Our story of miscarriage

This is something I wish I never had to write. But here I am 9 days after we heard the

 most devastating news of my life....

 

"This isn't what I want to see, I am sorry there is no heartbeat"

 

But let me take you back to a few weeks prior....

 

On June 14th we started our second round of IVF, this was 2 1/2 years after we started trying to have a baby. We felt nervous to be doing this again, because we knew from our past round of IVF, IVF doesn't equal a baby.  But we were still very hopeful that this would be our time. This round of STIMS went by very fast and 9 days later we were already having our egg retrieval, where it felt a little deja vu, because like the first time, we again got 10 eggs. But this time 5 days later we got to transfer a perfect grade 5 day embryo and we were sooooo excited and felt so good. But like everything with infertility and IVF it always feels like good news comes with bad and a day or so later we found out that none of our other embryos had made it. So this little embryo we transferred was our one and only. 

And we were holding on to that hope! 

Well 5 days after we transferred our one and only embryo we got the best news ever when I took an at home pregnancy test. For the first time EVER we saw two pink lines. WE WERE FINALLY PREGNANT! I wish I could go back and bottle up that joy and excitement we got to experience on that day. Sure we were still a little nervous because we knew it was early, but to see those two pink lines was the best thing ever. And good news kept coming, we did three beta blood test and they all came back perfect. We got to tell some of our closest friends,

 and family that we were pregnant. 

 

And of course with good news, it always comes with bad, and at close to 6 weeks I woke up one morning and I was bleeding. And it felt like the earth was breaking up under my feet, I was so scared. We had to wait a painful couple of days before my clinic wanted us to come in for an ultrasound, those couple of days felt like eternity....but on July 21st we went in for our first ultrasound and walking into that appointment I felt like I was going to puke because I was so nervous, BUT everything was okay and we saw our perfect little baby! It was still too early to hear the heartbeat, but we could see it on the ultrasound and we were ecstatic! We really felt like it was all going to be okay. My doctor wanted to watch me, because of the bleeding (that only lasted a half day) and said to come back the next week to have another ultrasound. So at 7weeks 1 day we went back, and again everything was perfect and we got to hear our sweet baby's heartbeat! And we were even more sure that everything was going to be okay. Even my doctor thought so and even offered to let us graduate that day from the fertility clinic, 

but I said maybe we can do one more visit, which he agreed to for two weeks later.

In those two weeks everything felt like it was suppose to feel, my boobs were hurting, getting bigger, 

I was very very nauseous pretty much 24/7, nothing at all felt off.....

 

And on July 12th we went in for what was suppose to be our very last appointment at our fertility clinic, we both felt very confident that everything was good, we even joked going up the elevator about never having to come back here again, or walking back to the room the nurse said something and I said, these appointments are a lot more fun then others. And I just hate that we felt so confident, I hate that nothing felt off, and I hate that we thought everything was going to be okay when our baby was already not with us. And then minutes later my world was turned upside down. Evan was standing next to me, we were both watching the screen, him recording the screen with his phone so we had on video our sweet baby, who at this point we knew was going to be bigger and even be able to see little arms, and then I think this moment will be engraved in my brain forever when the doctors voice changed, and he said "oh no, this isn't what I want to see.... I don't see a heartbeat" and I remembering looking at Evan as he stopped recording, hoping I was hearing the doctor wrong, hoping he was just missing something. And the doctor kept looking and talking, and I remembering hearing myself start to cry, it was almost an out of body moment where it was like I was hearing someone else cry. And that crying lasted for days. I remember telling my sisters and best friends, I just want to stop crying, like the sadness and grief I can handle, but I just don't want to cry anymore. 

 

And if you are going through a miscarriage right now, even 8 days after finding out about ours, while I still shed tears, 

the non stop crying does stop, that part gets better. 

