It's been a few days since I last posted anything - my apologies. Sometimes life just gets in the way.
I started my tests that the fertility clinic asked for. I had a few vials drawn to look for any clotting disorders, a lupus test, glucose and of course the thyroid tests.
Count down is on, by the way - 1 week until our first appointment with the fertility clinic. I'm somewhat excited to blog about our journey, step by step. I hope that people just starting out on this roller coaster of trying to conceive (TTC, for future reference) and infertility (IF) will be able to have a look through my ramblings and join us on this adventure.
Also, I would like to ask a small favour. Last night, I was told that a dear friend's 2nd round of IVF didn't take. She and her hubby are absolutely shattered. Please send prayers their way. She's such a strong girl, but she needs all the love and support she can get right now.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
How Do you Deal with Friends & Family Who Are Pregnant?
Since losing my daughter, and trying to conceive again, I have since realized that Facebook is the devil.
Ever notice how the 'Fertiles' are seemingly ALWAYS pregnant? And don't you LOVE seeing the minute by minute updates? 'Oh, the baby just kicked!' or '3 weeks until my baby boy will be here!'
One thing that really kills me, is the pregnant people who complain. 'I hate being pregnant'. Nothing makes me want to scream more than seeing those status updates.
Take a girl I know, for example. Let's call her G.
G suffered a miscarriage a few months prior to mine. She got pregnant again (let's not look at how bad of an idea I think this is) and is now almost at full term. Any lady who's suffered a loss would be over the moon with this, yes?
Not G. G's biggest complaint is that she isn't having a girl. In fact, she's quite disappointed.
(Insert murderous glint in my eye here)Thank god someone in Facebook land had the foresight to include a 'hide' button.
So, this leads me to the question - how do you deal with the news of friends and family's pregnancy?
Ever notice how the 'Fertiles' are seemingly ALWAYS pregnant? And don't you LOVE seeing the minute by minute updates? 'Oh, the baby just kicked!' or '3 weeks until my baby boy will be here!'
One thing that really kills me, is the pregnant people who complain. 'I hate being pregnant'. Nothing makes me want to scream more than seeing those status updates.
Take a girl I know, for example. Let's call her G.
G suffered a miscarriage a few months prior to mine. She got pregnant again (let's not look at how bad of an idea I think this is) and is now almost at full term. Any lady who's suffered a loss would be over the moon with this, yes?
Not G. G's biggest complaint is that she isn't having a girl. In fact, she's quite disappointed.
(Insert murderous glint in my eye here)Thank god someone in Facebook land had the foresight to include a 'hide' button.
So, this leads me to the question - how do you deal with the news of friends and family's pregnancy?
Monday, November 16, 2009
More About My Loss... & some ettiquete
So, I ended my post yesterday with the birth of my darling sleeping angel, Annaliese.
If any of you have experienced a loss, let me take this time right now to offer your my condolences. I'm fully aware that my words don't make anything better - but sometimes it helps to know you're not alone.
Did you know there's this horrible, secret little club of us who have had losses? I know when we first lost Annaliese, there were plenty of people who came to me telling me that they had also experienced a loss. Among them were my own mother, grandmother and cousin (through adoption). They all felt the need to tell me that this was not the end of the road for me, and I should still remain hopeful. Luckily, I managed to keep from prison shanking the folks who told me this.
Loss is a horrible, awful thing I wouldn't wish on anyone. No one knows what to do, or what to say. If you're anything like me, then you wanted to gouge out people's eyes whenever the subject was brought up.
This post got me thinking... is there such a thing as 'miscarriage ettiquete'?
Let me assure you that there is.
DO tell the person how much you love them, and you will be there to talk about it when they are ready.
DON'T try and force them to talk about it
DO refer to the baby by name (if the parents have given the baby a name). I cannot tell you how much I hate that people always say 'the baby'. SHE HAD A NAME PEOPLE!!!!!!
DONT DON'T DON'T tell people that everything happens for a reason, or that this is God's plan. I can't stress this point enough. I heard this so many times over that I began to believe it, and had a serious hate for God on. It's taken me 14 months to come back to having any sort of faith in him.
