Struggling

I've been struggling lately. A lot. I've noticed myself becoming closed off emotionally to everything and everyone. I wish I could fix myself, but I'm not sure how. Chase's birthday, Mother's day, my birthday all in the last month in addition to struggling yet again with infertility has taken its toll on me. My birthday was last week and it was hard. Another year gone without being a mom, without even having the hope of being pregnant and knowing I will soon be a mom.

I know I'm a mom to Chase, but he isn't here...I have to wait until I leave this world to parent him and I don't think parenting in Heaven is anything like it is down here. Every month that goes by and I get another negative, I grieve not only for the loss of a future child, but for Chase all over again. Because honestly, I just want him. Yes, I'll be thrilled and over-the-moon excited when I am finally pregnant again, but right now, I only long for him. I have yet to learn how it is a mother's heart grows and expands to love a second child as equally as the first. I hope that someday I get that chance.

This past month I finally broke down and saw an RE (fertility specialist) to get their opinion about trying to get pregnant. I've put off that appointment for over 5 years now. I was always so afraid of going in and being told there was no hope for me, there was nothing they could do. Or even that my only hope was to do IVF and we definitely don't have the funds for that and it would take years to save enough money for it...and then what would happen if we saved for years only for it not to work? Yes, sometimes I have a problem with being a little pessimistic. I like to call it being a realist. So for years, I just hoped and prayed that it would happen naturally, on its own. It didn't.

For 5 years we tried to get pregnant and it didn't happen until I joined the medical study. Then, like magic, it happened on our 3rd cycle. I was so relieved that we had finally found our magic medicine, although technically, we weren't sure which medicine I was on, since it was a double-blind study. But, we knew it was one of two things (Clomid or Femara), and we would figure that out when we were ready to try for baby #2! That would be several years down the road anyways! Or not.

So last September, we started trying again with the medicine I suspected I had taken while in the study. My main problem with fertility (as far as we know anyways) is simply that I don't ovulate on my own due to PCOS (Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome). The Femara I was taking was simply to help me ovulate so that I had a chance of getting pregnant. Well, it worked...for 4 cycles I took it and each and every cycle, I ovulated. But I didn't get pregnant. At the end of the 4th month, my doctor told me she was moving and she suggested it would be a good time for a break anyways. This type of drug typically worked in 3-4 cycles if it was going to work at all. So she suggested I take a break, then to follow up with an RE if I hadn't gotten pregnant on my break, but she suspected I would.

So the beginning of this year, I was on a break. That didn't mean we quit trying. It just meant I wasn't taking any ovulation-inducing drugs. I do believe I ovulated every month though...but still no pregnancy. So I finally made that long-dreaded appointment with the RE in April. Things went very quickly after seeing the RE, hearing his recommendations, and starting the course of treatments. My head was still spinning a little when we started that cycle (since it was the very next day), but I was also excited. We decided to do the Femara again, but to double the dosage I had been taking (hoping for a stronger ovulation and better, more mature egg), taking an HCG "trigger" shot (forces ovulation), and doing an IUI (intra-uterine insemination).

We also finally decided to let our families know that we were officially trying again since the stress of everything gets to be a lot, so at least this way they might understand why we were tense. I told myself and everyone else not to get too excited - there was only about a 20% chance of it working. But I couldn't help but feeling so hopeful and optimistic - things I don't normally feel. So of course, when I kept getting negative test after negative test, I was crushed. I kept hoping maybe it was too early, but eventually I accepted that it wouldn't be happening that month and grieved the loss of yet another month. So we are now on another break, but this time because the cost of doing this treatment every month is expensive and since we had no time to prepare for our first cycle, we definitely need to save before moving on. I'm not sure when we'll be able to resume treatments, but I hope it won't be too long.

So for the past year, I spent a good portion of it just trying to grieve and learn how to feel like myself again. Then we started trying to get pregnant, and while it started casually, we've been trying long enough now that I am losing hope and feeling doubtful that we will ever be blessed again. Even though we've been trying for a shorter time since Chase, it has been much harder emotionally than all the previous years combined. I think it must be because I know what it feels like to be pregnant, to love that child instantly and for my heart to feel like it's bursting with love upon meeting him, yet at the same time, be broken into a million pieces because he is dead. We were so close to finally being parents and bringing home our sweet, precious child. My heart aches now, more than ever, to experience that again.

For the past year, I have refused to commit to anything long-term, like a job, volunteering, getting involved in a church, etc because I keep hoping that I will get pregnant soon. I fully expect to be on bedrest throughout my next (and all future) pregnancy because of my cervical issues, and honestly, even if my doctor won't force it on me, I know I will self-impose it. I have a lot of guilt from having watched my niece and nephew during my entire pregnancy with Chase - holding them both, carrying them up/down stairs, etc and wondering if doing all of that led to what happened. I know that it probably made no difference whatsoever, but I can't help but feeling partially guilty for not taking it easy while I was pregnant. So for that reason, I've refused to commit to anything in hopes that I would be pregnant soon, then I would have to quit anyways so I could be on bedrest.

