The "leaving others behind" guilt

I know we all have some feelings of guilt....being a parent is filled with guilt, right?

I swear that is one of the first things my mom told me after I gave birth to the girls. Her logic/wisdom went something like this: "From this point forward you are going to feel guilty about nearly everything you do or do not do for your children. You will question your decisions constantly. But the best thing you can do is make the decisions to the best of your ability at the time, and not look back or question it later." She was right. I have felt guilty about a lot of things! Some seemingly important, and some not so important.
- Some days I feel guilty that I have to work outside of the home to support my family instead of being able to stay home with my girls and raise them myself...
- Other days I feel guilty that I would actually prefer to work outside of the home to staying home with my crazy toddlers...=)
- Sometimes I feel guilty that as hard as I try, both girls don't get exact equal treatment...
- Often I feel guilty that on my day off with the girls I spend way more time managing them then I do enjoying them...

Sound familiar?

Then there is other, non-toddler related guilt...
- I feel guilty that sometimes I neglect my marriage in favor of spending more time with my children...
- I feel guilty that I have lost touch with several of my friends, especially non-mommy friends...and I don't have the time or energy at this point to work on re-establishing contact...
- I feel guilty that every once in a while I want to think about myself, a massage, shopping, and a pedicure, instead of spending time with my family....

But there is an infertility related guilt that has been eating away at me since I found out I was pregnant with baby #3...the "leaving others behind" guilt.
Let me explain.
Some of you had a long road with IF and fertility treatments on your path to parenthood and you will understand exactly where I am coming from with this. Others of you though didn't have to really try to start your family...getting pregnant and maintaining pregnancy wasn't difficult.
Way back in 2008 after we had tried unsuccessfully to get pregnant "the old fashioned way" for a couple years, we sought out the help of my OB. He decided to try clomid as a first line treatment for infertility. The day I started clomid I sought out support from the online IF (infertility) community. It was AMAZING to find this sort of support. Loads of people in the exact same boat and all with the same goal; to have a baby. I made a lot of close friends on these infertility boards. We went through everything together. We were there for each other through all of the failures, and through the joys as well (although admittedly there were way more failures than successes, and we went through years of treatments together - clomid, IUI's, IVF's). These girls have a piece of my heart forever...literally. I swear they could feel my pain and I could feel theirs...and I still can.

When IVF#2 worked for us and we were finally able to maintain a pregnancy (instead of miscarrying AGAIN) I felt relieved, yet incredibly guilty. What about my IF ladies???? I knew how much it hurt for someone to announce a pregnancy...I remember how much it hurt to hear people talk about (and especially complain about) being pregnant....I remember crying every time I got invited to a baby shower and trying desperately to come up with some excuse why I couldn't go. I never wanted to hurt people the way that I had been (unintentionally) hurt.

I have two people close to my heart that started trying to concieve very close to the same time we started trying to concieve, and who are still trying. They have both had multiple miscarriages and no live births.
When we got pregnant with the girls, I felt we "deserved" it. We had been through years of heartache and tears....maxed out credit cards, more tests on my lady bits than anyone should ever have to endure, hundreds of shots, piles of blood draws, multiple surgeries, probably 50 ultrasounds....it was my turn to have a successful pregnancy and a take home baby.

But this time?
No.

We thought we were probably done having kiddos.
Really.
We were perfectly happy with our girls.
We had no intention of using our frozen embryos...I mean, we had considered MAYBE in 5 years trying a FET...but really, we were happy just the way we were. We spent so much time thinking that we may not be able to have any kids. We would have been thrilled to have just one. But two? And absolute blessing from God! How perfect!

But this? Baby #3? We weren't even trying....
Our girls are still little....
Why us?
Why now?
Why not Catherine? Why not Mo? Why not one of my friends that had decided to go the adoption route and has been patiently waiting for YEARS to get their baby? They have been waiting SO long. It is their turn. It broke my heart to post that I was pregnant. Literally. That's why it took me a while into my pregnancy to post. I didn't want to offend anyone. I didn't want to be THAT girl....
Yet that seems to be exactly what I am....
And I feel SO guilty...
Mommas with a "natural" pregnancy after infertility, or any pregnancy after infertility, is this normal? Anyone have any insight???

I know I don't like it one bit. I want to enjoy being pregnant. I want to show it proudly. Instead, I spend more time trying to hide it than anything, almost like I am ashamed. But I shouldn't be ashamed. I have nothing to be ashamed of. What am I doing wrong that is making me feel this way? Why can't I move on and live my own life?

Sigh....
So this is my guilt...sorry for the long and heavy post....I needed to say it though and get it out...it has been eating away at me for months.