DO encourage your friend, or yourself, to get out of the house. They won't feel like having fun. They don't want to go to a movie. You don't realize until you've gone through this that the world seems to revolve around pregnant people, babies, etc. Suggest a night in with a video game, a hike out in the mountains, something along those lines.
DON'T complain about your children. You may as well take a dagger, implant it directly into her heart and twist it. You have children, she doesn't.
And with that, my dears, I'm done for the day.
If any of you have experienced a loss, let me take this time right now to offer your my condolences. I'm fully aware that my words don't make anything better - but sometimes it helps to know you're not alone.
Did you know there's this horrible, secret little club of us who have had losses? I know when we first lost Annaliese, there were plenty of people who came to me telling me that they had also experienced a loss. Among them were my own mother, grandmother and cousin (through adoption). They all felt the need to tell me that this was not the end of the road for me, and I should still remain hopeful. Luckily, I managed to keep from prison shanking the folks who told me this.
Loss is a horrible, awful thing I wouldn't wish on anyone. No one knows what to do, or what to say. If you're anything like me, then you wanted to gouge out people's eyes whenever the subject was brought up.
This post got me thinking... is there such a thing as 'miscarriage ettiquete'?
Let me assure you that there is.
DO tell the person how much you love them, and you will be there to talk about it when they are ready.
DON'T try and force them to talk about it
DO refer to the baby by name (if the parents have given the baby a name). I cannot tell you how much I hate that people always say 'the baby'. SHE HAD A NAME PEOPLE!!!!!!
DONT DON'T DON'T tell people that everything happens for a reason, or that this is God's plan. I can't stress this point enough. I heard this so many times over that I began to believe it, and had a serious hate for God on. It's taken me 14 months to come back to having any sort of faith in him.
DO encourage your friend, or yourself, to get out of the house. They won't feel like having fun. They don't want to go to a movie. You don't realize until you've gone through this that the world seems to revolve around pregnant people, babies, etc. Suggest a night in with a video game, a hike out in the mountains, something along those lines.
DON'T complain about your children. You may as well take a dagger, implant it directly into her heart and twist it. You have children, she doesn't.
And with that, my dears, I'm done for the day.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
So Much To Tell...
Hello there, and welcome to my very first blog post. I could very well be the last person on the internet to start one. In any case, better late to the party than not go at all!
I wanted to start a blog because I really feel like I've been alone on my journey. I've visited many, MANY support websites, but no one I can find has a story similar to mine. If I can bare my soul, and even make one person feel like they're not alone, then it's worth it to me.
So - where to start? The begining is a great place, I suppose.
On June 6, 2008, I got quite a surprise. A comment made by my brother in law, about when his kids could expect cousins sent a cold chill down my spine. I couldn't remember the last date of my period! Yes, I know it sounds silly now, but at the age of 23, I had other things on my mind.
With an uneasy feeling in my stomach I picked up a home pregnancy test while I was at the grocery store that night. Being too much of a chicken to actually take it home and pee on it.. I went into the washroom at the grocery store. (Yes... I know, who does that?!?) Low and behold, I had two dark pink lines pop up on that sucker almost instantly. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped right there and then.
A million thoughts were racing through my head. My amazing, wonderful boyfriend and I were just getting started on our life together. He'd moved from Australia to Canada for me just 4.5 months earlier. We were young, stupidly in love, and now these 2 pink lines I had just witnessed were going to change all of that. I somehow managed to make it back to my car.. and did what any 23 year old girl does.. I whipped out the cell phone and called my best friend.
Zoe, god love her, already had a child. She understood 100% what I was going through. She patiently calmed me down for about 45 minutes before I felt calm enough to turn the key in the ignition and go home.
I remember standing in the kitchen, chopping up mushrooms for a stirfry when Chris came up behind me and asked why I was crying. I silently went to my purse and pulled out the pregnancy test, and put it down in front of him. I don't think I've ever seen the color drain out of someone's face so quickly!
After a lot of shock, and surprise, we both got used to the idea. We had a long discussion about what to do. In the end, I knew the only choice for me was to keep it. Poor Chris took a couple of days to adjust to the idea, but he came around.
