lives, and when it is meant to be, one or more children will find you.

I have had three miscarriages, and feel that even they came to earth to teach me something and give me something, and they are stars in the sky of my world even now.  Maybe when I die I will learn why they were allowed to come and give me so much joy for such a short time.  I see the fact that they had existed as a gift, now.  I didn't, when I thought I had come to the end of my childbearing road.  

Keep an open mind.  It's not the end of your childbearing hopes.  You really have at least a decade to try again with your own eggs and then even a bit longer if you use donor eggs.  You can build up the extra money in that time.

Take care, honey.  It is not the end of hope.

[june2011baby]

hi there i have never been in you position but after reading your story which made me cry i just want you to know my thoughts and prayers are with you no-one should ever have to go through such a loss and i cant even imagine the grief you must be going through. I hope it all works out in the end for you
take care honey

[2angels1wk]

Thank you all for your kind words, thoughts and prayers.

Just had a failed fresh IVF cycle.  I thought we were supposed to be more fertile after loosing babies...?  Anyone else ever heard that?

For all ladies going through this...

When is enough enough?  When do you call it quits and learn to live with being childless?  How much of this (and the drugs!) can our bodies take??  How do you stay positive, how do you not loose hope, how are you not PISSED at God through all this failure?  What do you do when you have no money left to try again?  How do you find happiness without children when you wanted so badly to be a mommy?

Seriously...any advice and direction is appreciated at this point (which is a pretty low point indeed at the moment LOL)

XOXO