What to Say (Or Not Say) When Someone Miscarries

Let me start this by saying nothing has gone wrong with this pregnancy, the baby and I are healthy and fine.

I've thought about writing this post for a long time, but have always felt like everyone is so different in how they grieve that my one opinion would be helpful.  But  a few months ago a friend, who has never had trouble getting pregnant, asked for some advice on what to say to someone she knew who'd lost a baby.  She said she knew she didn't understand and didn't want to pretend to, but that left her at a loss as to what to say.

I hope I do not hurt anyone's feelings with this post.  I know many of the people who said these things to me/us after we miscarried were trying to be helpful and love us a lot.  But I also think it's important to explain how I saw things.  And I am fully acknowledging that this is how I dealt with my grief and it may be totally different for someone else.

I'll start with the things that were not useful to hear.

1.  Something must have been wrong with the baby
              While this is entirely accurate medically, I did not want to hear about how the perfect baby I had imagined must have been genetically abnormal or deformed.  The image I have of him/her is and always will be perfect.  It was insinuated to me that we were better off losing the baby than having him/her deformed, which just made me mad and hurt more.

2.  It wasn't God's will.
               As someone who believes in God and believes He has a plan for my life, I know that this is also true.  Even when I was at my darkest moment, I still believed God was with me and could feel His presence with me.  But I was also mad at God for letting it happen and questioned the fairness of it all quite a bit.  Saying that the death of a baby we had tried for for 2 years was God's will only made me more upset at God.

3.  When it's God's timing, you'll get pregnant.
                  This one is very similar to number 2.  Death is part of life and I believe God walks, or carries, us through it, but that doesn't make this a comforting statement.  Also, there is no one on Earth who can claim to know that I would get pregnant again.  There is always a possibility that I wouldn't.  So trying to reassure me that I could have another baby (as if that could replace the one I was grieving for) was just a reminder that I might never get pregnant again.  We would have and still might adopt, so I knew I would be a mom, but I had no guarantees that I would ever be pregnant again.

4. At least you weren't farther along.
                   This one still makes me clench my fist.  You cannot compare someone's grief to another.  And trying to mitigate the grief and sadness just invalidates the feelings that were going on inside of me.  Could it have been worse?  Yes.  Did that make me feel any better?  No.

5.  20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.
                  A true statistic that I have heard many many times.  But just because a lot of other people have gone through the pain does not mean that I will feel better when you tell me that.  It also felt like a very dismissive statement most of the time.  Like losing our baby was "bound to happen."  Definitely not something that helped.

6.  You'll get pregnant again.
                  This one is similar to #3.  You don't know that I will ever get pregnant again, no one can know that.  Is there a good possibility?  Yes.  But you can't promise that or offer it as a reassurance when the person knows it might not be true.

7.  Nothing at all.
                   Miscarriage is a strange grief because it's different.  There's no body, no funeral, and life just goes on as usual.  I remember driving in the car, sobbing, and wishing I could be as oblivious as the people in the car next to me who were laughing and talking about something.  A lot of people didn't know what to say, so didn't say anything at all.  I understand why, but I felt very alone at times.  And I did have people who talked to me, so I wasn't alone.  Had I not had those people, I can't imagine what the silence would have done to me.
           
As you can see, many of these things I intellectually know to be true.  But they either made me mad, more sad, or just didn't help.  So what did help?  Here's what helped me:

1.  People acknowledging the grief
             A simple "I'm so sorry" and a hug was an acknowledgement that my grief was real, legitimate, and that the person was there for me.  Don't ask "how are you doing" with the slight head tilt and pursed lips, though.  "Crappy, that's how I'm doing" was the answer I wanted to say.  I didn't really want pity, but I did want people to acknowledge my sadness.

2.  Offers of help
              But this has to be specific.  Saying "let me know if there's anything I can do" was never going to get a request from me.  Saying "can I bring you dinner in the next couple of days" is helpful and doesn't require me reaching out to you.  I know I have a hard time asking for help, so the only people who did bring us food or other stuff were people who offered very specific things.  Or just came.  Flowers and a card left on the front porch the day after we found out let me know that our friends were thinking of us.  Dinner so I didn't have to worry about what we were going to eat (which I could have cared less about the first couple of days).  A gift to remind us of the baby.  All of these things helped me.
              On the flip side, some people may not want the same kind of thing.  I did want a reminder of this baby, but others may not.  But if you are going to offer help with something, be specific about it so the only required response is "yes."

