Let me clarify first when this happened - we're talking about first half of 2008 right now. My cousin sent me a msg and said 'congrats on the pregnancy!!'. When I asked him what the hell he was talking about, he pointed me to my blog. :)
For a couple that does not suffer from RPL, there seemed to be a lot less pregnancy milestones. Milestones like the 18 week ultrasound to find out the sex, 37 week full term, due date, etc.
For my wife and I, every week was a milestone. Just 1 more week - every week. Some of the milestones I can remember:
- 7 week (as far as we had made it before)
- First ultrasound where we could see a heartbeat
- When we were transfered from the RFP to a OB/GYN
- When we actually heard the heartbeat
- When I was supposedly able to hear the heartbeat with a stethoscope (I failed horribly at this)
- 18 week ultrasound
- viability for premature babies at 50%, 60%, 70% etc.
- Full term
- Delivery date
At first I was reading "What to expect when you're expecting". Let me tell you... that was quite possibly one of the most depressing reads of my life. It seems every other page is about all the things that can go wrong and there was quite a bit of emphasis put on the doom and gloom. You're wife is expecting! congrats! by the way here's all the things that can go wrong - oh and here's more things that can go wrong!
After nearly replacing all my hope with fear, I stopped reading it. I switched to 2 other ones: "The mother of all pregnancy guides - Canadian Edition" and "Your pregnancy week by week". I can't recall which of the 2 books it came from, but they were both very informative, positive yet still addressed the concerns without making it sound like the human race was doomed from all the things that could go wrong. I do remember my favorite part of YPWBW was at the start of every week, they had a photo of what your baby was supposed to look like.
I never tried to read more than 1 week ahead - I didn't want to be let down incase something went wrong with our pregnancy again. Every week was something new for me, I was always (and still am) amazed about the 'miracle of life' and how much our baby changed week-to-week.
Husbands do get the sympathy pregnancy symptoms. I gained weight, quite a bit of it (relatively speaking anyway). You ladies want to know why men gain weight? It's because you order food and then you can't eat it because of the smell and we end up eating it for you!
I'm going to jump around a bit here to what's on my mind - prenatal class. We signed up for this class that ran weekly for 5-6 weeks. We live on the northern edge of Calgary so we actually went to the class in Airdrie (a small town, sort of like a suburb on the northern edge of Calgary). They showed us things like labour positions, the different stages of it, crying, how to put on diapers, how to give baths, what breastmilk tastes like, signs of PPD, what can we ask for in the hospital, how long after birth before you can have sex again etc. Yep, I really did say "what breastmilk tastes like". Though they didn't tell us that... in one class the instructor asked what we knew about it and I repeated what my father in law said, "tastes like canteloupe juice" (I did later confirm this "myth").
To be straight forward, the pregnancy book my wife got from the health region already had all the information in it. The class simply just repeats what's in the book. So why would you go? The social interaction with the other people in your class. For us, I believe only 1 of our friends had kids so it was hard to find anyone you could relate to.
The pregnancy was pretty much textbook (from a husband's perspective) up until the labour. Despite the pregnancy going so well, I could not help but remember the other 4 we had lost.
Sorry if this seems a bit disjointed I'm writing this on my lunch break. My lunch hour is up - so I will write more later.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Saturday, March 13, 2010
RPL - Pregnancy 5 (Continued)
I apologize about how dry my post was this morning. I had done it when I woke up - no coffee or anything. I'm perfectly fine with out coffee, usually it's the people around me who suffer tho :)
.... to continue on (see - told you I'd write more today!):
We booked in for an emergency ultrasound. This one however was at the RFP - normally ultrasounds are handled over at EFW instead. The ultrasound was an internal ultrasound.
I was very apprehensive about this one - the heartbeat had given me so much hope. Normally with most ultrasounds, you get 1 tech. For an internal, there was a male doctor performing it. I can understand having a female nurse there - a guy using an internal ultrasound wand has just got to be watched... however there were a total of 3 people. 1 doctor, 2 nurses. The extra person in the room just made me apprehensive. Why where there extra people there if not incase something was wrong?
It's really hard not to think about the worst. You just can't help it. Quietly, I was praying that everything was going to be ok.
I'm not a very religious person - I was raised Buddhist but I had gone to a church too. Yes yes, I know, if you're Christian, you can't be anything else. I am who I am - I was raised with both faiths (granted I am not practicing either). Since the start of this pregnancy, I prayed before I went to bed for the health and safety of my wife and unborn baby - both as a christian and as a buddhist (with insense and all). Really, even if you don't believe, there are moments in everyone's life where a little faith, a little hope and asking for help from whatever is out there is all you got. It's all you have to comfort you.
The ultrasound was very quick. Doctors always say spotting is normal in the first trimester. However for us, it's never been normal. This time, the spotting was unexplained - however we still had a baby! For me this ultrasound ... was amazing. It was the first image of our baby that resembled a baby (I don't count a blinking dot a picture of a baby). It was an amazing picture! The definition was unbelievable - you could clearly see toes!
Not to quote a cliche, but it was "like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders". My heart had stopped racing, I took a deep breath and let out what was the most relieved sigh I had ever let out. Our baby was still with us. I can truly say this was one of those moments where I could have tears of joy - but I didn't. Gotta save that for an even happier occasion!
They printed the picture for us. To this day it sits in our home - front and centre on the bookcase. It sits in a frame with this writen under it: "Love at first sight".
This was the best and what I would say the only good experience I had at the RFP.
.... to continue on (see - told you I'd write more today!):
We booked in for an emergency ultrasound. This one however was at the RFP - normally ultrasounds are handled over at EFW instead. The ultrasound was an internal ultrasound.
I was very apprehensive about this one - the heartbeat had given me so much hope. Normally with most ultrasounds, you get 1 tech. For an internal, there was a male doctor performing it. I can understand having a female nurse there - a guy using an internal ultrasound wand has just got to be watched... however there were a total of 3 people. 1 doctor, 2 nurses. The extra person in the room just made me apprehensive. Why where there extra people there if not incase something was wrong?
It's really hard not to think about the worst. You just can't help it. Quietly, I was praying that everything was going to be ok.
I'm not a very religious person - I was raised Buddhist but I had gone to a church too. Yes yes, I know, if you're Christian, you can't be anything else. I am who I am - I was raised with both faiths (granted I am not practicing either). Since the start of this pregnancy, I prayed before I went to bed for the health and safety of my wife and unborn baby - both as a christian and as a buddhist (with insense and all). Really, even if you don't believe, there are moments in everyone's life where a little faith, a little hope and asking for help from whatever is out there is all you got. It's all you have to comfort you.
The ultrasound was very quick. Doctors always say spotting is normal in the first trimester. However for us, it's never been normal. This time, the spotting was unexplained - however we still had a baby! For me this ultrasound ... was amazing. It was the first image of our baby that resembled a baby (I don't count a blinking dot a picture of a baby). It was an amazing picture! The definition was unbelievable - you could clearly see toes!
Not to quote a cliche, but it was "like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders". My heart had stopped racing, I took a deep breath and let out what was the most relieved sigh I had ever let out. Our baby was still with us. I can truly say this was one of those moments where I could have tears of joy - but I didn't. Gotta save that for an even happier occasion!
They printed the picture for us. To this day it sits in our home - front and centre on the bookcase. It sits in a frame with this writen under it: "Love at first sight".
