karyotype

today i decided to call the nurse to check if the genetic testing results had come back yet. they did.

the good:

the baby had no found genetic abnormalities. i guess it's better than to find out the baby may have had some retardation or birth defect or something.

the bad:

we still have no idea what went wrong. we still have no clue as to why God wanted our little back so badly. we still have no idea why our little one's life ended before it really even began. i still have this huge WHY? looming in my heart.

follow up appointment with dr. o'brien isn't until august 20th. it's going to be a horribly long 27 days. i'm so sick of all this waiting.

the i don't know how i feel: 

according to the testing, the baby was "normal female karyotype". in other words, the baby was a girl.

• Karyotypes describe the number of chromosomes, and what they look like under a light microscope. Attention is paid to their length, the position of the centromeres, banding pattern, any differences between the sex chromosomes, and any other physical characteristics. The preparation and study of karyotypes is part of cytogenetics.
• Karyotype testing is a test to identify and evaluate the size, shape, and number of chromosomes in a sample of body cells. Extra, missing, or abnormal positions of chromosome pieces can cause problems with a person's growth, development, and body functions.

i guess i was right when i thought it was a girl. i guess a mother really DOES know these kind of things. but i'm not sure if i'm glad to know this information. on one hand, it's nice to know that i knew my body so well and because of that, was able to build such a strong bond with her. but on the other hand, it kind of makes it harder to move on knowing that our little one was a girl, that she was a she and not just an it... that God had already decided what He wanted to bless us with... that God also already knew what He was going to take away. our babygirl.

one week

one week. she/he has been gone for one week.

i haven't been crying as much - that's good right? it doesn't seem like it. when i do cry, it still feels horrible, still fresh. will that ever go away?

i still haven't mustered up the courage to talk to anyone else outside of my family and mark. i'm scared that if and when i do, something they say or do might set me off into crying mode again. i'm scared they'll ask questions that i, myself, don't have answers to. i'm scared people will look at me differently, those that know. i'm scared i'll make them feel uncomfortable and not want to be around me altogether. i don't want people's sympathy. i don't want anything from anyone really. i just need time.

when the doctor discharged me after the d & c, they handed mark a stack of papers and pamphlets for me to read while i was supposed to be lying in bed recovering.

i opened one just this morning but, after reading just the first couple of lines, i closed it and set it back on my nightstand. it just made it all too real. i mean, i know what's happened - i'm not delusional. i just don't think i'm ready to start "healing" yet. i'm still grieving. that's okay right?

i'm sure i'd find some answers to some of my questions in one of those things. but, and maybe it's just me, i don't think some pamphlet or article is really going to help me cope with all this. will it? has it really helped anyone? every case is different - how can they write a pamphlet to generalize everyone's situations?

more another day. today is just as hard as last friday was. my heart hurts.

brokenhearted

whomever said "time heals all wounds"  probably just had a measly little papercut.

it's been about 5 days, and i'm still clutching my chest trying to catch my breath. other than my family and my ever-so supportive husband, mark, i haven't been able to talk to anyone. i haven't even had the strength to get out of bed for more than 10-20 minutes. is that normal?

i don't even know what's normal these days. my routine is to get up, eat a little breakfast, stare at the tv and then cry myself back to sleep for another couple of hours till it's time to eat lunch. then, i eat a little lunch, stare at the tv and then cry myself back to sleep for yet another couple of hours till it's just about time to eat dinner. at this point, i get up, eat a little dinner, stare at the tv and then eventually, again, cry myself to sleep till morning. lather, rinse, repeat.

sometimes, somewhere in between, something sets me off and i just cry uncontrollably until, somehow, mark can calm me down. it's a seemingly endless cycle. i didn't even know it was possible for one person to cry that much!

but is any of that normal? what is a normal grieving period and method when it comes to miscarriage? is there a norm? people keep telling me to do something to keep myself busy and keep my mind off things or to do something to not dwell on this too much. it honestly makes me kind of mad and confused. should i not be grieving for my unborn child because she/he was in fact, unborn? is that why people think this should be somewhat easy to "get over"? to me, unborn or not, she/he was still my first child. wouldn't you grieve just as long or even longer for your child? isn't that a parent's given right?

i know people are just trying to help me. i know most people have no idea what to say when something like this happens. but i just want people to let me grieve on my own timetable. i want people to somehow understand that i'm just not as strong emotionally as they may be. i want people to understand that i loved her/him. i want people to understand that my heart is broken.

