A Mosaic of Emotions: Returning to the RE & Seasons of Loss
Returning to the RE’s office had me full of mixed emotions.
On one hand, I was hopeful.
I was ready to transfer one of our embabies back and to begin another pregnancy.
On the other hand, I was disappointed.
I really had come to hope in the time since having my daughter that I’d be able to get pregnant on my own.
As I sat in the RE waiting room, I thought about the time that had passed since we were last patients there. We graduated from their clinic when I was 9 weeks pregnant with Brooklyn, after we finished our PIO injections. We were so happy and excited and grateful and lucky that IVF had finally worked for us.
This time, it felt different. I felt weathered.
Seasoned.
This wasn’t my first rodeo.
I wasn’t filled with blind optimism.
I knew the path would be hard. I also knew I had made the choice to walk it.
As with most things, COVID-19 changed our original timeline.
We were scheduled to have pre-transfer testing done in April, 2020 and our transfer in May; however many clinics and labs were shut down during the early days of the pandemic as they navigated keeping patients and staff as safe as possible.
We were finally notified in July that we’d be able to do our testing in August, and we were apprehensive but ready. I was required to follow a FET prep checklist from my clinic - including new notarized consent forms, day 3/baseline labs and ultrasound, I needed to complete a SIS, we needed a meeting with the financial counselor, and to receive insurance approval before we could be scheduled.
In September, we began actual transfer prep.
We were using the same protocol we had with Brooklyn, and we knew the embryo was genetically normal. So, when I found out our transfer was unsuccessful and I miscarried our son, I was devastated.
We spoke with our doctor as soon as possible, and she was heartbroken with us. We asked her a million questions, including whether there was anything we could do differently this next time around. She suggested we do a “non-invasive” test called a uterine biopsy during my prep cycle. There was a small chance after having my daughter, I might have something called Chronic Endometritis, or Inflammation of the Uterine Lining. I had no physical symptoms outside of those I’d related to a postpartum period, but this could give us a little more information going into our next transfer.
When the biopsy came back positive for CE, I was almost relieved in a sense.
We knew likely why I’d had the last miscarriage, and we could fix this before transferring our last embryo. The first line of treatment was an antibiotic. No big deal, right? Well, based on Crohn’s disease, I have some challenges with those, so it actually was fairly stressful. But, I did it. I went in for a repeat biopsy, and was really frustrated to see that the CE was still present. Instead of another round of antibiotics, my doctor recommended a hysteroscopy under anesthesia. This would enable her to scrape out the inflamed tissue, and give me the best chance at a clean biopsy and a subsequent successful embryo transfer.
My third and fourth biopsies from before and after surgery came back as we’d hoped - showing that the procedure did in fact help. I had one more biopsy, a fifth this season, completed during the beginning of my next FET prep cycle, just to make extra sure there was no evidence of CE remaining (or that had returned).
I went into my last transfer in January really grounded and optimistic. We’d fixed the reason my fall transfer had ultimately failed, and this was my last embryo. I did a lot of things different this time around, and felt confident that this was going to be our rainbow baby.
Here’s the most heartbreaking lesson IVF continues to teach me.
When I miscarried our second son three months after our first, I felt shattered inside. How was this possible? I’d done everything I was supposed to. Both boys were genetically normal embryos. My uterine lining was “thick and beautiful.”
During this season of loss, I kept thinking about how we’d gotten here. How having a baby was so easy for some people, so easy and so inexpensive and actually fun - and for us, how it was at this point just devastating.
Honestly, I’ve had to do a good amount of work in this space before I was ready to move forward.
If you’ve struggled with back to back losses, what was your most helpful rally cry?