This was the best and what I would say the only good experience I had at the RFP.
RPL - Pregnancy 5
It's been over a month since I continued on with our saga... my wife has harassed me to post something. Even going so far as to show the posts a mom on her wedding forum made asking me to not leave everyone hanging!!
I do owe an apology if I've left anyone hanging..
So my wife left a pregnancy test on the desk infront of me. It was positive. Again, with guarded hope... I quietly cheered. We marked the pregnancy test with the date and kept it. Every other day, she would do another pregnancy test and they were progressively getting darker! We marked these ones as well with dates and to this day still have them. Now that I think about it, it's kind of sick to keep around - these things got pee'd on.
Over the next few weeks, my wife would go and get Beta HCG tests and for once, things were looking good with a pregnancy! HCG levels were doubling as they should - my wife was still on the penis supositories. We had an ultrasound at 5 weeks, 6 days - believe me, I had to ask my wife this. I can barely remember birthdays...
The ultrasound was to look for a heartbeat. As a guy, I had no idea what to look for. The monitor looked like static. My wife said she immediately saw the hearbeat. I'll be honest, I had to wait for the ultrasound tech to point out the blinking dot to me. Apparently that is a heartbeat!!!
For us to have made it this far was incredible - up until now, we had never seen a heartbeat. Again, we kept it quiet and to ourselves for the most part. Only a few people knew - not my parents, not my in laws, siblings, etc. It's hard to be so excited and yet not talk about it. Everytime someone asked if we were pregnant, I would nearly explode from trying to keep the news to myself!
Then a telltale day... my wife started spotting at 9-10 weeks.
... to be continued later today. I have to go make breakfast and then pickup a backyard playground for a friend.
I do owe an apology if I've left anyone hanging..
So my wife left a pregnancy test on the desk infront of me. It was positive. Again, with guarded hope... I quietly cheered. We marked the pregnancy test with the date and kept it. Every other day, she would do another pregnancy test and they were progressively getting darker! We marked these ones as well with dates and to this day still have them. Now that I think about it, it's kind of sick to keep around - these things got pee'd on.
Over the next few weeks, my wife would go and get Beta HCG tests and for once, things were looking good with a pregnancy! HCG levels were doubling as they should - my wife was still on the penis supositories. We had an ultrasound at 5 weeks, 6 days - believe me, I had to ask my wife this. I can barely remember birthdays...
The ultrasound was to look for a heartbeat. As a guy, I had no idea what to look for. The monitor looked like static. My wife said she immediately saw the hearbeat. I'll be honest, I had to wait for the ultrasound tech to point out the blinking dot to me. Apparently that is a heartbeat!!!
For us to have made it this far was incredible - up until now, we had never seen a heartbeat. Again, we kept it quiet and to ourselves for the most part. Only a few people knew - not my parents, not my in laws, siblings, etc. It's hard to be so excited and yet not talk about it. Everytime someone asked if we were pregnant, I would nearly explode from trying to keep the news to myself!
Then a telltale day... my wife started spotting at 9-10 weeks.
... to be continued later today. I have to go make breakfast and then pickup a backyard playground for a friend.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Mother Tosses Baby into Garbage - RIP
This stuff just sickens me. A woman gave birth and then put her baby in a garbage bin.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/could+face+charges+after+baby+found+landfill/2537201/story.html
There are millions of couples out there who have trouble having kids and can't afford thing like IVF and adoptions. Additionally, there people like me who have to live with the high risk of every pregnancy ending in the death of our child. Then there are people who have no idea what kind of gift they have received and throw it away.
This hits home so hard for those of us who have had problems having kids - how can anyone do this? Why would anyone do this? Why not just give the baby for adoption to a family that can't have children of their own?
The article says she claims to had a miscarriage - however the infant found in the landfill was full term. She is also going to be charged:
I can't speak for everyone - but I feel she deserves a much more serious charge than what she has been given. If the baby was found to be alive at birth - I hope the charge escalates to homicide.
RIP little guy - there are lots of people out there who would love you even if your own parents would not.
http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/could+face+charges+after+baby+found+landfill/2537201/story.html
There are millions of couples out there who have trouble having kids and can't afford thing like IVF and adoptions. Additionally, there people like me who have to live with the high risk of every pregnancy ending in the death of our child. Then there are people who have no idea what kind of gift they have received and throw it away.
This hits home so hard for those of us who have had problems having kids - how can anyone do this? Why would anyone do this? Why not just give the baby for adoption to a family that can't have children of their own?
The article says she claims to had a miscarriage - however the infant found in the landfill was full term. She is also going to be charged:
She faces possible charges of neglect to obtain assistance at child birth, concealing the body of a child, infanticide and indignity to a dead body.
An autopsy will be performed to see if the baby was alive at birth
I can't speak for everyone - but I feel she deserves a much more serious charge than what she has been given. If the baby was found to be alive at birth - I hope the charge escalates to homicide.
RIP little guy - there are lots of people out there who would love you even if your own parents would not.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Memories from an Ultrasound after a loss
After one of our losses (to be honest, I don't recall which one), my wife had to have an ultrasound at the Foothills Medical Centre (FMC) to make sure the loss was 'clean'.
It was one of those cold, cloudy gloomy days where nothing good could happen. The waiting room looked kind of makeshift - they had cubical divider walls seperating the waiting room from the rest of the area. While we were waiting, I recall a woman either screaming or crying in the closed room, presumably one of the ultrasound rooms. It clearly wasn't a pleasant experience for her. The patients were not allowed to bring anyone in with them - my wife had to go in by herself. Needless to say I was concerned.
While she was in there, I decided to wander around the hospital. I was told it could be an hour or so. Well, she was done earlier than we thought and I had my phone off the whole team. Needless to say, she was FURIOUS as to where I had been for the last half hour. However, I was told everything was clear and we could continue. She did not have to do a D&C (I have no idea what that is but it sounded unpleasant).
Fast forward a few months. We were at my in laws place and my brother in law. He had a friend over who happened to be an Ultrasound tech in Calgary - I will call her H.
We relayed our experiences and our disatisfactions... what H said next reminded me of the woman who was crying (or screaming) in the ultrasound at the FMC and will always stick with me forever (and is actually the point of this post):
"One of the hardest things is to have a woman in that is pregnant, you tell her she is pregnant and she is clearly upset and does not want the baby. Immediately after, you will have another woman in and when told she is not pregnant and she immediately starts crying. I just wish I could take the baby from one woman and put it in the other. It isn't fair."
It was one of those cold, cloudy gloomy days where nothing good could happen. The waiting room looked kind of makeshift - they had cubical divider walls seperating the waiting room from the rest of the area. While we were waiting, I recall a woman either screaming or crying in the closed room, presumably one of the ultrasound rooms. It clearly wasn't a pleasant experience for her. The patients were not allowed to bring anyone in with them - my wife had to go in by herself. Needless to say I was concerned.
While she was in there, I decided to wander around the hospital. I was told it could be an hour or so. Well, she was done earlier than we thought and I had my phone off the whole team. Needless to say, she was FURIOUS as to where I had been for the last half hour. However, I was told everything was clear and we could continue. She did not have to do a D&C (I have no idea what that is but it sounded unpleasant).
Fast forward a few months. We were at my in laws place and my brother in law. He had a friend over who happened to be an Ultrasound tech in Calgary - I will call her H.
