Resilience

The past week has been very, very difficult. I didn't stop bleeding completely until the end of Wednesday (then I had some rebound spotting on Saturday and Sunday, but this seems to be gone now). I didn't leave the house at all after my lab visit last Monday morning until this Saturday afternoon.

While we were undergoing this fresh crisis in our lives, a box of hair accessories, that I had ordered before all of this drama, finally arrived. I pulled out the gorgeous jewel encrusted hair flowers with no interest or joy. I couldn't envision ever being able to wear something this fanciful again. I put them aside without trying even one on (and usually I can't stop trying different combinations or everything in the box together when I receive a box from Tarina Tarantino).

I stayed in my pajamas until Wednesday, when I decided to get my normal day to day cashmere sweat suit on. I managed to clean a bit, do some laundry, and make dinner for Bill. I was so bloated and swollen. I thought bitterly about how this rounded form was all for naught as I was no longer going to have a baby. That night I couldn't sleep. I was uncomfortable and hot and my mind was racing. I wasn't sure if this was because I had decreased my psychotropic medication (due to a lab test that showed a too high level of it in my blood), or if it was because I slept so much while I was at the most acute phase of the miscarriage, or if it was because I was still very disturbed by the incident, or if I was starting to have a hypomanic or mixed episode. I took some of my p.r.n. medication in the hopes that it would make me sleep and hold off any episode (stress can trigger hypomanic, manic, or mixed episodes and I had certainly had that lately,  physically, psychologically, and emotionally). I still couldn't sleep. I kept on having to go to the bathroom. My body was no doubt trying to shed some of its now excess liquid. I didn't sleep until about 2:30 in the morning (there's nothing like insomnia to convince you that lying in bed for hours on end is the most boring thing ever).

The next day, I was very subdued from the p.r.n. medication and the bad sleep and I felt very depressed in the morning. I couldn't handle the stream of emails I was receiving, along with composing my daily haiku for my other blog, managing my social media accounts, and contemplating what to even do with the rest of my day. I did the best I could with my work and then tried to numb myself with old episodes of T.V. shows so dramatic that they make my problems look positively simple. I did a brief stretch and a very few exercises on my yoga mat.

I was still feeling a pain in my abdomen, that pinched when I bent over, coughed, sneezed, or moved suddenly. I then researched this pain and horrified myself with all the possibilities of what it could be. I tried to reassure myself that it was early days yet and that I would still probably feel pain and strange sensations in the area of my uterus because I had just had a miscarriage. I made some muffins in the afternoon. That night despite taking some of my p.r.n. medication again and some antihistamines, I still couldn't sleep until almost three in the morning.

Friday, I managed to clean most of the house, which I haven't managed to do in a while (unwisely, I wore my cashmere sweat suit and due to my body trying to shed excess water since the pregnancy is now over and the humidity of the day, I ended up completely covered and dripping with sweat, which I usually never experience even with heavy exercise), do some laundry, and make dinner for my husband.

My husband, upon returning home, mentioned that this was the first time he was starting to see me emerge again. I hoped that with the exercise of cleaning the house for a large part of the day that I would sleep. I tried taking my psychotropic medication later than usual and had one of my p.r.n. tablets and went to bed. I managed to fall asleep earlier than the past two days and then I slept solidly for five hours and then slept another five hours.

I felt so much better when I woke up on Saturday. I actually felt semi-normal, something I didn't think I'd ever feel again. We had breakfast, listened to jazz music (Oscar Peterson plays the Cole Porter and George Gershwin songbooks, the first music I had listened to since the miscarriage news was first broken to me by my nurse), had some tea, had lunch, and then we actually went out for a walk. This was the first time I had been out of the house since the lab on Monday morning which was a brief in and out and before that the lab several times the week before and an appointment with my psychiatrist.

We walked through the Ross Bay Cemetery, along the water to Gonzales Bay, and then back home along Ross Bay in Fairfield. The day was sunny and sweet and I was in something other than pajamas or my cashmere sweat suit, even if it was just workout clothes, my hair was clean and combed, and all of my new Tarina Tarantino hair accessories were pinned madly into my hair as if an explosion of floral proportions had occurred from my brain and the remnants were scattered all over the top of my head for the whole world to see. Well, an explosion did happen in my brain the last couple of weeks, it wasn't floral, but the flower accessories with their crystals shining in the sun were a much more visually pleasing rendition of my mental meltdown than my venomous spiders, silverfish, and earwigs would have been.  Towards the end of our walk, a woman stopped me to complement me on the hair accessories and ask if it was a special occasion. I didn't tell her that it was a special occasion, it was the first time I felt like I could actually still be me again and envision a future that didn't involve six feet of polished wood in the shape of a box that goes underground, being a shut-in in a dour black cashmere sweat suit and worn sheepskin slippers, or going completely off the rails again and becoming my old self, a thought scarier than any other.

