Author: meversusashermans

If it was that easy I would have taken my bra off and dressed like a sun angel a long time ago, I would be at regular meditation retreats, fulling my time with yoga and listening to cd’s of whales crying, it’s not. I don’t know why people think relaxing will make you pregnant. Just because you maybe a little uptight doesn’t mean your partners sperms are going to be too stressed to swim, or your eggs are so wound up they are bursting. Yet it was for me the most dished out piece of advice (clearly from very relaxed people). It really does make me laugh. Aside from the fact I don’t think relaxation makes a baby do you know how hard it is to relax when you are timing your intercourse, when you have everything riding on this moment all the while trying to stay focused yet laying there saying to yourself “just relax”. Sex is great but relaxing it is not and ttc, well that is anything but relaxing.

“It will happen when you least expect it” hahahaha WHEN WILL I LEAST EXPECT IT! I am constantly expecting it. It’s not like one morning I’m going to wake up and totally forget I’m trying to have a baby – I wish, I would be damn grateful for the break.

This longing for a baby really isn’t something you can turn off, which does concern me……… will I be 60 and still have these wants and desires for a baby? Of course hopefully by then I’ll be gearing up for grandbabies but at what point do you call it a day. I know I am not there yet, far from it but it is something that worries me about the future, there are so many women that have had to face these struggles and I just don’t know how they have overcome it. I’m already concerned for the well-being of our dog, she thinks she is human, I am one step away from dressing her and shoving a dummy in her mouth. I think if we are 60 and childless we will have at least 10 dogs and that is not a pretty thought, for us or our neighbors.

However I will try to relax, not because I think it will make me pregnant but because it will probably make me a better mum to my dog.

Nailed it! Here we were looking at our second positive pregnancy test, first time trying since the mc (miscarriage) a few months previous. I would like to say we were very apprehensive and aware that this too may not be a viable pregnancy but no. In fact we thought, well we have had our mc so this is it.

This time we didn’t find out until we went for a 9 week scan. The pregnancy measured only 6 weeks so again I had had a missed miscarriage. With absolutely no signs of miscarriage and with my body holding onto the discontinued pregnancy, I was still dishing out a small amount of HCG (pregnancy hormone), meaning my boobs were still swollen & sore, I still had no bleeding or spotting and I was tired so how was I to know that for the last 3 weeks this “future baby” we had been planning for was not to be.

That scan was horrible, I felt for the Sonographer and for my husband. I was for the first time really guttered, the earlier mc hadn’t affected me like this. I wanted the bed to swallow me up and take me out of that room, of course my bladder was full to bursting so I couldn’t even get up and run out or there would have been more to cry about. My husband and I left, we got into our separate cars and both went to work. I probably shouldn’t have gone to work that day, I cried all the way there, most of the day at work and then all the way home and I don’t imagine my h-bands day was much better.

As it had already been 3 weeks and I still hadn’t miscarried naturally I was booked for another D&C. That waiting room is horrible, you see other couples there with the same look on their face. There were no complications with this D&C, I had even less bleeding than the first mc (which I foolishly thought was a good thing), and physically bounced back quickly.

We had decided to give it a couple of cycles before we started trying again. As the months went by while we were ttc (trying to conceive) I noticed my cycles were different. My periods hadn’t disappeared entirely but they had reduced to minimal spotting, I couldn’t tell what was my cycle and what wasn’t, there was not a lot of regularity and I would be struck down with the most severe period pains I have ever experienced, couple that with no bleeding I knew something wasn’t right.

For some reason the pains would always start in the early hours of the morning. Before this I had had text book periods my whole life, I’ve had cramps but nothing Nurofen worthy, I had been so lucky. After my experiences with this I have a total appreciation for women that suffer from endometrioses. I would have these pains that would have me rocking in the foetal position for about 2 hours, they would affect my bowel and the pain made me vomit.  Once the pain stopped I was exhausted, that way you just can’t keep your eyes open and all you need is sleep.

I should have listened to my body earlier, I should have trusted my instinct but I didn’t – biggest lesson learned for me. So we banged on (literally), our marriage became engulfed in trying to have a baby. Sex was purely for baby making.

Another sign for me that things weren’t right is the fact that the first 2 times we got pregnant straight away, now it didn’t matter if I lay upside down for an hour, if we did it in the morning or afternoon or evening, if I didn’t touch wine, if I ate nothing but blueberries (yep I’ve tried it all) it just wasn’t happening. I had a draw full of ovulation tests & pregnancy tests, I can’t tell you how many I’ve done, when your period doesn’t come when it’s due and your ttc you draw 1 conclusion right?

Any women that has taken some time to conceive will agree how bloody draining it is. It takes over your mind and you really do become one of those crazy women, changing plans because it’s the golden hour or being full of the flu but following through anyway. Aside from that the hardest thing is what I call the roller coaster, it goes like this.

1^st Stage – you get your period, your devastated as once again you’re not pregnant, you (me) drown yourself in wine.

2^nd Stage – you have (depending on your cycle) about 7 – 10 days to get your shit together, I would put the wine down and pick up my running shoes. You start thinking; yes this month will be the month.

3^rd Stage – Ovulation, all tools down, all concentration and energy focused over here.

4^th Stage – this sets you up for the devastation in stage one, this in the fertility world is known as the 2ww (two week wait), during that time you fill yourself with optimism and hope and positivity……. then aunt flo arrives.