We relayed our experiences and our disatisfactions... what H said next reminded me of the woman who was crying (or screaming) in the ultrasound at the FMC and will always stick with me forever (and is actually the point of this post):
"One of the hardest things is to have a woman in that is pregnant, you tell her she is pregnant and she is clearly upset and does not want the baby. Immediately after, you will have another woman in and when told she is not pregnant and she immediately starts crying. I just wish I could take the baby from one woman and put it in the other. It isn't fair."
RPL - Part 5 Correction
My wife has corrected me. She's the one that asked if it was something we should consider, and IVF would be approx. $15k.
Either way, still a lot of money!
Either way, still a lot of money!
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
RPL: A Father's Perspective (Part 5)
It's been about a week since I wrote something. I've been thinking about how to go over and explain our results from the blood tests. Sorry, this one might be a bit 'clinical'.
Up to our 4th loss, I had always assumed something was wrong with my wife. I couldn't help it - my wife's GP said to her "since you actually get pregnant, it can't be your husband".
One of the first tests they did was testing for thyroid antibodies. She tested positive for thyroid antibodies - how she dumbed it down for me was, "my immune system is stupid and is attacking my thyroid". The RFP was absolutely 100% convinced this was the problem. They immediately jumped on that and suggested my wife have her thyroid removed and go on medication.
I thought it was a bit drastic and sudden. In my line of work, I learned not to be impulsive and to consider things through. When you guys are shopping for your TV or a new car, no one likes being pushed / rushed into a big decision like that. This was quite a major decision and it felt to me like they were pushing it the same way a sleazy used car dealer would. I had this feeling that it was something else. However i'm not a doctor let along a fertility specialist (other than sex - not to toot my own horn but im good at that).
In the end, the RFP was wrong. It's amazing that I can I remember how what was going on that day (considering it was 3 years ago). They had actually faxed a copy of the blood tests. At work that day, I was researching a DSLR camera for my wife. She was looking at a Nikon camera so I did some research and got some special pricing for it. I knew she wanted to get into something to take her mind off of our losses. I had done the same, I had actually picked up a hobby/sport called Airsoft (I called it cowboys and indians for adults). When I got home and suggested we go out for dinner, she said to me - "I know why we are having problems. I don't think you'll want to go out for dinner".
The problem was with me. My throat felt like someone was squeezing it, my stomach felt all knotted up, and I just wanted to scream but couldnt even make the sound. We are not suffering from infertility, but I probably at that moment felt the same way as a guy who was infertile felt - helpless, useless. It is the most basic human desire to have kids - dare I say it, it's probably one of the reasons why most of us are here today. If I couldn't fulfil that need, then what good was I? Would my wife still love me? Would she decide to leave me for someone else? Well I'm a problem solver - so the #1 thing for me was find out all the information about this and how could I fix it?.
I quickly read through the letter - it was about karotyping. Basically after typing "karyotyping" into google, I found out they mapped the structure of my chromosomes.
I thought back to her GP. I was so mad at him for putting the blame completely on my wife when in fact it was me the whole time.
We had an appointment at a geneticist - in the same building as the RFP. The waiting room was a lot smaller and there were no people waiting. No sign that said 'abuse will not be tolerated' though I wasn't going to push it. Of all the doctor's and specialists i've met - this guy was different. He laid it out exactly how it was, no sugar coating, no pushing us to make decisions - just told it how it was. He was not cold about it and in fact was nice about it. We talked a bit about what we did for a living/where we lived etc.
It's a lot easier to understand what is going on when you're not on guard. After what the RFP was like, it always seemed like you were being put down or looked down on. At the geneicist the attitude in the office was actually quite positive (despite the bad news).
The problem with me: a reciprocal balanced translocation of chromosomes 3 and 11 (a very long arm on 3 and a shorter arm on 11). He gave me a good explanation with diagrams and it made perfect sense at the time. Putting it down on text now was difficult - here's how my wife explained it to me the other night :
My wife and I both had a book on how to build a human - 46 pages each (46 chromosomes). Sperm and egg only carry 23 pages and together, you combine the pages from each person to build a human with 46 chromosomes total. However my problem was a translocation of part of page 3 and 11. So basically, a large part of page 3, and a small part of page 11 were swapped.
With sperm (or egg), they only carry half of the chromomes (they're actually split in half). So depending on how the split happened of the 23 pages i'm delivering, my page 3 or page 11 may :
1) be missing significant amount of information. (50% of the time)
2) be completely normal (25% of the time)
3) have the information complete just parts of page 3 and 11 are in the wrong order (25% of the time)
3 is me. I have a complete page 3 and 11, just the text is in the wrong order. When it comes to making a human, apparently I fail 50% of the time, 25% of the time I get my instructions in the wrong order (but fortunately whoever is reading the instructions can figure it out) and 25% of the time I pass.
The geneticist explained that page 3 (the 3rd chromosone pair) is one of the largest and if any information was missing, you couldn't build a human.
That is why we had so many losses. It also explained why our losses were so early too - if a significant portion of 3 was missing, a pregnancy would not move beyond the cellular stage.
So what about the problem solver in me? I was completely helpless as it was happening at a genetic level. There is no treatment, no pills, no therapy - they can't change my DNA. Our chances of a baby were 50% of what every other normal couple's chances. It was a simple cold hard statistic. However, it gave me closure - I knew where we stood.
His suggestion to us (we did not go back to the RFP after this appointment):
1) IVF. They just implant a bunch of embryos and hope that some of them work. The downside, it costs and arm and a leg (can be easily over $20000 each time!!!!!!!!) and there were no guarantees that the sperm used from me wouldn't be the 'dumb missing information' sperm.
2) Keep on 'plugging away'. Statistically, we would eventually get a good pregnancy. The downside, we will lose more pregnancies and our situation will never change.
At that point in our lives, we chose option 2. Not only because financiallywe couldn't afford IVF, but sex is a lot more enjoyable than jerking into a cup / having a needle stuck into your ovaries.
Additionally, we looked at other options - first and foremost we decided adoption over IVF. I will elaborate on our trials and tribulations with that at another time. Needless to say though, unless you are adopting a ward of the state, adoption is not simply picking up a phone to some agency and them bringing a child to your door. You may be waiting forever and may never get a child through local adoption.
The story does not end here however... I once again tried to convince my wife to stop charting, stop 'trying' for kids and just let it happen. Well, she still charted. We could not get a pregnancy at all for about 4 months.
Finally, she gave up. I had a work trip and they sent me down to Scottsdale. I decided to bring my wife with me - to get away for a bit. We partied, she thought her period was coming on, we partied some more.
We got home on a Sunday night in November. When I got home, I went to the computer and was entering in notes from my work trip. My wife came down 10 minutes later - she put a pregnancy test infront of me. She was pregnant.
Up to our 4th loss, I had always assumed something was wrong with my wife. I couldn't help it - my wife's GP said to her "since you actually get pregnant, it can't be your husband".
One of the first tests they did was testing for thyroid antibodies. She tested positive for thyroid antibodies - how she dumbed it down for me was, "my immune system is stupid and is attacking my thyroid". The RFP was absolutely 100% convinced this was the problem. They immediately jumped on that and suggested my wife have her thyroid removed and go on medication.
I thought it was a bit drastic and sudden. In my line of work, I learned not to be impulsive and to consider things through. When you guys are shopping for your TV or a new car, no one likes being pushed / rushed into a big decision like that. This was quite a major decision and it felt to me like they were pushing it the same way a sleazy used car dealer would. I had this feeling that it was something else. However i'm not a doctor let along a fertility specialist (other than sex - not to toot my own horn but im good at that).
