A Big, Bloody Scare

Warning: this post is graphic.

Tuesday morning I sat at the dining room table eating oatmeal with Caden, trying to breathe through my nausea enough to get my breakfast down, when I sneezed and something gushed out of me. I stood up to see blood, lots of it, bright red covering the seat, more gushing out of me. I lost my head. I felt like I moved about a foot and half away from myself and was watching as I covered my mouth, shaking my head and saying, "No, no." I ran to my room trailing blood behind me. Cameron followed me, offering a towel to put between my legs. “Deep breaths, Katie, who do I call?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” But then another gush came roaring out of me and I said, “Call ORM, the number is in my phone.” Cameron called the fertility doc, and I tried to breathe, heard Caden jumping on the couch and realized I needed to find someone to care for him. When I stood up to look for Cameron’s phone, more blood. I managed to get his phone unlocked and made some phone calls, no one answering at 7:00 am, but Lucy called me right back and I could barely get any words out because of the sobbing and she said, “I’m coming right over.” Once I knew Caden would be taken care of I started to make an attempt to clean up a little and get some clothes on, but it was like trying to dry the floor when the bathtub is overflowing. All I managed to do was smear blood all over the floor. Cameron was still on the phone with the clinic, and he asked are you passing clots? I took away the towel between my legs to inspect and just about then I passed an enormous clot, which I assumed was one of the babies. I squatted down on the floor in a fresh wave of sobbing and heard Caden from the other room ask Lucy, “What’s happening to my mama?” They took him to their place. And I tried to clean myself up, with little luck and finally just put clothes and a pad on over the mess. Cameron put towels down in the car and we left. At some point things slowed down for me. I put on the music we listened to just after they put the embryos back in my body, what I think of as their coming home song. I found a place in me that hoped that one of them would be ok. I also just sort of surrendered. I am not in control. Cameron held my hand the whole drive. Many times I thought, “I can’t believe we are doing this again.” By the time we got there I had bled through everything I was wearing and the two towels on the car seat.

When we got there, the waiting room held a few women, showered and hopeful, there for some piece of their journey to try and have a baby. I felt like a gorey harbinger and wanted to shield them from my puffy face and bloody sweats. The receptionist quickly checked me in and said “They’ll call you shortly.” I looked at the chairs in their stripes and prints tastefully chosen to match the walls and artwork. “I can’t sit in those chairs. I’ve bled all through my clothes.” Faces creased with empathy and they led me into a room where I stood awkwardly while a nurse turned on the ultrasound machine and laboriously entered data. I undressed and sat on blue and white crinkly pads, a paper drape over me, and waited. The nurse practitioner came in and in very little time she was poking around to see what she could find in there.

Two babies. Two heartbeats. Going strong. Waves of hope and relief washed over me as she measured them and found them to have grown appropriately and said they looked perfect. “Then what was that?”

I have a subchorionic hematoma. It is basically bleeding and clotting in between the membranes of the uterus and the placenta. The placenta hasn’t completely formed yet, so this confuses me a good bit, but from what I understand this condition at this stage of pregnancy is much less problematic than at later stages. It could heal up and resolve itself, which is what I am hoping for. Right now I am hardly bleeding at all. Reading different pregnancy forums it seems sometimes they just go away quickly, sometimes they stick around for the entire pregnancy. The doctor said that it often resolves itself, but that this causes the pregnancy to be less stable. Not the words a five time survivor of miscarriage wants to hear, but right now they are ok. I am still pregnant. We might get babies out of this after all.

I am on modified bed rest until the next ultrasound, which will be in a week. I need the rest. Nausea, a bad chest cold, a heavy bout of bleeding, and the emotions of a threatened miscarriage have drained me of energy.

