Giving Thanks Etc. Year 2

I can't believe a whole year has gone by since the first miscarriage.

So much has happened since then, not all of it good, not all of it bad.

Going back to England was amazing. The green, the fields, the family, the food. All very, very good and nourishing for the soul.

I didn't want to come back after the warmth of my family, but I did, and it is still good. Just a different kind of good....

I finally got my period the day I returned to the US and I have been on a good trajectory ever since. Very regular, thanks for asking.

But, because of the nature of our year, the amount of pain, the grieving and so on, Z and I have decided to do something we were going to do anyway - we are going to adopt.

We have signed up and now we are ploughing our way through paperwork, fingerprints, honestudies, all the fun stuff. I guess I feel that I want to be a mom more than I want to give birth. I just have so much to give and no one to give it to.

Friends are having babies like the fruit falling from the trees and I just see this time of year as such place of abundance - I want to be a part of it!

We have been warned that the process can take up to two years. But that's okay. I know our soul is on its way in one way or the other.

I am thankful to this year in some ways. Even though I got laid off, had three miscarriages and my husband hasn't been working for two months....I feel I have grown as a person, I have met some wonderful people who have helped me immeasurably, I am learning (slowly) to be a business owner and I am finally, FINALLY getting back in shape.

After the last m/c I decided to channel my energy into something more productive than obsessively looking at fertility websites, so I decided to run the LA Marathon.

I am now well into my training and completed a 20-mile run on Saturday - woo hoo!

So I should say thank you. Just for what I have learned and for who I am now. So, sucky 2009. Thanks.

Going Away

Today is the day before I go home back to England for two weeks...

I finally decided to go about two weeks' ago when I had just about had enough with the whole back and forth to the baby doctor.

I feel like I need a break from the endless cycle of blood tests and waiting. I need fish and chips and curry sauce, Indian food, Coronation Street (a TV soap) and a laugh with my friends like I get in England. And, while I love, love, LOVE my life in LA, sometimes you just gotta get back to the old 'hood.

The period STILL hasn't come. At this point I have forgotten what a period is. It is over three months since I had one.

The Methotrexate seemed to do its job. I bled for about two weeks on and off. Now it's just another waiting game. Might as well do it in the rain and cold than in 100 degree heat, right?

Plus, I have changed doctor - AGAIN. While my last doc was fabbo, driving 40 miles there and back on the 405 and 101 (for the uninitiated trying to get around on these two freeways makes navigating the lower rings of Dante's inferno look like bumper cars at the fair) was getting too much. Doc 4 is in nicely civilized Bev Hills....Very powsh as we say in Stockport.

As always, the other parts of my life are going great. I just signed a new client - go Isenberg PR! She's a celeb with a lot of expertise in helping women in the infertility field. Intriguing hmmmm?? Watch out for some cool info on her in the coming months....

I have also joined a running club. I realized that my true love is still running, even though I've been doing it since I was nine, so I signed up for a club and we practice every week - typical that I am off to England as soon as I start. But, I will be running there and loving the fact that I don't have third degree sunburn when I get back.

And today is Labor Day - so we get a day off! Except Dr Z does not and I will be eating a steak and some corn without him for a bit. Roll on the barbeque!

So I think Cramper may be on hiatus for a little while.....keep checking in but Dr. Z and I have decided that a wait is probably on the cards. After three miscarriages in less than a year and a bunch of other complications, I feel my body needs to rest and get back to as normal as possible.

Love you.

E

xo

Down Down Down

Another trip to the doctor. This time panic was starting to kick in at casa di Isenberg. My hcg level, while frighteningly high at 600 last week, shot up to 1500 this week. The doctor's office made me come in immediately.

Luckily, my husband's show isn't doing too great (if that can be seen as a "luckily") which meant he had some time on his hands and he could come with me. What a difference going to the doctor's is when you are not alone.

So, yesterday, we troop back up to Thousand Oaks for another ultrasound. The doctor - not my usual but just as lovely as my usual - took me into the theater with my Dr. Z hovering around.

He dimmed the lights and of course, nothing. Which is also a bad sign. Which could mean I have an eptopic pregnancy. Not good.

However, thanks to the drugs swimming around my system, killing anything inside me, the chances of anything nasty happening (like the eptopic rupturing) are almost impossible. Almost.

Plus, Dr. Nice #2 doesn't seem to think it even is an eptopic. They just put me on "eptopic watch" to be on the safe side. It made me feel like a panda at the zoo on mating watch...Will they do it? Won't they? Come on, slow-to-mate, China-dwelling bears, do it for us! We need more black-and-white fluffy animals in the world that exist on bamboo and look super cute.

So here I am, on eptopic watch. Chewing slowly on a piece of food, staring balefully at the computer and wishing everything would just go away.

GREAT P.S - whether it was or wasn't the great news is, the numbers fell to 1100. Going back on Monday to check it is continuing to drop - it better had be or I'm emigrating to China. Or the zoo.