In the end, the RFP was wrong. It's amazing that I can I remember how what was going on that day (considering it was 3 years ago). They had actually faxed a copy of the blood tests. At work that day, I was researching a DSLR camera for my wife. She was looking at a Nikon camera so I did some research and got some special pricing for it. I knew she wanted to get into something to take her mind off of our losses. I had done the same, I had actually picked up a hobby/sport called Airsoft (I called it cowboys and indians for adults). When I got home and suggested we go out for dinner, she said to me - "I know why we are having problems. I don't think you'll want to go out for dinner".
The problem was with me. My throat felt like someone was squeezing it, my stomach felt all knotted up, and I just wanted to scream but couldnt even make the sound. We are not suffering from infertility, but I probably at that moment felt the same way as a guy who was infertile felt - helpless, useless. It is the most basic human desire to have kids - dare I say it, it's probably one of the reasons why most of us are here today. If I couldn't fulfil that need, then what good was I? Would my wife still love me? Would she decide to leave me for someone else? Well I'm a problem solver - so the #1 thing for me was find out all the information about this and how could I fix it?.
I quickly read through the letter - it was about karotyping. Basically after typing "karyotyping" into google, I found out they mapped the structure of my chromosomes.
I thought back to her GP. I was so mad at him for putting the blame completely on my wife when in fact it was me the whole time.
We had an appointment at a geneticist - in the same building as the RFP. The waiting room was a lot smaller and there were no people waiting. No sign that said 'abuse will not be tolerated' though I wasn't going to push it. Of all the doctor's and specialists i've met - this guy was different. He laid it out exactly how it was, no sugar coating, no pushing us to make decisions - just told it how it was. He was not cold about it and in fact was nice about it. We talked a bit about what we did for a living/where we lived etc.
It's a lot easier to understand what is going on when you're not on guard. After what the RFP was like, it always seemed like you were being put down or looked down on. At the geneicist the attitude in the office was actually quite positive (despite the bad news).
The problem with me: a reciprocal balanced translocation of chromosomes 3 and 11 (a very long arm on 3 and a shorter arm on 11). He gave me a good explanation with diagrams and it made perfect sense at the time. Putting it down on text now was difficult - here's how my wife explained it to me the other night :
My wife and I both had a book on how to build a human - 46 pages each (46 chromosomes). Sperm and egg only carry 23 pages and together, you combine the pages from each person to build a human with 46 chromosomes total. However my problem was a translocation of part of page 3 and 11. So basically, a large part of page 3, and a small part of page 11 were swapped.
With sperm (or egg), they only carry half of the chromomes (they're actually split in half). So depending on how the split happened of the 23 pages i'm delivering, my page 3 or page 11 may :
1) be missing significant amount of information. (50% of the time)
2) be completely normal (25% of the time)
3) have the information complete just parts of page 3 and 11 are in the wrong order (25% of the time)
3 is me. I have a complete page 3 and 11, just the text is in the wrong order. When it comes to making a human, apparently I fail 50% of the time, 25% of the time I get my instructions in the wrong order (but fortunately whoever is reading the instructions can figure it out) and 25% of the time I pass.
The geneticist explained that page 3 (the 3rd chromosone pair) is one of the largest and if any information was missing, you couldn't build a human.
That is why we had so many losses. It also explained why our losses were so early too - if a significant portion of 3 was missing, a pregnancy would not move beyond the cellular stage.
So what about the problem solver in me? I was completely helpless as it was happening at a genetic level. There is no treatment, no pills, no therapy - they can't change my DNA. Our chances of a baby were 50% of what every other normal couple's chances. It was a simple cold hard statistic. However, it gave me closure - I knew where we stood.
His suggestion to us (we did not go back to the RFP after this appointment):
1) IVF. They just implant a bunch of embryos and hope that some of them work. The downside, it costs and arm and a leg (can be easily over $20000 each time!!!!!!!!) and there were no guarantees that the sperm used from me wouldn't be the 'dumb missing information' sperm.
2) Keep on 'plugging away'. Statistically, we would eventually get a good pregnancy. The downside, we will lose more pregnancies and our situation will never change.
At that point in our lives, we chose option 2. Not only because financiallywe couldn't afford IVF, but sex is a lot more enjoyable than jerking into a cup / having a needle stuck into your ovaries.
Additionally, we looked at other options - first and foremost we decided adoption over IVF. I will elaborate on our trials and tribulations with that at another time. Needless to say though, unless you are adopting a ward of the state, adoption is not simply picking up a phone to some agency and them bringing a child to your door. You may be waiting forever and may never get a child through local adoption.
The story does not end here however... I once again tried to convince my wife to stop charting, stop 'trying' for kids and just let it happen. Well, she still charted. We could not get a pregnancy at all for about 4 months.
Finally, she gave up. I had a work trip and they sent me down to Scottsdale. I decided to bring my wife with me - to get away for a bit. We partied, she thought her period was coming on, we partied some more.
We got home on a Sunday night in November. When I got home, I went to the computer and was entering in notes from my work trip. My wife came down 10 minutes later - she put a pregnancy test infront of me. She was pregnant.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
RPL: A Father's Perspective (Part 4)
The 4th pregnancy is all kind of a blur to me. I don't want to say I was desensitized because I was not. Everyone talks about how our generation is getting desensitized to things. Seriously I can't blame people for saying that (ie: that video... about the girls... and the cup... yeah, I know you know about it). Jokes aside, pregnancy loss (even when they are just cells) is something that I've never gotten desensitized to. It was a huge hit to my pride.
What is the role of a husband and father to be? Too bad ladies, there is no such magic one-size-fits-all answer. It's different for everyone and it depends on the perspective. For me during that time, it was to provide support for my wife in whatever she did regardless of how I felt. With our recurrent loss, I always had to be the strong husband for her, show no weakness and had to carefully deflect questions.
The hardest were questions from friends and family who didn't know about our loss. The hardest question for my wife to answer was "When are you having children?". C'mon, I had to be nice to friends and family. Regardless of how I felt, no one was intending to be hurtful and malicious.
I would answer for her so she didn't have to be fake about it, "We're enjoying being married first before we have children". For all my friends and family who I said that to - I'm sorry. My wife absolutely hates lying to people so I had to do it for her.
I do recall at least once I said, "well, we've lost 2 pregnancies - thanks for asking". Naturally, my response made that person feel like a complete douche for asking (if you're reading this - sorry). To me, that question is now in the 'taboo' list along with "How many months pregnant are you?" (you said this and you know who you are!!)
Of course, no one can handle that responsibility indefinately. Guys, there are certain things you can handle better than other things. For example, some guys can deal with people who cut them off on the road better than others. Yep, some of us road rage and some of us are the ones that cause the road rage. The recurrent pregnancy loss was my road rage.
This is the hard part for me to admit - especially since I know that my friends and family may be reading this. I was starting to become negative in day to day things. I was more irritable, had a short fuse, and I stopped taking care of myself. By that I meant I was not eating right, I slept poorly, I was eating less meals a day at irregular times, and I found myself drinking a lot. I got into a huge fight with my wife - the only one we've ever had that I would dare say put us close to seperating. The lightbulb came on in my head - I was suffering from depression. That however is another topic which I will save for another time. To continue on...
