Returning Home Only to Leave Again

All in all, the time in Kamloops was a good time for me to rest, start processing the miscarriage, and to re-evaluate what to do next. As it turned out, that was planning a trip to Europe with my husband.

Beautiful sunset in Kamloops

There were a few beautiful days in Kamloops, but the weather was quite strange.

The time I spent in the garden of my parents in law was therapeutic, as well as the walks that I took, the time away, writing on my blogs (this one, Haiku a Day and my travel blog, Two Restless Wanderers), editing some of the novels that I'm writing, and all of the love lavished upon me by my parents in law.

A selfie.

Another selfie.

A particularly lovely Kamloops sunset.

What a send off! This was the sky the evening before I left Kamloops. Thunder and lightning when I was trying to sleep later.

The trip seemed to help me return to some things that I love, but haven't been doing for the past several years as I've been under such stress with this whole unexplained fertility issue. For instance, I started doodling and sketching a bit up in Kamloops after buying some nice new paper. It felt indescribably good to be sitting in the sunny back garden sketching even if I couldn't get the flowers to look like what I wanted them to look like with my limited Conte Crayons.

The flights back were uneventful.

Why not post another selfie? #planeselfie

After arriving home from Kamloops, I was thrown into the vortex of chaos of piles of stuff around the house waiting to be packed for our trip, adding even more things to my list, choosing outfits, running errands, and getting the house clean to leave for a few weeks. The cat was not impressed by my absence or the continued presence of suitcases out in the open, a clear sign that we were up to something nefarious.

Cooking in the beautiful apron that my mother in law sewed for me when I was in Kamloops. #butfirstletmetakeaselfie

The cat took immediate ownership of the cashmere blanket that I had so selfishly taken with me on my trip.

I saw my sister and her baby on the weekend. It was much easier to see the baby this time and I was able to look at her and play with her with very little pain, trying to stay in the present moment, and just connect with my little niece. But alone at home, I still have very dark thoughts such as why me, this is never going to happen, what's the point of living if I can never have children, I can't bear living with uncertainty anymore, etc..

I keep telling myself that it's all just going to take time. I hope that I'm right.

When I arrive home from Europe, I'll be starting up the IVF process again (perhaps this time I'll even make it as far as the stimulating hormones and beyond) and I will be posting about my experience.

In the mean time, follow me on my travel blog, as I travel with my husband from Amsterdam to Barcelona, around the Western Mediterranean on a cruise, and then spend some more time in Barcelona.

How could you? That's what Lamont's thinking.

As My Body Resets

The sun can shine even when you feel very dark inside.

Spending time in garden has been very therapeutic. Unfortunately, the weather hasn't been as cooperative as I would have hoped for the summer in Kamloops, yet another thing in my life that I can't control (Grrrrr!!!!!).

One of the few suitable (read sunny) gardening days.

Sunday was also a good day for a walk.

About four to six weeks after a miscarriage, it is typical for a woman to get her period again. It took me just under four weeks to get mine. While it's a relief that my body has reset and is working like it should be again and I can go on vacation knowing that I'm definitely not pregnant again and therefore insurable and safe to travel (and I can fill day 1 into my basal body temperature calendar again, so I know where I am again, instead of being in a strange no man's land, even if it means losing even more blood), the pain from the miscarriage is still very fresh.

It's a great irritation to hear questions from people including the fertility clinic, family member, and my own husband about when I'm going to book my IVF cycle. I'm not ready. I don't know when I'll be ready, but it certainly isn't now (I just can't help but think every time I'm asked, how could you ask about that as if nothing has happened, as if I didn't just lose my first fetus ever, like it's no big deal?).

I cried myself to sleep again last night (better than before my trip up here, where I had gone from hysterical to completely numb and incapable of crying- I feel like I'm processing my grief now), thinking about the miscarriage and that baby that I'll never get to meet, hold, or name. It's been a very traumatic event for me, physically, emotionally, and psychologically. I know that my husband is sad and disappointed, but he's not in a weakened physical state from blood loss and exhaustion and rapid hormone changes and he didn't feel what I felt. I know he felt a lot, but it wasn't the same (for instance the physical changes I experienced and the hormone changes).

