Tentative steps

Well, it's been a difficult 6 months for sure.  Nearly 6 months ago, Lucas was born.  Since then, it's been a whirlwind of medical procedures, tests, surgeries, and more pain.  Some days I'm not quite sure how to go on, how to get out of bed and face the world and all the painful reminders.  My heart aches for the feel of our son safe in my arms.  Oh, how I long for those sleepless nights.  August brought another surgery to ready my body.  In September, we did transfer, saw another 2 little baby Savants, fell in love.  Only to have everything come crashing down again just 7 weeks later. Those sweet babies I never even got to feel kicking inside of me.  Then, we planned on doing another transfer at Thanksgiving, only the testing leading up to it lead us to a dead stop.  Everything looked great, but I had retained some placental tissue from Noah.  My body was not yet ready.

Fast forward to December.  We are mid cycle again, and facing more problems than I would like.  Tomorrow I head back to the hospital for yet another surgery, this time to remove an ovarian cyst.  Why?  WHY??  I want to scream at it all.  It's not the procedure itself, it's fairly simple.  It's not the inconvenience of it.  It's just the accumulation of one more thing, one more obstacle.  Some people just get to have sex.  And just like that, the bitterness takes root.  And I find myself questioning over and over again, what's wrong with me?  Why is it always me?  At this very second, I should be nursing my sweet baby.  Or, 17 weeks pregnant.  Instead, I am barren.  Empty.  Prepping for another medical procedure with the hopes that I will one day be able to raise those sweet babies.

So, here is how you can pray for us.  First, the surgery tomorrow.  It's being done by a doctor I've never met in a practice I've never heard of.  He says he can do it, no problem, so we'll see.  I'm also electing to only have local anesthesia as the hubs is out of town.  Anyone who knows me knows that I HATE all these things, and that I much prefer to be completely out for anything that happens in an OR.  Second, we have a transfer on the books again.  On 12/19, we'll be meeting 2 other little baby Savants.  This is hard to share in advance.  I blogged my way through the entire process with Reagan and it was a really beautiful time.  Since then, we've been fairly secretive about the process for some reason, choosing not to share until late in the 1st trimester, after several ultrasounds and labs confirming everything looks good.  And through that all, I've learned it's certainly not any easier that way.  More times than not, my babies still die.  This time, I feel like I need an army of prayer warriors surrounding me, so I'm choosing to be vulnerable instead.  I'm saying goodbye to the cute little surprise facebook announcement because this is infinitely more important.

As I look into the future, I have a hard time imagining that anything will work.  Testing has revealed some things that may or may not be treatable and may or may not be contributing to our losses.  That doesn't leave me with any warm and fuzzy feelings.  Statistics are scary, with up to a 25% chance of recurrent stillbirth.  That is very high, too high some might say.  But, we were given these embryo for a reason.  I have 6 more babies, babies I've never met, babies I would love to know.  So, less circumstances change and close this door to us, we will move forward with the transfers, trusting that God is good even when He doesn't appear to be.  Trusting that He knows best, even when I think I could do it better.  It's not a fun place to be, but it's where I am called right now.