 

After leaving the doctors that day, we were given all the options on what we could do next, but they also said if I needed another ultrasound for some closer, they were happy to do that. So once we were home and I could semi collect my thoughts I decided I needed that ultrasound, there was definitely some hope I was trying to hold on to in that moment, that maybe the doctor was wrong, even though I KNEW deep down that there wasn't any hope to hold on to, but I needed to do it before making the next steps. And I won't lie, the next few days were really hard. I remember waking up the next day, before even opening my eyes thinking, PLEASE let what I think was the day before be a REALLY bad dream, PLEASE let me still be pregnant, and before I opened my eyes I already knew that it wasn't a bad dream, because my eyes hurt so bad from all the crying. For me having to wake up and remember it all again was really hard, and to be honest it is still the worst part of my day. I have had a hard time falling asleep at night, because I think I don't want to go through the pain of having to remind myself when I wake up that it really did happen. 

 

But we went back to the doctor 3 days later, to the same room that we were in a few days ago, with the same doctor, and we again got the same bad news, but this time I didn't cry, instead I just felt numb. And at that appointment we talked about next steps, I decided that I wanted a D&C, because for me it was just the best choice, I didn't want to wait for it to happen at any moment, and I didn't want to have to go through that trauma in our home. So we scheduled the D&C for two days later. 

 

And looking back what was just 5 days from finding out, to our D&C felt like weeks, and living in this weird limbo of time where my body still thought I was pregnant , but I knew I wasn't was a REALLY hard thing. I just kept thinking of our baby, who days ago I was so excited about, to knowing that the baby was no longer alive but inside of me still was hard to deal with. And even though I knew the D&C was what I wanted to do, I still was very anxious about it, and truly I didn't even realize how much anxiety I had around it till it was over and there was this weight lifted off of me. I think I was fearful of what the D&C was going to physically be like, and how pain would be like after, plus how I was going to feel mentally after it was over. In my head I thought I would feel empty, like a piece of me was missing. But in reality that piece (our baby) was gone the day we found out there was no heartbeat. So I was "happily surprised" that the day of our D&C, other then some mild cramping I felt good both physically and mentally. 

But our baby was gone, and I now had to pick up the pieces of how to move forward after this. 

And the thing about infertility is you still have this STRONG desire to be a mom, and while I know I need time to grieve and let my body get back to a place where it can grow a baby again, I just want to be able to try again. As painful as it might seem I am just so tired of waiting...

 

So here's to hoping our waiting doesn't last long. 🤍

-Sara

 

A week after we found out the devesting news I wrote this to our baby...

I wish we had longer with you. I wish we got to celebrate your gender reveal party, got to feel you kick inside of me, see the sweet ultrasounds of your face, got to see my belly grow with you you inside of me, celebrate you with a big party with all our friends and family and most importantly have gotten to hold you in our arms. But we didn’t get any of that.

But what we did get was a few short weeks of being so happy to finally find out we were pregnant with you after trying so so very hard. You will always be our first, the first time I saw two pink lines, the first time I got to tell your dad it was happening, that we are having a baby and the first time we got to tell our friends and family about our greatest joy. I don’t know that I have ever been so happy in my life to finally know about you, and to finally make plans of all the things I have wished for, for years now.

I wish life wasn’t so unfair, I wish you were still growing inside of me, but I am so grateful for a few short weeks of being your mom! 🤍

Feeling Peace.

 I will be honest I was really scared of how I was going to feel this holiday season, in a season where I have felt a lot of heart break and loss, and the one thing I REALLY want isn't coming true this holiday season. 

 

 

BUT I feel so grateful right now, grateful might seem like a weird feeling to feel when for 20 months I have been reminded of loss after loss, and trying again with more loss. 

But during this break we have been on, I found myself again, I found so much peace with where we are at. This journey has not been easy and for months I felt like a shell of myself and worried I would never feel the same again. And parts of me won't ever be the same, because going through something like this changes you. But I am feeling so GREAT and at peace. I was talking to a friend the other day about her infertility and she felt bad for complaining to me about her infertility because they haven't been trying as long as we have,  and it's weird to feel so far out from where we started and yet feel so much better. Those first few months of trying and failed cycle after cycle are sooooo hard, and if you are in that place right now, it's weird to say, even without a baby still, things get better.... for me it's that I found peace with how our journey is going. Do I love that we have had to spend THOUSANDS of dollars to try and get pregnant...NO...do I love that we will never have that first surprise pregnancy with all the fun surprises...NO... am I grateful for science that will hopefully be getting us pregnant... YES! 

