The Waiting Game

Our last post is from someone who has not only had to face infertility and miscarriage but also had some to battle many other struggles along the way. This post took a lot of courage to share and I thank you.  A few posts back Chris spoke about anxiety after the sad news of Robin Williams passing.  (See post here) The stress of infertility can lead  you down many solitary, dark roads. It can unveil other aspects  that can compound the problem such as stress, depression, anxiety and sometimes, the disease of alcoholism. Read on as my dear friend shares her story.

I’m currently 30 years old, my husband 33. Approaching our 7th wedding anniversary, we are still childless.

It all started on October 13, 2007 when my husband and I got married in the beautiful mountains of Virginia at Wintergreen Resort. I remember zoning out during the ceremony, because marriage was one of those surreal events that I never thought I would get to participate in as the bride. However, there I was, all dressed up and on stage, and taking a giant step in my adult life in front of friends and family.

Even before the ceremony, I had ceased all preventative measures to prevent conception, because we were close enough. I was always in a rush to be somewhere, obtain something, or reach some telling life event, and was really in love with the idea of becoming a mom before the age of 25. Obviously, life doesn’t unfold to how we envision.

A couple years went by with no signs of morning sickness, or even a faint shadow of a second pink line, and I started getting that gut feeling that ‘something isn’t working right down there’. I began dabbling in the online world of Trying-To-Conceive forums, and learned more than I ever thought I would about my cycle, body temperature, and other bodily fluids. I met some really crazy dedicated women, and began to notice how long some of them had been at this cruel game. 6 months, 10 months, 2……YEARS? I really had no idea that it could take THAT long to get knocked up! I certainly knew that wasn’t going to be me.

During the first four years of our marriage, we had a couple factor that probably contributed to the difficulty in our ability to conceive: the first being that we really weren’t even trying. Sure, we weren’t preventing anything, but the temperature-taking and chart keeping wasn’t for us. I mean, I had enough trouble remembering to wake up and go to work every day. The second factor was perhaps the one that was a blessing in disguise: I was, at the time, an active alcoholic and prescription pill addict. My addiction was getting worse, and my drinking was daily. This factor did not diminish in any way how much I still wanted to be a mom, and a good one.

Three years into our marriage, it appeared it was falling apart. I was oblivious to the fact that I needed some serious help for my out of control drinking and drug use, and became angry when anyone tried to intervene. I was as hot of a mess as a hot mess could be, and my husband was tired of watching me slowly kill myself, bottle by bottle. On his birthday in 2010, I was admitted to the psychiatric hospital for the first of eight visits. Over the next two years, any chance of trying to get pregnant was smashed, as i teetered on the edge of sobriety and insanity. I would obtain thirty days sober, then fall a few days off the wagon. Today, I’m able to recognized how very blessed I am to have patient and caring people that stuck by my side when I was so ill. I would have left me long ago.

February 5th, 2012 is a date I will never forget. I was still up that morning from drinking by my lonesome all night, and the hole that engulfed my soul (which I have come to believe can be physically felt right below the sternum) was the biggest and blackest gaping pit I have ever emotionally experienced. A walking shell of a woman, I had personally come to meet what I know as my own personal hell on earth, and I knew that if I wanted a chance to grew as an individual, a wife, and have the opportunity to be a mother, something would have to change. I, to this day, hold that the following, most difficult decision I’ve ever made would save my relationship with my family, my husband, and would most importantly save my life. I decided to walk away from the bottle. I have not had a drink since.

Only a short month into my recovery, I was sitting on the front stoop of our small duplex, having a chain smoke with my coffee……because all newly-sober people still need some sort of vice. Before heading off to work, my husband inquires into when I’m expecting Aunt Flo To make her arrival…..kind of this thing he did every month to ask in a round about way if we were still child-free. And, like every month before this one, I’d guesstimate. Only this time it left this itching question in my mind: ‘could I really be pregnant?’ He carted for the day, and I ran to pee on a plastic stick.

Holy. Shit. Holy. Shit. Two pink lines. Holy Shit.

I can’t even use exclamation marks here because of the absolute raw emotion that I was feeling at the moment. I was in absolute awe. I was absolutely happy and excited and thrilled and…..here it is. One of those surreal life events that I was getting to experience. Holy. Shit.

Again, I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t wait to tell my husband something I’ve waited four years to tell him. And now that the moment was here, how was I to do it? Cliche picture of a bun in an oven? Onesie with “World’s Best Dad” written on it? Nope. I couldn’t wait, so I called him while he was at work.

The next month crawled by so very slow. I knew everything was going to be fine, but I wanted to get to the first ultrasound so I could ‘post it on Facebook’! I couldn’t wait. At 7 weeks and 5 days, our ultrasound was perfect, and we even saw a perfect, tiny flicker of a heart beat. There it was. Life. Tiny, precious life, and I was growing it.