It turned out that I was already 7 weeks along. Everything progressed normally. The only time I really had morning sickness was, of course, when Chris made the phone call home to his parents to tell them the news. I think the first time his father had ever heard me, was the sound of me projectile vomiting in the background. Don't let it be said that I don't make good impressions!
August 15,2008 was a special day. We were on vacation in Las Vegas. It was the day before my stepsister's wedding, and I had booked in to an ultra sound lab to tell us the gender of the baby.
The ultrasound tech was playing coy, and asked us what we thought we were having. We had always had a feeling that we were having a baby girl. She slowwwwwly typed on the screen...
It's a .... GIRL!
Flash forward to September 20, 2008. I had been experiencing some back pain. Nothing new for me, because my back always acts up. I went to sleep on the night of September 21, 2008, a Sunday, and I just remember having such backpain.
I woke up on the morning of September 22, 2008 to a little bit of blood on my sheets. I yelled for Chris who was in the shower. We rushed to the hospital only to be told that we had l ost our little angel.
Annaliese Sydney was born at 1:49pm on September 22, 2008. She has been in our hearts since the moment we first knew she was on our way to this very day.
That's all I have the heart to write right now.
I wanted to start a blog because I really feel like I've been alone on my journey. I've visited many, MANY support websites, but no one I can find has a story similar to mine. If I can bare my soul, and even make one person feel like they're not alone, then it's worth it to me.
So - where to start? The begining is a great place, I suppose.
On June 6, 2008, I got quite a surprise. A comment made by my brother in law, about when his kids could expect cousins sent a cold chill down my spine. I couldn't remember the last date of my period! Yes, I know it sounds silly now, but at the age of 23, I had other things on my mind.
With an uneasy feeling in my stomach I picked up a home pregnancy test while I was at the grocery store that night. Being too much of a chicken to actually take it home and pee on it.. I went into the washroom at the grocery store. (Yes... I know, who does that?!?) Low and behold, I had two dark pink lines pop up on that sucker almost instantly. I'm pretty sure my heart stopped right there and then.
A million thoughts were racing through my head. My amazing, wonderful boyfriend and I were just getting started on our life together. He'd moved from Australia to Canada for me just 4.5 months earlier. We were young, stupidly in love, and now these 2 pink lines I had just witnessed were going to change all of that. I somehow managed to make it back to my car.. and did what any 23 year old girl does.. I whipped out the cell phone and called my best friend.
Zoe, god love her, already had a child. She understood 100% what I was going through. She patiently calmed me down for about 45 minutes before I felt calm enough to turn the key in the ignition and go home.
I remember standing in the kitchen, chopping up mushrooms for a stirfry when Chris came up behind me and asked why I was crying. I silently went to my purse and pulled out the pregnancy test, and put it down in front of him. I don't think I've ever seen the color drain out of someone's face so quickly!
After a lot of shock, and surprise, we both got used to the idea. We had a long discussion about what to do. In the end, I knew the only choice for me was to keep it. Poor Chris took a couple of days to adjust to the idea, but he came around.
It turned out that I was already 7 weeks along. Everything progressed normally. The only time I really had morning sickness was, of course, when Chris made the phone call home to his parents to tell them the news. I think the first time his father had ever heard me, was the sound of me projectile vomiting in the background. Don't let it be said that I don't make good impressions!
August 15,2008 was a special day. We were on vacation in Las Vegas. It was the day before my stepsister's wedding, and I had booked in to an ultra sound lab to tell us the gender of the baby.
The ultrasound tech was playing coy, and asked us what we thought we were having. We had always had a feeling that we were having a baby girl. She slowwwwwly typed on the screen...
It's a .... GIRL!
Flash forward to September 20, 2008. I had been experiencing some back pain. Nothing new for me, because my back always acts up. I went to sleep on the night of September 21, 2008, a Sunday, and I just remember having such backpain.
I woke up on the morning of September 22, 2008 to a little bit of blood on my sheets. I yelled for Chris who was in the shower. We rushed to the hospital only to be told that we had l ost our little angel.
Annaliese Sydney was born at 1:49pm on September 22, 2008. She has been in our hearts since the moment we first knew she was on our way to this very day.
That's all I have the heart to write right now.
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