As soon as I finally said yes to our IVF journey there was this wave of peace that came over me, like this was suppose to be this way, and right now I don't know why that is. I don't know why so much pain had to happen to get us to this point of peace. But I am still weirdly grateful for this place we are in. 

I am grateful for the connections I have made because of this journey, I am grateful for the support of so many friends and family, I am grateful for a husband that supports my biggest desires.

For years I have picked a word for the year, and 2021 was HOPE. And there was a lot of hope, and a lot of pain that went with that hope. But I know that, that hope brought us here to PEACE. So for 2022 my word for the year is peace. I know we could have a long road still in front of us, but I pray that with each step we continue to have an abundant amount of peace through this journey. 

 

And we found out our IVF journey is going to be started a lot early then we thought and we are so excited about that!

Infertility During the Holidays

First off I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who has given to our Gofundme for Baby Sears! Every little bit helps in this journey and we are so grateful for the outpouring of love and support! 

 

 

But I won't lie, even feeling the best I have felt all year, maybe since we started this journey, going through infertility during the Holidays is so hard. There are just so many reminders of what we are missing/wanting. I mean the christmas songs alone are so triggering....All I want for christmas, Wish you were here this Christmas, ect ect... 

I was thinking back to last christmas this morning, and it's weird to think that being a year out from that and still not pregnant nor have a baby, I am grateful that I am in a better place mentally than I was last Christmas. Last Christmas I think we were still pretty hush hush about our journey, I might have mentioned it a little, and our close group of friends and some family knew. But for the most part it felt like I was carrying the weight of it all on my own, and it felt like I was living these two lives, the life of trying to have a baby EVERY month and hiding all those feelings, to trying to be happy and not let everyone know the PAIN I was in every month. I was also was holding on to SO MUCH HOPE that we would get a Christmas Miracle and get to share that with Family on Christmas. And of course when that didn't happen, and I knew for sure a few days before Christmas, and it was so hard. 

So this break around the holidays has been the best thing for me, because while Hope is wonderful, month after month of having such high hope to be crushed by the disappointment of it all is something I can't even explain, I think the pain of that isn't talked about a lot. You know people talk about pregnancy loss, and not being able to get pregnant, but the true grief EVERY MONTH of it not happening is truly unbearable sometimes.

And I share my story because there's so many women out there that are going through this, that choose to keep things private, but I know they are suffering so much. And I know personally, just hearing someone else's story about how hard it was for them, made me realize that, okay yes my feelings are very valid! I think as women we want to be strong and say we can do it all! But when you are faced with this journey it's not meant for you to have to carry all the pain and weight, so even if you aren't ready to share with the world, reach out to someone and ask for help. 

I started therapy a few months ago, because this journey is very traumatic, and I knew even if I got pregnant the day I started therapy there was a LOT of trauma I needed to process and talk through to be the best someday Mom I could be. But taking those steps wasn't easy, saying I needed help wasn't easy! But I have learned this about myself through this process that I can only take a one step in front of the other, one step at a time, because with each step you make you don't know how you are going to feel. So when the steps feel like they are getting harder, get some help, or even before they get to that point, 

THE BEST GIFT I GAVE MYSELF THIS YEAR WAS THERAPY! No joke about it. 

I know I still have a lot of hard days ahead of me through the holidays, but I also know I have been through hell and back this year, and have survived. And it wasn't always easy or painless, but I know I can make it through hard things. But that doesn't mean it's easy....

Third time is a charm....right??

 Third time is a charm they say right? 

Well here's to hoping that as we move onto our 3rd IUI treatment. It pains me a little to even have to say that. To think that we are already on to #3 and that 2 IUIs already failed. These last two cycles have been pretty hard to cope with and I have tried so hard to hold on to the hope of it all, but when it feels like everything is "right" and it's still NOT WORKING it's hard to hold on to the hope of it all. 

