Wednesday, November 02, 2016

When questions lead to Extraordinary Answers

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month -- I came across the following article and it really just struck a cord for me.
This. http://news.recombine.com/2015/10/22/afraid-wouldnt-understand-grieving-lost-embryos/

This article could easily have been written by me if I was able to put all my feelings into words that is. From the time we began IVF we have been quite open about our journey and since I conceived and had N there has not been any questions from strangers regarding our fertility or lack there of. It has been far People stop asking "why don't have kids" when you have one. But now that we have our twins I am asked often if they are "natural" or "if twins run in the family" (along with a slew of other questions) and when I answer that second question it is typically followed up with more questions about how we ended up with twins and that generally leads to our story of infertility. I have found myself bumbling trying to both contain my emotions (hello post-pregnancy hormones) and explain the journey we have been on which becomes increasingly difficult when you see the other person becoming uncomfortable with the conversation.
Our journey has a few extremely high points when we found out we were pregnant each time, hearing the heartbeats, having 2 successful pregnancies. But then there are also the deep valleys and dark pits that we went through - the losses, the babies that never were, having to make crazy difficult decisions to take an injection that would stop my baby from growing but ensure my safety and life and those other embryos that never made it back into my womb that arrested in the lab - those were our babies too. It is hard and so many people do not want to walk through those hard parts of life with you let alone strangers who ask these questions not knowing the depths you went through to bring home these beautiful God given babies.

Side note: Never ask someone if their children are "natural".

IVF #1 - miscarriage and healthy pregnancy

FET - resulting in early miscarriage and an ectopic pregnancy

IVF #2 - healthy twin pregnancy

Beyond these 3 transfers we also lost numerous other embryos that did not make it to either a transfer or long enough to be frozen.

Tuesday, November 01, 2016

Same Post Years Later...


With the rise of The Facebook blogs have gone the way of printed paper it seems becoming mostly obsolete. There was a time I was reading dozens of blogs catching up on the latest happenings with family and friends across the country. I do not have much time to contemplate the happenings of life right now but I have been feeling like all of the thoughts I am having need to get out of my head! And while having those feelings I also feel that my words are too many for what seems to be appropriate for the quick blurb and some photos tossed up on The Facebook. As November has traditionally been blog each day during the month I suppose it is good timing to try and get some of these thoughts out into the universe, quick before I forget everything in this I have 3 - three and under brain fog that seems to cloud about me right now.