I took some time away from this, unintentionally actually. I honestly stopped thinking about the blog in the excitement of my pregnancy. I spent my days daydreaming of our little miracle and we spent the evenings talking about it. It was the happiest month of my life.
Unfortunately, when we went in for our first ultrasound the doctor didn't detect a heartbeat. I was devastated. I remember telling Mr. D on the way there how nervous I was that something wouldn't be right. I don't know if there was some intuition involved, or if I was just scared. I had been ridiculously sick so far during the pregnancy. Lots of vomiting and I was exhausted all of the time. When Dr. M turned the ultrasound probe on, and had a difficult time locating the fetus, and then finally located it, there was no movement. I knew immediately what was wrong.
I was in shock. I took the rest of the day off work and we layed in bed together crying. We convinced ourselves that our little "Polar Bear" was just a little behind, and that the follow up ultrasound a week later would show that strong little heartbeat we hoped was in there. I read forum after forum online about women who had seen the heartbeat in their follow up ultrasounds and became sure that the same would happen for us.
The next week brought our next appointment, with the same result. Dr. M confirmed that i would miscarry. It took a few weeks for it to happen naturally. When it finally did I was fortunate enough for it to happen on a weekend and Mr. D spent the weekend home taking care of me. When I passed the tissue I collected it for genetic testing. It was sad and surreal.
The testing showed a very rare genetic disorder called triploid syndrome. Our little baby had an extra set of chromosomes, and would have died either prior to childbirth or shortly after had he started to grow at all. It was good that it happened early, but heartbreaking nonetheless.
We have spent the last 4 months recovering emotionally. It has been harder than I ever imagined, and not a day goes by that I don't think about our baby, or stare longingly at my reflection in the mirror, thinking about what I would look like now had things worked out differently. I know when November 21st comes, it will be difficult and I'm not sure how I will take it.
We recently visited a new fertility clinic and doctor. Her name is Dr. B and she is amazing. She has high hopes for our chances, but the new clinic is very expensive. So now we embark on a different journey, a journey of fundraising and saving and working an extra job (on my part) to save the almost 20K it will take to try again. Here's to hoping we can make it happen by January 2014!
