Wednesday, April 14, 2010

A Miracle of A Different Kind

People always comment on what a miracle Will is.

Indeed, he is a miracle. My sweet little boy is a miracle, a gift from God, and I am down-on-my-knees-grateful for him each and single every day (yes, even when is being all toddlerish).

I am equally grateful for the little girl that at this very second is pummeling my kidney. She is every bit as much of a miracle as her older brother, even if her conception took decidedly less medical routes to be achieved. She is simply a miracle of a different kind.

I get comments all the time about how getting pregnant this time was so "easy" (it was) and how we got so "lucky" (we did). People seriously love to tell me, "Oh, I just knew you didn't have any real problems." Or, "Well, look what happens when you 'just relaxed'." Now, to be honest, I would rather put up with these comments and not have to do IVF/FET again, even though these comments kind of grate a little.

Our problem was never identified, but that doesn't mean that we didn't have a problem. We lost a lot of babies, so we had some issue. Even after having Will, I had another chemical pregnancy, so a RLB didn't "fix" me as some other folks have enjoyed pointing out. I am thankful for this unassisted conception and the true miracle that it is, but I just wish that people would stop making comments about how if we'd just been "more patient," we would never have needed IVF in the first place.

To those people, I want to ask how many chemical pregnancies and miscarriages I was supposed to have? Most of these people haven't had one miscarriage, let alone suffered the agony of recurrent loss, so they have no idea how hard it is to keep losing babies. I want to ask those who said I should have been more patient or relaxed how many babies were supposed to die before intervention would have made sense? I wouldn't change a thing about how proactive I was in TTC with Will. I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Trust me, he was so worth it.

And even with the thoughtless comments that get tossed my way today, I take them all with a grin and bear it attitude (though I do have sassy comments in my head). Because she is worth it, too!

What are some of your favorite "well-meaning" comments? What responses do you wish you could give (or even better, do you actually give)?

Edited: PamalaLauren asked if it was possible that my body has simply "reset" itself with the birth of Will. That certainly is a possibility. I did have one chemical pregnancy in May 2009 (after his birth), but chemical pregnancies are common, so that's not to say that I still had whatever problem was plaguing us as we attempting to conceive Will.

My RE did have a couple of theories for us. The first we discovered during my IVF cycle with Will. Even though I was on a pretty routine stim cycle and had good sized follicles at the time of retrieval, my egg maturity rate was extremely low (less than 50%). Now, this can be affected by many things, but she was surprised that for the size of the follicles, I had so few mature eggs. She said that could be why I miscarried so many times. My eggs were of fine quality (and why nothing would show up on a FSH screen as abnormal) but were being released too soon, when they were "immature" and therefore, even if they fertilized, they were doomed from the start. This would explain why conception was not an issue for us and why my losses were of the mostly very early nature.

Because there was always the possibility that a mature egg could make it down the chute, there was always the possibility that if that happened and that egg was fertilized, we'd be good to go. This is just a theory and she said it would be difficult to prove or disprove, since an IVF cycle is not necessarily a fair replication of what the body would naturally do. However, I have always kind of liked that theory, as it explains both the miscarriages and why we were finally able to conceive a healthy pregnancy on our own. I did ovulate later in our conception cycle than usual, so it also lends a bit of credibility to this theory.

Her second theory had to do with blood flow to the uterus, which is why she had me take Lovenox into the second trimester (when the placenta would compensate for lack of blood flow). Now, I did have tests done that showed a normal blood flow to the uterus while I was not pregnant, but she said that pregnancy can change blood flow, and I was never tested while pregnant. I have circulation issues (vericose veins and spider veins, as well as edema in my legs) so this would make sense. With Emma, I did not take any blood thinners, so that would kind of throw that theory out the window.

So, really, we just don't know. So this baby girl really is a different kind of miracle!

7 comments:

HereWeGoAJen said...

Ack, I hate those sorts of comments.

I don't have many, as we've kept our more minor troubles to ourselves to avoid those comments. Mainly I just got asked if Elizabeth was "on purpose?"

PamalaLauren said...

I have a question just in general since you wrote about this, cause I hadn't even thought about it.

Could your pregnancy with Will have reset your body? Made it able to know it could carry a pregnancy to term instead of doing whatever it was doing before? Is there any medical knowledge on why these sorts of things happen or is it still all a mystery?

Mazzy said...

People don't like what they don't understand. So they try to brush anything above their "realm of understanding" off as "a fluke." Infertility is a real deal issue and I have found that you either meet people that are in the know or simply aren't. And it isn't even worth explaining when they aren't. I have had more people tell me that I won't have any problems getting pregnant a second time because my pregnancy would have totally "fixed me."

Really? Well then, why is it that less than one year post partum I am already having 55+ day cycles again, then? Thanks for your "diagnosis," moron, but I think just maybe that you are wrong.

End rant.
Love you!

PamalaLauren said...

Thanks for the update. It's just all very interesting.

I have a friend who has fertility issues, sadly she can't afford to do what she did to conceive her first but she was telling me of her struggles (I felt so bad for her when I got pregnant because she's been trying for well over 4 years now) and how people keep telling her to relax and go on a vacation and it will happen.

I mean to me if it were that simple, she'd have done that by now. But it's not and I can only imagine how hurtful it is to hear that stuff. I mean it annoys me, imagine how it hurts her.

But like someone else said I think it's a lack of understanding of what's happening as well as a lack of knowing what to say in response.

Amanda said...

I'm still amazed at how people think relaxing makes babies. I really don't know anyone that is truly "relaxed" during the first two years of their child's life.

As far as the "reset" thing...I think it's actually a possible theory, but it's like everything else in life, what works for one won't always work for the other.

Amanda said...

Ooooh! Worst comment still (before and after a successful pregnancy), "At least you know you can get pregnant". Yeah. Because miscarrying is just soooo much fun.

Sky said...

I think your perspective is spot on and your theories, interesting. Find your blog and reading this post comes at a poignant time for me as I "begin" this RPL/IF journey and wonder if all the effort/heartache/etc for my first baby will need to be repeated for the 2nd. It's true...miracles are miracles.
I hope you don't mind, I've sent you an email with more personal questions...but it's okay if you can't/don't want to respond. =)