You're so pretty

The last words my mother ever said to me were, "You're so pretty." She then slipped into a coma and died ten days later. The thing is, when she was alive, she said those very words to me all the time. It would truly hurt her feelings if I ever put myself down in front of her.

Cut to: not yet three months after her death. I feel like my body has betrayed me, in the most excruciating way. I could not get pregnant naturally, as most women can. I had to undergo a very physically and emotionally grueling cycle of in vitro fertilization. And it worked. I became pregnant. And then my body failed me again. The embryo died inside me. It was like I had planted a rosebush in a pile of sand.

I want to be angry at myself. I want to look in the mirror and say terrible things about how I failed at the most basic human capability. But something is stopping me.

Yesterday, while cleaning out my mother's suitcase, I found one of her lipsticks. It was barely used. I'm pretty sure I bought it for her, because she hated to buy makeup for herself. I put the lipstick in my own makeup bag. And this morning, as I looked in the mirror, I saw my reflection and the face of the person who has kept me from what I want most in the world.

But it is also the face my beloved mother treasured so much she used her last words on this earth to complement it. And so I put on my mother's lipstick, looked at myself in the mirror, and said, "You're so pretty."

Miscarriage

It's over. All those weeks of injections and blood draws and ultrasounds and mood swings--over. Just last week it seemed the tremendous physical and emotional effort of IVF paid off in blissful happiness. I was pregnant. Each time I went in for a blood draw to make sure my numbers were going up, I'd get a call from the nurse reassuring me that "everything looks great." Except last Friday.

The phone rang, and my caller ID identified the caller as my clinic. I answered, looking forward to hearing the words "everything looks great." But instead, my nurse Nancy said, "Unfortunately, I don't have good news for you." My numbers had plummeted. I was told I would miscarry in a few days. "So it's over?" I asked, crying. "It's over," Nancy said.

I have been bleeding, very heavily and with extremely painful cramps, for three days. Every time I look at the pad and see a clot, I wonder if that was my baby.

The week I knew I was pregnant was the happiest of my life.

To tell...or not to tell?

I am pregnant. My nurse Nancy called on Wednesday morning to tell me the unbelievable news. I was in shock, because it's news I never expected to hear.

I almost immediately felt protective of the news. But so many people knew we were doing a cycle of IVF, because my husband had to tell his boss to get time off. Also, both my sisters and their families knew, as did a handful of my closest friends. They all knew Wednesday was the day we would learn if I was pregnant. But it felt weird for SO many people to know I was pregnant, considering how early it is. In fact, one of my husband's (pregnant) coworkers chided him, saying, "You're not supposed to tell people until the second trimester."

I know that's the conventional wisdom. But I think that's something my grief counselor would have a problem with. She would say it's a way of having control over something (miscarrying) that you really don't have control over. Besides, this may be the only time in my life I can say the words, "I'm pregnant."

The longest day

I just returned from the IVF clinic for my pregnancy test. I walked into the lab, the phlebotomist jabbed me with the needle, and it was over. Now I must wait for a call from the nurse, sometime between 1 and 4 p.m., to find out the results of the test.

This gives me plenty of time to think about my cycle, now nearing its end. There is only one thing I think I would do differently. I would get a haircut before I started. I felt so emotional during the cycle, with all the hormones pulsing through my system, that I didn't have the patience to sit still for a trim. And now I have a Carol Brady-like mullet. It's not pretty.

My friend Pam gave me good advice yesterday. She said instead of praying for a certain outcome to the test, ask for peace with the result. Just thinking about the word "peace" calms me down. I know if I'm meant to be pregnant, I will be. And if not, I won't. I just have to have confidence that eventually I'll come to terms with the outcome, and will find peace with it. I believe I learned enough from my final days with my mom to embrace that.

Progesterone problem

My doctor took me off of the progesterone injections last week. I had a reaction that she had never seen before. Nor could I find anyone else with the problem online. The muscles of my rear end were so sore that I couldn't walk or sit down comfortably. And it only got worse as the days progressed. Last Tuesday, I woke up in a lot of pain and had a fever of 101.5. I phoned the on-call nurse, and she told me to come into the office. My doctor was flummoxed. She put me on Augmentin, and antibiotic, just in case I had a staph infection.

Now I use a vaginal progesterone suppository three times a day, with a estrogen patch. Within a day of stopping the injections I could walk again. The pain went away within three days. Big sigh of relief.

Day 5 blastocyst transfer

I was scheduled to have a Day 3 embryo transfer on Friday. The nurse called in the morning and told me all five embryos were still alive and looked healthy, so the doctor wanted to push the transfer until Sunday...a Day 5 transfer. I felt elated and surprised hearing this. From what I've read, it's quite good if it's possible to push the transfer until Day 5, because any blastocyst that survives that long in a Petri dish has a good shot of making it in the womb. And Day 5 is when a blastocyst would be in the uterus during a natural conception, because on Day 3 the little guy is usually still in the fallopian tube. So a Day 5 transfer more closely mirrors natural conception.

There's a chance all five could be dead when they open the incubator tomorrow. But it's my believe that if they'd transferred two into my uterus on Day 3 they probably wouldn't have made it, either, and I can't stand the thought of thinking I'm pregnant for two weeks (again) and then finding out I'm not (yet again.)