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I found out I was pregnant on January 11.

I found out I was having a miscarriage on January 19.

I found out it was actually an ectopic pregnancy on January 27. 

It all happened so quickly, from joy to sadness to fear, and everything in between, in just over two weeks. I want to write in detail about the day we found out it was ectopic because it was such an emotionally and mentally draining (not to mention physically uncomfortable) day, and I don't want to forget the details. When, someday, I'm holding a child in my arms, I want to remember what I've been through. (Which is probably why I should have started writing about all this a loooong time ago!) 

Anyway, Mike took the day off to go to my appointments with me that day. After that awful appointment where I knew something was wrong, I promised myself I'd never have to go through something like that alone again. I had a follow-up appointment a few days after my miscarriage was confirmed, and I brought my sister with me. We were monitoring my hcg levels to watch for the chance of an ectopic pregnancy, and so I was going in for blood tests every other day, and meeting with my doctor when necessary. 

I scheduled this second follow-up when my blood tests were indicating that my levels were not dropping quickly enough. I knew it could potentially be another day of bad news, so Mike took the day off to be with me. First we went to the lab for a blood draw. It was about the 600th time I've had my blood drawn in the last few weeks, so it was pretty routine by then. However, there is one guy at that lab who is TERRIBLE! He's very kind and always remembers me when I come in, but he hurts me every single time and usually leaves bruises. So of course I kicked off this awful day with a nice painful poke in the arm from the guy we have taken to calling Troll (he has an awful scraggly beard).

We waited at the lab for over an hour, and barely made it to radiology for my ultrasound. Every other ultrasound had been done in the doctor's office, but this time they sent me to the hospital. We walked in and the tech immediately said, "Do you know when your due date is?" 

Um. I'm having a miscarriage, so...

That was uncomfortable. So were the next 10-15 minutes when she explored my insides with the ultrasound wand. I could tell she was spending a very long time looking at my left ovary, so I knew something was up over there, but we had to meet with my doctor to learn anything.

So our next stop was the OBGYN's office. We were shown to an exam room, but then had to wait until they received the ultrasound results, and while we waited we could hear someone's sonogram taking place in the room next door. Mike innocently asked "What is that?" to which I replied "A baby's heartbeat."

They really need to have separate places for women who are pregnant or postnatal, and women who are struggling to conceive. Sitting in the waiting room, surrounded by baby bumps and newborns, or listening to someone else's sonogram while you wait to hear if your failed pregnancy is ectopic... it's not a lot of fun and there must be a better way.

When my doctor came in, she explained that my hcg levels had gone from 270 to 580 in one week. For anyone who doesn't know how hcg levels relate to pregnancy, here's a chart. Basically, hcg starts rapidly increasing after your missed period. A level of 580 would normally indicate a pregnancy around 4.5 weeks, but I was supposed to be more like 7 weeks at that point, so the low levels are what indicated a failed pregnancy in the first place. However, with a miscarriage, you should be seeing those levels start to decrease. So a jump from 270 to 580 indicated that something was holding on somewhere. The ultrasound suggested a growth on the left ovary that may or not have been a fertilized egg, but the hcg levels, more than the ultrasound, are what led to my doctor's conclusion. 

Before things got worse, before any more growth could happen, before anything could rupture and become life-threatening, she wanted to take care of it. Fortunately it was early enough that I didn't need surgery. Many women don't know they are pregnant at all until the fertilized egg grows so large that it ruptures their ovary or fallopian tube, causing serious and life-threatening damage, and necessitating emergency surgery. I was fortunate (amidst all the shit I can say I was fortunate) in that I just needed to get some injections that would stop the growth.

Next we had to go back to the lab to have a whole panel of blood tests done. This time I had a much better phlebotomist who didn't hurt me at all. Even though she had to do it over a giant bruise I had left over from a draw earlier in the week. Thank heavens for small graces!

I couldn't go get my injections until 2:00, so we finally got a break and went to lunch. Then we quickly stopped by Old Navy where I bought myself a comfy pair of sweatpants on clearance, and Mike bought me this adorable bright green spring jacket to reward me for being such a badass all day. 