On a happier note, the girlies are cute as ever! 14 months is SUCH a fun age!! I love it! And they are loving this Christmas chaos...the tree, the presents, the sparkling lights...their eyes just light up. It's precious! I just want to bottle them up and store them for later! I love their innocence =)

A picture of Daddy and Livvy

A picture of Brianna

I love them so much!!

Anyway, I hope you all are well and are ready for a fabulous Christmas! I know we are!

Until next time-
Megan

My Heart Aches. . .

I have two wonderful beautiful precious 4 month old baby girls that I love more than life itself. Between the girlies and my husband and our pugs and kitty I thought that my heart was full (at least for the time being). Then I saw this:

Yes, that is what you think it is. It's a positive pregnancy test. I will stop now by saying that it's no longer positive, then tell you how (well I guess you all know how it happened) so maybe I will just tell you how I figured out that it happened, and how I feel about it.

SO. . .last Monday (not 3 days ago, 10 days ago) I got in the shower as usual at 5:30 AM to get ready for work. I was washing my hair and I noticed that I was kind of nauseous. Strange I thought. Am I just hungry? When was the last time I ate? Since I get up at funky times in the middle of the night to feed the girls or pump it throws my body for a loop and my body thinks that it is morning and that it is time to eat. I thought maybe that was what was going on.

Although, this was a strangely familiar sensation. . .I'd had this feeling a lot when I was pregnant with the girls. . .but I pushed that thought to the back of my mind.

Then last Tuesday we were having dinner, one of my favorite pastas from Whole Foods and chicken scallopini (LOVE!). Yeah, I didn't eat the pasta. At all. It didn't taste good to me. Weird. I love the pasta from Whole Foods. I asked Si if his tasted weird and he told me no. Hmm I thought. . .food aversions. . . but again, I just stuck that in the back of my mind.

Wednesday was a georgeous day in Nebraska and I decided to take the girls for a walk around the block. One of our neighbors is an OB nurse practitioner and just finished breast feeding her son, so I casually asked her if it would be weird for me to feel the need to POAS (pee on a stick). She said absolutely not - that many breastfeeding moms feel the need to take a pregnancy test every couple of weeks or every month just for reassurance that they aren't pregnant since they aren't cycling. Okay I thought. . .that's right. . .I haven't cycled yet. . .there's no way I could be pregnant.

Fast forward to Friday morning. Brianna got up at 4AM to eat so after she was done I decided to just stay up and go ahead and get ready for work. I still had a pregnancy test in my bathroom closet, so I decided to go ahead and take it. . .for reassurance. . .

I very quickly got the positive test shown above.
Holy crap.
That can't be right.
There's just no way.
I'm breastfeeding. TWINS.
They are only 4 months old.
I haven't cycled yet.
I have stage 4 endo.
I only have one tube (on the left).
and my left ovary is my non-dominant ovary.
It took us 6 years of trying and 2 IVF's to get pregnant with the girls.
What are the odds I could be pregnant now? Answer - <0.01%

Not good.

So I call my OB's office the second they open on Friday morning (9 AM) and I leave a message - something along the lines of - hey, it's Megan (after having the girls they know exactly who I am), and you aren't going to believe this BUT. . .I got a positive pregnancy test. What process would you like me to follow now? Previously my progesterone has been low, but I'm breastfeeding now and I think that might affect different levels of hormones and I don't know if I should be on something, but I would appreciate a call back.

8 hours later at 5 PM (after the office was closed for the day), I got a call back from the OB's new PA. She told me to take another/different brand of test over the weekend and if it was still positive to call on Monday and they would have me come in for a beta. WHAT??? REALLY??? MONDAY???

"Why wait?" I inquired. Well apparently thier office has seen an influx of false positive pregnancy tests with FRER (First Response Early Response) over the last month. Okay. Fine. I will test again.

So I did. Saturday morning. Still a line, but definitely getting lighter. By Sunday the line was gone. I called on Monday to let them know that I had gotten another positive test, but I was concerned because the line was getting lighter, and me being the freak of nature that I am in the reproductive department was concerned about an ectopic pregnancy. The last time I had an ectopic my tube tore when my beta numbers were under 50 - nearly unheard of - but that's me - if there is a tiny chance something can happen. . .it will.

So, the normal PA was back on Monday and saw the exchange going on between me and the new PA and called me immediately. She asked if I wanted to come in for a scan and a beta - UM YES! Of course I do! I'm incredibly concerned about an ectopic pregnancy, and would prefer to be checked out just to make sure I'm okay.

