Hi everyone! I swear I do still have this blog, I just have decided the only time I want to write a post is when it’s worth reading. Sometimes I miss writing a post once a week, but I honestly cannot even imagine what I would say if I wrote a post once a week. Maybe I’ll try to get back into writing once a month haha!

Anyway, I actually have a topic to write about so here we are again!

We had talked about trying for another baby pretty much as soon as we could. We are paying to keep our embryos frozen every month, and we both want our babies to grow up close in age. The earliest my doctor recommended I try again was in June, but they preferred me to wait until August. So in early August, we set up to meet with my doctor at Shady Grove to plan for our next round of IVF. Due to everyone’s favorite friend, Covid – we had a video call. Everything went great, and we planned out our fourth round of IVF. We planned for another FET (frozen embryo transfer), because as I said before, we are paying for our embabies to stay frozen. I was shocked to find out that we could get things moving pretty quickly. I went in for my baseline blood work soon after that video call, and got dates for everything to move forward.

My FET was scheduled for September 21, 2020. I thought this was funny and great luck because of the Earth, Wind and Fire song. I actually even pointed that out to the doctor that did my transfer and she actually sang the song just before she transferred the embryo! It was great!

In the meantime, we bought an AMAZING new house during all of this. I had this ridiculous feeling that the transfer day and moving day would be the same day – but it turned out that moving day was four days later. Since I was possibly pregnant, I did not do very much moving. I did a lot of telling people where to put things and organizing. We officially moved in on September 25, 2020.

The first morning I woke up in my new amazing home, I decided I couldn’t take it anymore and I took a pregnancy test. I was fully expecting it to be way too early and to not see anything – but it was positive! I seriously could not believe it! I was fully expecting to do several more rounds of IVF before I got a positive so soon. Then, because this is how my anxiety filled brain works, I kept thinking “this is crazy, too much good stuff is happening at once.” But I tried to tell myself that there was no reason we didn’t deserve to be happy and to just enjoy the moment.

I had my first ultrasound appointment on October 15. I was 6 weeks, 1 day. They struggled to get a good view of the baby, but the baby was definitely there and measuring right on track. However, because they were having a hard time getting a good view for longer than a quick second, they couldn’t really pick up a heartbeat. There was once that both the doctor and I thought we saw a flicker, but it was hard to tell. This immediately gave me a horrible feeling. With both Scarlett and Brooklynn, we could easily see a heartbeat at this time. However, it is incredibly common to struggle with finding a heartbeat this early, so once again I tried to put it in the back of my mind. They told me to come back in a week because it would be easier then to see.

On October 21, I went back for my next check in. I was exactly 7 weeks. However, my dread was correct. The baby had actually stopped growing right around the time of my first appointment. Baby was still measuring 6 weeks, 1 day, and had no heartbeat.

This is called a “missed miscarriage” because I did not miscarry the baby on my own, the baby simply stopped growing. My doctor assured me that my uterus and implantation looked excellent, so they was likely something chromosomally wrong with the embryo.

Of course, even though I had this sinking feeling already, the moment it really sank in that I had a miscarriage really sucked. I know they are so incredibly common, but haven’t I dealt with enough?! Plus I have several friends pregnant right now, and to miss out on being pregnant with them AGAIN is so annoying. AND I was actually kind of excited about the babies being 18 months apart. (I mean, I was very nervous about it – haha – but also very excited).

Luckily, my husband was amazing about this, as he usually is in these situations. He reminded me that we’ve been through much worse, we still have 6 embryos frozen, and not to mention we have an amazing daughter right here with us every day. He also reminded me that we both begged and prayed for just one healthy baby. We have her and she is completely amazing and perfect (and sassy and a handful sometimes haha!), and he reminded me that we need to completely cherish her. He also said that one baby is all he ever desperately wanted, and that at this point any other baby (or babies if he really had his way) is an added bonus and an extra blessing. But again, he reminded me that if we end up only being a family of three, he is so happy with that too.

Meanwhile, here we are again playing the waiting game. I waited for just over a week to miscarry. My doctor told me that hopefully once I stopped my IVF injections, I would miscarry on my own. Well that didn’t happen. So, when I went back to the office I asked if I could stop waiting around and just schedule a D&C. Luckily, they told me absolutely and my surgery was November 3.

*Also something no one tells you about – while you are waiting to miscarry, your pregnancy hormones are still through the roof, so if you’re lucky like me, you are still nauseous and crazy hormonal because your body thinks you’re pregnant still. What fun -_-

Anyway! Thankfully the surgery went completely fine, I honestly didn’t really even have symptoms afterward. I wasn’t sore and I really didn’t bleed TOO MUCH. The day of I honestly hardly bled at all actually.

Now we are waiting for my pregnancy hormones to completely go back to 0 so we can try another round. It is so crazy to me that my body still has pregnancy hormones in it when I haven’t had a growing baby in there since mid-October, and I haven’t had ANYTHING baby related in there for two weeks!

The good news is, when I went yesterday to check my levels, I was down to 156 (from 955 the week before). With that, by this coming Tuesday I should likely be at 0. That means we can do the prep for FET number 5!

Here’s hoping and praying that before this terrible year of 2020 is over I get another BFP! Also, shout out to Shady Grove Fertility for being the absolute best! (I’ve told everyone there that the upside to me having a miscarriage is that I get to see them all for longer, I really do love it there!)

Everyone say a prayer, cross all your fingers and toes, and send us good vibes and baby dust for another rainbow soon!

xoxoxo