At 2:00 we went back to the hospital. The medicine I was getting, methotrexate, is used to stop rapid cell growth. You know, like cancer. So we had to go to the cancer center for the treatment.  Unfortunately, when I got there they still had to wait for my doctor to review the blood panel and officially approve the treatment, then they had to actually order the medicine (based on my height and weight), then wait for the lab to put it all together. In all, we were there for over two hours before the injections were even ready. Mike even had time to sneak out and run an errand while I chilled in my reclining chair.

I wrote about how the actual injections went here. Pretty much I almost passed out. But soon it was all over and I was back home. However, that night I had such a strange reaction. The muscles in my butt hurt so bad that I couldn't sit or lay comfortably. I spent the whole night miserable because I couldn't find a comfortable position for sleeping. That pain went on for several days, in varying degrees, along with an exhausting ache in my legs. I felt like I had run a marathon and could barely walk. I also had some digestive issue, all-over body aches and lots of fatigue. It was kind of like having the flu with the bonus of a butt ache!

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I know this is long already, but there's one more thing I haven't really mentioned that made this whole thing even worse. As far as my job is concerned, it could not have happened at a worse time. For the last year I've been planning a big statewide conference at work. I was the primary planner and the one who knew ALL the little details. After nearly a year of not conceiving, it's almost ridiculous that I'd finally get pregnant less than a month before the big event. When I learned about my miscarriage, my boss was incredibly considerate and told me to work from home all week so I could be close to my doctor in case anything happened. She knew there was a risk of an ectopic, and I work over an hour away, so she told me to work from home until I knew I was in the clear.

She canceled a work trip she had planned, and completely took over the conference planning. Giving up this project I had worked so long and hard on was difficult on top of everything else. Knowing my absence was burdening everyone else who had to pick up the slack was devastating. Fortunately I work with amazing people who were nothing but kind and helpful.

I learned about the ectopic pregnancy on a Friday. The conference began the following Sunday. Because I had to have the injections right away, because I had to have regular blood tests following the injections, and because I didn't know how the meds were going to affect me, my boss advised me to stay home and miss the conference completely. Knowing my health was more important than work, she assured me everything was taken care of, due in large part to my stellar planning skills (thankyouverymuch).

But truly, if you would have asked me "When is the worst possible time to be diagnosed with a miscarriage?" I probably would have said January 27.

Not that there is ever a good time for such bullshit to happen.

Anyway, that went on for a few months, and then I distinctly remember, sometime in late spring, thinking maybe I better pay a little more attention to what's going on here. If we put so much effort into researching and understanding adoption, it only makes sense we'd put a little effort into conception. So I downloaded a period tracker app on my phone and started to understand ovulation and two week waits and all that. Soon after I started to notice that my cycles were strange. Once it was 31 days, then it was 35 days, then 43 days. That cycle was crazy. I even thought I was possibly pregnant because my period was almost two weeks later than I thought it should be, but two pregnancy tests told me otherwise. I even called my doctor and went in for a blood test on a Friday afternoon. I wasn't going to get the results until Monday, and instead I got my period on Sunday.

The next cycle was 56 days. FIFTY SIX! That is eight weeks, but no, once again, I was not pregnant. I eventually got my period, but by that point I was so frustrated. It's an awful feeling when the "two week wait" turns into a six week wait. You know you're not pregnant, but there is nothing you can do about it until you get your period again. So you wait and you waste so much precious time. Those weeks were truly awful, and I knew I needed to do something. So I met with my doctor and she had a bunch of blood tests done to see what was up. Turns out nothing---everything came back normal. But she did conclude that I probably wasn't ovulating. Which, duh, if I'm not releasing any eggs, I can't get pregnant. Suddenly the last 10 months felt like such a waste. Had I known all this back in February, I could have fixed it then and not spent all that time stressing and waiting and wondering.

My doctor also asked Mike to do a semen analysis just to rule out any issues with him. His numbers came back fine. The nurse misinterpreted them at first and we thought they were really low, but after he actually met with the doctor, she assured him all should be fine. So we had to get me ovulating!

Meanwhile, I had set up a meeting with an OBGYN. I had been dealing with my GP all this time, and while I love her for most things, I needed some really focused attention to this issue and I didn't think I was getting it there. But I couldn't get in with the OBGYN until January, so in the meantime my GP prescribed Clomid for me, a drug that encourages ovulation.