*  *  *

i had to go into the clinic today for an emergency ultrasound because i started to bleed heavily all of a sudden last night. dr. o'brien checked things out and it turns out that there is still a big clot in my uterus and it seems my uterus isn't compressing back to "normal" as it should be doing- not good. so she prescribed me some medication to help things get back on track. hopefully this will help to get things moving and help me heal faster... physically at least. if the medication doesn't do the job, then there's a high possibility they will have to do another d & c. all i can do is pray now.

God, if you can hear me, help. 

why?

how and where do i begin?

i've tried a million times to write this entry. each time, deleting pages and pages worth of feelings full of sadness, anger, and pure frustration. but each time, not really saying enough.

everyone and anyone that knows keeps telling me "you'll be okay" or "you can try again soon" and just various other things. though they may be true and right, right now, it just doesn't seem to help. but what do i expect them to say right? what can they really say that will comfort me and erase this aching in my heart and this emptiness i feel inside?

i want them to tell me what happened. i want someone to tell me why my little innocent baby's heart stopped beating so soon. i want someone to tell me what i didn't do to make this happen. i want someone to tell me what i did to make this happen. i want someone to tell me why, after all that we've already gone through to conceive our little one, we have to go through even more heartache. i just want to know why. why God why?

our loss, heaven's gain

today our hearts sank.

i woke up around 8:30 am to go to the bathroom and ate breakfast around 9 am. i responded to a few emails and chatted with my best friend until it was about time to leave for our ultrasound appointment. thus far, my morning went well. i hadn't had any spotting or bleeding since the night before and none again this morning. i still had some cramping, but it wasn't anything severe enough for me to worry about. it honestly just felt like gas.

at around 10:40 am, we arrived at shady grove for our 10:45 am appointment. the waiting room was eerily empty 'cept for us. i just thought, "what a creepy Friday the 13th" it was and sat down. we waited a few minutes and the nurse called us back. i sat on the exam table and held mark's hand till dr. o'brien and the ultrasound tech came in and began the examination.

within a few seconds, our little one appeared on the screen. there she was, as tiny as ever but something was telling me that something wasn't right this time. no matter how small or enlarged the tech tried to get her image on the screen, she just somehow looked blurry. and then dr. o'brien and the tech asked me to hold my breath so they could measure the baby's heartbeat. something really was wrong.

they couldn't find her little heartbeat. she repositioned her ultrasound wand, told me to hold my breath, and tried again. again, nothing. tears came rolling down my face, my breathing increased and got heavy, and i clutched mark's hand for dear life. her heart stopped beating.

we lost her. there on the screen was her lifeless little body; not moving, not beating, not living. i can't seem to recall everything that happened after that. all i can remember...

dr. o'brien, pulling out the rest of the table so i could rest my legs... crying so uncontrolably that i couldn't see past my tears... clutching mark's hand with my left hand and clutching the now empty screen with the other... screaming to mark for them to check again... screaming to mark for them to bring her back to me... screaming and crying till i could barely breathe...

after what seemed like a lifetime of crying, i got up and got dressed and mark walked me into an office to talk with dr. o'brien. i still could not stop crying. i vaguely remember her walking in, sitting in front of us, and explaining to us (but mostly mark), that there was nothing that i did or didn't do to make this happen. she mentioned something about a D&C and calling mark later with the details and steps on what to do next. then, somehow, we were leaving through a side door i had never been through before and i was hugging dr. o'brien tightly and she said to me "you will get through this. i promise."