3.  Offering an understanding shoulder
              I had a lot of people tell me or email me about their own experience with miscarriage.  The ones who did it with sympathy and who answered questions for me helped me get through the roughest days.  There were some whose stories felt almost like they were "one upping" me, which was not helpful.  But for the most part, people shared their stories and offered a shoulder to remind me that I was not alone.  Everyone's story is different, so know one can understand exactly how I felt, but there is a certain camaraderie in grief.

4.  Help tell other people
             We'd had a hard time keeping the pregnancy a secret, even though we were still in the first trimester.  We were so excited that we told a lot of people, even knowing that we were at a higher than normal risk for miscarriage.  The most difficult thing we had to do was type out the texts telling everyone that we had lost the baby.  I forwarded the same one to most people, but having to think of everyone that we had told was hard.  If there's any way you can help the person tell other people about the miscarriage, that will take a weight off their shoulders.  And having to answer the same questions over and over makes it hard to just be sad and start to grieve.  Most of my responses became automated, and I didn't even have that many people to tell.  I was lucky enough to tell a few and let them handle the rest.

5.  Acknowledge the due date
             Our due date was engrained in my mind and there was no way it was going to pass without me remembering it.  You can read about that week here.  I thought I could handle it, but I ended up having my emotions bubble over.  I thought no one else had remembered, which made me even more sad.  It turns out that because I hadn't said anything, those who were closest to me had hoped I hadn't remembered.  I think it would have been better to do something to acknowledge the day and deal with the grief head on instead of trying to bury it.

Those are all the things I can think of at the moment.  And remember, this is just what I felt.  The best thing you can do is ask the person.  Do they want to talk about it?  Do they want to stay busy?  Do they want to have a lot of people around?  Do they want to be alone or just one or two close friends/family?

As Mother's Day approaches, I feel for the many friends that I know are still dealing with infertility and loss.  It's one of the most difficult days of the year and unfortunately a lot of well-meaning people trying to acknowledge mothers don't realize how much it hurts to not be considered one of them.  For those of you in that situation, I am praying for you.

Hopefully this helps with some difficult conversations, or at least makes someone stop and think.

No Oops!

*Note, I actually wrote this about a month ago, but never published it.*

I swear the machine I was in was bigger...

So we went in for another MRI to see if the doctor had made a mistake on the surgery.  Last time, even though I had worn sweatpants, a tshirt, a sports bra, and a hair twisty with no metal, I still had to wear a hospital gown.  So this time, I wore normal clothes and didn't worry about it.  When I got there, he said because I was wearing jeans, I would have to change.  When asked, he said I wouldn't have had to change if I'd worn sweatpants.  Apparently different MRI techs have different opinions.

This time I didn't have a gown, I had fancy gauze-ish blue shorts.  Basically like the disposable hospital gowns, but sewn into shorts form with the elastic on the top.  The were baggy and came down to my knees.  Coupled with me socks that I still had on (to keep my feet warm), I was totally in fashion.

I had a very "been there, done that" sort of attitude going into the whole thing.  Until he said he would pull me out about halfway through to inject me with something.  Say what?  There were no needles involved last time.  Totally not okay, I HATE needles.  Now you're going to stick me in a tube and make me wait 20 minutes to get stabbed and then stick me back in the tube?  Not cool, dude.  Not cool.

It really did psych me out a little.  Last time I just sang along with the crazy loud poundings of the machine.  This time, I was trying to sing songs, but I kept having a panicky feeling rise up.  I know it's a total mental thing, and I did it before, so I can do it again.  But it was much more difficult to stay calm.  What's funny is when I was desperately trying to think of songs, the songs that came to mind were songs from when I was a kid.  The old Psalty tapes and movies we used to listen to were the songs that came to mind.  I think it was God's way of helping me calm down.

Anyway, I made it through without squeezing the panic ball.  And best of all, the results were good.  The septum is gone, so now we are just back to dealing with the PCOS.  Which is what we thought we were dealing with in May.  Six months later, we can start trying again.

When the Doctor Says Oops...

Well, he didn't actually say "oops," but he insinuated that there may have been an oops.  Last Thursday my fertility doctor called and asked if I had a minute.  Being surprised and very curious, I dropped what I was doing.  He went on to tell me that he had done a surgery on a woman whose uterus looked similar to mine.