I ended up starting a round of Clomid on my birthday (December 8), and then we followed the doctor's advice on when to "try" and then waited. Again. 

By early January, I had begun to think maybe pregnancy wasn't for me after all. I was pretty sure I wasn't pregnant because my ovulation tests were inconclusive and I had zero symptoms at that point. Plus one of my best friends had experienced a miscarriage in October, and I became really scared about all the bad things that could happen to me if I ever did conceive. Then another best friend, someone who had been trying to get pregnant for about a year, got pregnant and then lost it. That was too much for me. Bad things were happening and I didn't want to be caught in the middle of them. It had been nearly a year and I wasn't pregnant, and maybe that was a sign.

Still, I had my OBGYN appointment on January 12, and I decided to keep it. A week before the appointment, when my period was a couple days late, I took a pregnancy test. It was negative. I assumed the Clomid failed and I had again failed to ovulate. But the day before my appointment I took another test, just so when the doctor asked "is there any chance you're pregnant?" I could confidently say no.

Well, as you know, it was positive. I was truly in shock. I had seen so many negative pregnancy and ovulation tests in the last year, I didn't think I'd ever see a yes. I was in a state of disbelief.

I brought a test to work with me so I could take another one when my bladder was full again. Mid-day, I found myself standing in public restroom stall staring at another positive test. I took a picture and sent it to my sister for confirmation. Just in case I was delusional. 

When I got home, still not convinced, I took a third test. Positive. I walked out to the living room, handed it to Mike, and said "So... this happened today." 

When I had my appointment the next day, they didn't do anything to confirm the pregnancy because they trust the home tests. Especially when you take three. They gave me a due date (September 9), a prescription for prenatals, and sent me on my way. The next day I left for Massachusetts for work, and the day after that, I started spotting and having a little pain. I was scared, but everyone was reassuring me it was completely normal. I called my doctor on Monday and they said the same thing, but asked me to get a blood test when I was back in town. 

I got stuck in Cleveland on my way home and spent a miserable night crying alone in bed. I had lingering pain exactly where I thought my uterus was, and I was alone in a crappy motel in Ohio, and I couldn't stop crying. The next day, Tuesday, I had a blood test, and then Thursday I had another one and also went in for an ultrasound. It was supposed to be a routine ultrasound, but I could tell something was wrong. The tech couldn't tell me much, but she did say that based on my hcg levels and what she was seeing in the ultrasound, I seemed to be only about 4 weeks along, not the 6.5 I was supposed to be. I pretty much freaked out and asked to talk to a doctor.

My usual doctor wasn't in, so they sent in this old guy who clearly knew nothing about my individual situation. He asked a bunch of questions that didn't make sense, and then said they couldn't conclude anything until I had the results of my second blood test to see if my hcg levels were increasing appropriately. It was the exact opposite of comforting. As soon as I walked out of the office I completely fell apart. I called my mom and bawled in her ear for a long time. Eventually I pulled myself together and went home.

That evening my sister was dropping my nephew off for the night, and as soon as she walked in the door, my phone rang. It was my doctor's office, so I answered. It was my doctor. Not a nurse. So I knew this was bad. She explained that my second blood test didn't show much of an increase in hcg, and that indicated it was not a healthy pregnancy. It was over. I hung up, sat on the couch, and cried. Fortunately I have amazing people in my life--my sister and my husband sat on either side of me and let me cry until I couldn't anymore.

One of the worst parts is that things had stopped progressing around 4 weeks, which was before I even knew I was pregnant. It was before I ever got that positive test, before I went the doctor, before I started spotting, before everything.

It was over before it even began.

More to come...

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Now that we know how this story ends, at least until the next thing happens, I should probably fill everyone in on how it all began. For someone who has been planning on adopting kids since adolescence and has never even kind of had an interest in creating her own kids, the decision to "pull the goalie" as they say (hate that phrase), is a little shocking.

So here's the story. Or, well, the first part anyway.

Nearly a year and a half ago, we began to get serious about researching adoption. It is well-documented here. For awhile we were very excited, and then we got very discouraged. After a lot of discussion, we realized we wanted our first child to be a young child. We wanted some parenting experience under our belts before we took on the challenge of an older child. So our options seemed to be:

a) Become a foster home and hope a young child comes available for adoption quickly. 

b) Save A LOT of money and adopt an infant through an agency. 

c) Try to conceive a child.