we walked down a bunch of stairs and somehow got back to our car and drove home in silence. i remember feeling numb and hurt and had a huge lump in my throat and just an emptiness inside as i crawled back into bed when we got home. and i cried again and again and again. i didn't know what else to do.

after putting my things away, mark crawled into bed at my side and held me as i cried. he didn't shed a tear... at least none that i noticed. i guess people deal with tragedies differently. after a while, mark got up to get something to eat and i called my parents and siblings to break the news to them. mark had yet to muster up the strength to tell his family. after hanging up with my dad, i cried myself to sleep.

i woke up around 3 something to the ringing of my phone - it was dr. o'brien's nurse. they called to tell me that they scheduled my D&C for tomorrow morning.

• D&C, also known as dilation and curettage, is a surgical procedure often performed after a first trimester miscarriage. Dilation means to open up the cervix; curettage means to remove the contents of the uterus. Curettage may be performed by scraping the uterine wall with a curette instrument or by a suction curettage (also called vacuum aspiration), using a vacuum-type instrument.  

i'm still wondering what went wrong. she seemed to be doing so well 2 days ago. what could have possibly happened in the last 48 hours that caused this to happen? everyone keeps telling me that i did nothing wrong, but i still can't shake the feeling that i did. i feel so sad and yet so much more angry. but at who and for what- i don't know.

just when i thought things were going to be okay... something like this happens. i know she is in God's arms now, but i still wonder...

when will the heartache end already?

the bubble gives us a scare

this is a pretty graphic entry, so if you're squeamish about blood and/or female happenings, i suggest you not continue reading. 

i've debated over and over about whether to publish this entry to the public or not. i finally decided that if i was going to tell y'all our story, it's only fair to tell you ALL of the good, the bad, and the ugly.

yesterday was one of the hardest days thus far through this whole journey.

i woke up around 8:30 am with cramps and felt that my underwear had gotten soaked. groggy and disoriented, i got up to go to the restroom to check things out and saw that i soaked my underwear in blood, bright red fresh blood. i screamed for mark to wake up and come to the bathroom; i screamed loud.

crying my eyes out, i tried and tried to wipe myself of all the blood but it just kept coming out. i finally got a little control of it enough to change my clothes and pick up the phone. i immediately called shady grove fertility and our nurse told us to come in right away - our scheduled ultrasound wasn't till an hour or so later. we got dressed and headed straight for the clinic. it became the longest 10 minute drive ever.

we got to the clinic after what seemed like forever, signed in and waited in a full waiting room. still very teary-eyed, mark and i sat down and waited... and waited. by the time they finally called us, it was the time of our original appointment. i couldn't understand it - why would they tell us to go ahead and come in, but not see us right away? i was so frustrated and so scared - i cried some more. i didn't even care a single bit that all these other patients were trying to discretely look at me. our little bubble was in danger - nothing else around me mattered. nothing.

finally, the nurse called us in. as we walked by the nurses station, she stopped to tell the other nurse to "go ahead and get dr. o'brien now." i was glad to know they went to get her specifically for our appointment. usually, they assigned a monitoring physician per day to oversee all ultrasound appointments. so, a lot of the time, the physician at your ultrasound appointment isn't your primary physician.

i sat on the exam table waiting, clutching mark's hand while we waited for dr. o'brien and the ultrasound tech to arrive. i felt another painful cramp and began to cry yet again. when they finally came in and dr. o'brien asked, "how are you?" i lost it. i cried. i cried hard. she told me to lay back and try to relax so we could get started with the examination.

within seconds, our little bubble appeared on the screen. there she was... (we're thinking it's a girl)... her tiny little heart beating so strongly at 157 bpm. her tiny little body clinging on for dear life. all i could do was stare with tears in my eyes as i clutched mark's hand tighter. i was so overwhelmed that dr. o'brien had to remind me to breathe. but she assured me that the bubble was doing just fine - she was measuring well for 8 weeks and her heartbeat was strong. she couldn't see where the bleeding was coming from and why it was happening.