Quick backstory: During the surgery the doctors were surprised at how small the septum looked (they had expected bigger based on the MRI).  They spent a while making sure (according to them), but decided that the test they had done first (where they inserted a balloon and then dye to make sure my fallopian tubes were fine) had, for lack of a better word, smooshed the septum making it appear smaller.

On the phone last week, he said the woman's uterus was similar and she had not had the test/balloon.  Eventually he found the hole he was looking for, and he is worried that he might have missed it on me because they dismissed the abnormality as a byproduct of the balloon.  I think that basically the septum could have been so big that he missed it completely.  There might've been a hole at the bottom that lead to the other side of my uterus.  If that's the case, the last few months (basically since August) has been a waste and we start over with the surgery.

So he ordered another MRI and we'll see what the change was from the previous MRI.  For some reason, he couldn't order the MRI in the Elk Grove facility (he tried to convince me they didn't have a MRI...but I had my first MRI at Big Horn).  So we'll have to go up to South Sac, hopefully soon.  I played phone tag with the radiology department today.  And by phone tag I mean they called once and I tried to call back 3 times.  They have very short hours and since the weather is going to be bad on Friday, I've had to move a big school event up a couple of days, leading to a very busy day for me.  Hopefully I can catch them in the morning before my kids come in for class.

At first I was having a really hard time.  But Stephen reminded me that both surgeons had been in there and looked a lot.  And these are very skilled, very experienced specialists who have done this surgery many times.  So the chances that both of them missed something is pretty low.  Second, based on the MRI, the septum did not appear that large.  In order for them to have missed it, it would have to have been huge. Also, God can heal anything, even if the doctors made a mistake.  What I want to know is if the doctor missed the septum, what did he cut??

Post Surgery Update

I'm alive!  Mostly, anyways.  I had planned on going back yesterday, but was in too much pain.  And I just have no energy whatsoever.  The pain is mostly cramping, which will hopefully be decreasing since they removed the balloon this afternoon.

Yup, basically

So the surgery itself:  We didn't have to be there until 11:30 on Wednesday afternoon, so we slept in.  I couldn't eat past midnight, so I was pretty hungry.  They called me back into the pre op area and had me change into the beautiful hospital gown.  But I did get the pre heated blankets, which is the best part of being in the hospital.  I had a really nice nurse at first, and the nurse who did my IV actually got it in on the first try. For the first time in my life.  Then my nurse got called somewhere else and the head nurse, I think, took over.  She wasn't in scrubs and had a lot of jewelry on, so I think she was covering.  She was pretty cold, so I was glad I didn't have to talk to her long.

When the doctor came to talk to us, I asked about the ink test because none of the nurses had it on their paperwork.  Apparently he had forgotten that he said he was going to do it.  He said we didn't have to do it because obviously one of my fallopian tubes was fine (because I got pregnant).  I still wanted to have it done to make sure they were both fine.  He went and checked and said the equipment was in the room, so we would be able to do it.  The nursing staff seemed a little frustrated because changes were made without it being clear to them what was going on.  But I wanted to get the painful test over with.

I don't remember being wheeled back or going under, which is weird.  I remember the nurse giving me "happy juice" before wheeling me back.  It must've worked a little too well because I don't remember anything after that.

When I woke up Stephen wasn't there, and I remember moaning and shifting because it was hurting so much.  The nurse gave me "something for the pain," but it didn't really help.  When she asked what number I was at (they ask you to rank your pain 1 to 10), I gave the same number.  To which she shortly replied that my heart rate was down and my blood pressure was down, so it had to be better and I needed to quit lying.

She asked if I'd taken Vicodin, which I said yes, and she asked me how often.  I stammered a little trying to remember when I'd last taken Vicodin and she got very insistent.  It seemed like she thought I was just trying to get more pain medication.  Maybe she was afraid I'd taken some before and was trying to keep me awake.  She also kept telling me "open your eyes" as if she was frustrated that I kept closing them.  For anyone that has come out of anesthesia, keeping your eyes open is not an enticing or easy thing to do.

I couldn't tell you what she looked like because I was still so out of it when we left.  Stephen said it was the same head nurse that had covered earlier.  I was apparently the very last patient of the day (it was a surgery center) and everyone else, including the nurses in scrubs, had walked out.  There was more than one person because I remember them talking about my "posse" in the waiting room (Stephen, my parents, my sister, and Stephen's parents).  Stephen said they wouldn't let him back there because I was "having trouble" coming out of the anesthesia.  Duh.  Who comes out of anesthesia well?

