Some Progress, Some Tripping Up

I've been making progress lately. I'm enjoying the weather. I'm running again. I've been taking advantage of an international film fest in my city.

I'm getting all the paperwork done for an out of state consult we have in late May.

I'm also still bleeding. I've been bleeding for 6 weeks now. A constant reminder of our miscarriage.

My hcg levels haven't dropped as quickly as we had all thought. Each week I go in for bloodwork and have seen it go from 400 to 200 to 100-something to 100-something to 69 to 21. This week surely it will be at 0.

I bled a lot more on Friday and Saturday so am hoping that was an actual period but who knows.

And I've also gotten tripped up.

My brother-in-law texted this past week telling us to call to know whether we'll be having another niece or nephew. We learned on speaker phone that it will be a boy. And as much as I'm happy for them, for us, it tripped me up. They'll be adding a boy to their 18 month old girl and it feels like they'll have it all while we're 5+ years into our struggle. And it made me mad that I got sad. Why can't I just be 100% happy for them?

And then friends of us texted last night with 'call us, we've got news to share'. They've struggled with infertility despite having 2 kids now. And we know they were trying for a 3rd, but surely this wasn't what they were calling about, was it? They know about our struggles and wouldn't make this a big deal, would they? But they did and that's what the call was about. I don't know how many times I can exclaim 'that's great' without feeling so isolated with my pain. And I can't possibly continue to joke about getting a van to fit 3 kids when we don't even know if we'll ever have 1...

It is so isolating at times. Especially in the joyful times of our friends. Especially when our pain isn't acknowledged alongside their happiness. It's such a lonely place.

And yet I'm making progress. I filled out pages upon pages of medical information for our consultation. Getting medical record requests forms from 4 different places was a pain. And re-writing our history was jarring and had a sting to it reminding me of how not normal all of this has been for us.

5+ years with 3 IUIs, 2 fresh IVFs, 4 FETs, 2 surgeries and 6 miscarriages.

So yes, I'm making progress. But I do get tripped up sometimes. Can you blame me?