Everything we read/learned/heard indicated that while the first option is possible, it is not highly likely. And though we love the idea of adopting an infant, we were years away from being in the right situation and having enough money to do so. In order to pursue foster care or adoption, we would have to go through an extensive home study, and so we really wanted to be in a more permanent situation before beginning the process. We knew we'd be moving to a more permanent location in October and we were both hoping to find different (better) employment situations, so we knew this "more permanent situation" was still many months off. Not to mention we had to save A LOT of money before we could even apply for adoption.

So in December 2010 I spoke the words I never thought I'd say.

"What if we thought about having our own kid?"

And then in February, when my birth control prescription ran out, I didn't renew it. We decided we'd start saving for adoption while also not using protection, and we'd just see. We'd see what the universe had planned for us. We were open to options, and we just had to accept whatever was meant to be.

This is not a decision we came to lightly. Especially me. I never had any interest in having my own children, and the decision to try it was never about any desire to sow my oats or pass along my genes. I guess you could say we were looking for the quickest way to become parents. But mostly it came down to allowing ourselves to open wide our hearts and our minds.

I used to get very annoyed with couples who were so determined to procreate that they never seemed to even consider other options like adoption. But I realized maybe I was doing the same thing in reverse. I was so adamant about adopting, positive it was the ONLY way for me, that I was completely closing myself off to other possibilities.

I didn't get off birth control because suddenly I wanted or needed to have biological children. That is still not the case -- I want to be a mother, but my children do not have to share my genes. We were just keeping our options open, keeping our hearts and minds open, and waiting to see what would be right for us and our family.

Either way, we hope to adopt someday. Whether it's our first child, our second, or even a third or fourth. We haven't replaced adoption with conception, we've simply become open to new possibilities.

More on what this has meant for my psyche, what our progress on adoption and conception has been, and how hard this last year has been for me coming soon...

When I told my OBGYN this on Thursday, she said I likely misheard because she doesn't know of any connection between folic acid and the occurence of ectopic pregnancies. But that's what I heard a year ago, and that's what my mind became fixated on. No joke, I became obsessed with preventing an ectopic. Every time I forgot to take my vitamin I thought "Oh my god, I'm going to have a tubal pregnancy! I'm going to lose an ovary!" 

The statistics I read indicate an ectopic occurs in 1-2 of every 100 pregnancies. So a 1-2% chance. But somehow I knew it would happen to me. I just KNEW! 

When I got that positive pregnancy test, I wanted to be hopeful, but I was too scared. Two of my good friends had very recently experienced miscarriages, and I knew bad news came in threes. Everyone around me tried to say that was silly, they had a good feeling about this, stay positive and everything would be fine. But when I met with my OBGYN for the first time, I asked her what signs to look for, how would I know if something was wrong.

She told me later that she was caught off guard by this, that most women will ask when something seems to be going wrong, but few women ask immediately what to anticipate. I guess I just knew it was too good to be true. After so many months of trying, it would never be as easy as just getting pregnant and having a baby. Something else had to go wrong. 

I hate that I was right.

I wish with all my heart that everyone else was right - that everything was fine. 

It's almost like, by fearing it, I made it come true. A self-fulfilling prophecy. Imagine the worst and it will happen. I can't possibly have that much power, but right now it sure feels like it.

I'm still processing everything, figuring out how to feel about the last year and especially the last three weeks, but I'm handling it all so much better than I thought I would. When my friends miscarried recently, I said surely I wouldn't be strong enough to survive something so heartbreaking. But here I am, surviving. And even feeling much more positive than I could have imagined I would.

Today I went back to work. I worked all last week, but from home. Because my office is 75 minutes from my house, my boss recommended I stay close to home until I knew exactly what was going on. The last time I was in the office was two weeks ago, the day before the miscarriage was confirmed. In many ways, I was ready to go back. I had been on my couch too long; I needed my office, at least for a day, to feel human again. But I was also nervous.

It felt like a symbol I wasn't ready for. Like if I'm ready to go back to work, then I'm ready to move on. And I'm not. I'm still very much processing and grieving and no, I'm not over it yet world! You can't make me!

