Infertility Chronicles: Chemical Pregnancy

One of the reasons I started this blog was to share our infertility journey with others, hoping it would help someone in some small way. Hopefully that has been the case, if anyone, it has helped me. It has helped me realize the good and learn from the trials that come our way.

However, any fertility journey is really personal and sometimes it is hard to realize what and what not to share. I've been in the conundrum for a while now. You, my dear reader, may be wondering how we could still be infertile if we have our Sweet Girl. To which, my dear reader, I would say, unfortunately I still have PCOS, having Sweet Girl didn't cure my body of that. I don't know if anything ever will, but thankfully we know how to grow our family. Each family is different, for us that recipe involves lots and lots of prayer and IVF.

My Sweet Husband I discussed when we should start to try to have more kids, by that I mean, when we should try our next IVF cycle. We had two frozen embryos from the cycle we did with Sweet Girl. As Sweet Girl's first birthday approached we decided we should try just after she was weaned. We met with the doctor's office to see exactly what we should do and they agreed, technically they said to wait for two cycles after she was weaned. So that's what we did.

In October 2015, we started the frozen embryo cycle (FEC). A FEC so much less involved then a fresh IVF cycle! Instead of growing the eggs and preparing the uterus, we only had to do the latter part. Which meant, fewer appointments, fewer ultrasounds, fewer medications, and especially fewer shots in the tush.

The entire time, I was sure it was going to work. I was sure that both embryos were going to take and we were going to have twins and everything was going to be hunky dory. Even after getting stuck in a city 45 minutes away for the night due to a mudslide in our town (they closed the highway so we couldn't get back), I was sure everything was going to be okay. The big day finally came, when they called with the HCG test results. And once again they didn't have one of my results (they didn't have the second draw this time for some reason), but they gave us a tentative positive since the first draw was positive. They said they would call the next day with the final results once they located them. I asked for the number from day one, sure that it was going to be huge like in the 1000s, and it was 12. I seriously almost asked, "are you sure?" But we were pregnant and that was good enough! It was okay! We went out to dinner to be optimistic that the results the next day would also be good news.

Only, they weren't. After about a billion phone calls and the nurse going to lunch, she told me that unfortunately the numbers were going down, the second draw was 6 (they should double or almost double). She told me to not give up hope, that we would do a third draw to make sure the numbers were correct. So we did. And it was 3. Definitely no longer pregnant. Later I learned this was a chemical pregnancy, which means a very early pregnancy loss.

I was so confused. I felt SO sure! But I relearned something that I think I will continually learn my entire life, apparently I'm kind of a slow learner, Heavenly Father has a plan for me and His timing is the best. I also gained an even better appreciation and love for my Sweet Husband! He was so loving and caring and supportive! And I gained a greater appreciation for Sweet Girl and realized again how much of a blessing she is in our lives! And I learned that everything was okay, it did work out as it was supposed it, even though it's confusing and I'm not sure why it went down that way exactly, but we were okay after, we felt peace!