New hair accessories to celebrate a sunny day and emerging somewhat from complete gloom.

I bravely let my husband book a reservation to the restaurant that we absolutely loved when we tried it for the first time with our sweet friends who live in town. We made sure to reserve a half order of the Bejing duck because we couldn't stop thinking back to its succulent flesh with crispy skin on thin pancakes, with Chinese onion, cucumber wedges, and plum sauce. I changed into a pretty cotton eyelet dress and we went downtown for dinner. The restaurant, Bejing Bistro, only had us for half the meal and then one other table, so it felt like my husband had reserved the whole restaurant, so I wouldn't feel so overwhelmed by being out in public (which I had been afraid of).

The restaurant has a beautiful exposed brick wall.

After a delicious and much Instagrammed dinner, we walked over the Bay Centre and looked in the Bay for sheets (we had discovered the night before that our second to last set had deceased and we couldn't handle the pressure of only having one set of sheets left). We managed to find some sheets after a long search and much debate. Then we looked at the women's clothes and I actually found a new maxi dress, perfect for the summer and the trip to Europe that's still up in the air. I also found a linen shirt, a discovery that I was particularly thrilled about (n.b. my great grandfather founded the linen guild in Ireland back in the day and linen obsession seems to have come down strongly in my genes). The dress was on sale to my surprise when the woman rang it through the till.

I felt so grateful to not only have a husband willing to take care of me through the bad (including shopping, cleaning, cooking, soothing me, being patient with me, and taking me to the lab), but to lovingly fan my embers until my flame started to come  back to life and started to burn again and have the power to conquer my small world and eventually the world. It may seem silly being excited about finding a dress and a shirt and sheets at the Bay, but the reason why I was so amazed and excited and happy is because dead people don't need clothes or sheets and for a while I couldn't envision ever living through my present circumstances, so I knew that this was a sign that I was coming back to life, that I still have fight left in me, that I will rise again from the ashes.

Saturday night, I only had half of my p.r.n. tablet and tried to go to sleep, but after a pot of delicious jasmine oolong tea at dinner, I couldn't sleep. My mind was racing, alive with the events of the day, the possibilities of the future, and how I was going to get from where I am now to where I want to be. I left the bed more than once and tried to take time away from the bed until I was tired, but I just wasn't sleepy at all. Eventually towards 3:30 a.m., I fell asleep, but I awoke about five hours later, wide awake, and couldn't fall back asleep. So, I climbed out of bed and went and had tea. Unlike most mornings, I was wide awake.

My husband and I had a lazy Sunday morning. Well, he did, while I wrote my haiku, managed my social media, and then started working on my blog post for this blog. It was cathartic and I cried while I wrote part of it. My husband was worried and wanted to know if I needed him, but I told him that I was crying with relief, because I was so happy and amazed and hopeful that I was coming back to life after the biggest body blow I've ever experienced in my entire life. I didn't think I ever would and if I ever did, that it would be this fast.

My husband and I finished reading a book recently, well, it was an audiobook, A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness by Nassir Ghaemi. It discussed how people (politicians mostly in this book) who experienced tragedy and adversity in their lives, generally became much more resilient and stronger than those who had smooth sailing their whole lives. I don't know why I've been given so many tests in my life and I'm quite frankly growing sick of them, but I do know that I am resilient and this incident has certainly reinforced that view for me. I will live to fight again. I'm just not quite ready to join the fray again.

After a so so sleep that went somewhat late into Monday morning, I spent the rest of the morning partly writing and partly trying to get help to log in to my online profile to review my mobile phone bill (Canadian mobile carrier unnamed, but there are very few and they're all awful, so take your pick and no I didn't forget my password, they have periodic problems with their system locking people out and then you get to spend 50 minutes on live chat resetting your password with two different agents, in addition to the time you spend before and after that live chat, but I digress since this is an IVF blog and not a blog about how much I hate the telecommunications industry in Canada).

I then had lunch and walked to a different Life Labs location, nearer to my house, with my new requisition for just one hCG test, rather than a standing order like in the past (that one ran out). I had booked an appointment for 1:30 and arrived five minutes early, feeling winded from only a 23 minute brisk walk (recovering from this miscarriage is harder than I had ever imagined).