bubble at 8 wks

i asked her so many questions... is the bleeding hurting the baby? "no." what is the cramping? "your body shedding the blood." etc. etc. etc. there were several different things that may be causing the bleeding she said - the placenta popping a blood vessel when it was attaching to the uterus, just some of the lining shedding, and other things. i couldn't remember it all. all the rang through my head was "the baby is fine. the baby is fine."

after a lot more tears and both her and mark trying their best to console me, dr. o'brien told us to schedule another ultrasound for friday, for me to be on bedrest, hugged me and left. i cried again a little more as i got dressed just worried out of my mind. yes, dr. o'brien said the bubble was fine, but why am i being put on bedrest if she's fine?

as we left the exam room to make our appointment, i some how realized that in my rush to get out of the house and to the clinic as fast as we could, i had forgotten to put my cross necklace on. it wasn't like me to forget something like that - i always wore it. even if i left the house to just go down the street, i put it on. i wore it everyday since my parents gave it to me right after mark and i got engaged. how could i have forgotten it this time? i would get my answer later.

as we walked to the pharmacy downstairs to pick up my medication, it came to me. God's trying to tell me something. i took this as God telling me to take better care of myself and our little one, to slow down, and to take things as they come - day by day.

i'm a planner - it's what i do for a living now. so naturally, the second that the first blood test was positive, i made plans. we decided on God-parents, began making travel plans to Houston, called the church for baptism plans, etc. etc. i planned like crazy and stressed over the timing and logistics of everything. i did probably everything a soon-to-be first time mom isn't supposed to be worrying about till later.

so, i took this scare as God telling me to slow down and just take things day by day. well God, i'm listening. i'm lying here in bed trying my best to take it easy and trying my best to take care of myself and our little one. please God, take care of us too. 

As for me, I look to the LORD for help.
I wait confidently for God to save me,
and my God will certainly hear me. (Micah 7:7 NLT)

the bubble looks like a bean

brief entry today...

had the ultrasound this morning and the bubble is measuring well and her (we think it's going to be a girl) heartbeat is up at 157 bpm. a huge sigh of relief. she's looking like a little bean now, but she'll still be our little bubble.

 

bubble at 8 wks

lian at 8 wks

more on how today went in tomorrow's entry. i'm too tired!

our long journey - part III - the hardest part

they call it the 2 week wait - the longest 2 weeks of an IVF patient's life. the longest, scariest, most emotional 2 weeks of my life. it's the 2 weeks you lie in bed after your transfer, the 2 weeks you move slower than a snail, the 2 weeks you choose to do absolutely nothing and go absolutely no where so you won't do anything that may detach that little embryo from your uterus. it's the 2 weeks of hell that you have to wait to find out if that little embryo hung on for it's dear little life to your forever waiting uterus.

for those 2 weeks, i laid in bed as long as my mind and body could take it. i only got up for meals and to go to the bathroom and only if i got so bored i was about to go insane. as usual, mark kept my mind straight and catered to my every whim - it definitely wasn't easy for either of us. especially for me. being laid up in bed for 2 weeks, you tend to go stir crazy and the internet becomes your companion. i kept googling and researching when would be the earliest to test if you're pregnant - it was both great and horrible.

the second i was allowed to and found it safe to get up and about on my own, i pulled out my first at home pregnancy test, peed and prayed for a miracle. most sites had said that 6-7 days after your transfer, you can start testing. i waited 5 days and of course my heart sank. negative. so i waited again... on the morning of june 6, 2012, that second line appeared. i twirled like a ballerina. that's perfectly normal at the age of 32 right?

i showed it to mark - we cried and did happy (awkward) dances all over the house. i texted the photo to my sister and we talked for hours and said our prayers.

every 2 days after that until the blood test, i peed and prayed.

finally, on the morning of june 14th we went back to shady grove fertility to do the pregnancy blood test. after being in and out in less than 10 minutes, we had to do more waiting. a few hours later, the doctor called...

positive for hCg - the pregnancy hormone. according to the blood test, we were pregnant! so, normally, you jump for joy, dance like you've never danced before, call your family, etc. you celebrate right? WRONG.

