#1in8

(CW: Infertility and miscarriage)

 “It’s a boy, Mrs. Potter,” Healer Jones said, as she placed the bundle in Effie’s arms. She peered down into the tiny face with the shock of black hair that was so like Monty’s. The baby opened his rosebud mouth and yawned. He stirred and snuggled close.

 Effie couldn’t believe this moment had finally arrived. She and Monty had almost given up hoping. When they’d first gotten married, they’d pictured a house full of kids. And then as the years went by, more and more of their contemporaries from Hogwarts became parents, leaving them behind. They had tried to put on a brave face and pretend it didn’t hurt but it did. Each owl, telling of the arrival of yet another baby that wasn’t theirs, stung in a way that they couldn’t describe. Effie had been poked and prodded by the Healers, but there was never any reason given for the lack of babies.

 Then, a few years back, there’d been a positive scan. Monty scanned Effie with his wand, with the spell he’d done so many times. Once, twice, three times. He’d done it with his wand and hers, making sure there wasn’t a mistake.

 They’d dared to hope.

 They’d dared to plan.  

 Then one morning, Effie woke to blood. So much blood. So much pain.

 As sure as she felt full of life before, she felt empty after. The Healers didn’t know why. “It’s just one of those things,” they said. “You conceived once, you can do it again.”

 No, Effie had wanted to scream. That was my baby.

 They’d stopped trying. They’d made a tentative peace with the Potter family being a family of two.

 And then one day, nine months ago, Effie felt nauseated out of the blue. She didn’t think anything of it. But it didn’t go away. “Monty, please do the scanning spell,” she’d asked.

 He’d refused. He didn’t want her to hope and to be disappointed. “Something’s different,” she’d insisted.

 He scanned her. The scan was positive.

 Finally, she was pregnant.

 This was not a pregnancy of bliss. This was months of waiting on pins and needles, hoping against hope that she would be able to will their baby into the world. She went to St. Mungo’s almost once a week just to make sure that her baby was safe and secure inside her. The Healers were sometimes impatient with her, but she did not care. After waiting as long as she and Monty did, she was not going to take any risks with their baby.

 And now he was here. Against the odds of her advancing age, he was here. She knew they would be the oldest parents of his class, of his friends. But she did not care. He was here and he was healthy. That was what mattered.

 At a tap on the door, she looked around. Monty poked his head in and smiled sheepishly. Monty had insisted he be allowed to stay with Effie as their son fought his way into the world. Effie looked around and gave him a tired smile. He came over and sat next to her on the bed. They stared in wonder at the tiny baby, who stirred and settled against Effie in a new position.

 “Hi James.” Monty whispered, tracing the planes of his sleeping son’s face.

I am sad to say we have lost our first embaby. Despite being on progesterone, I started bleeding a week early. 

IVF is no a guarantee. It’s a sad, scary fact that you can spent thousands of dollars, pump yourself full of hormones, take medications by every way of administration possible and still end up with nothing. 

I knew to expect this. I knew the first transfer likely wouldn’t stick around. I knew that it really only is a 50/50 chance. 

But it still hurts. Another child of ours I am announcing to the world by way of loss. I feel like I am grieving not only this baby but all the others we have lost along the way. 

So...let’s start from the beginning yeah?

February 2018, we found out the best news, we were expecting! With my past history, we thought for sure we would be trying for a while. So the fact that I was staring at a positive pregnancy test after just a mere two months trying to get pregnant was unreal. But 9 extremely long, tiring and definitely taken for granted months, out popped the greatest gift I’ve ever been given; my Adeline Mae! 

She was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, I know that sounds so cliche. She came out looking like her daddy’s clone (go figure) except for that sweet little button nose & I just couldn’t believe that we had made something so damn perfect. 

I won’t get into the details of being a new mum and all that jazz in this post, but of course, there’s a lot that goes on in the first year. But one thing that started to get on me and my husband’s minds pretty quickly was growing our family. When Addy was around 6 months, we decided it was time to start trying again. We always talked about having our kiddos close in age and at the time, we wanted lots of them. I had a hard pregnancy with Addy, but that didn’t change my feelings about wanting that big family I always dreamed of having with the person I loved. I have three younger brothers who are 10, 8, & 7. I’ve grown to love how close they are in age and wanted that for my kids too. Me and my older sister are 4 years apart and while we’re super close now, there came a time where we weren't. We’ve always envisioned ourselves with kids just a couple years apart, and get all of our baby making years out of the way so that we can then stop, relax and watch all our kids grow up together. Of course, plans don’t always exactly go as planned. 