We lost that pregnancy on Mothers Day 2007. It was quite easily the worst Mother's Day for my wife. Once again, around my birthday. Birthday's haven't been quite the same for me. It's hard to celebrate my life considering that we lost 2 around my birthday.
Next update: some results of the blood tests and a reason why we lost so many pregnancies (maybe... I might put another small blurb in between first)
What is the role of a husband and father to be? Too bad ladies, there is no such magic one-size-fits-all answer. It's different for everyone and it depends on the perspective. For me during that time, it was to provide support for my wife in whatever she did regardless of how I felt. With our recurrent loss, I always had to be the strong husband for her, show no weakness and had to carefully deflect questions.
The hardest were questions from friends and family who didn't know about our loss. The hardest question for my wife to answer was "When are you having children?". C'mon, I had to be nice to friends and family. Regardless of how I felt, no one was intending to be hurtful and malicious.
I would answer for her so she didn't have to be fake about it, "We're enjoying being married first before we have children". For all my friends and family who I said that to - I'm sorry. My wife absolutely hates lying to people so I had to do it for her.
I do recall at least once I said, "well, we've lost 2 pregnancies - thanks for asking". Naturally, my response made that person feel like a complete douche for asking (if you're reading this - sorry). To me, that question is now in the 'taboo' list along with "How many months pregnant are you?" (you said this and you know who you are!!)
Of course, no one can handle that responsibility indefinately. Guys, there are certain things you can handle better than other things. For example, some guys can deal with people who cut them off on the road better than others. Yep, some of us road rage and some of us are the ones that cause the road rage. The recurrent pregnancy loss was my road rage.
This is the hard part for me to admit - especially since I know that my friends and family may be reading this. I was starting to become negative in day to day things. I was more irritable, had a short fuse, and I stopped taking care of myself. By that I meant I was not eating right, I slept poorly, I was eating less meals a day at irregular times, and I found myself drinking a lot. I got into a huge fight with my wife - the only one we've ever had that I would dare say put us close to seperating. The lightbulb came on in my head - I was suffering from depression. That however is another topic which I will save for another time. To continue on...
I don't recall all the tests we had to do - my wife had a whole bunch of tests she had to do. I had only a single blood test. I know I know, I had talked about an SA (jerking into a cup as I called it), but alas, I never did get that test.
My wife had been charting her cycles - planning around what days we should "baby dance". Apparently, that's her wedding forum's term for sex. Personally, I felt like all the planning and pregnancy tests kind of took away from the experience - not to mention "baby dance" sounded like a video that should be on America's Funniest Home Videos. Not saying it wasn't enjoyable, but the planning had made sex more like a chore. Still, no red blooded straight guy is going to turn down sex from his hot wife!
I found the best way to not make it feel like a chore was to not ask. I never asked what months we'd be trying. I only 'guessed' when I'd get laid a lot - I mean a LOT in the span of a week. There were days when I had a headache...
I had asked my wife not to chart before the 4th pregnancy, but she did anyway. She found out she was pregnant around the first week in May 2007. This one was different for us - we had some hope since we've been to the clinic. My wife did blood tests every few days to monitor HCG levels. Again, I had no idea what an HCG was. Back then I had not discovered wikipedia. I still have no idea what an HCG beta is today, however I learned that for a normal pregnancy, HCG levels are supposed to double every 48-72 hrs.
Blood test, wait a few days for the HCG levels, call the RFP to remind them you still want them, blood test, wait a few more days for HCG levels, call the RFP to remind them you still want them. Lather, rinse, repeat as required. Hope the RFP doesn't call you early because that usually means bad news
We lost that pregnancy on Mothers Day 2007. It was quite easily the worst Mother's Day for my wife. Once again, around my birthday. Birthday's haven't been quite the same for me. It's hard to celebrate my life considering that we lost 2 around my birthday.
Next update: some results of the blood tests and a reason why we lost so many pregnancies (maybe... I might put another small blurb in between first)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Comment From Reader
I'm still working on Part 4 of my experience and hopefully will post it tomorrow. What surprised me about this blog was when I started receiving comments from people about what they had gone through and their experiences.
Talking about loss does not change or diminish the losses we've had - it helps us grieve and renews hope.
The individual will remain annoymous to respect privacy. I would like to thank this person for giving me permission to post it.
Thank you so much for posting this up. I know I'm not a dad and I would never understand what you have been through. Your story reminded me of my cousin. I keep on telling my newly married friends to not take things for granted.
My Cousin has been married for years and been trying for a long time. It just didn't work out. She went IVF. She went from working a great job to changing in becoming a retail office manager just so she can take the time off to go to the clinics to get IVF done. We're not talking about once, twice ...
Their family went through years of IVF, to a point where the husband sold his company to finance IVF. It's how much he loved his wife.
For a good 8+ years with no results, she just couldn't bear it no more. Having a women sit in those hospital 'aprons' and having to walk on the cold tiles was something she could never forget.
They finally gave up after 8+ years. Next thing you know, the firstborn of her baby girl was born. Followed by a boy and now her 3rd child just turned 2. She's turning 40 this year.
Thank you for posting up your stories, it's a huge wake up call for a lot of those out there who takes this baby thing for granted.
Talking about loss does not change or diminish the losses we've had - it helps us grieve and renews hope.
The individual will remain annoymous to respect privacy. I would like to thank this person for giving me permission to post it.
Thank you so much for posting this up. I know I'm not a dad and I would never understand what you have been through. Your story reminded me of my cousin. I keep on telling my newly married friends to not take things for granted.
My Cousin has been married for years and been trying for a long time. It just didn't work out. She went IVF. She went from working a great job to changing in becoming a retail office manager just so she can take the time off to go to the clinics to get IVF done. We're not talking about once, twice ...
Their family went through years of IVF, to a point where the husband sold his company to finance IVF. It's how much he loved his wife.
For a good 8+ years with no results, she just couldn't bear it no more. Having a women sit in those hospital 'aprons' and having to walk on the cold tiles was something she could never forget.
They finally gave up after 8+ years. Next thing you know, the firstborn of her baby girl was born. Followed by a boy and now her 3rd child just turned 2. She's turning 40 this year.
Thank you for posting up your stories, it's a huge wake up call for a lot of those out there who takes this baby thing for granted.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
A Parent Without Children
I opened up the commenting to anyone who wants to comment annonymously - I'll be moderating the comments though.
Before I write Part 4 - I wanted to talk about what it was like living as a parent but without children.
Around the time we lost our first pregnancy, we started living like parents. I can't explain why it happened - but I started doing things like going to bed earlier, coming straight home after work, hanging out with couples that had children, stopped going out to the bar, having a stable career, steady income, and just general long term planning. I even bought RRSPs!
However at the end of a work day, I came home to my wife and no one else. No son or daughter greeting me at the door, no child to tattle to me about what mom made them do - it was just my wife and I. Our home was a small 900sq ft home which was crowded with lots of Ikea furniture. To me though, it had never felt so empty.
I found that on some days, I could close my eyes and imagine teaching my son how to ride a bicycle, putting a band-aid on his leg when he fell or walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. I could even imagine the not so pretty moments, stepping on toys, yelling at my kids in the car to stop fighting (or i'd threaten to leave them on the side of the road - an empty threat of course), my son or daughter telling me that I had "ruined their life" and of course, intimidating the first boy my daughter brought home.