in our case, as an IVF patient, you wait a couple more days and redo the blood test. so, on the morning of june 18th, we were back at shady grove running the test again. the goal was to see that my hCg levels were going up meaning the bubble was growing. crossing everything we could, we waited a few hours again...

hCg levels are up. perfect, right? again, not just yet. yes, my levels were up, but was the bubble growing like it should be? we would have to wait another week to find out at the bubble's first ultrasound.

june 25, 2012 - the ultrasound. it made my heart jump and hurt. there it was, our little bubble on the screen, squirming away on the screen. i began to cry happy tears and mark became speechless as he stared at the screen and held my hand - speechless but smiling. a few seconds later, the ultrasound tech moved the little wand around to check for the bubble's heartbeat, i began to worry. the look on her face and the doctor's face wasn't a good one. they both looked at each other and the doctor swooped in and grabbed the wand to move it himself. again, their faces didn't look promising - i began to really panic. according to the doctor, the ultrasound was showing that the bubble's heartbeat was abnormally slow, about 85 bpm. the hope was that it would be around 120-125 bpm. my heart sank and painful tears came rushing out of my eyes.

june 25, 2012 - bubble's 2nd photo

at the site of my tears, mark gripped my hand tighter and asked the doctor what this meant. the doctor said that the bubble is measuring as it should at 6 weeks, but the heartbeat is still hard to measure because it is still so small. most women don't even get to see their doctors for an ultrasound this early. he said the bubble is measuring well, so i should try not to worry too much just yet and to schedule another ultrasound in 2 more weeks. another 2 weeks of waiting... great. NOT!!

so here we are, july 10, 2012, 2 weeks and a day from that disappointing ultrasound. tomorrow morning we have the second ultrasound to find out if our little bubble's heart is beating as it should. wish us luck!

our long journey - part II - the bubble

just after the new year (2012) we came home to maryland from a long vacation in houston, texas to spend the holidays with my family.  after about a month of rest and relaxation to regain my focus and strength, we resumed with treatments - phase 3 - IVF - In Vitro Fertilization.

• IVF is the process of fertilization by manually combining an egg and sperm in a laboratory dish. When the IVF procedure is successful, the process is combined with a procedure known as embryo transfer, which involves physically placing the embryo in the uterus.

first, let me say, this was a very hard decision to come to. being catholic, IVF isn't considered a natural way to have a baby - it's viewed as messing with God's plan and God's way. it's viewed by many to be against our religion. honestly, the whole process of us trying to get pregnant through fertility treatments has been viewed by many as such - it made facing our church members really difficult even though they had no idea what was going on. i felt guilty almost every sunday at church facing the parishioners and priests like we weren't guilty of messing with God's plan. i prayed every day for God to give me His blessing, for Him to tell me that this really was His plan all along and that what we were doing to have this child was really okay. His answer came to me at the end of May.

after months and months of grueling, physically painful and emotionally painful shots, it was time for our egg retrieval.

• Egg retrieval is the process whereby a woman's eggs are removed from her ovaries. These eggs are later mixed with a man's sperm in order to facilitate fertilization. In order for egg retrieval to occur, a woman must first have follicle production stimulated by particular hormones. Once a number of follicles (potential eggs) are produced, fertility specialists can then remove these eggs from the ovaries in order to attempt fertilization. If fertilization is successful, the embryos will be placed back in to the woman's uterus.

up until this point, i thought the shots were hell and i wanted to just give up and crawl in a corner and cry. the shots had altered our social lives and really tested our strength and that of our marriage. until the egg retrieval, we thought we were going through the roughest part of this whole process. we were wrong. i had apparently responded to the fertility drugs like a champ and the doctor was able to retrieve a record of 61 eggs!!! when the doctors had told us the number of eggs we asked "is that good enough?" to our surprise, the norm was only 10-15 eggs. so needless to say, 61 eggs retrieved had many a nurse and doctor coming around to meet the little asian girl that they just retrieved 61 eggs from. "whoa" was said many times over upon meeting me and hearing our number. :)

to me, that was God's sign. 61 eggs!

the recovery from the retrieval was horrid. i was stuck in bed for a few days unable to even go to the bathroom on my own. 61 eggs = very enlarged ovaries = very bloated stomach = a lot of pain. i was thankfully being taken great care of by my aunt (Tita May) and of course, mark. they doted on me every single minute of every day till the day of our transfer - being pampered was pretty great! but it wasn't over yet.

