And Now Back To Our Regularly Scheduled Program Already in Progress...

All the positive thoughts, prayers and hopes were not enough to save what we now get to refer to as a Chemical Pregnancy, which means that at least one embryo stuck but failed for whatever reason and died before a heartbeat would have been detected. Even though I knew in my head that this pregnancy was going to end before it really had a chance to start, there were moments this past week that I thought, “maybe…, just maybe…”

Chemical Pregnancy is too clinical an expression and trivializes what we are going through. A “chemical pregnancy” sounds like it wasn’t even real and that nothing happened. But what is so heartbreaking right now is that it DID work. Even if it was just for a few days, I was pregnant. I went from an all-time high last Friday once I saw the HPT was positive to an all-time low today, exactly one week later.

Nurse K. at the clinic, who I am beginning to like less and less, said that I should discontinue my medicine and my period (read: miscarriage) should happen in about four days. They had only requested the lab run the hCG/beta – not the estradial or progesterone. This was my first hint that even they thought that a beta of 63 was not a good sign on Monday after she dared reprimanded me then by saying, “This could be a good pregnancy and for now, you still are pregnant, and we haven’t given up.” Now the words are like burrs under my saddle-blanket as they had obviously given up just as I had. When she told me this morning that it was not good, I told her I knew that already. Oh, did I already know the level (beta was only 13), she asked? I said no but explained when I talked to her earlier this week, I knew that we could’ve had this resolved by Wednesday and putting me through 4 days of hell would not have been necessary.

My “period” will be in full flow by the time my niece’s baby-shower takes place, which I have already decided I will not attend. It’s the day before what would have been my 6 week ultrasound.

When Dr. Blinksalot called me, she explained that it was 95% likely that it was the egg and not the sperm that caused the embryo(s) to fail after implantation. Not what I want to hear when I’m trying to convince Mr. DD to try donorsperm IUI in an attempt to overcome the male factor in our reproduction attempts.

She wanted to know if we wanted to move into another fresh transfer, IVF#2 (I never thought I would have to number any of our ART attempts, but there it is) or to try FET (frozen embryo transfer). Mr. DD has nixed the idea of IVF#2 because he cannot bear watching me go another 2 weeks of hell. I have tried explaining that all this physical and mental anguish will slowly resolve, and that he needs to take into account how all the medications magnify the emotional portion of an IVF cycle. Right now he’s not buying into it and is only willing to look at the FET because I can do that without any major mind-bending meds except estrogen.

They would thaw the embryos and let them stew for a couple of days and then do the transfer at the blast stage. My clinic’s thawing success rate is around 50% but their pregnancy rate is 40%, which are obviously better odds than if we were trying without their help. As Mr. DD said, since Team A (the 3 fresh embryos) were unable to pull it out, it’s time to bring in the second string, Team B. I will not try to get my hopes up, but will anyway, so I don’t know why I bother trying to psych myself out.

I believe we are getting to the end of our reproductive journey. I don’t foresee Mr. DD ever being convinced to try an IVF#2, even if we had won the lottery (it seems to me we would have a better chance at that!) and lately he has begun chanting the mantra, “What will be, will be.” I can’t believe that this was how things were meant to be for us, which in the Grand Scheme of things is not too shabby: one healthy, smart, cute preschooler whose only care right now is seeing how large he can amass his empire of HotWheels; and a marriage that will see us into our old age. But I honestly must admit I will always feel a tug and get a lump in my throat each time I’m reminded of What Could Have Been.