You’re back at the beginning of the roller coaster again, month after month and unfortunately for some women, year after year. It’s the worst roller coaster I have ever been on and I HATE roller coasters!

I can tell you the exact details of when we 1^st conceived, of course I know you don’t want exact details so I will side step the gory ones. The reason I remember it so well is it was one of those perfect (or so we thought) conceptions. It was the first time my husband and I had unprotected sex. It was the morning after our wedding, we had stayed in a beautiful boutique B&B not far from where we wed, it was a Sunday morning in December 2012 and we enjoyed a full cooked breakfast afterwards. Don’t get me wrong we were certainly not rolling around on rose petals, we were hung over, what was left of my wedding makeup was well and truly smudged thoroughly over my face and I had a million bobby pins littering my hair. We went away on honeymoon for 2 weeks then came home to a beautiful positive pregnancy test.

It’s funny, when I look back now I knew NOTHING about fertility, I just knew when google told me I would ovulate (turns out in that instance google was bang on).

When we got that 1^st positive pregnancy test we were happy of course but looking back I had no conception really of what we had achieved, I took it totally for granted; it never once crossed my mind before we started trying that it may not go to plan. Before I knew it I was planning in my mind what the baby would wear home from the maternity unit.

I also remember the 1^st miscarriage just as clearly. I was woken up suddenly in the middle of the night with a pain that shot straight through my abdomen, it hurt but it was over as quick as it had begun, I contemplated waking the h-band up but put it down to the perfect forming of a baby implanting further into my lining. I blissfully went back to sleep. Unfortunately over the next week I had no bleeding, my boobs were still sore and my body was still telling me I was pregnant. I was around 5 weeks pregnant when it happened but it was a week or so later I was at the Dr’s for a routine check-up. I must have mentioned the cramps I had been having and he sent me for blood tests and ultra sounds. Nothing was seen on the ultra sound but my blood test was showing the pregnancy hormone was present just not at a normal level. I was rushed into hospital with suspected ectopic pregnancy (when the pregnancy finds solitude in one of the tubes). I felt totally fine and still had had no bleeding at all during the pregnancy so when the hospital demanded I be taken everywhere in a wheel chair I really thought this is over the top. I was in hospital for 3 days. They did a laparoscopy and confirmed I was not having an ectopic pregnancy but the pregnancy I was carrying was not viable. I was sent home to miscarry naturally. I went home and when 2 weeks later I had still not miscarried on my own I was booked in for a D&C (Dilation & Curettage). I think my body wanted that pregnancy so bad it didn’t want to let it go, this is in medical terms known as a missed miscarriage, the pregnancy discontinues but your body doesn’t flush it out and because of this you keep producing the pregnancy hormone so you can go on thinking your pregnant until you go for that dreaded 1st scan.

A D&C is the removal of tissue from your uterus, this can be for ladies that have exceptionally heavy periods, miscarriage or retained placenta post birth to name a few. I imagine all situations are slightly different and I can only comment on mine. All I can say is I wish I knew then what I know now, that isn’t possible so what I wish in reality is that when the Dr’s booked me in for a D&C there was someone there that explained all the pros and cons to me and went over in detail the other options.

A D&C is performed under general anesthetic, you are given medication to open up your cervix which makes you cramp and you can feel things moving around and expanding until that delightful anesthetic takes over. Because your asleep you are none the wiser as to what goes on but these procedures are so common and I hate to say it but your literally on a conveyor belt. Mine took about 15 mins of actual surgery. As far as I understand they used to scrape the uterus out with a tool but they now suck the remains out – apparently it’s safer. I woke up in recovery to a young bouncy Dr that had performed the D&C saying I may need to stay in as the suction was set to high and they were concerned about damage they may have caused. There are 2 things that are wrong with this situation, 1. I’m in recovery and trying to get my shit together from the anesthetic and 2. I have no idea what she means by damage, I was no uterus expert!

A while later once I had finished my ice block (which anyone who has had surgery knows how amazing those ice blocks are) the same young bouncy Dr came back and said “I have spoken to my manager and they said you are totally fine to go home, we don’t need to keep you in but if you have heavy bleeding or unmanageable cramps call us”. I went home.

I was constantly reminded by those closest to me that “miscarriages are so common, especially 1^st time pregnancies” and “millions of women go through these, you’ll get pregnant again and it will be a distant memory”. I don’t doubt any of these statements, in-fact I agree with them all however, word of advice, it’s really not that helpful – well I don’t believe so anyway. You may as well say “get over it love, it’s not a big deal”. The ironic thing is considering it’s “so common” it’s a bloody lonely little place. While I’m on the dishing out advise train I can tell you at some point a lady that has had a miscarriage will beat her-self up about it, she will feel totally responsible and back track every single thing she did and probably find something to blame it on, she will do this all on her own, you really don’t need to help by saying things like “oh your too stressed, you need to relax”, “you work too hard it’s no wonder”. All of these things are said with the VERY best of intentions, they all come from those that love you and want to help you so you must bite your tongue and smile and say thanks. I would say the exact same things had I been on the other side of this fence without the experience. We all know these things happen against our control, although we do it we should not spend even 1 second blaming ourselves.

I had no issues that following month after the D&C, I had minimal bleeding which I now know wasn’t a good thing, my body adjusted quickly and before I knew it I was 100% not pregnant and ready to roll again!