6 days after the retrieval and laying in bed almost every single minute of every single day, we went back in for our transfer. to our joy, 41 of the 61 eggs fertilized normally - still a whopping big number. after much debate and advice from dr. o'brien, we decided to transfer only one embryo. if we had transferred more than 1 i would run into a lot of painful days ahead - a lot of painful bloating and bedrest. we first wanted to transfer at least 2 embryos because our journey had been so long and arduous that we wanted as many chances as we could get. but because of the risks, we finally decided not to.

and so, on the morning of may 31, 2012, dr. o'brien transferred our little "bubble" into my uterus and thus began the real journey.

may 31, 2012 - the bubble's first picture

our long journey - part I - harder than we thought

this is the story of our journey to our first little chilipino (chinese + filipino)... our little miracle.

on november 21, 2009, mark and i got married. on november 22, 2009 we began our journey to start our own little family. little did we know, it was going to be a lot harder than we thought. we tried for 2 years with no success. we tried to time everything, track ovulation, etc. etc. etc. we soon realized that with my irregular cycles (i'd be lucky to get my period 2-4 times a YEAR!) it was going to be a lot tougher than we thought. after a long exhausting and emotional conversation, we decided to finally see a specialist.

the summer before our 2 year wedding anniversary, i made a visit to my OBGYN, dr. S, to tell her our troubles of conceiving. she ran several tests and concluded that most likely, i was suffering from PCOS - Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.

• Polycystic ovary syndrome is a condition in which a woman has an imbalance of a female sex hormones. This may lead to menstrual cycle changes, cysts in the ovaries, trouble getting pregnant, and other health changes.

first let me say, hearing the words "cyst" and "ovary" in the same sentence is like a punch in the gut. my heart dropped about 50 feet deep and panic and tears started to brew.  dr. S assured me that it wasn't as bad as i was probably thinking. she explained to me the risks and difficulties i would be encountering to get pregnant and suggested we see a fertility specialist. enter the angels at Shady Grove Fertility.

we were connected with dr. jeanne o'brien - a total God-send. we sat nervously in her office with all our paperwork in hand - page after page of medical history and questionnaires. poor dr. o'brien came in with a hoarse voice and looked like she needed a nap pretty bad. but nonetheless, she spent 2+ hours with us for our initial consultation explaining my PCOS condition, all the testing we'd both have to endure, how hard but possible the process will be, answering our questions (i had about a million), and amazingly, after some tears on my part, hugged me and said "we WILL make this happen."

so, after a couple of months of more blood tests and various other testing, we began what i'd like to call phase 1 of our fertility treatments. phase 1 seemed pretty easy, take a pill (Metformin) to get control of my PCOS and then a few more pills to help get the ovulation process going. seemed easy enough right? take a few pills, do a little dance, pop out some little chilipino babies. WRONG.

after 3 cycles of the treatments, 0 chilipino babies. so onto phase 2 - IUI - Intrauterine insemination.

• IUI is a fertility treatment that uses a catheter to place a number of washed sperm directly into the uterus.  

a few more pills,a couple of shots, and 3 failed IUI cycles = 0 chilipino babies. it was getting rough and i was getting exhausted, physically and emotionally. but mark, still as strong and as determined as ever to make this work, was there as always, by my side and pushing me to keep on going. he gave me the hope, faith and strength to keep pushing through this rough journey - who could ask for anyone better? i was even more thankful for mark than i had ever been before. little did we know, the journey ahead would truly test our hearts, our strength, and our faith.