I vaguely remember Stephen helping me get dressed.  And the nurse sticking an alcohol pad under my nose to keep me from throwing up.  Then we had a very long drive home (the surgery center was in Folsom).

We realized on Thursday that the estrogen patches the doctor had talked about so much weren't on me. I had felt band aids and assumed they were the patches.  I don't know who exactly dropped the ball on that one, but it was definitely a mistake.  The doctor ordered it, but sent it to the Roseville pharmacy.  So Stephen ended up having to sit in the waiting room at the Elk Grove pharmacy waiting for them to fill the prescription.  And we had to pay for it.  Not that much, but it should've just been part of the post op surgery stuff.

I've pretty much been home ever since.  I felt like I was getting better.  We went out to dinner on Saturday for my dad's birthday, and I did okay.  I haven't been able to eat much, but I wasn't in too much pain.  Sunday I laid around my parents house, but still didn't have much energy.  By Sunday afternoon I knew I wasn't going to be able to teach the whole day.

Since I had to go do sub plans, I taught my math class.  My leadership classes are fine without me for a week, but without having a math teacher, my math class gets behind.  I have a great sub, but she's not a math teacher.  She does the best she can, which is very good, but it's still hard for the kids.

I ended up having her sub for me today (Tuesday) as well.  I already had to take a half day to get the balloon removed, so I figured I might as well just take one more day off and hopefully aid in recovering more quickly.  I do feel much better today, but the balloon removal was very unpleasant.  The nurse said "I'm not going to lie, it's going to hurt," and she wasn't kidding.

They used a syringe to remove the liquid in the balloon first.  Which was similar to getting a pap smear for you ladies reading this.  Then he had to reach in with forceps and remove the balloon.  Which was very painful.  And then my uterus freaked out.  The doctor said "and there's the cramp we told you about."  No kidding.  He stood there and talked to us for a little while, which was a little awkward.  When I sat up he asked if I was dizzy, so I think he was stalling to try to let the pain subside a little.

Meanwhile, my uterus was throwing a temper tantrum.  I don't blame it with everything I've put it through in the last week.  But it has improved and I definitely feel better.  Now I just have to wait out all this crazy estrogen.  They put patches on me (or they were supposed to) to promote the growth of the lining of the uterus.  So I currently have 4 estrogen patches on, which is the equivalent of a month's worth for most women.  Plus my own.  I am definitely feeling the back pain, headaches, nausea, and emotional roller coastering of a month's worth of hormones all at once.  Plus, I'm on amoxycillin (high risk of infection) and 800mg motrin pretty much around the clock. No wonder I'm not feeling well.

We have our post op appointment next week where they'll show us pictures.  From what they told Stephen, the septum was not as pronounced as they thought it was.  Apparently my uterus is wider than normal and could have been folding in on itself to make the septum seem larger than it actually was.  But they removed the septum, although smaller than expected, and did the dye test and everything was normal.  The doctor today said they can go in with a scope to see if they successfully removed the septum, or we can just start trying again after two menstrual cycles.  If it wasn't successfully removed, what do we do?  Surgery.  Again.  So prayers for a successful healing would still be much appreciated.

Upcoming Surgery

It's been a while since my last blog post.  Things have been very busy with school, and especially with activities.  I feel slightly more prepared than last year, but still not quite as prepared as I'd hoped.  It seems like I'm always just a day ahead, sometimes just a morning ahead.  But so far, so good.

My surgery is one week from today and the doctor will be removing the septum in my uterus.  The doctors will insert one camera through my belly button and one camera up through the cervix, which will also have the little pair of scissors that will cut away at the septum.  They are also going to do the HSG test where they insert dye into my uterus and watch as it goes out the fallopian tubes to make sure there is no blockage.  It's a painful test and he said they could just get it out of the way while I was asleep.  Sounds good to me!

After the surgery they insert a uteran shaped balloon into my uterus to keep the walls from collapsing on each other and healing together.  After a couple of days (I think), the doctor will remove it.  I'll also be on antibiotics intravenously through the surgery and then orally afterwards.  The biggest risk with the surgery is scar tissue, which could cause infertility.