Unfortunately, I'm still not pregnant and it doesn't look like it will be happening anytime soon. So now I feel like I've pretty much wasted a year. And I don't want to keep wasting my time away waiting for it to happen. I'm just not sure where to go from here. What do I do? Most days I'd rather just stay at home and sleep an insane amount of hours, then just stay at home by myself. It takes an enormous amount of effort for me to go anywhere, especially on my own. It's easier when Greg tells me to get ready cause we're going somewhere. But on my own, what's the point? I guess I feel like I've also lost a part of myself, a part of my identity in my grief. I am Chase's mommy, but Chase isn't here...so where does that leave me?

One Year in Heaven

Happy 1st Birthday, Chase!

Chase Austin Miller

April 21, 2011

We miss you with all of our hearts and we can't wait until we get to be together again. Until then, enjoy praising Jesus and playing with all of your friends in Heaven!

We love you!
Mommy & Daddy



Why???

It's been a while since I wrote, and honestly, it's been an emotional roller-coaster lately. For obvious reasons, September was a hard month for me (Chase's due date was September 17th), but for some reason, October has been equally as hard. I think part of it may be because by now, Chase should have definitely been here. I should be snuggling and feeding my sweet boy, be sleep-deprived, yet happy. Instead I'm getting full nights' sleep - more than that even, simply because on days where I have nothing happening, what's the point of getting out of bed?

It's so hard seeing others who were pregnant near me having their babies and showing off their pictures and even complaining about the woes of motherhood, when all I want is to hold my sweet boy - even if just for one minute. I keep feeling that question sneak up on me again - why??? Why did this have to happen to us? Why, after 5 years, when we finally thought it was our turn to be parents was our sweet baby taken from us? Why do I feel like the people who are getting pregnant and bringing home babies aren't as deserving as we are? Why do people get accidentally get pregnant every day and have healthy babies and we can't even have 1 baby almost 6 years later? Why do people who abuse or neglect their children get pregnant every day, only to mistreat their children, or kill them? I thought I had gotten over this question of "why," but it seems to be resurfacing lately. I guess the truth is I will wonder why for the rest of my life. I can make assumptions or try and understand, but I will never truly know "why" until I meet Jesus face to face and ask Him why???

In the meantime, all that I can do is try and figure out a way to honor Chase and to remember him and to try and figure out what I can do to bring glory to God through this situation. I feel like there is something I should be doing to honor his life and help other parents who are also walking this road, but I have no idea what that is. I know God didn't do this for nothing - some good must come out of it. My sweet Chase wasn't for nothing. But I have to stop feeling so defeated and learn to just accept what happened and make light of it the best I can. Easier said than done!

You know you're emotional when...

...your therapist asks if you are taking hormones! She didn't mean it in a bad way and I didn't take offense to it, because honestly, I was surprised by how emotional I was yesterday during our therapy session. Yes, Greg and I have been seeing a therapist. No, I'm not ashamed of it. It has been a good way for both of us to express ourselves and how we're feeling because otherwise, we may not have said a lot of our feelings out loud to each other. I didn't want to become shut off from the world and unable to cope after losing Chase. It has obviously been the hardest thing I have ever gone through, but I wanted to be able to "recover" from it and not find myself stuck in a deep depression or suppressing my feelings and not dealing with them. I wanted to be able to feel the hurt and pain...and to deal with them. I think both Greg and I have done a good job at this. Men especially can be emotionally hard to read after something like this, but Greg has been great. He has cried with me, held me, talked to me, listened to me...he hasn't minimized our loss as a way to move on at all. He misses Chase as much as I do and he was crushed just as badly as I was by losing him.

In regards to my being so emotional - I'm guessing it has to do with a few things. One of which is that we just started my first cycle of "officially trying to conceive" again. I am on my 2nd day of the medicine, so we are just barely starting, but it still brings up a lot of emotions. We should be becoming parents next month, not just trying to get pregnant. We should be bringing our sweet Chase home from the hospital and be sleep-deprived, but happy. Instead, we may be starting our next round next month or possibly getting a positive pregnancy test. Exciting, but I so wish we were going to be bringing Chase home instead.

Also, there are a few people I knew who were also pregnant and close to me, one was my cousin who was about 5-6 weeks ahead of me and the other was a co-worker of my Mom and sister's who's about 5-6 weeks behind me. Well, my cousin just had her baby boy a few days ago and it hurts so much to know they're at home now with their little boy and I'll never get to have that with my sweet Chase. My Mom and sister's co-worker posted a picture of her pregnant belly on Facebook a few weeks ago and I nearly lost it. I haven't seen her since before she got pregnant, so it was so hard seeing her big belly and knowing mine would be like that too by now. I never really got to the point where I looked "pregnant." My family and friends could probably tell my stomach had gotten larger, but to most people, I'm sure I just looked fat (still). Another reason I'm extra emotional is probably because I'm on my period right now, so I'm sure that's making me extra emotional and hormonal.

The thing about grief is that it can be so unexpected. There have been certain things that I thought were going to be really hard for me and they turned out not to be and other times, I'm completely caught off-guard by the sadness. I have felt guilty for feeling too "ok" sometimes, so sometimes it's nice to feel the pain again. The pain is a reminder to me of how much I love and miss my sweet Chase and that his loss was real...that he was real.