Strangely enough, there has been a positive shift in my psyche with this event.  Since I have been pregnant this time, I have been somewhat haunted by my past pregnancies and miscarriages, and have had a deep fear of experiencing the physical act of miscarrying again. Got that out of the way yesterday! Although I did not miscarry, the bleeding I experienced was comparable to some of my harder miscarriages. It has also opened my eyes and heart to the reality that there is no holding back at this point. I already love these babies, and if it doesn’t work out, it will hurt like a mother fucker, but we are already in. They are already a part of our family. There is no pre-emptive protection from grief available. I also have renewed faith in the power of Cameron and mine’s relationship- whatever happens, we will get through it. Driving in the car, holding his hand, I felt our love coursing through us. Cameron even said at one point “I wouldn’t want to go through this with anyone but you.” We have been through so much, and we are still standing Whether the future brings us two new babies, or their loss, we will survive. For now, we just have to surrender to the ride, and hope for the best.

What to eat at 2am when you are 6 weeks 6 days pregnant with TWINS

One carnitas taco
An entire avocado
Half a bag of tortilla chips
Lots of cheddar cheese
2 pickles

Ok. Maybe not a recommendation, but it is what worked and finally stopped the roiling nausea for me at this hour. Twins. They take a lot of food, it seems.

People keep asking me how I feel about twins. "Are you excited?" More than anything I have been feeling relief. There is life inside me. Not just one light, but two. Two beating hearts, two spines, two beginnings of babies. "Are you scared?" Always. Pregnancy is scary for me. "Are you freaking out?" Not really.

I am, somehow, thoroughly rooted in the present right now. The physical sensations of this pregnancy are intense, all consuming. It takes much concentration to move through a day, to eat every two hours at minimum, to breathe enough to walk and not hurl, to let myself sink into sleep when possible, to remember all my medications, to care for my son and set aside my needs for a moment here and there. As challenging as this physicality is, it keeps me here, not nine months, not five months, not two months from now. The future is overwhelming. Do we need a minivan? Where will we put two more children? How does one nurse two babies at once? What is this going to do to my body? Will I have a cesarean? What if they come early? What if they come too early? What if they die? Eeeeerk. That is where the needle screeches off the record. I cannot go there.


So I will stay here. Right now there are two little lights with beating hearts inside me, and I am pregnant with Twins. I have been hungry, and tired, and nauseous. I am immensely grateful for this pregnancy. I am immensely grateful for the life inside me. The rest will just have to wait. Next ultrasound, December 10.

Shame and Infertiity

I just read an article in the Fall, 2013 issue of Brain, Child about a woman's experience with IVF vs. adoption. She recounts receiving very little support and quite a bit of judgement when going through IVF, but tons of affirmation and support when pursuing adoption. She has two children, one from each avenue, and admits that her motives for adopting were not altruistic, she simply wanted to build a family. I have watched a few families move from fertility treatments into adoption, and whereas many folks are private and secretive about infertility, adoption often becomes a hugely public event with blogs, fundraisers, and an outpouring of community support.

I am very lucky in that Cameron and I have received tons of support in regards to our decision to pursue IVF. I like to think that in this second round of infertility, I have worked through and let go some of the self loathing and shame that the first round of infertility caused. I do not feel like an inferior or defective woman this time around; this could be because I have surrounded myself with so many sub-fertile compadres this time that it just seems normal to me that people need to go to great lengths and spend tens of thousands of dollars to make babies, but no matter. I have noticed, however, that although I am quick to share and come clean about our history of miscarriage,  I am not so quick to own up to the fact that we have not had a lot of luck conceiving on our own. At this point, it truly is fear of judgement more than shame in my body that causes me to keep this information private. I do not want to care about what people might think of me because I am pursuing IVF at forty. I want to be open about all of this so I can help lessen the shame for those women and couples shrinking alone in the shadows because they are so humiliated that they can't make a baby without help. I want to be part of the group of brave souls that speak openly about infertility so the stigma can be lessened. And yet, the other day I told a bold faced lie to a former client. She told me that a friend of hers had contacted me to see if I would be interested in being her doula, and that her friend had shared with her that I was taking a break from doula work for health reasons. I loved this client. She had spent years trying to conceive the baby I helped her bring into the world, and in those years had suffered a number of miscarriages. She knew my history of miscarriage as well, but not my history of infertility. So, when she asked if I felt comfortable sharing what was going on, instead of saying "Right now it's private," or "I don't want to talk about it, but I'm perfectly fine," I lied and said, "I was pregnant." She looked at me surprised and scanned my body, "it didn't work out," I added. Her face fell, "I'm so sorry."
"But I'm pregnant again!" She looked a little bewildered. I felt my face heating up and my brain smoking in confusion. What was I doing? If I was willing to share this tenuous new pregnancy with her, why not just tell her we had been going through infertility treatments? To make up a pregnancy and miscarriage? Come on. I know better.