Reality was far from those daydreams. First of all, I'm not very intimidating (even the asian gangster stereotype would not apply to me). Secondly, the part that still brings back painful memories of those times, I had no living children.
There were moments where I tried to break the cycle. I bought the car I had wanted - a Subaru WRX STI. For those who have no idea what it is - it is a complete rice rocket. From the factory, it had a giant wing on the back, a big hood scoop and absolutely everything about it said "boy racer with no children".
However, I could never recover that innocence I had before losing our first pregnancy. Eventually, I decided I didn't want the car anymore because it didn't fit who I had become. I wanted to sell it and get something that I could start a family with. I traded it in my boy racer car for a crew cab pickup truck. Yes, I am not joking. I was an asian driver in a pickup truck. I'll throw it out there for those that are thinking it but afraid to say it : asian + pickup truck = the only way this combination could get worse is adding the word "old" infront of it.
I was back to preparing for a family - trying to ignore the cruel fact that we may never have our own children.
Most men in their late teens will say they never want to have their own children - ever. I'm sure I said that at some point. After our second loss, I envied the men for whom that choice can be easily changed.
When I was in my late teens, I read a column about surviving the loss of your child. These words stood out for me: No parent wants to outlive their child.
By the time my wife and I had our first appointment at the RFP, I had outlived 3 of mine.
Before I write Part 4 - I wanted to talk about what it was like living as a parent but without children.
Around the time we lost our first pregnancy, we started living like parents. I can't explain why it happened - but I started doing things like going to bed earlier, coming straight home after work, hanging out with couples that had children, stopped going out to the bar, having a stable career, steady income, and just general long term planning. I even bought RRSPs!
However at the end of a work day, I came home to my wife and no one else. No son or daughter greeting me at the door, no child to tattle to me about what mom made them do - it was just my wife and I. Our home was a small 900sq ft home which was crowded with lots of Ikea furniture. To me though, it had never felt so empty.
I found that on some days, I could close my eyes and imagine teaching my son how to ride a bicycle, putting a band-aid on his leg when he fell or walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding. I could even imagine the not so pretty moments, stepping on toys, yelling at my kids in the car to stop fighting (or i'd threaten to leave them on the side of the road - an empty threat of course), my son or daughter telling me that I had "ruined their life" and of course, intimidating the first boy my daughter brought home.
Reality was far from those daydreams. First of all, I'm not very intimidating (even the asian gangster stereotype would not apply to me). Secondly, the part that still brings back painful memories of those times, I had no living children.
There were moments where I tried to break the cycle. I bought the car I had wanted - a Subaru WRX STI. For those who have no idea what it is - it is a complete rice rocket. From the factory, it had a giant wing on the back, a big hood scoop and absolutely everything about it said "boy racer with no children".
However, I could never recover that innocence I had before losing our first pregnancy. Eventually, I decided I didn't want the car anymore because it didn't fit who I had become. I wanted to sell it and get something that I could start a family with. I traded it in my boy racer car for a crew cab pickup truck. Yes, I am not joking. I was an asian driver in a pickup truck. I'll throw it out there for those that are thinking it but afraid to say it : asian + pickup truck = the only way this combination could get worse is adding the word "old" infront of it.
I was back to preparing for a family - trying to ignore the cruel fact that we may never have our own children.
Most men in their late teens will say they never want to have their own children - ever. I'm sure I said that at some point. After our second loss, I envied the men for whom that choice can be easily changed.
When I was in my late teens, I read a column about surviving the loss of your child. These words stood out for me: No parent wants to outlive their child.
By the time my wife and I had our first appointment at the RFP, I had outlived 3 of mine.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Progesterone and Peanuts!!
This is a humourous incident... again, my verbal filter was set quite low.
My wife was prescribed progesterone suppositories during our 4th pregnancy - the RFP faxed the prescription over to the drug store of our choice. On our way to the drug store I asked my wife, "A suppository? How does sticking this thing up your butt help?" to which she laughed and replied, "No dear, it's not that kind of suppository. They go in the 'other hole'".
We got to the drug store - the pharmacist was a younger east Indian male. We lived in a predominantly east Indian community in Calgary at this time. He spoke with the typical east Indian accent you would expect.
He took our information, looked at the prescription and asked my wife, "Are you alergic to penis?" My reply, after giggling like a school girl for a minute, "Excuse me? I'm pretty sure we don't have that problem".
Before you ladies and gents judge me, remember that I knew nothing about this. Maybe there really was a penis alergy and that's why some couples can't conceive?
Just like at the clinic, my wife leaned over and whispered to me, "Peanuts."
My wife was prescribed progesterone suppositories during our 4th pregnancy - the RFP faxed the prescription over to the drug store of our choice. On our way to the drug store I asked my wife, "A suppository? How does sticking this thing up your butt help?" to which she laughed and replied, "No dear, it's not that kind of suppository. They go in the 'other hole'".
We got to the drug store - the pharmacist was a younger east Indian male. We lived in a predominantly east Indian community in Calgary at this time. He spoke with the typical east Indian accent you would expect.
He took our information, looked at the prescription and asked my wife, "Are you alergic to penis?" My reply, after giggling like a school girl for a minute, "Excuse me? I'm pretty sure we don't have that problem".
Before you ladies and gents judge me, remember that I knew nothing about this. Maybe there really was a penis alergy and that's why some couples can't conceive?
Just like at the clinic, my wife leaned over and whispered to me, "Peanuts."
RPL - A Father's Experience (Part 3)
So now, we're into my experiences from 2007. Most of us remember events like - the Writers Guild Strike, death of Boris Yelstin, Calgary Flames not making it passed round 1 of the playoffs, and Chris Benoit killing his family. To me, the start of the year was with a painful reminder - the due date for our first pregnancy was Jan 1, 2007.
That Chris Benoit incident stirs up a painful reminder, for those of us that suffer from recurrent pregnancy loss, it is painful to watch someone else take their children for granted. On one extreme you have watching the news and hearing about someone who has murdered their own children while on the other end, you may be out at the grocery store and you see a parent yelling at their children.
Guys, think about it like this - you long for the Ferrari you think you will never have. You can close your eyes and feel the wind blowing in your hair and the sound of the engine at red line before you shift. Then you see someone who has one that clearly doesn't give a damn about it - the car has scratches on it, the owner has let it get dirty or you see a picture of a car cruasher destroying one.
That's sort of how it feels to watch when a parent loses patience with their children in public, or hearing about a parent who murders his children. The envy for people who can have kids with the anger that someone would do something so heinous to what you can't have overwhelms and even now can bring me to tears.
Anyway, back to the Regional Fertility Program of Calgary (RFP). The appointment for the RFP did not take nearly as long as they said it did. I remember a few details leading up to our appointment. The anxiety was almost overwhelming for me. Finally, someone is actually going to do something. Someone is going to understand. We're going to know why this is happening and plan so we can make sure it doesn't happen to us again.
It took about 3 months - our first appointment at the clinic was an eye opener.
1) There is hope - the wall of the clinic is lined with photos of the babies that their patients have had.
2) This happens to a lot of people. The clinic was incredibly full. There were well over 10 couples in the clinic at the same time as us.