Time To Go Home

I have been feeling very disengaged with life recently, like I was just working and living and that was it. So, I have decided to take back some control.

After I found out the not-great news last week, I was slightly hysterical and slightly crazed but, looking back this may have been a good thing.

The blood I passed MAY have been the tissue that needed to go. The hormone drop COULD have been the because the tissue was passing. I have to get my blood levels checked again tomorrow and we will know.

I have been taking fabulous yoga for fertility classes with Brenda Strong and she said something wonderful to me on Sunday.

She said: "Maybe your body is telling you something and you need to listen. Maybe you need a rest from the constant trying, trying, trying and you need to just stop and let your body adjust."

Her words soothed me so much. I realized that I was just on a chugging train that was getting me nowhere fast and I had to get off, have a cup of tea and enjoy the scenery at one of the many stations on the way.

In addition, I feel I have been punishing myself by not seeing my family. So, I will be leaving LA for Manchester on September 8th for two weeks. It has been three years almost since I saw all my family and more than that since I saw most of my friends.

We can't afford it. I am working freelance and so is my husband but right now, the trip is more important than saving cash for a rainy day.

Like I said in my last blog. It ain't even raining any more. It's p-ing down. So I think that day is here.

See y'all in Blighty!

Too much to handle

Why does it never rain? I feel like the world is currently pissing bad luck all over my fertility.

As you know, Tuesday I went up to the docs and my HCG levels were funky funky - up to 600 after being down to 15.

So they gave me a shot of Methotrexate. This stuff is normally given to women who have eptopic pregnancies but, because they felt there was placental tissue running around inside me, they thought it best to use the drug to break down whatever was going on.

What I didn't know was that we can't even think about trying to get pregnant again until December. That will make me just 6 months away from 37 and this feels like a weird backwards move that will ultimately land us nowhere.

I can't help feeling that I am moving further and further away. At first it was "just a miscarriage", then it was "just a chemical pregnancy". Then, there were the fibroids. Get rid of them and it will be okay. We do that. Then it is the drugs, the pills and the progesterone. Just another miscarriage. Now there is tissue and we have to wait until the drugs comes through my system.

Another bleeding has started and, apparently, this is the second part of the miscarriage. So my period won't even be back for another two months, according to the doc's office.

Today, I just want to lie down and cry. I feel my chances are getting slimmer by the day.

A Big Pain in the Ass

A while has passed again since I posted. I guess I feel with every passing month the opportunity to get pregnant slips away, too.

Since June I have been dealing with the never ending miscarriage. First I took Misoprostil and had a period (I thought), but the pesky HcG never went down.

Now after having a strange moment in time where the level went from 15 to 39 it went up to a massive 600 today. I actually had the feeling that I might be pregnant again but no, my new doctor did an ultrasound and there was nothing but some placental tissue making my life difficult.

You see, that's what happens. If the bloody placenta (pun intended), hangs around inside the body then it just keeps pumping out those hormones and I never have a period. In fact, I have been having this miscarriage now since June 1st - my birthday.

So, today, at the doctor's, I had MORE blood tests and two lovely shots of Methotrexate to get it all out of my system and hopefully, get my body back.

To be honest, I am feeling tired and weary of this. I no longer feel like a functioning woman. No period = no pregnancy = no hopes of being pregnant. I am so over it at this point.

Luckily for me, I am also in the hands of a fabulous acupuncturist who has put me on somewhat of a hardcore diet (no sugar - ugh!) and is trying to get my body back. I hope someone can because I don't feel like I'm doing a very good job.

No excuse

There really is no excuse for spending so much time away from the blog, but I think I just felt done with feeling crummy for a while.

I guess my partial excuse was that my mum was in town until last week and I didn't really have a free moment. But it is 4.24 a.m so I guess I did if you count the moments that make up a long, dragged-out night.

Plus NOTHING has been happening. But even nothing is something, right?

This has been the longest miscarriage of all time. I have a period after the fainting incident of earlier in July and go back to see my doctor. When I arrive (a good 40 minutes' drive away), I was told to come back when my levels were back to normal. Back to normal!!! But I've just had a period, I think. Well, looks like that one didn't count and my hCG is somewhere around 47. So, back to the blood tests I go and up until today I am still not fully back to zero.

I have to go back when the test is at zero or after a period - whichever comes faster. By the way I am feeling right now - not sleeping, paranoid, depressed, bloated - I think we all know what' s coming faster.

I just want to get back onto a regular cycle and get back on the horse part 4. Though, I have to say, the longer this is taking, the more dislocated I am feeling. I am like two people. Miscarriage Lizzie and Relatively Normal Lizzie. I wonder if other people have this weird detachment between miscarriages where they go back to some form of normal? I mean, I am still on temporary hiatus from any baby showers, talking too much about babies, looking at pregnant women, but I am not the crazy person I am during those weeks around the pregnancies.

Let me know if this is normal - please!