I exclusively breastfed Adeline until she was 20 months. When we started trying, my periods had returned but weren’t regular at all anymore. So I started my TTC journey a bit different than I did back in 2018. OPK’s became my best friend and little did I know how many I would go through the next almost two years and counting. But they did help me learn more about my cycle and I grew accustomed over constantly peeing on things every day. 

We were super excited in the beginning, it always is. It’s fun, it’s sexy, it’s exhilarating. The two week wait is exciting as you anxiously wait to pee on some more sticks. The first few times of getting your period, of course it’s a let down, but you keep on keeping on because surely...it will happen soon! Until it doesn’t...

Around Addy’s first birthday which was around 6/7 months of trying I started to get that aching feeling that was new to me. Why isn’t it happening? Shouldn't I be pregnant by now? What are we doing wrong? In our grand plan of our life, I was wanting to be pregnant by Addy’s first birthday and that came and went. Sex wasn’t much fun anymore, I was tired of having to buy more ovulation tests and tired of squinting at clearly negative but also wait, is that a line? tests over and over again. But of course...we just kept trying, praying that next month will be our month. 

December came, month 7/8. I was so busy creating orders for my small shop and we weren’t hardcore tracking. We did the the deed once, the day before my birthday. Two weeks later, I realized I was late. Two days late actually. What?! This hasn’t happened before...grabbed the nearest test to me and finally. Finally. Two pink little lines. A faint line, but a line nonetheless! We were pregnant!!! I remember running to the store to get more tests because I have to see the progression, ya know, peace of mind. I stopped in the kids clothing section and spotted a cute “Big Sister” shirt and grabbed it. I wanted Addy to wear it out and see how long it took my hubby to notice what her shirt said. Unfortunately, she never got to wear that shirt and it’s stashed in the bottom of her dresser three sizes too small now. 

To keep it short and sweet, we lost our squishy baby that should’ve stuck around for 9 months and created a family of four just a couple of weeks after finding out. Instead, it started a whirlwind of emotions that I didn’t even know I could feel and a fight that we’re still battling to as I type this all out. Maybe one day I’ll make another blog about the miscarriage and all the feelings that came with it, just not in this post. 

At this point, here we are entering 2020 grieving the loss of what would’ve been. We picked ourselves up as much as we could and kept on going. Trying. Praying. Crying. Trying. Praying. Crying. We hit a year TTC in May 2020 and I felt a new level of hopelessness. Chapter 23: Infertile?... But how? I’ve gotten pregnant easily in the past, I’ve carried a baby, my body has done this before...what is wrong? 13 months TTC and we had the talk. The talk about trying to find answers and get some help. I set up a costly consultation with a fertility clinic in June. Our insurance doesn’t cover anything so of course, it was a big decision we had to make. While waiting for my cycle to start so that we could start fertility treatments, I had my first chemical pregnancy. So that was another heartache...moving on. 

August 2020, I have my first medicated cycle with my RE. I was on Clomid 50mg, triggered with Ovidrel and progesterone supplements after ovulation. The first cycle was perfect. Absolutely beautiful. I was ecstatic! My body responded so well to the meds and I ovulated at the perfect time and everything seemed great. Didn’t get pregnant, which sucked. $1200 in the hole, but hey! The meds worked. Let’s try again. Second cycle, same thing. My body didn’t respond at all. Nothing. Cycle cancelled...$1200 done the drain again. At this point the holidays were quickly approaching and our wallets were struggling so we put a hold on fertility treatments and we haven’t done any since. The month after we stopped, I had another chemical. That felt like a big ol’ screw you. 

