Wednesday, February 19, 2014

How Am I Doing?

How am I doing?  I don't really have an answer to that question.  Happy about my life.  Sad about my situation.  Done crying.  Still bleeding (literally and metaphorically, I guess).

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, and thank you to everyone who has sent kindness my way in any form.  I have felt completely overwhelmed by all the love.  Even though I have not wanted to talk about it and may not have replied to you, each kindness has lightened my burden.  It makes it hard to be anything but happy about my life and the amazing people that fill it.  I don't know what I've done to deserve the support of so many incredible incredible people, and I'm not always sure that I do deserve it, but I am so so grateful.  

I wanted to at least post and let everyone know about the results of the tests that were done on the "product of conception" aka our baby that was never to be our baby.  We found that he or she had Trisomy 13.  Many of you are familiar with Trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome.  This is a different Trisomy with far more devastating affects.  

Obviously this is not good news in any traditional sense of the words "good news," but it is good news for us at this point for a variety of reasons.  It means that we lost this pregnancy not because of something wrong happening in my body/uterus, but because it was never truly viable.   We are glad, knowing this information, that what happened happened...it is a better outcome than the other possible even more devastating outcomes we could have had (finding out later etc.).  This kind of chromosomal issue is one of the reasons that so many pregnancies end during the first trimester.  It also is the first time in this entire process that we've had an answer at all as to What Went Wrong with anything that has not worked or gone wrong.  You have no idea what a relief this is to us.  We know now that I *can* get pregnant, and we know why we lost our pregnancy.

While the loss is sad and painful, the knowledge is a bit of hope for us.  

Where we go from here is still an unknown.  We have a few options in terms of further treatment and in terms of adoption, and we aren't quite ready to decide, although we are ready to take some next steps in each direction.  I am not going to undergo any further treatments for the next 6 months or so.  I just don't want to and I'm not ready.  

I loved being pregnant.

And Ian and I, we are in this together, forever, no matter what happens.