 

These last few weeks I have definitionally felt more at peace with knowing that God does have a plan in all of this, and even when it's not working out the way I want it to, I know his hand is on this journey. BUT that doesn't mean there isn't pain and that doesn't mean I don't have strong feelings about each cycle failing. But I do have more peace, I just wish the peace helped the sadness go away, or keep me from feeling all the feels. 

 

The hardest part of Infertility is that EVERY month it doesn't work you are grieving this loss, but you never get to fully grieve it and work through it all because you quickly swept up in another cycle that you want to put all your hopes and positivity into. 

 

BUT 18 month of doing this has been A LOT, and if this next IUI doesn't work (but man I am hoping it does!) we are going to take a much needed break from it all. It doesn't mean we are giving up on this dream, but until you have walked in the shoes of infertility you can't imagine the burden it all becomes and the pain you are carrying every month moving on to the next, so a break is what we NEED.

I truly wish this wasn't my story, when this last cycle failed it definitionally felt like this bad dream I was in, like how did this happen to US, and when can it be over...

 

I am hoping that a month or so from now we are getting to share amazing happy news, but if we aren't please keep us in your prayers we we move on to some time of rest and start thinking about what the next best steps are for us to grow our family.

Infertility update.

 Through this infertility journey in the day to day life time seems to move really slow when you are waiting to see if you are pregnant or waiting for another test or doctors appointment.

  

Life through infertility is A LOT of waiting. 

 

But then there are times I am like WOW how has it already been another month or 18 months that have gone by.

 

Last month we were really excited as we were going into our first IUI,

 we felt really hopeful as things kinda fell into place and it all felt right. 

 

But sadly things didn't go the way we had hoped they would and that cycle failed. I knew going into it, that if the first IUI failed it was going to be hard, but it was harder than I ever thought it could be. 

I think because it felt like everything was looking right, and we were finally getting help from Doctors that have all these skills, so in my mind I just think OKAY this is what we needed and we are finally going to get what we have been dreaming out the last year and half. And when it didn't work out I was crushed. 

 

It was a new and different kind of grief then all the other months. And it was just really hard. 

 

But we are throwing ourselves back in it all. And going to start another round of IUI and see where this takes us. I defiantly feel less hopeful this time around, not to say that I don't have any hope, it's just different and I think I have a lot more walls up to try and protect myself even just a little bit. 

 

So we would appreciate all the prayers!

The next steps in our Fertility Journey

Well in the last week some big things happened. We had our first fertility appointment, and everything went good! And after a few test to check things off the list we have decided to start IUI next month!!

I feel like it has been a wild week thinking and reading all about IUI and what next month is going to have in store, but it feels good and we are excited about this next step that will hopefully bring us a little tiny babe!

This journey has felt long, and I know compared to others it hasn't even been the worst, but a year ago thinking about having to go to a fertility doctor to help us get pregnant seemed pretty devastating to me. For me it meant losing out on some of the dreams I had, like surprising my husband and family that we are pregnant, which I know I can still do, it just feels different because we have been very open about this journey. Which I don't regret, sharing life in this way has been something I have always loved to do, and I think even if me talking about our struggles helps one person out, than it's worth it. But now almost 18 months after trying going to see a fertility doctor feels so different, don't get me wrong, I was nervous because there is still so many unknowns. But now that we have a plan in place, some new to try it definitionally gives me a lot more hope. And we are excited to have that renewed hope to lean into. 

 

The biggest downfall of going through infertility is the financial burden it brings, our insurance unfortunately doesn't cover any of our fertility treatments, and we are pretty lucky that we are pretty good savers so we have the funds to support us through a couple of cycles of IUI, and we are praying that we will get our sweet baby after one cycle, but we always know that's not always the case. 

 

I opened this Etsy shop a couple of months ago, kinda on a whim and it's already been super helpful to help pay for testing we have had to get done. BUT if you are looking to help out in the smallest way, all the funds from here until we have our sweet baby will be going towards our infertility treatments! 