I took Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off next week, and hopefully I should be back on Monday.  It's an outpatient surgery and we should only be in the hospital for a couple of hours.  He said once they have me ready to be wheeled back, it will be about an hour and a half before the doctor will go out to get Stephen.  Then I have to wake up from the anesthesia, and after that I can go home.

I've been under anesthesia enough times that I'm not worried about that part.  Although I do cry every time I come out.  But the nurses laugh when I call that a side effect.  Last time my heart rate was low and I kept setting off the alarms, but my blood pressure was also low and the nurse said that was ok.  Every time I would fall asleep, my heart rate would drop too low and the alarms on the machines I was hooked up to would go off.

We'll have to wait 2 - 3 months after the surgery before we can start trying to have a baby again.  At that point the doctor will start the clomid, which will help treat the PCOS, a whole DIFFERENT issue. Statistically, I am definitely an abnormality.  Uterine septum? Got it. PCOS? Got it?  Vaginal septum? Had it (removed as a teenager, apparently a third unrelated issue).  Tuberculosis?  Had it.  Meningitis? Had it.  Scabies? Had it.  Undiagnosed for several months because it was "atypical."  Erythema nodosum (lumps on the legs)? Had it.  Abnormal growth on my mouth?  Had it.  There was wax from my wisdom tooth removal that did not dissolve like it was supposed to and my body formed a casing around it.  All I knew was there was a lump in my cheek.  Doctors said we could biopsy it every year or they could just take it out, so they took it out.  So like I said, I am a walking statistical anomaly.  Just means I'm special, right?

First fertility specialist appointment

So we had our first appointment at the fertility specialist last Thursday.  It was a pretty busy weekend, so I hadn't gotten around to posting until today.

This post is going to have a lot of medical stuff, so if the word "uterus" freaks you out even a little, stop reading now.  You have been warned.

Anyway, the doctor was very confident in his diagnosis and in our prognosis.  First, looking at the MRI we had done, he said my uterus is not bicornuate, it's just septate.  Which is good.  Basically there's a range of possibilities from a normal uterus to two completely separate uteri and reproductive organs.  Bicornuate is one step closer to normal, it's basically two uteri, but one cervix, vagina, etc.  One step closer to normal is septate.  It means the top of the uterus has come together, but there's still the point of the heart inside.  You can see the septate and bicornuate uterus in the picture below, normal would be to the left of the picture and a double uterus would be to the right.  Ignore the Asherman's syndrome in the middle, that doesn't apply to me.

The reason the radiologist who read my MRI the first time thought it was bicornuate was because on the MRI you can see the heart shape, which is present for both bicornuate and septate.  What the fertility specialist was able to see the dark color (which means tissue or muscle) above the point.

The reason this is good is because with a bicornuate uterus, there is nothing that can be done.  Surgery would cause too much scar tissue, and a baby cannot implant on scar tissue.  With a septate uterus, they can do surgery to cut out the heart point.  There is a risk of scar tissue, but not nearly as much with a bicornuate.  

For the surgery I'll be put under (hallelujah) there will be one scope with scissors and a camera inserted up the vagina and one scope with a camera and dye inserted through my belly button.  I guess the scope through the belly button is so small they don't even have to sew it, they just put tape on it.  They fill the uterus with water to expand it and then when they're finished, they fill a balloon with water and insert it into the uterus for about a week.  Doesn't that sound fun?  That way the top of the uterus doesn't heal together and cause scar tissue.  

While I'm out, they'll use the scope through my belly button to inject dye in the uterus and make sure it flows out through the fallopian tubes like it should.  It's a test they would have done anyway, and it's pretty painful, so the doctor recommended they do it while I'm under anesthesia.  I said the more painful things they do while I'm under instead of while I'm awake, the better.  I don't like anesthesia though, I always cry when I'm coming out of it.

The surgery will probably be July/August, I'm still waiting on the scheduler to call me back.  After that, I get put on hormones for two months.  We have to wait at least a month after the surgery before it will be safe to get pregnant.  Then we begin tackling the completely separate and unrelated issue #2, the PCOS.

So in a normal women, the brain sends Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) to the ovaries which stimulates the follicles (creative name, huh) to mature an egg.  Once the egg is mature it sends estrogen back to the brain, which causes the brain to stop sending FSH.  The problem is my body has too much estrogen, so my brain stops sending the FSH before the egg is fully mature.