Tomorrow I go back to the obgyn for a follow up. I had a blood test Monday and my hcg levels are going down - the first good news I've had in awhile. It means the shots of methotrexate are doing their job. I have another blood test tomorrow morning, and in the afternoon my doctor will tell me if anything else needs to be done before I can put this whole mess in the past. I'm also hoping she can tell me a lot of others things too. I have a looong list of questions ready to go.

I deal better with information. I need information to make decisions. I need to make decisions to move forward. I need to move forward. 

I'm not sure how to deal with all these feelings I'm having. Everyone keeps telling me to stay positive, but I stayed positive all through many months of wondering what was wrong with me, I stayed positive when I found out why we weren't conceiving, I stayed positive after I got pregnant and I started spotting, I stayed positive when I miscarried and knew it could possibly be ectopic. I've stayed positive so long, and it's so exhausting, and it's gotten me here, to this awful place. I don't think I believe any longer that thinking positive gets you anywhere in situations you can't control.

What was happening was going to happen no matter what. And I don't know how much positive I have left.

This isn't just a loss of a pregnancy, nor just the loss of a baby. It's the loss of the hopes and dreams attached to being pregnant. It's the loss of all kinds of time and energy. It's a loss in my chances of ever having a normal pregnancy.

It's too much. And I feel all alone despite all the people who care about me. 

Everyone wants to be supportive, and I'm forever grateful to them. But I don't know anybody who has gone through this. Who do I turn to for real understanding?

I've been doing some reading: my chances of another ectopic pregnancy are increased, and my chances of a normal pregnancy are decreased.

I've also been reading about the federal adoption tax credit, something we've been counting on in order to afford adoption. And we learned that it's not what we thought. It's not really going to help us.

So now... starting a family just seems so distant, so impossible. We have opened our minds to so many possibilities, and every where we turn it's another road block. Another challenge. Another disappointment. 

Why do some people find it so easy to become parents, and some people have to suffer so much in the process?

First, many months of trying and failing to get pregnant.

Then, finally, a pregnancy.

A week later, bad news: failed pregnancy, miscarriage.

Days and days of blood tests, ultrasounds and doctor's visits. 

But no answers.

Then today:

Not just a failed pregnancy. A failed conception. An ectopic, meaning it took place somewhere other than the uterus. Maybe the ovary, maybe the fallopian tube, maybe somewhere else. They saw something on my left ovary today that may have been something, but what really lead to this diagnosis was my ever increasing hcg levels. When women are pregnant, their hcg levels start to rapidly increase. Mine were nowhere near that, but with a miscarriage, they should have been going down. And they weren't.

Something took hold somewhere, just not in the right place. Not anywhere it can become a baby.

Today was awful. I kicked it off with a blood draw in the morning, then a long and uncomfortable ultrasound. Then over to the doctor's office to get the bad news. Then back to the lab for more blood work. I've had so many blood draws in the last two weeks that this time they had to poke right into a giant bruise left over from a draw earlier this week. 

Then I had to go to the cancer center, of all places. The shots I got to dissolve the pregnancy are the same they use in some cancer treatments - it stops rapid cell growth. We were taken back to the room where they do chemo and other treatments, the place too many people spend too many hours of their lives. Which offered some perspective.

After 90 minutes of waiting, while my labs were cleared by the doctor and the injections were ordered, the nurse finally told me it was time. I was anticipating one shot in the arm, but she broke the news that it was two shots. In the ass.

And because she didn't want to do it in the wide open room, we went into the restroom. Yeah. I pulled down the right side of my pants and she jabbed the needle in.

Then I almost passed out. I'm not sure what happened. I think I had been holding myself together all day through a lot of crap, and that was the breaking point. I got light headed and nauseous, so she walked me to a bed and laid me down. After I had recovered, she jabbed me in the left cheek and left me to rest again.

Finally, finally I could go home.

Thank god Mike was able to take the day off and be with me the whole time. He went to every single thing with me - holding my hand, rubbing my back, telling me it was ok. I don't think I could have gotten through this day without him.

I'm so angry about this. Sad, mad, frustrated and confused. That's all I know right now.