Hold tight, you’re almost caught up! We’re nearing the end of 2020, thank GOD. That hellish year needed to leave STAT. January 2021. New starts, new chances. I had an appt with my primary to talk about what I have been suspecting to be the problem of our infertility struggles. And that’s when a diagnosis came around. PCOS. I’m sure you’ve heard of it. it’s one of the most common reproductive conditions in women and one of the leading causes for infertility. It runs in my family, my symptoms matched, I just couldn’t see it being anything else. As for Addy? I truly think we just got lucky. Blessed. I will never question it. I’m beyond grateful because I cannot imagine not having her right now. I started on Metformin a couple of weeks ago, a drug that helps treat PCOS. I also started a diet and have lost about 15 lbs so far! My motivation is because after this we will probably start doing IUI’s and I want to make sure I’m in good health so that are chances are as good as they can be. But of course...we are praying and hoping that it doesn’t come to that and by some miracle, we get pregnant naturally again before we go down that road. 

So there it is! You’re caught up. I didn’t go into many details on individual experiences because I knew this post was already going to be long. I just felt like a little synopsis of our TTC & infertility journey was needed before I continue writing about my experiences! I’ve felt pretty alone, even though I have people around me who care and love for me but they just haven’t gone through this so it’s hard to relate to anyone. I find writing to help. Getting it out there even if no one reads it. I am absolutely determined to make 2021 beautiful and I believe in every inch of me that our rainbow baby is coming to us. This month. Next month. Maybe at the end of the year. But I know it will happen...I can’t lose hope even if I wanted to. I’m hoping by sharing our journey, we can all find hope within each other. You’re not alone. I’m not alone. Our wishes will come true. Our prayers will be answered. As they say...even miracles take a little time. 

Today is my husband’s birthday and it was also the day we had our mandatory counselling session. 

I will admit I was very nervous for this. Just the idea that this was another hurdle we had to pass seemed daunting. The scariest thing about infertility is how out of my control the whole process seems to be. It took us years of advocacy and work to get a referral to our fertility clinic, it took years of trying and waiting, and negative tests (and some positives that never quite worked out). It took so many lab tests and procedures and ultrasounds. I hated the thought that someone could spend 60 virtual minutes with us and say “No, I don’t think you’re ready.”

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. Our counselling session was amazing and I feel like we got a lot out of it. It forced us to sit down and really highlight the appreciation and admiration we have for one another. And it felt really rewarding to hear her say that she thought we were going to be amazing parents, and that she wished us the best with the rest of the journey. I plan to use her services throughout the rest of our fertility journey and in to motherhood. I’m not always the quickest to open up, but she made it easy. 

This Thursday is our final consent appointment with our Doctor. From there we will get official information on what our next steps are to start our IVF cycle. I can hardly wait! 

It took me a long time to accept that the loss of our first child wasn’t my fault. I beat myself up for months about it, wondering if it was something I ate, or something I did. I was so careful once we found out we were expecting. I did everything every article online said I should; no medications, no scented/unnatural soaps, no hot baths, no heating pads, etc. I deprived myself of so much during those weeks trying to be extra careful to make sure this baby would stick. But life, especially pregnancy, doesn’t work that way I have grown to find out. 

Once I was able to accept this, it was easier to accept trying again. Each negative pregnancy test hurt though. So I stopped taking them. I’d wait at least a week past my expected period date, and tell myself I would test in the morning the next day. And each time, like a cruel joke, my period would rear it’s ugly head taking any hope out of the morning. Leaving me wondering if my cycle just suddenly wasn’t normal anymore, or if there were more losses than I cared to acknowledge. 

What no one tells you about trying to conceive is that the “trying” and the testing gets old. Real quick. It gets disappointing, dreadful and exhausting. The resentment starts to build up again, but that’s when I look for stories. Other stories give me hope and remind me that I am not alone in this. They remind me that my time will come, even if it isn’t naturally or maybe biologically isn’t my own. 

IVF Information Session is done. We were told we are most likely looking at starting our first IVF cycle in March (this is much sooner than I expected and I am over the moon about that)! 

Also did more lab work this afternoon. This is the THIRD time they are testing my Anti-Müllerian hormone numbers (egg count). Hoping that the clinic finally gets the results this time. Third time is the charm, right?  

Our counselling session is next week. Then we will finally meet with our Doctor, sign the final consent forms and get our official cycle start date!