Groundhog Day

A few days after my last post, at the end of my cycle and still not bleeding, I decided to take a pregnancy test, frankly because I was 100% sure it was not positive and wanted to self-medicate with chocolate, caffeine and possibly copious amounts of alcohol. Except it wasn't not positive. It was positive. Maybe. Very, very faint. So I sprang for a FRER to see if I could get a more definitive answer. It was definitive.

My hcg the next day was 42. I think I know everything now, so I thought that was bad, but my doctor said no, this was a natural pregnancy, we have no idea when we're catching it, it's fine. So for the past few weeks I've watched yet another pregnancy unfold that has seemed perfectly healthy. Betas more than doubling. An intrauterine pregnancy at last Thursday's ultrasound, albeit an early one with a just-started-beating heart rate. Everyone had a good feeling about this one.

I didn't write about it here (or talk about it with friends IRL) for two reasons. One, because I was doing everything in my power to ignore it. I just refused to get attached to the idea this time. And maybe along with that, I was hoping if I didn't talk about it, avoided black cats and only opened umbrellas outside, I might be spared further agony. Also? I just didn't want to bring everyone along for the roller coaster ride. I just thought, maybe if I don't talk about it even I can stay off the ride. I can just coast, somehow stay above the fray.

Anyway. This morning was Groundhog Day. Another ultrasound, a bundle of nerves walking in, stripping, leaving my dignity at the door and laying on the table, bracing myself for the answer to all my wondering about the fate of this pregnancy. News came quickly. Growth was three days shy and the heartbeat is decreasing. Another bad ultrasound, another public breakdown, crying openly as I walked from imaging to my doctor's office. Another day ruined by shitty reproductive luck.

As usual, this isn't the end of the shittiness. Once we confirm the heart has stopped beating through a follow-up ultrasound next week, I have two choices. I can opt for a D&C, in which case we may get more answers but possibly also more uterine scarring, which could be bad enough to further impede my efforts -- there's just no way to know. Or I can take the whole "expectant management" route, in which case they've encouraged me to try to capture the tissue in a small jar with saline solution that they then expect me to keep in my refrigerator until I can get it to the hospital. I told them this is fine if they also want to send an ambulance to take me to McLean's, because that could be the thing that finally sends me over the edge.

What else is there to say? There is nothing to say. There is nothing that won't make me feel grief, or worse, pitiable. I don't want to be pitiable. I have a beautiful son, who missed me like crazy while he was in school and I was at this horrible appointment finding out about his ill-fated sibling. He ran up to me, jumped in my arms and told me he missed me, chin quivering, choking back tears. I fought them back with him.