My husband and I spent today texting, emailing, and calling back and forth with each other and with the cruise company and airlines. We now have our Western Mediterranean cruise booked (7 nights), as well as our flights from Victoria to Amsterdam to Barcelona and then home again. We'll be gone about three weeks, exploring Amsterdam and various cities and islands in Spain and Italy. You can read about our journey through Europe on our travel blog Two Restless Wanderers (www.tworestlesswanderers.blogspot.ca).

Can't believe we're going to try this cruise thing again, but hey, we had a credit.

Hope we'll be smiling at the end of this next cruise. We certainly weren't at the end of our last one (see blog).

I then spent a few minutes sketching this afternoon with Conte crayons and pens on my new sketching paper.

Sketching and drawing with Conte Crayons and pens on Daler Rowney paper.

What advice would my cat give me? I think he'd just tell me to take it easy and nap.

Well, maybe Lamont actually sleeps more than 18 hours a day. Some cats sleep as much as 20 hours.

And I have been sleeping as much as I can, in addition to getting exercise, gardening, writing, editing my work, planning our trip, and dabbling in a bit of sketching and drawing. But it's definitely a process. I'm crabby and irritable from day one of my cycle and have been the last couple of days (a good sign to me that it was on its way).

There's many more Lamont asleep photos where this came from.

Communing with nature is very therapeutic. My walks have been a source of wonder and comfort.

I still feel pretty hopeless. Yes, I have a trip to Europe to look forward to and I'm having a pre-vacation in Kamloops to rest up (with my loving parents in law, which has been bracing), but I'm having trouble not dwelling on the past and catastrophizing. Here are some of the many questions that are occupying my mind at all hours of the day and night:

• Why me? 
• Why could we not have that baby that I was pregnant with?
• Why did the miscarriage happen to us when we wanted that baby so badly and tried for that baby for years?
• What if I never get pregnant again?
• What if I get pregnant and then I have another miscarriage?
• Could I psychologically survive another miscarriage?
• What if the IVF doesn't work for us?
• What if I can't withstand all the hormones and changes they make to me mentally and end up hospitalized again for my mood disorder?
• What if we spend all of our money on IVF and still can't have children?
• What if we never have any children? 
• Who will I become? 
• Will I be able to live if I can't have children when I've wanted children my whole life and have defined a large part of my future life with that goal? 
• How would I redefine myself as someone who never will have children? 
• Would I be able to redefine myself? 
• How long will it be before we have a child, if we can have one? 
• Will we be able to give that miracle child, if we have one, a sibling like my husband and I both enjoyed having (our siblings are our best friends besides each other)? 
• If that baby doesn't have a sibling, will they be lonely, resentful, or selfish?
•  If we do manage to have a child or two, will I be able to be a competent parent or even a good one or will I fail at this? 
• Should I even be having children? 
• Is this a sign that we shouldn't have children? 
• Why us?
• Why me (again)? 

And so on, in a cycle of pain, guilt, fear, anxiety, anger, bitterness, existential angst, etc.  . . .

I suspect I'll be wrestling with these philosophical questions (and others- in case you can't tell, I ruminate) for quite some time, as I have been for a long time now. In the mean time, I'll be trying to rest and recuperate more. I'm hoping that yet another major change of scenery will help to restore some of my severely shaken confidence (if I thought I was depressed before, the miscarriage has taken me to a whole new basement of dark feelings), so that I can prepare for and schedule the IVF cycle that I was supposed to have before things went sideways (oh, you're pregnant, you don't actually need IVF, oh, the baby is dead, oh, you do need IVF). Stay tuned.

The sun setting over Kamloops.

Trying to Laugh Through the Tears

The last few days, the weather tuned more with the November in my heart. The temperatures have been at least 10 to 15 degrees Celsius less than normal, there's less sun, and certainly more rain. The fog descending on the mountain by where I am in Kamloops, makes for an autumn atmosphere that is matched only by my mood.

Perhaps it's the weather or maybe it's only because I'm sleeping better and having very vivid dreams and nightmares and am processing things, but I cried harder than I have in weeks, the night before last. I couldn't stop thinking about the miscarriage and the baby that I could have had. I know intellectually (and as many people have pointed out over and over again) that miscarriages are nature's way of "disposing" of unviable fetuses, but the hormones that flood the pregnant body, mixed with the years and years and years of trying for a baby and not being able to get pregnant and then miraculously getting pregnant on the eve of having IVF, made it even more of a body blow (and I just keep thinking of my age, what kind of an egg reserve I have left, etc. etc. etc. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!)

