A New Day

First of all, I want to thank every single one of you for your thoughts and prayers over the past couple of days.  It is nice to know that when you're going through something like this, there are people who care enough to take the time to acknowledge your loss and let you know they're thinking of you.  I'm going to apologize in advance--this may be a bit of a long post, so if you don't want to read all the way through it, I completely understand.  Rumor has it, though, that writing is therapeutic, (DUH) so here goes:

Support systems are so important---and the blogosphere is one of my main ones, especially now. I didn't want to tell a bunch of analog people in my life that I was pregnant until later on--and now I realize that the Grouper and I made the right decision.  Aside from losing the baby itself, the single hardest thing about the past few days was when I had to tell my parents that I was no longer expecting their first grandchild.  I think this was so hard because the looks on their faces when I told them the good news initally were so priceless and they were SO excited.  I don't want them to worry about me, especially when it's about things that none of us can control.  I was very proud of myself that I was able to tell them and talk about things without crying.  I actually haven't cried since Sunday.

The whole thing has been such a blur.  I'll try to recap without going into super gory details.

It started late Friday night with just a bit of spotting.  Although some of that is normal, I knew right away that something was wrong.  Poor Grouper was downstairs on the internet reading stuff aloud to me while I laid upstairs in bed bawling my eyes out.  Even though I was so upset, it was pretty hilarious to hear him yelling words about the female anatomy out loud (he normally avoids those at all costs).

Saturday morning it became a little worse. When I wrote the post on my blog, I was basically in shock.  I did a lot of staring at the walls when we were at our house on Saturday.  I couldn't really do anything, so Grouper forced me to get out of the house and stop sitting around thinking about it.  We went over to my brother-in-law's house on Saturday for the day.  His wife recently had a miscarriage, so I was able to talk to her about the symptoms I was having and she basically had the exact same issues as I did and she was at the exact same point in her pregnancy as I was.  She was very understanding and supportive and she calmed me down a lot.

By Sunday I was almost positive that it was done.  I wasn't feeling terrible, so I knew I didn't really need to go to the ER or anything, and we went back to my BIL's house for dinner.   Having normal conversations with them and seeing my nephews really helped....in fact, I almost was able to forget about what was going on.  It was weird, it was almost like a switch flipped.  I didn't feel pregnant anymore.  All of the symptoms I had been having--supersonic smelling powers, enhanced chesticles, being bloated....they were all gone.  And I thought about how many people who have had to go through things that are so much worse....and I was ok.

Grouper was so cute on Monday morning when we woke up.  At first I didn't really want to get out of bed, so I laid there for quite a while.  I rolled over and he was looking at me with the cutest look on his face.  I said, "What are you doing?"  He said, "Being your support group...or should I say, "Support Grouper!"  He's so cute and can make me laugh even when I'm feeling terrible.  I called the doctor's office first thing Monday morning and she got me in around 2pm.  She did an exam and an internal ultrasound (once again, the poor Grouper got WAYYYYY too much information and saw WAYYY too much of what goes on in an OB office) and said that there was no baby anymore and that hopefully the bleeding would go away soon.  The good news she had was that there aren't any problems with any of my lady business, so there's no reason that we shouldn't be able to start trying again soon once I have a normal cycle.  She said it is very common (believe me, this I know--there are SO many people I know who have gone through this) and that all I can do is try again.  She couldn't believe how calm I was and that I hadn't called her emergency number.  I told her that I was already pretty sure that I knew what was happening, I was pretty sure I wasn't having any complications, and I knew that there wasn't going to be too much she could do about it, so I just waited.  My doctor is so great.  I love her.  If this was going to happen, it actually happened in the best way possible---it was on the weekend, we were at our house in Michigan, and I got to see my OWN doctor (the alternative would have been that I would have been in Canada, away from family, and I would have had to see a doctor at a walk-in clinic who I don't know).

The nurse took some blood yesterday to test my HCG levels, and I got the results today.  The number is low, but they want to follow the number all the way back down to zero to make sure that everything cleared out on its own and that my hormones are getting back to normal.  I have to find a lab here in the Toronto area to do that for me, and I have to get that done tomorrow.  I'm honestly ready to just move on.  I know there are going to be some emotions to deal with, but once I get done with all this bleeding and with the blood tests, it will be so much easier.

Tassels has been great through this, too.  I told her I was pregnant right away and she and a couple others were really awesome this weekend when I was freaking out.  I talked to her every day and she is coming to see me on Friday, so that will be some much deserved (and definitely MUCH NEEDED and eight months' overdue) girl time in store.  She and I both agree that it is not coincidence that she is coming to see me this weekend---it's FATE.

Bottom line--I'm ok with this.  Everyone has bumps in the road, and it totally sucks, but I'm so lucky to have great support systems and awesome people in my life.  I'm fortunate that nothing is really wrong with me and that Grouper and I now know for sure that we CAN get pregnant.  Now we just have to do it again!