A little history...and how we've survived thus far...

It was the best of times… it was the worst of times… I never really understood that expression until this past year. My husband and I have been struggling to start a family over the past 10 years and for the past 3 have been on the IVF rollercoaster. In November of 2007, after our second round of IVF, we were delighted to learn that we were pregnant and were devastated to learn in January 2008 that I had experienced a “missed miscarriage”… I proceeded to have a D&C and then hemorrhaged a week following the procedure landing myself back in the hospital. This was right around the time that Britney Spears had her famous ride to the hospital in her black nightgown for her psychiatric evaluation. Girl... Britney had nothing on me. I awoke in a pool of blood and then passed out on the way to the shower. When I came to my hubby had the cell phone dialing 911 and all I could think of was that I needed my nightgown on before the paramedics got there...and sure enough, it was a black one. I gave all (apparently it took about 12 of Little Elm's finest to respond at 2 am) a laugh when I announced that their flashing lights were actually the papparazzi trying to take my pic as I was being wheeled out on a stretcher. That's another thing I've learned... Humour is a to survive trying to conceive!

I was devastated by our loss and went into a deep depression for several months. The funny thing was, I didn’t realize I had been depressed until I was coming out of it. We decided to try again in June of 2008 and I began doing acupuncture and guided imagery to calm my nerves as we took another ride on the rollercoaster. My body must have been pretty calm and receptive. We were thrilled to learn that we were pregnant in July and our beta numbers (something any woman doing IUI or IVF tracks like lottery numbers) were off the charts. We couldn’t wait to see how many we were having…but alas, we’d have to wait until week 7 to see how many when we went in for our ultrasounds to see the heartbeats…

Sure enough… at week 6.5… my body began to hemorrhage yet again. I immediately told my husband we’d never do this again… I couldn’t take it… The thing is… you never know how much you can handle until after you are through the storm. We went in for a sono the next morning, on a Saturday, and were delighted to learn that I was still pregnant… with twins! We’d lost one (yes, I’d been pregnant with 3) but twins! We’d hit the lottery!

I did everything right… I had a clot from the loss of the first child, so I stayed in bed a lot. I restricted my travel for work, and rarely went into the office. My husband proceeded to spoil me…still does… and I stayed off my feet as much as possible. We got bi-weekly sonos just to “reassure” us, and were told that they’d start watching my cervix at week 16. We did, and didn’t notice anything major until week 22. My cervix went from 4.6cm in length to 3…still nothing major… but the docs advised me to take it easy and stay in bed as much as possible.

Six days later I went out with my husband for a short trip, at least we thought. That was the last time I saw my house for a month! My back was hurting, which I thought was normal since I was now getting bigger, but when it got better once I started walking, I knew something was off. We went to the hospital and found out I was 4 cm dilated… I could tell by the look on my doctor’s face that he didn’t think we’d be able to do anything to stop the labor.

My doc promised he was going home and would see me in the morning… yet I kept seeing him in my room every 10 minutes…the contractions finally stopped a few hours later and I started living on borrowed time…

Rafe’s water broke the next evening, but he hung on for another week. The day Rafe passed, his brother Solomon’s water broke and I had to have a C-section to try to save him… but it was too early, and we knew it… who lives after 23 weeks and 6 days gestation??? We discussed comfort care with Dr. Santiago, and decided only to do something if it looked like Solomon was trying to fight. There’s a very very fine line between trying to help and support your child and torture, and we didn’t want to torture our son…Solomon came out crying… it was a wonderful sound… like a baby cat… I’ll never forget it…He fought intubation and proceed to have a nice honeymoon in the NICU… but Sami and I knew we were facing tough odds…he had a 5-20% chance of survival…and odds were he’d have major disabilities.

Solomon proved to be a fighter… there were many conversations with the doctors where they told us he wasn’t going to make it, but Solomon kept proving them wrong. Finally, on Dec 21st, he got switched to the big boy breathing tube as he’d made it to close to 3 lbs, and the doctor told us he’d be on a CPAP in a week and home by Valentine’s Day. He passed away around 6 am the next morning from Nectrotizing Intercolitis, or NEC, the silent killer of micro-preemies. When we came in and saw the docs and nurses working on him, we knew it wasn’t good, but they gave us 50/50 odds… I think they only did that because he had proven them wrong so many times before.

How do you lose two babies in a month (4 in a year) and survive? I wasn’t sure we would, but have…so far. What has worked for us? Here’s our short list:

1. We went to counseling… I was told by male co-workers who had had this happen to them that you think you don’t need it, but you do.
2. We started focusing on something besides having babies… we are looking into starting a business in 2010 if the economy helps us out, and naming it after our son Solomon.
3. We spent a lot of time together just being honest about how we felt.
4. We took meds, but only to get us over the hump. We both realized that there had come a time when we needed to get through this on our own… without medication.
5. We visit the boys’ grave (Rafe was cremated so they are buried together) and cry, laugh or scream… sometimes you need to do a combination.
6. We spend time apart… sounds like a contradiction to #3, I know, but after a month of togetherness, we spent a month apart as Sami went home to see his family in Lebanon. I missed him, but it was healthy for us.
7. We decided to take a break before trying again. My fertility doctor told me I could try again last May, but we are shooting for a September/October time frame.
8. I took time to work on myself. I looked into everything that happened and tried to pinpoint what I could do differently next time to avoid a repeat occurrence. We’ll do surgery, bed rest, shots, you name it. I’ve started a lifestyle change and have dropped over 35 lbs so far. Being overweight puts you at a higher risk for preterm labor, and if there is something within my control that I can do, I am giving it my all.
9. We had to make some tough decisions. It’s hard after suffering a loss, but our friends have pulled us out and made us do things… You find out who your real friends are after something like this and have to be strong enough to drop the relationships that just cause you pain.
10. We’ve allowed ourselves to have fun again. Laughter really is the best medicine.

My friend from China assures me that this year will be better. She said last year was the year of the rat… no good in her words… but this year is the year of the Ox, who is strong and dependable, so things will be better…I sure hope so.

Our first attempt at a Frozen Embryo Transfer (we have 3 on ice) was put on hold last month, due to concerns about my uterine lining not being high enough... I go in this Wednesday for a hystosonogram to check out what's going on in there. I am hoping we find zero scar tissue, but after the infection that occured with my boys' births last year, scar tissue is a definite possiblity. So... I'm just biding my time until Wednesday until I can find out what's going on in there...