The instructions on the website say to go to the check in desk immediately, even if there's a lineup, and to tell them that you have an appointment. I walked in and there was a room full of people waiting, but no lineup, so I told the harried lab technician that I had an appointment, but she dismissed me immediately and told me to sit down, without inquiring when my appointment was or looking at my requisition. One waiting patron told me that they were all waiting. I tried to explain that I was told to tell the check in person that I had an appointment. The woman to my right was visibly pregnant and was there with her husband and presumably their little daughter, who spent most of the time while I waited, stroking her mother's rounded stomach. I found this view in my peripheral vision particularly torturous considering that I'm recovering from a miscarriage. I tried to breathe in the pain and just sit with it as meditation teaches us. There was no room in the little waiting room of this lab and one woman kept hitting me with her feet when she crossed her legs. The small child became increasingly bored as we all sat and waited to check in and became louder and louder. We were all packed into the limited chairs like resentful sardines. It was such a beautiful day outside, the perfect June day, but inside it was like the seventh circle of hell with no WiFi and harried and reluctant vampires.

The lab technician took the first woman away for her blood letting.

Finally, a second, more bubbly lab technician appeared and she checked in the woman in front of me who had an appointment and then went to enthusiastically pierce her vein. I was checked in next by her after she had finished with the previous woman, since I had an appointment and the loud and growing family didn't and the old person who walked in around then didn't (and the previous lab technician was still taking buckets of blood from the woman two before me). The lab technician took my blood. It was uneventful, but gawd the lighting in those labs is awful.

This fluorescent light . . .

. . . doesn't improve my mood or selfies.

In any event, my blood wasn't taken until almost 1:50 p.m. so I won't bother going through the trial of trying to book an appointment online again, since it doesn't seem to make much of a difference, at least not at that location. Guess I'll choose yet another different location next time.

Chagrined, I left the lab and walked from James Bay to downtown and met my husband outside of his office to have an ice tea across the street. Somewhat refreshed, I walked to the Bay Centre and then up Fort Street, wandering in and out of random shops, before I returned home feeling less owly (and I will say that having a random guy greet me as "hello, goddess" on my way home, further improved my mood).

Natural light in my living room, rather than harsh lab lighting.

My nurse from the Victoria Fertility Centre had emailed me while I was waiting to have my blood drawn to ask if I had had my blood work done yet. I emailed her that I was still waiting, despite an appointment. I confirmed with her after I left the lab that I had had my blood drawn and she said she would check my results the next day (they won't be posted until after she has left the office) and call me. She also said that she had made an appointment for me to meet with Dr. Hudson in about a week and a half if I can make this work.

Quite frankly, I don't know how I feel about this prospective appointment with Dr. Hudson. Apparently, one doesn't get their period again until about 4-6 weeks post miscarriage, so there's an ovulation somewhere in there (and therefore a chance to conceive, although there are various sources that conflict over how long one should wait before trying to conceive after a miscarriage, especially due to risk of infection of the uterus immediately post miscarriage). Newer research has shown that waiting several months after a miscarriage to conceive has no appreciable benefit to the potential fetus compared to just trying right away.

I just don't know how I feel about proceeding with this loaded process at this point though. Yes, I could just charge forward and try to go through the IVF process for real this time, but when I only experienced the first hormone, Estrace, I hated it (though it's impossible to tell how much the symptoms were side effects vs. actual pregnancy symptoms, it was a double whammy of estrogen), and from what I've read of the many other hormones I'd have to take and the painful swelling of the ovaries with multiple ripe eggs and the harvesting process, I don't know if I have the strength to survive the process right now. Plus, what if we don't get pregnant that first round and I'm so demoralized by this fresh failure of my fertility that I just can't handle it and I give up completely? Or what if we do become pregnant with IVF and then I lose the fetus again? Would I be able to survive a second miscarriage so close to my first one? Or what if we do conceive and then I have to wait another three months to go anywhere for a vacation? At this point, I feel like I need a break and that I can't just take a break here. I need to get away. My husband, as usual, has a very busy and unpredictable schedule and doesn't know when he can go to Europe, so our plans are up in the air because of not just his schedule, but also this whole fertility mess. I guess in time we'll figure out what to do.

My lab results were posted online in the evening. My hCG level was less than 1 or normal (as opposed to an abnormal reading, which indicates pregnancy or some stage of miscarriage).The last time I had an hCG test was exactly one week ago and my level was 8 (still abnormal).

So, now we must decide how we will proceed with this process. Stay tuned for what our next move will be. Don't worry, even if we go to Europe soon, you can follow us on our travel blog.