The first step will be chlomid, which is an anti-estrogen hormone.  Hopefully my brain will then send enough FSH to mature an egg.  If it doesn't, we'll raise the chlomid amounts until a certain point.  After that, we'll start injections of FSH in addition to the chlomid.  After that we stop the chlomid and do larger amounts of FSH.  I really hope we don't get to that point because I absolutely hate needles.  And these are shots you have to give yourself basically in the stomach.  I can't even watch when I have blood taken, so this is not going to be fun.  Hopefully the chlomid works and we don't even have to go there.

To be honest, I was hoping that the surgery I had as a teenager (a vaginal septum which is apparently a third unrelated issue) had already fixed the issue and the radiologist had just seen the remnants.  And, ideally and somewhat unrealistically, I was hoping he would see that I was pregnant with the ultrasound.  Obviously that didn't happen or this would be a very different post.  

Stephen keeps reminding me that this was good news, and I suppose it is, I just had higher hopes.  But the prognosis is good and hopefully we'll be pregnant by Christmas.  And not with quintuplets (instances of multiples increase with the hormones....).  From wondering if we'll ever have kids to Stephen's instant basketball team.  And a reality tv show.  :-)

Sugar, dun dun dun dun dun, Oh Honey Honey

Just wanted to post a little bit of an update.  After my initial post about the bicornuate and PCOS stuff, I got a lot of really nice comments and emails.  People sharing stories about their own lives that I hadn't known, or just offering encouragement or advice.  One of those people, I will call her T because I haven't asked her permission to put her name on here, has a kind of complicated family connection to me and I haven't seen her more than once or twice since I was young.  I knew she was a nurse, but it turns out she is a nurse at the Kaiser fertility specialist center that we were going to go to.  She gave her phone number and we talked for a good 45 minutes.

She recommended a doctor and explained a lot of stuff about bicornuate uteruses (uteri?) and PCOS and was very encouraging that while we definitely don't have an easy road, having children is very possible.  I hadn't actually verbally talked to a doctor about the bicornuate uterus stuff, or really even about the PCOS.  I've known I had PCOS since I was in high school, but the symptoms I could see and feel (weird cycles, etc), were treated by birth control.  I didn't realize there are other symptoms, like insulin resistance, that aren't always treated by the hormones in the birth control.

I've been reading a lot about insulin resistance, because I know losing weight will help.  I've actually lost about 6 and half percent of my body weight since February, when some friends at school and I did a mini Biggest Loser competition.  But losing weight has always been hard for me.  There were weeks when I would eat well (and stay within points for Weight Watchers or calories depending on what I was counting at the time), I didn't cheat with anything, and I exercised 4 or 5 times in the week, but then I would stay the same or even gain weight.  And then weeks were I didn't do so great and I would lose weight.

T told me that women with PCOS very often have insulin resistance and therefore weight loss is incredibly difficult.  Do-able, but much more difficult that people with normal body chemistry.  From what I've been reading, my body stores sugars a lot more than it should. So things that I thought were healthy, like fruit, were stored more than they should of been.  The healthy fats and healthy carbs actually help break down the sugars.  So going low fat and low carb, but high sugar (even natural sugar, which I'd never paid attention to) actually made my body store more.  So I'm going to try adjusting my diet to a more diabetic-type diet and hopefully I'll lose some weight!

I read into some things that are supposed to help with insulin resistance, but I'm also balancing the hope that I might be pregnant.  Everything I looked into, like cinnamon pills and apple cider vinegar, either wasn't safe if you are pregnant or the complications with pregnancy were unknown.  I know I can't wrap myself in bubble wrap, but I feel like I should be doing everything in my power to stay pregnant once I get pregnant.  It's been so hard to get pregnant, I don't want to do anything that could jeopardize it.  I haven't had caffeine in months and basically being careful about what I eat and do in case I am pregnant.

I've also been reading a lot of PCOS specific diets.  Many of them recommend eating organic whenever possible, especially meats and dairy.  Organic meat means there's no added hormones (and same with dairy stuff).  My body can't even handle my own hormones, so I guess it makes sense that I shouldn't add additional hormones that don't belong.  The cost is very frustrating (especially for a couponer and deal finder like me), but if it helps us get pregnant, it's worth it.

In the meantime, T has been amazing (or a-maw-zing as Penny on Happy Endings would say) at helping me get an appointment scheduled and I have one for Thursday (happy birthday to me!).  Hopefully we can find something out other than "could be bicornuate, could be septate, we can't rule anything out."