First there was this:

And then a week later there was a phone call from my doctor saying it was over. Not a viable pregnancy.

But actually, before any of that, there was a lot of this:

Which is a story I probably should have told a long time ago. But instead, here we are.

Some of you may have picked up on the fact that our idea of and struggle to "become parents" had expanded beyond adoption (though we are still pursuing that, as well). But to some, this may be surprising news. There is a lot to tell, so much to unpack here.

I want to write about it all, and I will.

This is not the post I wanted to be writing first though. I thought I'd be revealing the exciting news of a pregnancy, of impending motherhood. But this happened instead, a miscarriage, and I can't not write about it. 

Right now I'm trying to process everything. How we came to the decision to pursue conception alongside adoption, how I spent nearly a year failing to get pregnant, the shock of a positive pregnancy test, the week I spent celebrating that victory, and then dealing with the loss of the pregnancy and everything that was attached to it. It's a lot.

More soon...

Anyway, we ended up creating avatars for all of my sisters and my two older nieces. We had very little control over the features of these people -- we couldn't change height, weight, etc. So we mostly focused on wardrobe and accessories. 

First up, me.

That tank top reminded me of one I actually own. And then we gave me boot cut jeans, colorful shoes, a fun purse and a pretty necklace. Compare:

Next was my sister Andrea.

This is so her, it's scary. She rarely wears anything but black, brown, grey or white. And she's always in heels - I don't think she even owns any flats. I couldn't find any of her standing alone, but here she is on the right:

Replace the skates with black heels, give her a black bag, and it's practically identical. 

Next up, my sister Emily.

Here's the thing about Em. She wears things that nobody else in our family would wear. Nothing wacky or bizarre, but she has a very unique style that includes turtle necks, overwhelming sweaters, corduroys, etc. She rocks it like none of us could. So we put her in this matronly shirt that nobody but her could pull off, pants that mimic corduroys, mule-looking shoes, and a plaid purse.

The best I could do to represent Em in real life is to show you how I dressed up like her once for Halloween, and how closely her actual outfit that day was to my costume.

And now for my sister Kelli.

When I showed this to her, she said, "I love it. I want those sunglasses." This might be a little extreme, but actually, no it's not. Those capris are supposed to be skinny jeans that tuck into her zebra-print boots. She loves red, she's always in HUGE sunglasses, and she's a great accessorizer. Her wedding dress was black, red and zebra-print for god's sake!

She may kill me for this picture because it's a terrible angle, but it's one of the best to demonstrate her style. And for the record, she is seriously like 120 pounds, so that second chin is all skin!

Now here is my sister-in-law Brandy. 

We tease Brady all the time about her "ghetto" get-ups. They're not really, but we like to tease. So we put her in the clubbiest ensemble we could create, booty shorts and all. I'm ashamed to say I don't have many photos of her where she isn't buried in kids or surrounded by other people, but here she is on our Montana vacation this summer.

The next three girls are 11, 10 and 9, so these avatars are a little too womanly to represent them. But we worked with what we had. Here is my half sister Delaney.  

I don't know if I'd call her a tomboy, but she has a very casual, comfortable style, which I love about her. For some reason, hers was one of the hardest styles to capture in this program.

And now my niece Taylor.

She was the niece that helped design these, and she created hers all on her own. She was sure to point out that her t-shirt should say Aeropostale instead of Lifetime. How perfect that I found this photo of her from just last month with her Aero shirt on and her high ponytail.

And finally my niece Caleigh.

She's only nine, but she has such a fun sense of style, wearing lots of sparkles and hair bows, big necklaces and bold colors. One of my favorite photos of her is from last christmas. She is the gigglest girl I know, but ask her to smile for the camera and this is often what you get.

That's it! If I could find that program again I might go back and create my mom and stepmom. We ran out of time before the cranky toddler demanded everyone's attention! 

Any Bostonites reading?

I have a friend that lives there and has agreed to entertain me for most of my visit, but I'm going to have to kill several hours by myself in the late morning and afternoon one day. I have no idea what to do. Google offered a lot of ideas, of course, but how do you prioritize? I need some ideas. Museums? Historical sites? If you had 6 hours in Boston, what would you do?

Or better yet, if you live in or near Boston... wanna hang out with me?