I went downtown with my  mother in law two days ago. I, of course, checked out Value Village, and even stumbled upon an artist's street fair. The sun was shrouded by diaphanous clouds making it more resemble the moon. The streets were fairly empty, giving Kamloops a sort of eerie early morning atmosphere.

The tumbleweed is just out of the frame . . .

My mother in law took me to an art store later that day at my request. I actually brought up the Conte Crayons that my cousin gave me years ago from when she was in art school way back in the day, but didn't have any nicely coloured and textured paper that I could use (unless I went for the absorption of all colours, a nice Darth Vader black, I had lots of that at home). I found a huge pad of beautifully textured and coloured thick paper that's made in England. It's not the brand I've normally used, but we're in Kamloops, and it's really nice (and of course expensive) so I bought it and a fine line pen that was on sale. I haven't actually sketched yet in the yard (which is currently soaking wet), but I might if the mood strikes me (and I say that all the time, but I think I might not procrastinate so completely this trip).

Well, infertility really isn't funny, so perhaps a comic about it is doomed from the start . . .

Yesterday, I spent the morning gardening in spitting rain and then lukewarm sunshine with my mother in law. I found an "obliging" garter snake to take a selfie or two or maybe three or four with me (he definitely wasn't into it).

I think the snake's smiling too . . . #SnakeSelfie!

The little petunias covered in raindrops on the back deck were so gorgeous that I spent a long time trying to get the perfect picture to capture their beauty, but of course that's usually not really possible. The human eye generally captures things better than a camera phone.

Nature is so beautiful when you least expect it.

I was thinking of how different different people's life priorities are and then how different my cat's priorities are to mine. I was inspired to draw them out on paper. And I miss my cat. A lot (I've been doing Google Hangouts with my husband and he keeps showing me the cat, who yowls in the background. He's been bunting the phone violently, perhaps trying to get me out of the little glass box that my husband is keeping me in now).

I couldn't help but laugh at how a cat might view my myriad of fears and anxieties. What advice might my cat give me? Relax, take a nap, sleep in the sun, eat treats or food, lap up some cold water (or some from the toilet- no thanks), and cuddle with someone you love. Yes, cats don't sweat it about much (except baths, vacuums, and as I recently found out, the dishwasher [watery box of death]). Perhaps I should try to be more like them, but my personality type, childhood, mental disorder, former occupation (oh no! I'll get sued!), and current place in my life make me a worrier.
We went out for dinner last night, trying a newer Thai restaurant in town. Then we had ice cream down by the river, the wind whipping my long hair precariously close to the melting ice cream and my silk scarf. I had goose bumps all over my bare arms because I didn't really back for weird autumn in summer Kamloops (it's okay, I survived and I finished the ice cream cone like a real hero playing through the pain).

Long hair plus silk scarf plus strong wind plus melty ice cream equals risk.

My husband found out that he can take his vacation time now, before his next project starts up, so I've been given the green light to look for some last minute deals to Europe, so we can take the free cruise we were awarded by Costa's management after our (terrible)  experience last year (read more about it on our travel blog: www.tworestlesswanderers.blogspot.ca). Hopefully this cruise will be better. Other than a week or so on the cruise, we'll spend a couple of other weeks hanging around Europe (where hopefully we'll find some summer, because it seems to have disappeared from BC). You can follow our adventures on our travel blog.

This morning was thoroughly wet and rainy and the mountainside was shrouded in thick fog. It was really the perfect morning for writing, snug inside, but I kind of chose this locale partially based on its more reliable summer weather (read hot and dry) and I don't feel I'm really getting my Interior summer experience this year (where's my 40 degrees Celsius afternoon down at Riverside Park?).

This was taken this morning, July 9th, not November 9th . . .

Oh well, staying with my parents in law has certainly made me feel much better than I was feeling back at home or than I would have felt alone in some strange place. I feel too fragile and frightened to be alone yet and they are so gentle and loving, that they make me feel like it is still the summer here, even if it looks like November outside.

