Back on the road...together

Dh and I have recommitted ourselves to our journey toward parenthood. I took a hpt this morning and it was negative which means my hcg is below 25. So I am no longer considered pregnant and we can get back on the road of ttc.
This past pregnancy felt different than my pregnancy 9 years ago and the entire 10 1/2 years of this journey. The difference was that we were truly in it together. I could feel dh's commitment to this in the way he took the initiative to educate himself, and the emotional and physical support he provided during the 2 months of my pregnancy and the loss of our baby. I couldn't have survived the loss this time around without him. I want it to continue to be this way so I suggested he read more about acupuncture and the suggestions that my acupuncturist has given about diet and exercise. He was reluctant at first but once he started to read, he is supporting me especially when it comes to what I can and cannot eat just like he did when I was pregnant.
I've made an appointment with my acupuncturist for Thursday and have started taking the herbs I already had at home from my previous treatments. I started doing moxa twice a day and began taking the Imperial Tonic (4 capsules 3x/day) on Saturday. Yesterday, I began drinking Red Raspberry Leaf Tea which she said I can drink throughout my cycle. I usually drink it after doing the moxa. Tomorrow I will begin taking Ba Zhen Tang (2 caplets 3x/day) until I run out on Wednesday. Beginning Thursday, I will take Xiao Yao San (3 caplets 3x/day).
The goal is to help me heal emotionally and physically as well as to get my hormones balanced again. I'm a little disappointed that she's suggested we wait 3 months before ttc again, but maybe if I had listened to her the last time, we wouldn't have suffered this loss. The last time I saw her in early April, I mentioned that I was going to see a RE about doing another IVF cycle this summer. She really suggested that we wait a little while longer - at least until the end of this year to make sure that my body was strong enough to endure the meds and sustain a pregnancy. The first IVF in 2008 had really zapped my body and made it very unbalanced. Looking back, perhaps she was right. With school beginning at the end of July, it's not feasible for us to do any kind of fertility treatments until next summer, so I'm hoping after the 3 month wait that we will get pregnant and I'll be strong enough to sustain the pregnancy.

Almost There

I went to the ob for a follow-up visit just to make sure that everything was expelled with the misoprostol last week. She did an ultrasound and it was all clear. My HCG level was at 25.2 as of yesterday morning. So it's come way down and I'm almost back to normal.
It was so strange to be hoping to see an empty uterus on this ultrasound, a negative home pregnancy test, and a negative blood test. These are all the complete opposite of what I've wanted to see for the past 10 1/2 years. Soon we'll be back to square one. I'm looking forward to "resetting" my body to try again. Hopefully this time it will work and we can finally bring home a strong and healthy baby.

Myself

That's how I'm finally starting to feel. Towards the end of the week, I was still feeling uncomfortable and cramping. Yesterday, I felt strong enough and like myself enough to take our dog for our usual walk. It was nice to get out of the house and start exercising again so I can lose the baby weight I gained over the past 2 months. Dh and I are both very anxious to start trying agin and with summer vacation here, to go swimming. I took a hpt this morning just out of curiosity (hoping for a change that it would be negative). It was immediately negative, but when I checked it less than 10 minutes later, it was a very light positive. I hope that is a sign that everything was expelled last week and the hcg hormones are almost completely out of my system.
I've been on the boards again trying to find comfort, answers, and hope. The RE recommended waiting 2 complete cycles before ttc again. I've read about some women not even waiting and getting pregnant again immediately with pregnancies that are carried to term. These are women who have miscarried naturally, with misoprostol, and after a d&c. I'm happy that I decided not to have a d&c (and hoping and praying I don't have to on the recommendation of my ob when I see her tomorrow) because I've read on-line now that having d&c's cause women to have a difficult time getting pregnant again. Maybe that's part of the reason I've had such a difficult time all these years. Who knows..I know I'm probably grasping and speculating. I'll just have to be patient and wait until I get some answers tomorrow.

Lost in my Thoughts

Today is the first day I'm home alone since we let our little one go. Dh returned to work after being home with me for 2 days. I was holding up fine all this time since my last breakdown on Sunday afternoon. The sadness really seems to only hit me when I'm alone. The silence provides the perfect medium for my mind to wander and really think about what we had and what is now gone. I look at the bedroom that would have been the baby's room. I remember how excited our families were to hear about us finally getting pregnant again. I think about how excited dh was about finally becoming a dad especially with Father's Day just around the corner. I'm reminded of what my dad said when we told him we lost the baby - try to find the positive in all of this and focus on it. I'm trying so desperately to find the positive in all of this and a part of me does realize that life could be much worse. But right now, at this moment, what could possibly be the positive in all of this? I feel lost in my grief, confused by what's happened, and clinging to hope by a very thin piece of thread.

