Restoring the faith?

Today was my post-op appointment with the fertility clinic. I was supposed to be there at 9:30am..but guess what time I woke up?! 9:30 of course! So I called them, and they were able to see me at 11:00am. (whew!) I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but I imagined it would be checking my incisions, and what not. Well, not exactly. I just got sat in an office in the back. The nurse took my blood pressure, asked me how I was feeling, and if I was still bleeding. I told her I was doing alright, just felt anxious being there again, and seeing all the faces I saw when I found out the news. She told me they were all sad for me and wished me luck on my adventure. Next the Doc came in, he was very matter of fact about everything. Basically, he just gave me the statistics of ectopic pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies are the number one cause of pregnancy related deaths. If you have one, you are at a 10-12% higher risk of it happening again. That most tubal pregnancies, the baby doesn't develop, and I was in the lower number of those whose baby was growing, and did have a heart beat while inside the tube. He also proceeded to tell me, that there was still statistically a 90% chance that I could eventually have a viable intrauterine pregnancy. I then explained to him that the other doctor who did my surgery told my family and husband that both of my tubes were severely scarred, and that I would have better chances moving on to IVF. By the look he gave me, I had an idea on what was coming. He told me that wasn't true, that I should wait a couple of months and then proceed with the IUI's because they were less costly, and time consuming, etc. Then, told me a story of a patient he had received a Christmas card from. She had a picture of her baby in it. This woman, suffered not one, not just two, but FIVE(!!!) tubal pregnancies before she conceived her first successful one. She even lost a tube in the process. I don't know if this was supposed to be an uplifting, keep the faith kind of story, but my goodness...5??? I give the woman much respect for surviving that many. The whole time I was thinking to myself..."I don't even think I could mentally handle one more. Five?! How the hell did this woman keep her faith? How did she keep her sanity? I am having a hard enough time dealing with this one, I am scared to even try another IUI cycle.".  On that note, I did not share that I made an appointment with the OU Center for Reproductive Medicine. I wasn't in the mood to hear someone possibly try to talk me out of it. We reached the end of out appointment, and he walked me to the nurses station to get a few lab orders to do my HCG weekly until my levels hit 0 again. He did say that he was impressed that they dropped from over 27,000, to 1,665 in just 5 days. (Hopefully, this means my craziness will soon come to an end!) 

I sat and spoke to the nurses for a few minutes. They are all nice ladies. The main nurse printed me copies of all my blood work they have received so I can take them with me to Oklahoma. They all wished me luck, I thanked them, and left. Once I got to my car, I called Matt to tell him how my appointment went. I told him what Dr. T had said about trying IUI again, but told him that I would much rather wait until fall, and save up all the money for IVF than to risk another tubal pregnancy doing IUI. I felt like if we did chance the IUI, and it was tubal, then we had to pay out of pocket for the surgery, plus take the risk of it rupturing.  I just couldn't bring myself to do that, plus in the end if that did happen, I would be disappointed in myself for taking that money out of my IVF fund. He agreed, especially because with the IVF we know the embryos are being placed in my uterus, so as long as they implant, we will have a successful pregnancy. (Plus, I am kind of excited at the fact I could have 2 babies with IVF.) Which sounds crazy, maybe, but I'm not getting any younger, and I would be happy with 2 children of my own. My goal is to do the IVF in August of this year, to hopefully help me cope with the fact that was the month I was supposed to be having my baby. We have to come up with roughly $13,000 to be able to cover everything from the fertility meds, to the egg retrieval, to the embryo transfer. I have faith that we can save the money in the amount of time we have, and also have friends willing to help me do some fundraising to reach my dream of motherhood.

Overall, my mental state is better than it was a week ago. I still get teary eyed every now and again, but not as much as I was. I am keeping myself focused on the goal, and keeping my head held high. I know I will never fully get over my loss, and even though I was only two months into my pregnancy, that was my baby. My first baby at that. I will forever have a hole in my heart because of this, but I know it isn't the end. I am blessed to have a husband who supports me through all of this, and even though he has never had to go through any of this before, he is willing to do whatever he can so we can have a family together. I am blessed to have a family who loves, and supports the both of us. I am blessed to have amazing friends, who are willing to do anything they can to help me raise money to meet my goal, and who also give me moral support. I am thankful I am self employed, and I work with someone who is understanding of everything. I am thankful Matt's boss allows him to be there for me through all of this even though he doesn't quite understand all of this. Thank you to everyone who has been there for us through this. I look forward to sharing my journey with you all!