I hope that time, distance from where things all went even further south for me, and further rest will make things seem less bleak on the pregnancy and IVF front. I just know that I couldn't withstand the rigours of IVF right now with all of the hormones required for a successful cycle. I'm not just feeling physically weak, but also emotionally and mentally fragile. Perhaps "taking the cure" in Europe is what I need.

Escape

The silence surrounding the heartbreak of infertility and miscarriages is an interesting phenomenon that I'm only uncovering bit by bit. People who I previously had thought weren't interested in having children turn out to have struggled with infertility for years. People who I thought had it easy getting pregnant in fact struggled for years. Family members who I didn't know had had miscarriages are coming forward to share their long hidden stories with me. It has given my husband and me some comfort knowing that we're not the only ones going through this difficult process, but it's still a very difficult road to travel. I hope that people reading this blog who have had similar struggles will take comfort in knowing that they are not alone. I think that silence only magnifies the pain and further isolates people who already feel painfully alone. Besides, I've never been one to suffer in silence (in case readers of this blog haven't figured that out yet.)

After weeks of self imposed exile, I saw my family on the weekend. My sister has a baby. It was hard to look at the baby. I love my little niece, but I found myself disassociating often during the visit because I just couldn't handle reality. It was too much, too soon. My husband held the baby and played games with her, while I tried to ignore her proximity to me. Then he thrust her into my arms. I wasn't ready. It was painful. To see something you want and have wanted so badly for so long is difficult. To see a baby after you thought you were finally going to have one, but then had a miscarriage is agonizing. My husband and I left her house and returned home soon after. We were both shaken by this close encounter with a baby. We were sombre the rest of the day.

The feeling of needing to flee which had been mounting for weeks finally became unbearable. I tried to sit with the discomfort, breathe into it, and all those other things that mindfulness experts and counselors tell you to do, but eventually I surrendered. I booked a last minute flight up to Kamloops to stay with my parents in law in the house where my husband grew up.

My husband, busy with work, couldn't come. Since we've been together, almost ten years, I've only taken a couple of nights here and there without him and he has been away for up to five days on business trips without me, but normally we always vacation together. But since he can't vacation any time soon and my fight or flight response is in overdrive, I hurriedly packed, and then my husband drove me to the airport. It was hard to contemplate being away from him when I love him so much and I've been so dependent on him lately, but I just couldn't stay put any longer.

Air travel used to be fun, exciting, even glamorous. Between annoying carry-on rules including tiny liquids carefully tucked inside a specific sized Ziploc bag, games like drink your entire bottle of water down and then fill it up again on the other side of security, and let's pick the blondest person in the security line and give them extra security screenings so we don't look like we're racially profiling even though everyone knows that we are, plus decreased legroom or seat room (and the odd man who feels entitled to take up not just the armrest but also regularly jostles you in your tiny little personal bubble that you are working so hard to stay within even though you are much taller than him and have shoulders just as broad as his), decreased niceties in flight (no you can't have a drink or a candy or anything on short flights), and the underlying fear that something, somewhere will go wrong, air travel has become an annoying chore. Not that I'm into driving long distances or being stuck on the ferry. Really, if we could just get to a place where we could beam to the destination and skip the travel that would be great. I know that they say that getting there is half the adventure, but I'm really not into the transportation part of trips (or this transportation part of our journey to have a baby- we've been stuck on this rickety old bus with no air conditioning on a bumpy road for far, far too long and no one has told us yet if we're ever going to actually arrive at our destination or when or if the bus is just going to break down and never reach its destination at all.)

Like a sardine in a flying can . . .

Sometimes, a change is as good as a break. I am in desperate need of a change of "scene and society" as Jane Austen might put it. I'm hoping to get back into editing my books again regularly as I was before my world suddenly expanded so joyfully, only to then eject all my hopes and dreams in a supernova of emotion, abruptly collapsing like a dying star days later (I am enough of a nerd that I should have a neutron star joke here, but I don't- leave a comment if you have one to contribute).

My mother in law picked me up at the airport in Kamloops.  We went for lunch, then went to the strip mall near to their house. I browsed in a couple of stores while she looked for something specific. Then we grocery shopped and went home.

Obligatory bathroom selfie . . .