Letting Go

A bicornuate "heart shaped" uterus.  Not mine, though. 

Those of you who know me know that I like to have control.  I like to have things planned out, whether I'm at school or we're traveling or wherever I am.  I've known I have polycystic ovarian syndrome a long time, but it was always treatable with the birth control pill.  Which is slightly counterproductive when trying to get pregnant.  I've learned about some treatments for PCOS that aren't birth control, so that's a future possibility.  But the bicornuate uterus, and not knowing how bad it is or whether they've even diagnosed me correctly, has been really hard for me.  The waiting is really hard.

In my head I know that God is in control and this must be happening for a reason.  But it's so hard to see what possible good could come from this struggle.  When I watch some of the kids in my class whose parents don't give a rip about them, or hear some of the things my kids are told by their parents, it just doesn't make sense.  Why would God give these people a child that they didn't want and don't care about, but not me and Stephen who would adore a child and be great parents?

In my head I knew I was going to have to let go.  But I wasn't.  And I didn't want to.  And to be honest, I didn't think I could.  How could I say I don't want to be pregnant?  That whatever God had planned for me, even if it meant no children, would be okay.  It would be a lie.  I want children.  I want to be pregnant.  What if I told God I was "okay" with his plan and he took me seriously?  (As if I could hide what I truly felt from God, but strange things go through your mind when you're in a funk.)  What if this was a test to see if I could "let go" and God knew I was faking it?  It was much easier to thank everyone for their prayers and move on.  So I sort of pretended and went along with life.

Then last Saturday I went to a women's tea with my mother-in-law, 2 sister-in-laws, and my grandma-in-law.  (lots of in-laws, but I am blessed with both a biological family and an in-law family that I actually enjoy being around).  I was looking forward to it and it was really nice.  There was a speaker, and her her mother, who talked for a while.  I wasn't expecting to get much out of it, being a mother's day event, but I listened.

It's amazing how the things she talked about didn't necessarily all apply to me, but God was still able to speak to me in a real way.  I wasn't running from God and turning to drugs and alcohol, but I was definitely running from God.  She talked about Romans 8:28, which says "we know in all things God works together for the good of those who love Him."  Good little Christians throw out this happy verse a lot, but it often rings hollow when your in the middle of the bad things.

She talked about how easy it is to "play" church when things are going well.  How often do you remember to pray or read your Bible when things are hunky dory?  Not nearly as often as when things are sucky.  So maybe this waiting is just to bring me closer to God.  To start praying more regularly, and reading my Bible, both of which need a great deal of improvement if I'm being completely honest.

So on the way home (this had been in Lodi/Stockton), God and I had a talk.  Well I cried, but I also talked.  I told Him that I don't know how to let go of this.  That I don't know how to not want to be pregnant, or how to be happy if His answer for our prayers is no.  But I am willing to ask for His help to make what He wants my desire.  You may not believe in God, but I do, and I chose to believe that He will work everything out.  Am I okay with not being pregnant?  Not exactly.  It still hurts, I still want to be pregnant, and I'm still going to continue to pray that it will happen and do everything I can medically to help it happen.  But I don't feel the same hopeless and helpless feeling that I had before.  I know I'm going to have to "let go" over and over, but at least I'm walking in the right direction now.

I felt reminded of how truly blessed I am and how many wonderful people love me.  I have a biological family and a family by marriage who love us and are praying.  My church is like another family that doesn't pretend like everything is easy and is standing with us and praying for us.  I have friends who love me and are praying for me.  I am blessed.  And whether I get pregnant, or we decide to adopt, or both, I am not alone.

Lastly, I wanted to share the chorus of a song that has really been a big impact on my life since all of this started.  It caught me off guard because I've had the CD for a while and knew this song, but when this song came up on my shuffle while grading I actually stopped and cried.  (I cry a lot lately, I blame the hormone imbalance).  Anyway, it's called "Something More" by Francesca Battistelli and the chorus says:

God, it's so hard living with a longing heart
Everything I think I need feels so strangely out of reach
So God help me now to understand that this may be how
You show me I was made for something more

Go check it out here: http://youtu.be/kv-2SUruayk

I hope if you're going through something, whether similar or completely different, that this encourages you.  I can honestly tell you that no matter where you're at and whether you feel Him or not, God is right there with you.  Why not give Him a chance?