I think I'm in shock.
I'm calm, sad, stoic, a bit numb, but in shock. So, as most of you know through my text sent today, our blastocyst passed on this morning and our cycle was cancelled.
So, since I've captured everything, it's time to capture this experience too.
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I could barely sleep all night. I was so excited. I beginning praying early in the morning, to my passed loved ones, to Beanie, to all of my friends on the other side, asking for guidance and strength in this process. I danced for Mark in the kitchen, what I like to call the "corn dance" and we talked about how exciting that today we'd be bringing our little one home. We laughed and smiled and made all sorts of milestone comments, the morning was sweet, and rich and full of hope. It was beautiful and nothing can change that.
My morning with Jonah was also sweet. I nursed him on and off the entire morning, because I had wanted to feel *just him and I* one last time before bringing the blast home in my womb. I just wanted some me and him time, and I made time for it and it was good and fulfilling. The time came, the nanny came in, we acclimated and Mark and I drove off. We were giddy, excited, hearts racing. We took a video (we took a video every single IVF appointment and milestone with Jonah's transfer) and we talked to the screen about how today was the day and we would meet our little one again. Mark was cautious as he always is, but the ride there was another exciting time (full of stops to pee, my poor bladder! I'd been drinking since the morning time.)
Once we got to the hospital, Mark suggested I get out and pee first and then he'd park and meet me in the lobby. I checked in up front and made a joke with the receptionist "I'm here to take home my bebe!" (I said that with a Austin Powers accent, by the way)
I curled up into the same chair in the lobby I always curl up into and picked up a People magazine. Flipping through I kept looking up to see when Mark was coming. The nurse K came out to see me and I said excitedly "So good to see you K! Today's the day!" Mark came through the door and I smiled at him and I thought the look on his face was strange. He said he needed to talk to me in the back room. I was confused. Why would he need to talk to me if I'm about to go into acupuncture?
He pulled my hand into an empty room and all of a sudden I was outside my yard again with the neighbor bringing my mauled chihuahua. The shock of loss while in such a complete opposite mindset is a trauma I cannot explain. When everything is good one moment, and then gone the next, it's unsettling, truly the word disturbing. To my soul, my psyche, my ability to just simply understand.
The same energy of Beanie's death loomed in the air and he sat me down on the chair and said while parking the car, the clinic had called him and told him that the blast had died during the thaw. I don't think the information really sunk in. I stared at him, the floor, the walls. And we cried. We held each other. We talked. And cried more. I cried for 41 days of medications and plenty more days of hope. I cried for the loss of something I don't think I could possibly explain.
And then I accepted. I accept. I accept that this has happened, I accept that it didn't make the thaw and that life must and will go on. I accept that this is a risk we knew the odds were on our side,but we knew this could have happened and unfortunately it did and we must heal and move on.
I will tell you I have a sadness in me that hits deep. My chest is heavy, the loss of the potential is overwhelming. I feel foolish for researching baby things over the last months. I admit to a mourning of not only my blast, but the thoughts and dreams I'd had over Jonah and his sibling at this age, proximity in ages, taking pregnancy tests over the next week, getting morning sickness, feeling movements all over again. Sure, just a bit delayed, but a sense of grieving none the less, if nothing less than potential.
And so that's it. That entire journey, gone within seconds. I started this blog almost six months ago, wow.
As I promised in my letter to my blastocyst:
"And with this letter, I must say my little blastocyst, that should you not survive this process, should you not survive the thaw, should you not survive to live ten months in my womb like your brother, that I thank you for giving us hope and experience in this journey. I thank you for letting Jonah "go first" and I thank you for the three years you waited to come back home.
Should you not join our family little blastocyst, I promise you I will acknowledge, recognize, and honor the menstrual blood that separates you from me weeks later. I will take pause and appreciate the precious things around me, the amazingness which is every single second of life that we often forget."
So I will do this and of course leave room for my sadness and healing. We'll try again early next year sometime. We will need to do a full "fresh" IVF cycle which involves a lot more meds, a lot more injections, one surgery for Mark and one for me. It's a tough road, a full cycle. But we'll get through it.
Thank you to all of my friends and family who have supported me and listened to me and maybe been at the end of my Queen Bitch phases. Love to all of you.