Aside from that, the first appointment was a let down for me. The waiting room and exam room had posters and brochures for IVF like it was the equivalent to GM's "employee pricing event". There were unattended children's toys, parenting magazines, pregnancy tests in a kiosk for sale, and a sign that said "ABUSE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED". Apparently, recurrent pregnancy loss people like us lose their patience and abuse the staff. I had mixed feelings about the environment - they were trying to give us a sense of hope, however they could also be giving false hope to some couples. It was a sobering thought.
We met with a nice doctor - one of the first questions I had was "Do you have children?" to which the doctor replied no. Well, there goes the 'someone finally cares' idea was how I felt.
The doctor really didn't tell us anything the internet had not already did - this happens to a lot of people, we're going to have to get blood tests, April would need more tests than me and they're going to need to do an SA. I had no idea what an SA was and it was quite clear. My wife leaned over and whispered "Sperm Analysis" to me. For anyone that knows me, they know my verbal filter is almost always set to ZERO. I remember saying "Awesome! I get to jerk off into a cup!" to which the doctor replied curtly, "yes".
We received our lab requisitions and made another appointment to come back, paid the ridiculous $10 parking and went home. At this point, I was hopeful but did not want to set myself up for what could easily be the biggest fall of my life.
... to be continued in Part 4
That Chris Benoit incident stirs up a painful reminder, for those of us that suffer from recurrent pregnancy loss, it is painful to watch someone else take their children for granted. On one extreme you have watching the news and hearing about someone who has murdered their own children while on the other end, you may be out at the grocery store and you see a parent yelling at their children.
Guys, think about it like this - you long for the Ferrari you think you will never have. You can close your eyes and feel the wind blowing in your hair and the sound of the engine at red line before you shift. Then you see someone who has one that clearly doesn't give a damn about it - the car has scratches on it, the owner has let it get dirty or you see a picture of a car cruasher destroying one.
That's sort of how it feels to watch when a parent loses patience with their children in public, or hearing about a parent who murders his children. The envy for people who can have kids with the anger that someone would do something so heinous to what you can't have overwhelms and even now can bring me to tears.
Anyway, back to the Regional Fertility Program of Calgary (RFP). The appointment for the RFP did not take nearly as long as they said it did. I remember a few details leading up to our appointment. The anxiety was almost overwhelming for me. Finally, someone is actually going to do something. Someone is going to understand. We're going to know why this is happening and plan so we can make sure it doesn't happen to us again.
It took about 3 months - our first appointment at the clinic was an eye opener.
1) There is hope - the wall of the clinic is lined with photos of the babies that their patients have had.
2) This happens to a lot of people. The clinic was incredibly full. There were well over 10 couples in the clinic at the same time as us.
Aside from that, the first appointment was a let down for me. The waiting room and exam room had posters and brochures for IVF like it was the equivalent to GM's "employee pricing event". There were unattended children's toys, parenting magazines, pregnancy tests in a kiosk for sale, and a sign that said "ABUSE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED". Apparently, recurrent pregnancy loss people like us lose their patience and abuse the staff. I had mixed feelings about the environment - they were trying to give us a sense of hope, however they could also be giving false hope to some couples. It was a sobering thought.
We met with a nice doctor - one of the first questions I had was "Do you have children?" to which the doctor replied no. Well, there goes the 'someone finally cares' idea was how I felt.
The doctor really didn't tell us anything the internet had not already did - this happens to a lot of people, we're going to have to get blood tests, April would need more tests than me and they're going to need to do an SA. I had no idea what an SA was and it was quite clear. My wife leaned over and whispered "Sperm Analysis" to me. For anyone that knows me, they know my verbal filter is almost always set to ZERO. I remember saying "Awesome! I get to jerk off into a cup!" to which the doctor replied curtly, "yes".
We received our lab requisitions and made another appointment to come back, paid the ridiculous $10 parking and went home. At this point, I was hopeful but did not want to set myself up for what could easily be the biggest fall of my life.
... to be continued in Part 4
Friday, January 15, 2010
RPL - A Father's Experience (Part 2)
It is hard to express how I felt at that moment other than 'devestation'. Imagine this - take the most important thing in your life you've ever done. The pride from it, how proud you were to have accomplished it. Now because of your accomplishment, someone you know and care about has died.
It's harsh - but really, that's how I felt. It felt like someone near and dear to me had died and it was my fault. It sounds crazy for someone that doesn't have kids or doesn't want kids. How can a few cells be loved that much?
After I got off the phone with my wife I left work and immediately went home to meet her. We held each other, she cried, I did on the inside - I had to be strong for her. We spent the aftenoon not saying much. We laid on the couch and watched TV. Oddly enough, I remember we watched a Star Trek - TNG marathon on TV and we watched that for a solid 5 hours.
After we both calmed down - the questions started to pop up:
- Why did it happen?
- Did we do something wrong?
- How do we prevent this from happening again?
- Crap, how do we tell people that we lost our baby?
The last one I thought was the most daunting - and clearly the most painful. That's when I found out most people don't let everyone know they are pregnant until the end of the 1st trimester.
A quick aside from my experience - my hope is that people talk about pregnancy loss and not pretend it does not happen. It is not something that we need to hide or be embarassed about - it affects a lot of people. It is a life and we need to acknowledge it as such.
My wife set up an appointment with her Doctor/General Practitioner (GP). He's a nice middle aged Irish fellow. To be honest, he seemed kind of 'slow' to me but hey, he's a doctor and I'm not right? What he said to us was
- This is normal and happens in 1 in 5 pregnancies
- This happens to a lot of people
- Most of the time, you will never find out why it happened
- Most of the time, you can't prevent it.
Seriously!! I was furious! He hadn't helped us with any of our questions! He told us he would refer us to the Regional Fertility Program after 3 loses.
Being of the internet age, I immediately was on Google and had looked up a whole bunch of reasons. I learned that what my wife's GP told me was the 'general concensus' amonst the medical community. My wife was on a 'wedding' forum and had found a bunch of things. She tried 'baby aspirin' and other things that I can't think of right now.
We of course tried again. You'll have to excuse the lack of specific dates at this point - we lost another pregnancy in mid July. Really good friends of ours got married in late July and my wife was hoping to find out she was pregnant on their wedding day as they found out they were expecting on our wedding day. We lost our second pregnancy about a week before the wedding.
At this point, we were pretty defeated. I still had to be strong for my wife though. We tried and tried - and I admit, sex is less enjoyable with recurrent pregnancy loss on your mind. She found out she was pregnant again in November. At this point, we were just waiting for the 3rd loss so we could go and get a referral.
We went to her doctor and he agreed to refer us. He promised us that we would have a baby within a year. I wanted to tell him to go fly a kite - but I bit my tongue and tried to remain hopeful.
There was of course more waiting - we were told on average, it takes 6 months to get a first time appointment at the Regional Fertility Program clinic.
... to be continued in Part 3.
It's harsh - but really, that's how I felt. It felt like someone near and dear to me had died and it was my fault. It sounds crazy for someone that doesn't have kids or doesn't want kids. How can a few cells be loved that much?
After I got off the phone with my wife I left work and immediately went home to meet her. We held each other, she cried, I did on the inside - I had to be strong for her. We spent the aftenoon not saying much. We laid on the couch and watched TV. Oddly enough, I remember we watched a Star Trek - TNG marathon on TV and we watched that for a solid 5 hours.
After we both calmed down - the questions started to pop up:
- Why did it happen?
- Did we do something wrong?
- How do we prevent this from happening again?
- Crap, how do we tell people that we lost our baby?