Infertility can cause a host of scars, some easy to identify, others more subtle. If I think that I am somehow all healed up and above the shame of infertility,  I better think again. It may be a life long process.

Addendum: Mach and Daddy

Maybe someday I'll get it right. "Pasame la Botella" is not a Daddy Yankee song, but a Mach and Daddy song. All these daddies. For the record though, I did first hear Daddy Yankee during our year in Ecuador. "Dame la Gasolina" blared out of every tienda in Quito. Just in case anyone took issue with my musical credit error, I thought I'd make a public statement.

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Leftover Oatmeal

Unless some other force of nature has taken over my body causing me to wish I was constantly horizontal, I believe I must still be pregnant. Normally I am really good at using leftovers- a roasted chicken shows up as dinner, then tacos, then soup. Quinoa moves from a salad with beets and winter squash, to quinoa patties. This week, things have changed. Nausea is here. Not in full force, but the land does pitch and rock from time to time, and I am experiencing a dire need to eat all the time coupled with a complete lack of interest in food. Or cooking. Hence, the beets from the CSA are piling up, the leftover oatmeal I so dutifully render into muffins sits in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow. In the spaces of time when I feel ok, when my tummy is quiet and I have energy, I panic. Am I still pregnant? Is that it? Are we through? And then when the waves roll in, I think why didn't I just enjoy that window of respite?

Four more days til the ultrasound. Hoping and praying for some beating hearts. Or just one. One would be fine, too.

Leftover Oatmeal Muffins

1-1.5 cup cooked oatmeal
1 egg
1 TBSP melted butter, coconut oil, or Earth Balance
1/2 cup milk (or milk substitute)
2-4 TBSP honey/sugar/maple syrup (If your oatmeal is already sweetened, err on the light side)
1.5 cups + 2 tbsp. Pamela's gluten free baking mix OR
1.5 cups flour or gluten free baking mix plus 2 TBSP baking powder

Dash of salt

Splash of vanilla

*1/2 cup extra grubbins- raisins, chocolate chips, berries, sunflower seeds, etc. (Optional. If your oatmeal already is chock full of grubbins, use more oatmeal instead of adding extra grubbins)

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

Yields one dozen

Happy

I woke up Friday morning and a weight had lifted. I felt awake, a lightness characterized by absence- no racing heart, no crushing anxiety, just my body feeling warm and snug in my bed. Maybe it was fertility yoga the night before and the good cry the safety of fellow infertiles allowed. Regardless, I was finally feeling some joy in this hard earned pregnancy.

Friday has always been my Zumba day, and though I don't feel comfortable shaking it right now, I threw on some Daddy Yankee, Pitbull, and Shakira and moved a little. Sometimes I wonder how many middle aged women drive around in their cars rocking out to Daddy Yankee because of Zumba? I first discovered him 8 years ago on the Caribbean coast of Colombia riding in taxis listening to "Pasame la Botella," but he is the king of Zumba. Brene Brown talks about one of the qualities of the whole hearted being that they dance or sing and aren't afraid to be silly. When I first started doing Zumba, it fed a piece of me that had been starving, shriveling from lack of attention. I love to dance. I love to do ridiculous moves on a dance floor with loud music pumping. For months I cried every Zumba class, seeing all those people of different sizes, shapes, ages, colors, moving and smiling, jumping around as best they could. It has been an infusion of joy in my life. I keep wondering if I could go and just sort of move, not jump around so much, but I tried that once on injectables for an IUI cycle, and I couldn't contain myself! Half way through the class I just let go and shook it with abandon. My ovaries swelled huge and I was in terrible pain for two days. The consequences are greater now and I want to do nothing to put these little beans in danger, so no Zumba. But lots of laughter! I had my third beta and it came back perfect. Now we wait for the ultrasound. November 20.