Healing

On Monday, dh came home from work early after going to the doctor for an injury he suffered on the job. What are the odds of 1 person getting stitches twice in 1 month? They always say bad things come in threes. Well, the first was his injury where he had to get stitches on his forehead. The second was our miscarriage. The third was this injury. Hopefully this will be it for a while.
My plan before he came home with the injury was to wait and see what happens with miscarrying on my own until Thursday before I call the RE to get a prescription for misoprostol. Since dh got injured, he was going to stay home at least on Tuesday and possibly the whole week. I figured I might as well start the misoprostol earlier. So we picked up the medication Monday evening in preparation for Tuesday morning when I would take it. I was on the computer Monday evening and Tuesday morning researching as much as I could about it. I couldn't sleep that night out a fear as I kept thinking about all the things that could go wrong...hemorraging, not being able to have children, having to do a d&c anyway because it didn't work, being in excruciating pain. I was scared out of my mind and ready to tell dh that I wanted a d&c instead. If he didn't agree to insert the pills, I probably would've chickened out.
The RE instructed me to insert 4 200mcg tablets of misoprostol vaginally. She said in about 6 to 8 hours I should experience a lot of cramping and bleeding. Dh inserted 4 pills at 7am and I proceeded to lay in bed waiting for it to take effect. About 20 minutes later, I felt a mild burning sensation. After an hour, I had mild cramping so I decided to take 2 acetaminophen tablets just in case. The cramping occured in waves almost like I would imagine contractions to be because it got closer and closer and increased in severity. By 10am, I couldn't stand up because of the cramping in my cervix. Standing up increased the pressure which made me cramp more. I couldn't stand it anymore so I called the RE who prescribed tylenol with codeine. Because I didn't know how it would affect me, I decided to take just one instead of the maximum dosage of 2 tablets. It helped a lot. I still felt the cramps but it was much milder than before. A little after 3pm, I felt this pressure and pain from my sternum down and in my lower back and thought I needed to go the bathroom for a bowel movement. Instead, the bleeding started. I expected to be bleeding heavily so I prepared myself by placing a shield on my bed and wore a overnight pad. The weird thing though was that I only bled when I went to the bathroom. Everytime I went to use the bathroom about 2-3 tablespoons of blood came out. There were no visible clots. By 8pm, I was tired so I took my last dose of tylenol for the evening and turned in. This morning I left a message for the RE to call so I could get instructions for today (on whether I needed to take another dose of the misoprostol). About 9am, I went to use the bathroom and felt this large glob come out. I expected to see it in the toilet but saw it still stuck to me so I managed to grab it with toilet paper. It was a glob about 3 inches long by 2 inches wide. It was like nothing I've ever seen before, so I assumed it must have been the sac/placenta. When the RE called, I described it to her and she said that I can assume that everything was expelled. She said I should expect to continue to bleed for no more than a week or two.
This experience turned out better than I expected (so far). Hopefully it continues that way where I don't get any infection and that my cycle regulates quickly. At this point, I am happy with my decision not to wait for it to happen naturally or to have gotten a d&c. Physically, I feel back to normal. Emotionally, right now I feel okay. I feel a small sense of closure with the miscarriage being complete and the knowledge that my body can start to heal. I'm trying to focus on our next steps and the hope that this has brought us. We now know we can get pregnant on our own. They say the third times the charm. Maybe it'll be the lucky three that will bring a baby we can bring home.

Heartbroken

Yesterday dh and I were devastated to find out the demise of our surprise pregnancy. We were so hopeful about seeing growth and a heartbeat at my second u/s. Instead, at first glance all I saw was an empty gestational sac. When the RE enlarged that view on the u/s monitor, we saw no change from the last u/s a week prior. The baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks, 1 day. Deep down I had feared this since I had all those days of spotting and no morning sickness, but I had hoped and prayed that my fears were just me being overly anxious. Amazingly for some reason, I was fine when we learned the news and all throughout yesterday I was okay. No tears, no feeling of sadness, no anger, nothing. It all hit me this morning when I woke up. Although the tears and sadness hadn't emerged full blown yet, it continued to build until we got home late this morning. Dh hugged me and I just crumbled. There are so many mixed emotions - anger, disappointment, guilt, sadness, devastation, and fear. Before we left the RE's office, she had presented us with three options 1)stop the progesterone and let nature take it's course; 2)stop the progesterone and take a pill that causes miscarriages to help my body miscarry completely; or, 3)do a D & C. In all my numbness yesterday, I told her that I would just stop the progesterone and see what happened on its own. But I worry, what if my body doesn't miscarry completely on its own. The last time I miscarried 9 years ago, my ob didn't give me any other option other than to do a D & C. I'm not sure what to do. Should I just do a D & C?

Borderline

That's what the RE's told dh and I yesterday at our first u/s appointment. I was 7 weeks yesterday. On the u/s we saw the gestational sac, yolk sac, fetal pole, and our little bean. Dh and I thought we saw the flickering of a heartbeat, but the RE said our little bean is measuring at 6 weeks so it probably wasn't the heartbeat. Dh still remains positive while I'm still hoping for the best but expecting the worse. They want me to go back for another u/s at 8 weeks to see the progress before they're able to give us a better idea of whether this pregnancy is viable.
Yesterday before we left for the airport, I got a little scare of my own when I had watery, bloody discharge. It wasn't AF type of flow, but it was more than what I've ever had before. So, when I went to the u/s appointment I wasn't expecting to see anything because I expected to miscarry. Thankfully, we did see what we saw. They say that every pregnancy is different. I can surely verify that. I'm happy to have made it this far. The last time I was pregnant, I made it to 7.5 weeks with the baby measuring at 5.5. We're just praying that this is a stubborn little one like us who is taking their sweet time in developing.