Viewing the house that has become familiar to me over the past almost decade, I knew that I had made the right decision in coming here. I went out into the back garden in the afternoon sun, the rain from the morning evaporating from the yard, hot interior sun beating down on me, and picked blueberries and strawberries from their garden. I caught an unsuspecting garter snake and admired him or her, before releasing them (probably shaken and disgusted by the experience) back into the garden. As my husband texted me when I recounted my afternoon, I was reliving childhood, catching snakes in the back garden.

The colour of the sky!

I had a short lie down, as I had still not been sleeping well. I had dinner with my mother in law and then father in law when he returned home from work. While my mother in law went out, my father in law and I watched the news. I did a Google Hangout with my husband and our cat, who was looking unimpressed by my absence and kept looking around for me at the sound of my voice.

Lamont is such a little grouch.

My father in law and I then went out for a walk around the neighbourhood, admiring the view of the valley from a lookout. I had only visited Kamloops as a child en route to the tiny place my mother is from, but since meeting my husband, I've spent a lot of time here and it has become a comforting and happy second home to me.

The view down the valley in Kamloops . . .

. . . and down the valley in the other direction.

Just being in Kamloops, looking out at the view down either direction of the valley makes me smile.

I was feeling quickly at ease being in a neighbourhood that I'm familiar with from countless trips over the years with my husband. It felt rather strange to be in Kamloops without him, but I was glad that I had come nonetheless. I was already feeling that the change had been good for me last night. The loving, gentle attention of my parents in law made me feel like I was swaddled in high quality cashmere (not that cheap crap that feels like wool). Being able to get away from home, but to still be sheltered in a familiar place with people who I love, who love me, and always make sure that I'm taken care of, is exactly what I need right now. I feel too fragile to go it alone on a trip or be anywhere unfamiliar. I'm trying to reconnect, re-evaluate, recuperate, gain perspective, regain hope, and figure out where to go from here. Doing that in a second home is much more comfortable that being alone in some strange place where I can't even make a decent cup of tea and where there's no one to laugh at my dark and sardonic musings.

I ended the evening by writing a bit. I eagerly anticipated going to bed to trying to catch up on some of the sleep I've lost over the last couple of weeks. Plus, I had brought with me Dear Theo: The Autobiography of Vincent Van Gogh by Irving Stone with Jean Stone, which is a book of the collection of Vincent Van Gogh's letters to the brother (Theo) who supported him through his life financially and otherwise. An artist friend of mine and my mother raved about this book years ago and I've been trying to get around to reading it for years. Now seems as good as a time as any; I could use something bracing.

Vincent Van Gogh's diagnosis has varied over the years, but it is currently thought that he suffered from Bipolar Disorder, like me. I love his paintings. His life was tragic; he died at age 37. As Kay Redfield Jamieson says he was "touched with fire" (her book Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament is excellent.) His mental disorder made him different. We would not have his masterpieces to enjoy if he had not had bipolar disorder. Sadly, if treatments had been better back then, his genius could have been harnessed better and his life probably would have been far less tragic and perhaps could have been longer (bipolar disorder has a very high rate of suicide, at least 25% to 50% of patients make suicide attempts in their lifetime, double that of unipolar depression patients, and about 15 to 19% of bipolar patients succeed in committing suicide including Vincent Van Gogh who shot himself). When I feel down about the incurable mental disorder that we share, I just have to think back to all of the different times that I've admired Van Gogh's gorgeous paintings in various art galleries around the world and think that if he could accomplish such unbridled beauty unmedicated and I'm medicated and relatively stable, maybe I can accomplish something too.

I read late, savouring Van Gogh's poetic descriptions of everything under the sun to his dear brother, Theo. Then I slept.

Last night was the best sleep I've had in many, many days. I slept 9 hours. I awoke feeling more refreshed than the previous several days, but still somewhat dozy (a good sign I may be coming down from my mixed episode where my mind was racing and I couldn't sleep even with medication).
I wrote in the morning and then went out into the back garden and gardened under the hot Kamloops sun for more than an hour. I felt so much better after ruthlessly pulling out weeds and errant grasses (even if I had to ignore the sound of children playing next door and my dark thoughts about how I'll never have any children and how even if I was somehow able to have a child I wouldn't be able to be an adequate parent, so children would probably be better off without me. I'm losing my nerve over whether or not I could actually handle being a parent and do a good job at it the longer I've tried to have children and not been able to.) But I find gardening  very therapeutic, so under the bright blue skies and blazing sun these dark thoughts quickly evaporated (and the weather report predicted thunderstorms and it was a bright, hot sunny day, so as usual the weather forecast was wrong).

