Cellulite and broken dreams

It’s been five weeks now.  Feels like forever and yesterday all at once.  For a while all everyone wanted to do was to ask me how I am, and I constantly struggled to answer them.  Now they’ve stopped asking, which is a kindness in a way.

This loss has affected me differently from the first one, deeper, driving right to my core and draining me of energy and positivity. It was about 10 days of so after the D&C that I really started to fall apart.  It got so bad that my boss sent me to a psychologist, who diagnosed me with depression and suggested medicating me.

No.  No more medication.

But the psychologist did at least validate my feelings. I wondered if I was being overly dramatic, but no, she listened – not just to the current news, but to my whole story.  We all have complicated stories, but the fact that she actually seemed a bit blown away by mine was nice in a really odd way.

After that I gave myself a good talking to and started to make some positive changes in life. My theory is that if I do things that are meant to make me feel better, maybe eventually it will work.

So I started my yoga practice and returned to some regular running.  I have been eating unbelievably well – dieting to lose the IVF/pregnancy softness that is inevitable – and taking a bunch of super-expensive vitamins that will apparently make my egg quality spectacular.  Plus, I went back to my lady who gives me my cellulite-clearing treatments. Maybe it’s just me, but pregnancy (even if it is not a full pregnancy) gives me cellulite on my thighs. I won’t lie, I like my legs and they usually look pretty spectacular.  My husband has always said my butt and my legs are fantastic (well my boobs are quite small, so every cloud etc) and so when they all started to go bad it put my self-confidence at a maximum low.  The cellulite-busting treatment helps me to get some confidence back, and it ACTUALLY works.  It’s not some BS cream.  It’s heavy duty massage that hurts like hell but does break up the cellulite and clears it out.

I was doing okay for a while there and starting to gain confidence and positivity.  And then I got the karyotype (genetic) tests back. The doctor had always told me the testing was mainly pointless because the missed miscarriage was most likely caused by a genetic defect.  And after having had two of those in a row I figured our embryos were just genetically bad.  A group of rotten apples if you like.

But then the test came back and there was no genetic issue with my baby.  None.  SO WHAT THE HELL IS CAUSING THE MISSED MISCARRIAGES?  I have really no idea, and my doctor was totally useless saying just that the “treatment” will continue.  No extra testing, no hypothesising.  Just try again.  Kiss goodbye to 10k and whatever small piece of normal life you have and try again.

Well stuff that.  I have started doing my own research (hellooooo my old friend Google) and there are so many tests we can do!  All sorts of things for auto-immune issues that could, for example mean that my body is not feeding the placenta (or what would have become the placenta) and thus a perfectly normal embryo could fail.  I also have something called Raynaud’s syndrome which can sometimes be a sign of an underlying autoimmune problem.  My doctor knows this and yet he still doesn’t test for autoimmune. He tests for nothing. Recommends nothing.

So I’m going to go to a haematologist – without mentioning this to my doctor – and I will test myself.  If anything important shows up I will of course mention this to my doctor, but this is what it’s come to.  To say my doctor is not my favourite person is an understatement.  His one-size-fits-all approach must be a great cash cow, but for sure it doesn’t work for everyone.

But do you know what was the worst bit about the karyotype testing? I found out the gender of our baby.  It was a girl.

This broke me.  Completely.

I don’t know why it should matter so much and would I have been more or less sad if I had learned it was a boy? I don’t know. But knowing the baby had a gender was a huge reality-check.  I lost a baby.  Another one.  While people all around me have babies. It hurts more than I thought would be imaginable.

So that’s why I haven’t been writing on here recently.  I really am just focusing on finding a way of getting up every day and carrying on. I can’t even bear to read the other blogs and I’m sorry to all of you kind and wonderful ladies out there who I normally keep up with.

It’s just that every time I tune in here I see someone else’s baby scan and I see the little legs of a baby forming and it breaks my heart.  If my first pregnancy had worked I would be finishing up the last days at work now and giving birth in a few weeks.  If my second pregnancy had worked I would now be parading around the beach with a beautiful baby bump.

But there are no babies for me. Just cellulite and broken dreams. Some part of me is still fighting, still wants to go on or else I would have totally thrown in the towel by now.  My husband is spectacular in all of this – he’s been so patient with all of my sadness and moods and has barely made me see his family at all (thank goodness).  Someone give him a medal!

I look back a year ago when I was just starting all of this.  I was so full of optimism and expectation that this would just work.  It was never really an option that it would fail. Somehow I have to find that optimism once again.  I’m trying.  I really am.