Well, nearly three months have passed since my last entry. Some wounds have healed, some questions have been answered, and life plans have changed. Since March 30 as a family we have come to grips with the reality that we may never be more than a family of three...that is if you don't count our four legged daughter. In the early days after my miscarriage there was the urgent sense of we need to decide what to do. Do we try again? Do we try on our own? Do we do IVF? Can we do IVF? What are the risks? Do we want to start all over again? Do we want to move on? There were zillions of questions and at the end of it all we have come to terms with we need to do what feels right for us.
We had a consultation in early April with Dr. Seli to discuss what had happened even though we knew there were no real answers. For that matter we would never even know just how many we had for just a few brief days. Speculation says three babies were on their way to us, so the mindset that I have is that three was more than we could handle and that is why we lost them. In my mind it's the only way I can make sense of it. During our consultation with Dr. Seli I sobbed and sobbed. He was definitely taken by surprise by this, after all, I was only 5 weeks along. But through the tears I tried to explain to him that because these embryos had been a part of our life since January 2009 the loss felt so much deeper. We had endless conversations about them as we drove past the non-descript building on our way to Ikea. We talked about names. We talked to Maggie about them. And, perhaps that was the wrong approach, but that was our approach. And because we had one successful pregnancy it never in a million years entered my mind that the next one wouldn't have the same result.
During our consultation we asked lots of questions...how soon could we do IVF again if we chose to? Could the cyst that almost cost us Maggie return? Could I have another miscarriage? What were our options if we didn't want to do IVF? What were our options if we didn't want to freeze any embryos? and on and on and on...
There were no real answers only a feeling inside that I didn't want to have my life consumed by doctors' appointments, fertility medications, crazy expensive health insurance, wonder, doubt, and fear. We said when we started the process in 2008 that all we wanted was one health baby...and we had that. So, before we were even out of the building, I looked at John and said...I'm done. I don't want to do it again.
I remember feeling like he was going to be disappointed but at the end of the day he has supported me and has accepted that we may only ever be a family of three. Since that time there have been a handful of occasions where I have felt like maybe I want to try again, but more often than not I feel like my life is complete.
Throughout the course of our second round and then subsequent miscarriage I talked with my mom almost every day. And in every conversation I tried to figure out what was right and would try to reason with the unreasonable. And in the course of one of those conversations I said to my mom..."I don't want Maggie to feel like she wasn't enough." And since then that has been my guiding light...and so I have made peace with our fate. There are nights when I am sad...tonight is one of them...but we are so blessed to have the little girl that we have and I couldn't be happier to be Margaret's Mama.