The last one I thought was the most daunting - and clearly the most painful. That's when I found out most people don't let everyone know they are pregnant until the end of the 1st trimester.
A quick aside from my experience - my hope is that people talk about pregnancy loss and not pretend it does not happen. It is not something that we need to hide or be embarassed about - it affects a lot of people. It is a life and we need to acknowledge it as such.
My wife set up an appointment with her Doctor/General Practitioner (GP). He's a nice middle aged Irish fellow. To be honest, he seemed kind of 'slow' to me but hey, he's a doctor and I'm not right? What he said to us was
- This is normal and happens in 1 in 5 pregnancies
- This happens to a lot of people
- Most of the time, you will never find out why it happened
- Most of the time, you can't prevent it.
Seriously!! I was furious! He hadn't helped us with any of our questions! He told us he would refer us to the Regional Fertility Program after 3 loses.
Being of the internet age, I immediately was on Google and had looked up a whole bunch of reasons. I learned that what my wife's GP told me was the 'general concensus' amonst the medical community. My wife was on a 'wedding' forum and had found a bunch of things. She tried 'baby aspirin' and other things that I can't think of right now.
We of course tried again. You'll have to excuse the lack of specific dates at this point - we lost another pregnancy in mid July. Really good friends of ours got married in late July and my wife was hoping to find out she was pregnant on their wedding day as they found out they were expecting on our wedding day. We lost our second pregnancy about a week before the wedding.
At this point, we were pretty defeated. I still had to be strong for my wife though. We tried and tried - and I admit, sex is less enjoyable with recurrent pregnancy loss on your mind. She found out she was pregnant again in November. At this point, we were just waiting for the 3rd loss so we could go and get a referral.
We went to her doctor and he agreed to refer us. He promised us that we would have a baby within a year. I wanted to tell him to go fly a kite - but I bit my tongue and tried to remain hopeful.
There was of course more waiting - we were told on average, it takes 6 months to get a first time appointment at the Regional Fertility Program clinic.
... to be continued in Part 3.
Recurrent Pregnancy Loss - A Father's Experience
My wife just said a quote to me, "Real loss only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself". My reply was, "To me, real loss is something you lose that you can never get back again." Lets face it, most of the times when we "lose" something, we end up finding it or replacing it and never thinking back about what we had.
I wanted to talk about something that has been very hard for me to talk about. I originally was going to post some Facebook notes about this but my wife and a friend convinced me to post it as a blog instead. I wanted to write about my experience, what I was thinking, what I remember about it, how I felt, and how I handled it.
I needed to set a few things straight before I got into my experiences:
- I am not looking for pity
- I am not looking for people to tell me they are 'sorry' about what we went through
What I am looking for is:
- People to think twice before saying, "when are you going to have children?"
- Awareness that this happens to a lot of people.
- Men are affected and hurt by loss too. Sorry ladies, we are not robots.
I married my wife on March 25th, 2006. One of the many reasons we got married was we wanted to have kids. I'll admit it, I was really looking forward to being a dad. What I was looking forward to the most was a son or daughter to come running to the door when you get home from work screaming 'DADDY'!
Less than 1 month later (around the 3rd week of April 2006) I was woken up by my wife.
There are moments in one's life that you'll never forget - this was one of them. She woke me up at 6am on a Saturday morning shoving a stick in my face and screaming "DO YOU SEE A LINE?? DO YOU SEE A LINE??". Naturally being a guy and having no idea what to look for, I said yes and pointed to the control line. After being corrected (angrily), I found out that there was a very faint line next to it. I learned to tell how if a pregnancy a test was positive or not.
For those that have found out their significant other was pregnant, and assuming you were looking forward to having kids and being happy about it - you'd probably agree with me that it's very hard to describe how you feel. The typical guy answer is "HAPPY" and in my case it was "VERY HAPPY". The words / phrases that describe how I felt were:
- Happy, hope, joy (variants of "VERY HAPPY")
- Pride, proud (I don't know how you can not feel pride or be proud to be a parent)
- Concern (ie: do we make enough money?)
- Fear (do we have to get a minivan now? Am I going to have to drive it?)
- Boy or girl? Should we find out? What if my wife doesn't agree with me?
- How can I change the world to give my child a better world to live in than what I grew up in?
I promptly called my friends and family to tell them I was going to be a dad! It was on my MSN title and my facebook status. Seriously, if I had thought about buying a newspaper ad for it, I probably would've done it. I was ontop of the world!
After that, it was kind of a mixture of letting people know and busy at work for the next few weeks. The days after the first one that stood out for me were:
May 10th, 2006 - I asked my wife if sex while she was pregnant was bad. She said no, I wasn't sure if it was safe so we didn't. No birthday sex for me.
May 11th 2006 - I was at work and was planning for an afternoon meeting with a Samsung rep. I got a call from my wife - she was crying. We had lost our baby.
... to be continued in Part 2.
I wanted to talk about something that has been very hard for me to talk about. I originally was going to post some Facebook notes about this but my wife and a friend convinced me to post it as a blog instead. I wanted to write about my experience, what I was thinking, what I remember about it, how I felt, and how I handled it.
I needed to set a few things straight before I got into my experiences:
- I am not looking for pity
- I am not looking for people to tell me they are 'sorry' about what we went through
What I am looking for is:
- People to think twice before saying, "when are you going to have children?"
- Awareness that this happens to a lot of people.
- Men are affected and hurt by loss too. Sorry ladies, we are not robots.
I married my wife on March 25th, 2006. One of the many reasons we got married was we wanted to have kids. I'll admit it, I was really looking forward to being a dad. What I was looking forward to the most was a son or daughter to come running to the door when you get home from work screaming 'DADDY'!
Less than 1 month later (around the 3rd week of April 2006) I was woken up by my wife.
There are moments in one's life that you'll never forget - this was one of them. She woke me up at 6am on a Saturday morning shoving a stick in my face and screaming "DO YOU SEE A LINE?? DO YOU SEE A LINE??". Naturally being a guy and having no idea what to look for, I said yes and pointed to the control line. After being corrected (angrily), I found out that there was a very faint line next to it. I learned to tell how if a pregnancy a test was positive or not.
For those that have found out their significant other was pregnant, and assuming you were looking forward to having kids and being happy about it - you'd probably agree with me that it's very hard to describe how you feel. The typical guy answer is "HAPPY" and in my case it was "VERY HAPPY". The words / phrases that describe how I felt were:
- Happy, hope, joy (variants of "VERY HAPPY")
- Pride, proud (I don't know how you can not feel pride or be proud to be a parent)
- Concern (ie: do we make enough money?)
- Fear (do we have to get a minivan now? Am I going to have to drive it?)
- Boy or girl? Should we find out? What if my wife doesn't agree with me?
- How can I change the world to give my child a better world to live in than what I grew up in?
I promptly called my friends and family to tell them I was going to be a dad! It was on my MSN title and my facebook status. Seriously, if I had thought about buying a newspaper ad for it, I probably would've done it. I was ontop of the world!
After that, it was kind of a mixture of letting people know and busy at work for the next few weeks. The days after the first one that stood out for me were:
May 10th, 2006 - I asked my wife if sex while she was pregnant was bad. She said no, I wasn't sure if it was safe so we didn't. No birthday sex for me.
May 11th 2006 - I was at work and was planning for an afternoon meeting with a Samsung rep. I got a call from my wife - she was crying. We had lost our baby.
... to be continued in Part 2.
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