So, it's been a while since I last posted but the Kennedy family has been a little busy and life got in the way of my blog. And while up to this point this blog has tracked our journey from start to finish, I have no choice tonight but to time travel to present day.
About six months ago, John and I made the decision to start the process once again and take our chances with the three embryos that we had left from Maggie's cycle in the hopes of offering her a sibling. We knew that the process would take some time. I am approaching my mid-30's and "our plan"...really "John's plan" has always been to have the kids out of the house by the time we are 55...so his clock was also ticking. We went through all of the necessary steps to make this happen. Open enrollment season arrived and we swallowed our pride and changed our insurance so that we would have the coverage we needed which does not come cheaply, I might add. We scheduled an appointment with Dr. Seli. We gave our wonderful daycare provider a heads up. We began taking stock of our finances and figuring out how we could make it work with another member of the family. We talked about whether we would need to cave and buy a minivan or better yet, a new house. We looked at 2 baby strollers. We did it all...we had made the decision and we were moving forward.
After our first consultation with Dr. Seli on November 1, 2010 he advised that we wait a few more months until Maggie turned 18 months old. I had a c-section with her and he wanted to offer more time for my body to recover from that. There were a couple of tests (no shock there) that I would have to go through before we could start the process and once I was in the clear there we could start the shots, pills, etc... in order to prepare my body for the frozen embryo transfer.
We counted days. We predicted due dates. We planned our summer around the prospect of a pregnancy and our excitement built and built and built. And finally we received word that my body was ready and March 11, 2011 was the day...the transfer day.
We went to the clinic that morning knowing what to expect more or less. After all, this was not our first rodeo. We went into the procedure room and suddenly we were presented with the most amazing picture. It was of the three Kennedy babies (from under a microscope of course). And they didn't look like much more than a bundle of cells, but they were our cells, and for two years we had loved them like they were already our children.
The embryologist, fellow, nurse, and Dr. Seli all commented on how remarkable these embryos were and how our chances for twins were extremely high given their quality...and so we began to prepare even more for the prospect of multiples. Obviously we knew it was a chance...after all we were transferring three but we had always thought that was a long shot...but it didn't seem like such a long shot anymore.
The transfer was relatively uneventful with the exception of the remarkable picture and afterwards I went home and rested for the weekend. And the waiting began.
Fortunately, because the three embryos were 5 day blastocysts my waiting period was only 11 days instead of the full 14 that I had experienced the first time around.
I filled those 11 days with as much as I could in the hopes that they would fly by and we would get the news we had waited so long for. And finally, those 11 days came to a close and once again I drove to the clinic...this time with Maggie in tow for my 7:30am blood work that would tell me if we were going to have a baby or babies! And then there was more waiting.
As I begin to write this, my fingers are suddenly freezing up. I am not sure they know how to tell they next part of our story. Perhaps it's still too fresh. Perhaps I still don't understand it myself. But I will march on and share it as best I can.
On March 22, 2011 at 12:02pm, while I was having lunch with my very good friend/work husband the call came....we were expecting! My HCG levels had come back at a whopping 271 (an indication of multiples) and we could celebrate...and we did.
I immediately called John at work. We told our bosses. We told our parents and siblings. I told a few people at work and a few close friends. The clinic scheduled us to return for more bloodwork on the 24th and every other day after that and once my levels reached 2500 they would do an ultrasound to determine how many Kennedy babies were joining the world.
We talked about how we would announce it to the world and decided a big sister t-shirt for Maggie would be the approriate method and ordered it right away from cafe press.We were moving forward full steam ahead...all we needed to know was whether we would be a family of 4, 5 or 6!
On Thursday, March 24, I returned to the clinic for my bloodwork and mentally prepared myself for them to call with some astronomical number that was further evidence of multiples. I won't sugarcoat it, I was already feeling overwhelmed at the prospect of more than one baby, but I knew that we could handle it...somehow. That afternoon at about 2:00pm while I was standing in the athletic center setting up for a major event, the call came. My palms were sweaty, my heart was racing, what was it...what could the number be??? Immediately when I heard the nurse's voice I knew something was wrong. My levels had dropped from 271 to 185...this was not a good sign. I was devastated...paralyzed with fear, sadness, and disappointment. Something was wrong. The nurse reassured me that perhaps there had been more than one baby and that I had lost one but there was no reason to believe that the pregnancy had ended. I had to go back in two more days.
I went back on Saturday...waited all day for the call...the call came. The number had dropped again. I was down to 88. They scheduled me for another follow up on Monday.
Monday came...I waited all day...the call came. The number was down to 22. There was nothing left and I had had a miscarriage. The three Kennedy babies that were conceived in January 2009 were gone.
And so we grieve and ask ourselves, where do we go from here?
