Autopilot

Last wednesday I was so happy. I had the day off work and Justin called off sick to be with me on beta day. We went and had my beta drawn and everyone in the office was so excited and happy towards me. They all told me that they "just knew" this was it. We felt that way too. They asked if I had POAS and I told them for the first time ever I had not, that I was just too scared. We left feeling like that day was going to be the best day. We went and had breakfast and then Justin dropped me off to have my eyebrows waxed and my haircut. I went there with all intentions of cutting a few inches off and getting some bangs, this was the NEW me... the pregnant me... the happy me. We then went home and I began painting the kitchen so that I wouldnt go crazy waiting for the phone call.

At 1:47pm as I stood on the kitchen counter edging above our archway I looked at Justin and said "I just all of the sudden feel like bad news is coming". Right then my phone rang.... it was them. I grabbed my phone and answered. All I remember is the nurse saying "We got your numbers back (at this point I was thinking YAY NUMBERS!) and it was negative." :::insert panic here::: I looked at Justin and just shook my head as my eyes filled with tears that were soon running down my face. How could this be happening?! All I remember after this is sitting on my kitchen counter completely devastated and crying so hard that there was mascara dripping onto the counter.

A few minutes later I went into autopilot. I stood back up and just started painting. I painted and painted and painted. Its almost like I thought there was going to be another phone call... one telling me that they made a mistake... one telling me that everything would be ok. The phone never rang. I dont think it ever sunk in that afternoon. We went and met Amie and Chris for happy hour at Marcellas and I gladly drank way more sangria than was necessary. When we left we got in the car and as we drove away it hit me.... I was drinking, drinking because I wasnt pregnant, drinking because our IVF didnt work, drinking because it was all that I could do. It was then that I realized it was over, our dreams were shattered. It was that moment that I for the first time knew it really may never happen.

After crying myself into a migraine I walked in the door and went straight to bed, at 9:30pm. I crawled in bed and crashed like I hadnt slept in weeks. I worked the next day even though I could barely pull myself out of bed. I didnt want to see the sun, I didnt want to smile, I didnt want to talk to my patients and pretend that everything was ok because the truth is it wasnt ok, and I wasnt ok. I didnt want to see anyone. I just wanted to lay there and pretend that this wasnt my life but that wasnt an option. So I worked. Autopilot set back in and I felt like a zombie, I wasnt happy, I wasnt sad, I didnt feel at all.

I came home that night and painted. Justin was gone all night and I just painted till there was nothing left to paint. Then I packed because, THANK GOD, we were going out of town that weekend which we needed more than I can even express.

Friday came and we went to our Drs appt and we worked and we left for the weekend. It was so nice to be away, to be out of our house full of medicine, needles, sharps containers, and things that reminded us of all that we just lost. We had a great weekend away.

Then we came back. I walked in the house and wanted to turn around and run back out. I wanted to pretend this wasnt reality. Since then all I can seem to do is cry. Everytime I am in my car I cry. When I lay down to go to bed I cry. When I sit and stare at the TV not even really seeing or hearing it because of the screaming thoughts in my head I cry.

Its so hard to explain how it feels to fail an IVF cycle. You have pictures... pictures of the babies that were growing in the lab, the cells were dividing and multiplying and life was being created. That is, until they put them into your body. Its almost like losing children.... or failing them at least because they were there and they were growing. What am I supposed to do with these pictures now?! We grew so attached to them, we looked at them everyday and talked about them. These were our kids, or so we thought.

This past weekend marked:
I.5 years
18 months
78 weeks
548 days
13,152 hours
and 789,120 minutes
since we started trying to conceive this baby.

Here was are:
8 rounds of clomid
Hundred of shots
Hundreds of blood draws
Thousands of pills
7 IUI cycles
1 IVF w/ICSI later and still no baby.

That is so many failures, so much lost hope, so much wasted time, so much pain, so much money.

The stages of grief are as follows:
Shock stage*: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news.
Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
Testing stage*: Seeking realistic solutions.
Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward

I am somewhere in between denial and anger. I wish I could go back to denial, it was less painful there.