 

Friday was also Megan's birthday, and after a delicious meal at Navarre, a few of us moms headed over to Buelahland, giddy in our freedom from our children. They drank whiskey, I club soda and cranberry, and at some point all three of us huddled in the dirty bar bathroom to do my progesterone and estrogen shots. One friend held alcohol pads and sterile packages of needles while I filled my syringe. Another friend peed and some guy rattled the door. "Occupied!" We shouted. I'm sure that bathroom has seen a lot of needles, but probably not fertility treatment hormone shots! Everything went pretty well despite all of the laughter and a bit of inebriation, until blood starting squirting out of the injection site on my ass after they removed the needle. I said "oh, sometimes there's a little blood," and then realized it was all over the floor. So weird! That had never happened before. Maybe needles and whiskey don't mix. We wiped it up with paper towels, and emerged as if nothing had happened. The door bangers had gone, having tired of listening to us shriek and deciding they had better look elsewhere for a place to pee. We moved on to Lord of the Rings pinball and inspection of a candy machine that sold pregnancy tests, Carlos Castaneda books, and ouija boards. All in all, a good day.

 

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Vulnerability

“I define vulnerability as uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure. With that definition in mind, let’s think about love. Waking up every day and loving someone who may or may not love us back, whose safety we can’t ensure, who may stay in our lives or may leave without a moment’s notice, who may be loyal to the day they die or betray us tomorrow — that’s vulnerability.” - Brene Brown

Do you know Brene Brown? If you don't, stop reading this instant and go watch this video instead.  I am in a scary, vulnerable place right now. I want to open my heart up to these little beings inside me that could become babies, I want to love them, even though they may not stay, and yet I can't seem to let myself.  I am anxious and scared and stressed. I know there is no way to protect myself from the pain if I miscarry again. As Brene Brown says, I can't beat vulnerability to the punch by not getting excited. But. I don't want to miscarry again. I don't want o to bleed. I don't want to feel that sadness, that emptiness, that physical sensation. I am terrified. Here I am though- I chose to pursue these fertility treatments knowing there are no guarantees, knowing that choosing this path was to choose the possibility of another loss. I would like to experience more joy in my current pregnancy. It seems I am in need of release, something to loosen this knot in my chest, my belly. I feel like I am curling in a ball to protect myself, but maybe what I really need is to get a little more vulnerable, let go, cry. All I can really do though is try to be here, try to hang with all these scary emotions each step of the way.

Just got my second beta results back. 689.1 All is well.

First Beta

294.7
I am officially pregnant. Next blood test is Wednesday.

"Being angry doesn’t make you a bad person, just someone with unmet needs."

Caden woke up at 4:45 this morning. To him it was 5:45, which is early, but almost a reasonable time to get up. Today, however, is Daylight Savings Time, an evil wrought upon parents with small children. Unmet needs? Yes. I really needed to sleep today. Cameron got up with Caden to try and let me sleep a little more, but I couldn’t get on top of my thump thump thump anxious heart and wound up getting out of bed. I went to a meditation thing, and sat on a cushion and breathed and calmed a little, but then there was a discussion part where people aired their woes in relation to practice and I wanted to say it, to tell those strangers, “I am pregnant, and I am scared.” I sat there, my heart racing, my hands growing heavy, anxiety creeping up my spine anticipating my turn to speak. But when everyone had gone except for me, the facilitator said “Well, we’ve actually gone over time so we’ll have to stop there.” What? I was pissed! Time spent in meditation flew out the window.


