I'm glad it's not Mother's Day anymore. It's one of those days when everyone tip-toes around the infertile making sure not to say the wrong thing... which inadvertently leads to a barrage of "wrong things" spewing out in every direction. And call me crazy, but I was super-sensitive to them this weekend. My miscarriage seems to be winding down now, but my (our) emotions are still running a bit high.

I am, through a blessing from the universe and a successful ivf cycle, a mother to a beautiful 3-year-old. And I am thankful beyond words for every minute I spend with her. Every tantrum, every irrational meltdown in the middle of Target, every refusal to fall asleep at night... all treasured moments because I know how impossibly lucky I am to be able to experience them. I never forget this. Especially not while I'm in my 3rd year of trying to get pregnant with baby #2. But that doesn't stop friends and family from continually reminding me, "At least you have Jocelyn." I must have heard it a dozen times this past weekend.

I remember reading, in an article about how to support women struggling with infertility, that the "at least..." argument was not really supportive, and it's true. They compared it to telling an amputee that "at least" they still have another leg. It's not helpful, and it's insulting. It assumes that I have become so focused on ivf that I've completely forgotten about the child I do have. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've become so focused on ivf FOR the child I do have. I probably would have given up 5 cycles ago if it wasn't for how badly I want my daughter to have a sibling to grow up with.

Of course, there's a worse argument I got to experience this weekend, the one that hurt the most--the salt in my lemon-stung wounds...the "just relax" comment. And it came from someone who knows, in great detail, just how much we've been struggling with this. It came from someone who knows how we've emptied our bank accounts and extended our credit into the abyss to pay for all of this treatment. And it freaking hurt.  

She said, "You hear all these stories about people who struggle forever to get pregnant and when they finally stop trying, it just happens! They learn to relax and it works!" I had to look away. She turned to me and said, "Right?" And I couldn't dignify it with a response. 

I looked into space hoping that a white screen would fall from the sky displaying a PowerPoint on how the human reproductive system functions. I could click through one slide at a time and hope that maybe, just maybe, visual aids would help explain the situation we're in. Perhaps an animation or brightly-colored pie chart would make it clear that we have zero chance of getting pregnant naturally.

Later that evening, I cried on my husband's shoulder about these comments, wishing that people could just "get it."  But I've come to realize that there's only one group of people who really understands infertility, and that's the infertile. I am so lucky to have stumbled across some amazing women through this journey, and we all have each other's back. When I finally get around to making my "Infertility for the Insensitive" PowerPoint, I promise I'll post it for all to use.

When you're actively struggling with infertility, you learn to make a lot of lemonade. Sometimes, it seems, that lemon after lemon just keeps coming your way. And you try so hard to see the positive, to squeeze every little bit of hope out of that lemon, but sometimes lemonade just plain sucks. It sucks, and it stings your wounds.

Yesterday, we went to go hear our baby's heartbeat. At just over 7 weeks, we were pretty sure we'd be coming home with a glossy new picture of our bean and an audio recording of his beating heart. My husband had his cell phone ready to record the ultrasound, and I sat nervously on the exam table... half excited and half afraid that we's see a subchorionic hematoma because of the bleeding I had a couple weeks ago. But we were hopeful... "cautiously optimistic" as the doctors had suggested.

When the doctor started the transvaginal ultrasound, I knew right away that something was wrong. He was going back and forth, zooming in and out, adjusting the brightness and contrast. He asked the nurse to read back the numbers from my last ultrasound. He stopped. He started looking around again. Back and forth again. Then, he made that face where you squeeze your lips together real tight because you know what you're going to have to say but just don't want to say it out loud. "I'm not seeing what we should be seeing at over 7 weeks." I could have thrown up right there. The only thing we could see on ultrasound was a shadow of a gestational sac--an empty gestational sac. 

I cried on the table while the doctor was apologizing. I don't remember much of what he said besides, "You guys have been through so much." And we have. And I cried harder because we've been through so much.

Later that day, I got my bloodwork results back. My hcg had dropped from nearly 5,000 to just 19. I was ordered to stop my estrogen and progesterone immediately and wait for my body to miscarry naturally. I spent the past 7 weeks praying not to see blood in the bathroom, and now I can't will it to come soon enough. I just want it over with so I can move on.

I have an appointment scheduled with my RE for the 16th to talk about what could have happened. This was, after all  supposed to be a genetically and chromosomally normal embryo. I feel like there has to be something that we're missing--a reason why nothing will stick or grow in my uterus. Something had to have changed since my daughter was born over 3 years ago, but I have no idea how to figure out what. We'll see what my doctor has to say and decide where to go from there.

And as sad as this post may seem, I do still feel hopeful. I laughed today... a bunch of times. We went to get ice cream by the beach after dinner, and I almost forgot that anything was wrong. I go back and forth between that empty feeling of loss in the pit of your stomach and a feeling that we'll get this eventually. I know, from being through this so many times, that eventually I'll feel nothing but hope. The loss will fade and the promise of what's next will take over. And once everything passes, physically and emotionally, I'll be even more ready for my rainbow baby.