So Brianna and I make the trek over to CB to have the PA scan me and do a beta. They did the beta first, then I waited FOREVER for the scan. And what did they see on said scan? Well, two different PA's were doing the scanning and there were two possible sacs in two different areas. The first contender measured in at 5 weeks 0 days and the second contender measured in at 5 weeks 2 days. Now I am in shock and they are starting to get excited. . . I start to get excited too (I apparently had forgotten that my HPT's were no longer positive). They immediately write me scripts for Neevo, Folbee, and Prometrium. Wait a second. NOW they write me scripts??? Oh that's right! I wasn't taking a the prenatal that I needed because my OB REFUSED TO GIVE IT TO ME. . .AFTER he told me that this exact scenario was totally possible and "happens all the time". Uh huh.

Well. . . .my beta came back negative at less than 1(yes I expected a low or even negative number since the tests were getting lighter and were actually negative by the time I was seen) so now the OB's office is telling me that my pregnancy tests gave me false positives, and that the "sac(s)" previously seen on ultrasound were actually blood pockets.

Excuse me? From what? I had TWO D&C's after the girls because there was still crap in my uterus and I wouldn't stop bleeding. My OB did the last D&C ultrasound guided to make sure he got everything out of my uterus. And he has pictures to show that there was NOTHING left over. NO blood, NO sacs, NO anything. Now I am being told that my pregnancy tests were obviously wrong, and the ultrasound findings were blood? Really? I smell something fishy. Maybe someone trying to cover his a$$ since I specifically requested the prenatal I needed to sustain a pregnancy and he REFUSED to give it to me? UGH! I don't know. I'm irritated and I just find it hard to beleive that multiple preganancy tests from multiple lots were somehow "contaminiated" and are handing out false positives. The first test I took was well over a year old from when I was first pregnant with the girls. The test from Saturday was from a different lot that I just bought from Target on Friday afternoon. Yeah, not the same test, and a false positive is beyond not likely.

At this point I'm not bleeding. . .not yet anyway. Which makes sense, since supposedly I was never pregnant. I can tell you - this was my FOURTH pregnancy. I know what it feels like to be pregnant. I also know what it feels like and what it looks like on pregnancy tests when you miscarry.

Sigh. . . cue miscarriage #3. . .

In theory, because I am breastfeeding, my progesterone level should be high enough to keep me from actually miscarrying on my own. Awesome. And since the OB's office is saying now that I was never actually pregnant, they aren't going to do a D&C or anything to clean out my utuerus. UGH.

I thought twice about posting this to my blog because so many freinds and family read this blog and I didn't really want to go public about getting a positive HPT. BUT, when I googled breastfeeding and pregnancy tests and false positive tests there wasn't jack out there for me to read and to compare my story to. Apparently this just doesn't happen. So I felt that I should share my story so others would have something to compare their situation to, should it ever happen again. And if it does, and if you are one of those readers - drop me a line and let me know - I'd love to hear your story.

Now on to how I feel about this whole ordeal. First I was terrified when I saw that BFP on Friday morning. What would Si think? Could we handle it? Emotionally? Finanacially? I mean, how on earth would we be able to properly care for 1 year old mobile twin girlies and a newborn and give everyone the attention they need??? Would our nanny still be able to watch everyone? Would I have enough time leftover to take off work for maternity leave (again)? What if the baby wasn't okay - I mean - I was off of my necessary prenatal for nearly a month?

Then I got excited when I saw Si's eyes light up Friday morning when he exclaimed "maybe it's a boy!". I thought, maybe! How cool would that be!

That turned to a little bit of sadness and relief (I'm being honest here) when the HPT's got lighter. I mean, I didn't want to have to explain to everyone (and you KNOW someone would say something) about how we magically got pregnant on our own when the girls were 4 months old after having to do fertility treatments to get the girls here to start with. I can hear it now - "see, if you would have just relaxed. . ." or "see, you weren't patient enough. . ." you would have gotten pregnant on your own. Grrr...I can feel my blood boiling and no one has even said that yet!

Now, over the last couple of days I have become very sad about the loss of our baby. . .at night when the girlies are asleep and I lay in bed I think about the baby still inside of me that didn't get a chance to develop into their full potential. And I wonder - which way was harder - was it harder for me to m/c when we were desperately trying to get pregnant? During that time finally seeing those two pink lines was such a relief - the excitement was absolutely overwhelming - and such a scare at the same time as I was so terrified that I would lose the pregnancy.

Or is it harder now, now that I know what potential that baby really has? I've been holding my girlies just a little closer the last couple of days. . .that's what these baby (ies) could have become. . .so sad that they didn't get that chance. . .