Back at home Cameron went to get his hair cut and I tried to put Caden down for a nap. His body relaxed against mine as we read Shel Silverstein poems, and he asked for “It’s Time for Sleep, My Love," so I thought I was golden, but sleep was to play no part in his afternoon. Nothing triggers me like no nap. My eyes were heavy, my tongue slow, my limbs dragging. I did not want to give up the nap. I shoved him into some warm clothes, pulled out the stroller, and started walking. Surely he would sleep. Resentful that I was walking instead of sleeping, I stomped, breathing heavy, trying to enjoy the gusty leaves and sunshine, but just stayed stuck in anger. I furiously scrolled through my phone for something calming to listen to. Dharma talks, guided meditations, positive affirmations, it was all just pissing me off. I walked into the wind,  pushing my kid up a hill, as he sang and swung his feet, being cute, but I couldn’t see it. He doesn’t nap every day anymore, and I know I need to just surrender to the unpredicatability, but the allure of a quiet house, time to rest my head. I find it hard to let that go, so I kept walking, growing ever more angry with him. I reached a point where I was scared to go home because I was so angry, that I was scared I would be an evil horrible monster to my child should he be set free from his stroller. I finally settled on Ray LaMontangue on the headphones and told Caden I would be unavailable for conversation. I kept walking until my husband got home and took over and then, blissfully, I got to sleep for half an hour.

I have been trying, since Caden turned two, to find a way to parent my child that is loving and gentle, yet also sets firm boundaries. I read the book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids, and it resonated deeply with me. It is based on a few guiding principles, one that you must model appropriate emotional regulation for your child to learn how to regulate their own response to their emotions, and two, that the more connected you are to your child the more they will listen and respond to you. When I’ve got my act together, I feel really great about parenting in this style. When I am calm and can provide a safe container for my son to have all the big emotions he has, when I put down my phone and stay present with him, when I find ways for him to help me cook, when I take the time to look in his eyes when he’s telling me a story, it’s the best. Heart melting and warm and yummy. The thing is, this philosophy of parenting asks you to dig deep. To find your triggers, stay calm, take care of yourself, stay present. It is hard inner work. And since we have been going through infertility treatments, it has become even harder to stay present with my kid as I fret over the result of this test, day dream about more children, take time many times a day to offer support t friends on line going through all of this with me. Regulating my emotional responses has been near impossible as my hormones have fluxuated, soaring and crashing. And now that I am a little pregnant, my anxiety is sky rocketing. I am tired and hungry and scared, and I am angry a lot. Recently this article came across my facebook feed: "Healthy ways of dealing with anger in the family and in yourself," and I figured I should give it a read. It was helpful in that, like everything Genevieve Simperingham writes, she advocates compassion with oneself and an exploration of the deeper sources of our anger. The line that struck me the most,” Being angry doesn’t make you a bad person, just someone with unmet needs.” When I am angry with my son, my miracle, the baby I prayed and cried and waited for for so long, I feel terrible about myself, so I need people to tell me I’m not a bad person. I need reminders to forgive myself.

So how do we go about meeting those unmet needs? We tried. My husband let me sleep in. He gave me the space to go to a meditation session. Maybe there was something else I needed that I was not even aware of. I have so much support in my life, and yet I am struggling. It is such a strange dichotomy to be trying so hard to bring another child into this world, maybe even two, and at the same time be struggling so much with the child I have. Many buddhist teachers advocate to stay present with these uncomfortable feelings, the anger, the anxiety, the self loathing, to sit with them, accept them, befriend them, not try to change then, but witness what the power of self -compassion and accepting life as it is can do. I’m not sure I know how to do that. I love my son so fiercely, and want to do right by him, and it is this same ferocity, this fire, that gets me into trouble. And he has it, too, man. My boy is all fire.

Lucky Number 7?

I am pregnant. It's four in the morning, rain pouring down, and my third pee test shows a dark second line. It's just me in the dark with a speck of baby, maybe two? growing inside me. Holy Shit. Yesterday was my first positive test, a faint line, and then one of those digital tests that says clearly "Pregnant." Pounding heart, jittery grin. I left it on the kitchen counter so I could keep looking at it, but then the elation began to fade. Really, am I really pregnant? And worse, does it mean anything? This is my seventh pregnancy, even though I have just one little guy sleeping soundly in his bed. Is it ridiculous to think that I can have another one? Another soft downy head asleep on my chest? Screaming at two am, making funny grunts and coos nursing, learning to smile and laugh and walk and talk. I have been reminded that science is behind me- these embryos inside me are genetically tested, they are chromosomally normal, even though most of the embryos we made through our IVF process were not. It is possible, that this will happen. I hear that in Judaism, seven is sacred, and signifies completion. Maybe this seventh pregnancy is the one that will complete our family. I hope. I can hope.