If only I could have a garden of my own. I feel like a garden would help get me out of the house on the days when I don't feel well enough to go for a walk or go out anywhere else. The place we rent (a duplex) has a very small garden that the landladies maintain tight control over, preventing us from planting what we want, etc. In Victoria, BC, the average house price is $850,000 currently, while the average household income is $88,000. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that most people who live in Victoria can't afford to buy a house in Victoria (an excellent blog about the Victoria housing market where the comments are just as good as the content is House Hunt Victoria). But of course, there are people already in the Victoria market (or coming from the east where real estate might be even higher). From my generation, the cursed Millennials, few are going to be able to afford to buy a house (or a townhouse or a condo in many cases). But housing markets, low interest rates, the government insuring risky loans, increased tolerance for massive debt, the movement of peoples, and potential corrections to the housing market are beyond the scope of this blog.

After lunch, my mother in law and I went out to run some errands in the sweltering afternoon heat (28 degrees Celsius is about ten degrees lower than the usual temperature here but much higher than the normal Victoria summer temperature which is pleasant but not particularly hot).

Car Selfie.

We returned home and worked on dinner (and in her case, making a pie for dessert!) I felt bad that I'd be enjoying strawberry rhubarb pie with ice cream later, while my husband would be eating whatever he had managed to scrounge up back at home, with the cat yowling in the background wondering where I am (but I tried not to dwell on these feelings, as I later tucked into dinner and dessert).

I'm still feeling low and my confidence has been severely shaken by this latest experience (miscarriage) on this very bumpy unexplained infertility road. However, I'm glad that I got away. I feel better already just having a change of scenery and being in the loving embrace and care of my gentle and kind parents in law. Hopefully in time, I will feel even less dark and start to believe again that could actually have a child or two and that I could actually be a decent parent. In the mean time, I stare at the cornflower blue sky, listen to the hum the bees in the garden, smell hot grass and blooming Shasta daisies, taste strawberry rhubarb pie with French vanilla ice cream, and caress my cashmere blanket, as I fall into dreams at night. Using my senses to stay in the present moment is about all I can do right now to stay here, in the present moment, where I am safe.

Moving Forward

I spent the rest of the week going to the chiropractor, doing long neglected housework, and slowly returning to editing some of the novels that I've been writing. I've also been contemplating escaping town for a while to have a change of scene and society. Sometimes a change makes for a good break.

I rearranged a bouquet sent two weeks ago into a smaller pottery dish I had made with a Japanese kenzan to hold up the now shorter stalks of the flowers.

My nurse coordinator from the Victoria Fertility Centre called today to discuss having an appointment with Dr. Hudson so that we could discuss next steps. I think that at this point I'm not ready to consider any options other than resting and recuperating and preparing for the future in my own time. She said that I can just drop her a line the month before we want to commence the IVF process. So, around day 1 of my cycle before the cycle I want to have IVF in, I would call her. She said that telling her in good time was important because spots for IVF fill up very fast, so they need a lot of notice.

Right now I just want to rest and recuperate.

I painted my nails for the first time since before we started into the IVF process. It may seem frivolous, but any self care at this point is a win. I feel like I'm coming back to life in some ways, but in other ways it's still a big struggle. The stress of the miscarriage and possibly the hormonal changes going from being not pregnant to pregnant to not pregnant abruptly has triggered a mixed episode of my bipolar disorder. I've been continuing with my p.r.n. medication and my symptoms are starting to settle out, but without the medication I can't sleep at night and I'm still irritable, scattered, having mood swings, food taste different, my appetite is increased, and my mind is racing with a flight of ideas.

Spotted nails to match my spotty moods.

We had some delicious Greek food for dinner tonight at The Village Taverna in town and then meandered home.

A trio of dips with pita, tzatziki, olive tapenade, and hummus.

Taking some time to prepare for the arduous process of IVF sounds like all I can handle at this point. I'll keep posting.

My mother and father both tell me to think positively and not feel sorry for myself. I'm trying. Honest.

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.