Ok so its been quite a while between posts.
I canned all my social media for a while, sick of seeing babies, and toddlers and adorable children and beautiful bumps and every article on how to beat infertility.
My brain was ready to explode as well as my heart!
I went on an amazing holiday to Fiji over Christmas and let it all go.
I came home with a parasite in my stomach ( thanks a lot karva! ) and was on some pretty strong medication to get rid of it.
Then a month later it happened. The second line. The line that I have tried to force myself to see on hundreds of tests. The line that I’ve imagined was there and held the test up to the windows and even a torch at one stage for just the faintest hope that there could be a line, that the struggle would finally be over.
A beautiful line clear as day.
Now for most this would be a time of instant joy, and celebration, but when you have faced multiple miscarriages in the past it brings with it an underlying sense of dread, a fear of hoping, a fear of loss.
This was echoed by my husbands response when I told him “I think Im pregnant”, he too has learnt to guard his feelings, “ok when are you seeing the doctor?”
Cue multiple internal ultrasounds. which I understand are a necessity, but really they aren’t small and your heart is in your throat hoping, praying wishing that there be something inside. Please let there be something you think to yourself, please not just an empty sac, please let there be a foetal pole, please let there be a heartbeat!
For me there was. A moments joy followed by the fear, the crushing, suffocating fear. How do I make this one stay? How can I make it stick? Please let this one stick. I don’t think I can survive another loss.
So I begged my doctor for progesterone. I have during my 4 years + trying to conceive read a lot of blogs and been on a lot of forums that all say progesterone helps. I know there isn’t 100% proven no questions asked proof of this, but I was desperate and I wanted it. My doctor did not think it would do much, but he saw the desperation in my eyes and gave me enough pessaries for one a day for the first 12 weeks. I was so grateful, but would just like to add, pessaries aren’t pretty, they make you feel like total shit and are very messy, but all of us who have been on this road know there is pretty much nothing we wouldn’t do, and hey compared to daily needles in the stomach pessaries are a walk in the park!
So I made it past the 1st trimester. Week 10 was hell! That was the longest I had gotten previously since my miracle miss now 6. The fear let up a little.
I’ve been scared to tell people, scared that the more people that know the more people I would have to tell if things went wrong. I know people all deal with these things differently, but I am the type of person who likes to deal solo. I don’t want peoples sympathy and I don’t want peoples attempts at comfort ( which sounds awful I know as they are only trying to help!)but I don’t want the clichés and the “it wasn’t meant to be” or “your baby is in a better place” I will throat punch you people!
So now I am here, week 22. Still in the 2nd trimester.
I am thrilled, blessed, amazed and excited to be pregnant, but I cant help but still feel the fear.
My time on some online grief and loss boards has shown me that at no time are you safe in pregnancy, babies can be lost at any and all stages of pregnancies.
I am lucky to be pregnant, incredibly lucky. there are some women who never get to see the second line for a first time let alone a 5th. There are some women who try a hell of a lot longer than 4years.
They are amazing, strong and resilient women and I salute them.
For me when struggling with secondary infertility as soon as I knew someone was pregnant they changed to a ‘them.’ ‘Us’ are the people over here struggling and broken inside and ‘them’ over there were the people who had everything. I don’t think I’m a them. I’m somewhere in the middle,. trying to be excited and embrace the miracle but still wearing the physical and emotional scars of being an ‘Us’. Infertility and loss stay with you. They change you.
Now I’m not going to spout some bullshit about stop trying and it will happen for you. That drove me literally crazy. I wanted to stab people who said that to me. It minimises everything you go through or have gone through. Im also not going to say hang in there it will happen for you. I know the truth that sometimes it doesn’t. I will say this keep fighting, you are stronger than you know and if you decide your done fighting and you cant fight anymore that’s ok too x