The Journey Back to Zero

Last week I traveled home to celebrate the life of my amazing, 98 year old grandmother who passed away at the end of August. At her memorial service I talked with several of you who have followed my blog.  Not only did you have amazing things to say about my grandmother but you took the time to acknowledge the loss we have been through and that was really touching.  It made me thankful for the community I have, even if right now it is an online one.  Thank you for your encouragement to keep going and fighting for this dream we have in our hearts for another child.  Thank you for reminding me that we are not alone in this struggle.

We are now almost 4 weeks post miscarriage.  I have had some time to process the loss and get some clarity on things.  I will spare you the details of course because they aren't pleasant.  Since I did not miscarry naturally it was a little tricky.  My doctor gave me the MTX shot to end the ectopic pregnancy, and several days after the shot my number went up instead of down.  I was so nervous about getting another dose because it made me very sick.  Thankfully a few days later it began to drop.  It was slow going at first and very painful physically and emotionally.  Finally last week my number dramatically dropped back down to an 8 which is almost normal.  We were so relieved to hear the news that my body is pretty much back to 0 which is the goal after a miscarriage.  Plus no more blood draws for now!  I think I had 16 of them in one month.

So, what's next?  Right now we are just relaxing and enjoying a time of no medicine, doctors appointments, or needles.  We are even going to take a trip to Hawaii for some R&R after 6 months of ups and downs.  In the late fall we will start thinking about trying another round.  From what we have read, ectopics are kind of a fluke thing that can happen.  My body wanted to get pregnant, but unfortunately our embryos didn't implant in the right place.  Hopefully with some new things we are trying it will cut down on our chances of a repeat ectopic.

Thank you for your prayers especially ones for clarity.  We started this process knowing we would give it our best shot.  We contemplated all the different options to add to our family and had a peace about using our time and resources to go forward with IVF.  A lot of people have asked why we don't go down other roads, and that is our reason.  So we have one more shot at a fresh round of In Vitro, and we will give it our all.

The night my grandmother died, her family and caregivers recited Psalm 23 to her as she slipped away and joined the great cloud of witnesses.  This Psalm has taken on new meaning knowing how it comforted her.  We may "walk through the darkest valley," but we don't have to be afraid of what's next.  I know if she were here right now, she would hold my hand and gracefully tell me in her comforting way, "This too shall pass."