(I will be adding a bunch of back to school printable signs the first week of Aug)

 

But we would appreciate all the prayers and positive vibes as we move onto this next journey! 

 

www.etsy.com/shop/SaraGreenCollective

 

HOPE | hope through infertility

 It's another cycle day 1 for me. When the world feels like it's crushing. When ever thing else around me feels like it's moving on and I am stuck in this awful dream I wish I could get out of. It’s always such a weird day, the whole infertility journey is so weird. Because it’s this huge grief you have in your life, but unlike mourning the death of a person that people can somewhat relate to and understand your pain, infertility is something that yes lots of women go through, but it’s still something so many people can’t relate to, which makes you feel very isolated. 

 

 

But the one thing I hold on to is hope. Hope that someday I get to hold my sweet baby, hope that one day we will get to announce and celebrate with family and friends our wonderful news, hope that I get to see my husband become a dad, hope that I will finally get to be called mom, hope that the one thing in life I really wanted will come true.

 

SO MUCH HOPE. 

 

Sometimes I wonder if the hope I have makes things worse, when cycle day 1 comes I think what if I didn't hope for it so much, would hoping less make the pain less. But I don't think that's true, because for me the hope still brings me so much joy, thinking of all the things that will come. Even through this last year of hell I am still joyful of the hope of one day. 

 

 

Sure I HOPE and pray that the day comes sooner rather than later, because sometimes I am not sure how much longer I can keep trying, there are a lot of angry moments that I am like WHY ME GOD, WHY did you give me this desire to just put me through all this pain. And a lot of times it just feels unbearable. 

 

Last 4th of July was the first month that I REALLY felt the weight of trying and it not happening, it was the first month that I cried when my cycle started again which meant we wouldn't get to celebrate the news of a baby. But in my naive thoughts I thought SURELY by next year at this time we will have a baby or a baby on the way, and here we are a year later in more pain and frustration then I can imagine. 

I don’t know what the next year is going to look like, and I still have hope that in 2022 we will have our baby.

 

We finally made the decision after over a year and half of trying to go to a fertility doctor. When we first started trying and things weren’t happening the idea of having to go to a fertility doctor seemed so scary. But now after so much time, I wouldn’t say excited, but I am happy that we have this plan to hopefully get to the end goal of having our baby! Because 1 sweet baby is all we need! 

 

The emotions of going through infertility & some updates.

 The emotional journey that this year+ has been is something I would never wish on anyone. Even with being very open about the struggles we are having, it still is a very lonely journey. I think because it is such a private thing, and can be so hard to talk about, people want to respect that. But for me its this over consuming thing in my life and so when it's never talked about I kinda feel like this double life I am living.

And sometimes I feel like a broken record complaining even to my husband or closest friend because every month it's like here it is again another negative test. And I have a day or two that is REALLY hard, and then I pick myself back up because you have to get back in the head game of trying again.

It really is a weird string of emotions. And honestly I feel pretty lucky that most of the time I am in a good place with my emotions, but sometimes I don't know when the hard day is going to come, and something happens or a thought pass through and I have those hard moments. And sometimes the most frustrating part is not knowing when they are going to come and they literally come out of know where!! And I am tired of being sad.

Along with the sadness that happens, there's also a lot of anger. Angry that this is my story, that I have lost the chance of taking a pregnancy test and being hopeful, that I have to put this wall up when I see someone announce they are having a baby, that friends have to be extra sensitive talking about their pregnancy or someone they know pregnancy, and angry that there is still so much unknown of what this path is going to look like, and honestly so much more. And I am tired of being angry.

 BUT we did find out some good news from testing, where before  some numbers weren't great, they have now gotten better from taking medication, which is great.... But with that there's this like high hope that maybe this was it and will happen, and it didn't....and it's almost harder sometimes to be given those little hopeful things, because when it doesn't happen...again. It just kinda feels a little harder.  And I am tired of being hopeful and then being crushed.

But we have given ourselves a time frame that if it doesn't happen by xyz then we will move on to get some more help, which my love to plan it all out personality feels a lot better with a "plan".