I couldn’t wait. We shared the news publicly almost instantly. I still don’t regret going viral before the first trimester, because the outpouring of support we received after our loss was incredible. Everyone was ecstatic. This was to be the first grandchild for both my parents and my husband’s parents. I started dreaming of all of the wonderful things I was going to do with my child, whether it would be a he or a she, and how I could decorate the nursery. I couldn’t wait. Following such a dark time with alcoholism for both my husband and I, this event shown as such a bright light for our future. It appeared to be the end of our suffering.

The day I received the news that i had lost the baby on May 7th 2012 was a hell-on-earth gut-punching soul-sucking awful day. I remember I was in such a crappy mood on the way to the appointment, and Limp Bizkit’s “Break Stuff” came on the radio (which, if you’re not familiar with it, it’s a very angry song) and I related a lot. I knew that, for the past couple weeks, I had felt less and less pregnant, one symptom after another quietly fading away. I checked in at the front desk of the appointment office, and sat outwardly-patient, but inwardly I was annoyed with all of the pregnant women complaining about this and that in the waiting room. Please shut up.

I was called back, and after a brief conversation with the specialist about the plethora of antidepressants I took earlier in the pregnancy, I consented to the 12 week ultrasound to check from abnormalities. I couldn’t wait! I got to see my baby that day. I had Googled hundreds of images of what a normal ultrasound should look like at 12 weeks, and when the technician began rubbing the wand over my barely-altered stomach, I knew. Please. God no. Something was’t right. The baby wasn’t big enough. My baby looked different than Google. And the technician confirmed my worst fear.

There was no heartbeat.

I felt numb. Nothing. I cried, but it wasn’t from the pain of the loss. It was because, for four years I wanted that little baby so badly, and I finally had him or her. And just like that, before it even began, it was over. The technician left the room for what seemed like hours (I now know it was only five minutes) and left the final image of my baby on the screen in the room. He or she looked just like a gummy bear. Tears flowing and emotions halted, I bonded with that tiny gummy bear, right there in the ultrasound room. This time I could wait. Please. Don’t take my baby.

I will always remember the woman on the elevator as I wandered aimlessly out of that office. I was visibly upset, and I have no idea who she was, but she was nothing short of a guardian angel in a time of need that she couldn’t even begin to understand. I had just lost my baby. I wanted to drink. And my head was spinning in an emotional upheaval. And there she was.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

And I was scream-crying “I just lost my baby!!”

And it was the hug that I received from her that saved me from self-destruction that day. This complete stranger cared enough to ask me what was the matter, and embraced my broken soul when she learned why I was losing it. Thank you, where ever you are.

The grieving that has taken place after our loss is nothing short of a roller coaster ride. My entire life, I’ve tried to alter how I feel with substance, especially when I feel uncomfortable. That has not been an option after the miscarriage, and I’ve felt newer and more raw emotions than ever before. Being able to understand and walk through the tuff stuff is what has allowed me to heal the past couple years.

I have done a lot of soul-searching since the loss, and, like many women who have lost pregnancies, I kept asking myself why it happened. What could I have done to prevent this? Did I accidentally eat something wrong? And the hardest question for me of all was this: was I being punished for being an alcoholic? And if so, am I to remain barren for the rest of eternity? I have come to peace with a lot of these questions, including this last subject. I’m am not a bad person. I just have a bad disease, and I’m doing something about it. And nothing I did nor could have done could have changed the outcome of this failed pregnancy.

Since the miscarriage, my husband and I have put a little more effort into getting pregnant; however, we have not been successful. I’ve sought help from a well-renowned reproductive endocrinologist, and have had to postpone many treatments because of curves in the road. I’ve lost over 75 pounds since the miscarriage, currently am at a normal weight for my height, and have been working on my physical and mental health. I have joined the RESOLVE infertility support group, which provided a wonderful fellowship of women (and men) going through this same trying journey. I am still a sober member of a 12-step program, and continue to be a more present daughter and wife. And most of all, I continue to hold on to hope. Hope that one day I will be laying in a hospital bed, hooked up to two monitors (one for me, and one for mini-me), preparing to give birth…….zoning out because I’m partaking in another one of life’s surreal moments that I’m finally getting to experience. And that I can wait for.

What a testament of strength and courage to share this story. So many of us battle vices to help feel those voids we scream into but yet hear no response.  She has taken the burn to be a mother and has used that to uncover a new hope.  She kicked the crap out of alcoholism, looks amazing now and is seeking out the support to help now battle the disease of infertility. I know with this type of drive that she will be a mother,  her story will have a happy ending.  And the wait, that long seemingly endless wait,  will finally come to an end.