When you're actively struggling with infertility, you learn to make a lot of lemonade. Sometimes, it seems, that lemon after lemon just keeps coming your way. And you try so hard to see the positive, to squeeze every little bit of hope out of that lemon, but sometimes lemonade just plain sucks. It sucks, and it stings your wounds.

Yesterday, we went to go hear our baby's heartbeat. At just over 7 weeks, we were pretty sure we'd be coming home with a glossy new picture of our bean and an audio recording of his beating heart. My husband had his cell phone ready to record the ultrasound, and I sat nervously on the exam table... half excited and half afraid that we's see a subchorionic hematoma because of the bleeding I had a couple weeks ago. But we were hopeful... "cautiously optimistic" as the doctors had suggested.

When the doctor started the transvaginal ultrasound, I knew right away that something was wrong. He was going back and forth, zooming in and out, adjusting the brightness and contrast. He asked the nurse to read back the numbers from my last ultrasound. He stopped. He started looking around again. Back and forth again. Then, he made that face where you squeeze your lips together real tight because you know what you're going to have to say but just don't want to say it out loud. "I'm not seeing what we should be seeing at over 7 weeks." I could have thrown up right there. The only thing we could see on ultrasound was a shadow of a gestational sac--an empty gestational sac. 

I cried on the table while the doctor was apologizing. I don't remember much of what he said besides, "You guys have been through so much." And we have. And I cried harder because we've been through so much.

Later that day, I got my bloodwork results back. My hcg had dropped from nearly 5,000 to just 19. I was ordered to stop my estrogen and progesterone immediately and wait for my body to miscarry naturally. I spent the past 7 weeks praying not to see blood in the bathroom, and now I can't will it to come soon enough. I just want it over with so I can move on.

I have an appointment scheduled with my RE for the 16th to talk about what could have happened. This was, after all  supposed to be a genetically and chromosomally normal embryo. I feel like there has to be something that we're missing--a reason why nothing will stick or grow in my uterus. Something had to have changed since my daughter was born over 3 years ago, but I have no idea how to figure out what. We'll see what my doctor has to say and decide where to go from there.

And as sad as this post may seem, I do still feel hopeful. I laughed today... a bunch of times. We went to get ice cream by the beach after dinner, and I almost forgot that anything was wrong. I go back and forth between that empty feeling of loss in the pit of your stomach and a feeling that we'll get this eventually. I know, from being through this so many times, that eventually I'll feel nothing but hope. The loss will fade and the promise of what's next will take over. And once everything passes, physically and emotionally, I'll be even more ready for my rainbow baby.

If you have to stress about trying to conceive, I think it's only fair that you have an uneventful pregnancy. Seems fair, right? All of the struggle and heartache surrounding infertility should earn you one free ticket to a totally normal, textbook, enjoying-pickles-and-ice-cream type of pregnancy. The complications--gestational diabetes, pre-eclampsia, incompetent cervix, etc.--should be reserved for the "oops!" babies and the "it happened on the first try" babies. Just my personal view and the way I would structure the universe if I was in charge of things. Although, for the record, I should say that no woman should ever have to endure any complications during pregnancy. It's unfair to anyone. Unfortunately, we had a little (big) scare on Tuesday that may or may not be over. 

Everything looked great at my first ultrasound visit on Monday morning. My hcg was up to 2351, we saw a gestational sac and the yolk sac, and everything was measuring right on target. I got to take home a picture of my little bean and proudly display it on the refrigerator next to his Day-6 embie portrait. I was feeling really confident. Things were looking much brighter than they had when I miscarried.

Tuesday morning, I still felt great. I ventured out to Target to pick up some more Benadryl, to which I've finally built up a bit of a tolerance. I stopped in the restroom as soon as I got there and saw every pregnant woman's worst nightmare--blood. It was what I consider to be "a lot" of blood....and the worst kind--bright red. I immediately went into panic mode. This couldn't possibly be happening again, I thought.

I rushed out of the bathroom and ran straight to the car. I called my husband on the way home and told him what was going on. I could hear the panic in his voice too. "Maybe it's fine," he said as he was getting in his car to come home.

I called my nurse in absolute hysterics. It's amazing how you think you've composed yourself until the voice on the other end answers. I must have sounded like a nutcase, hardly able to catch my breath, but she had me come in for an ultrasound right away. In the bathroom of the RE's office, I passed a bunch of clots. Smaller ones than I had seen with my miscarriage, but I thought for sure this ultrasound was going to be bad news.

They had me come right in to the exam room when I got there, and my husband arrived just in time. The doctor started with a speculum exam where he said he sees some residual clots, although it didn't look like there was any active bleeding happening anymore. He did the internal ultrasound, and after a few seconds of adjusting the picture on the screen, we saw our little bean... hanging on. He had, in fact, grown 1 mm since the day before, which was a very good sign. 

The doctor explained that there's all kinds of reasons why a woman might bleed during pregnancy, and sometimes things go on to be perfectly fine. We have to be cautiously optimistic that this is one of those "perfectly fine" times. We repeated my bloodwork from the day before, and I went home to wait it out while I rest on the couch until the bleeding stopped.

Later that evening, things started to lighten up. I passed a few more clots, but nothing too scary. By the time I went to bed, the bleeding had stopped completely. 

Wednesday, I got a call with my bloodwork results and my hcg had jumped from 2351 to 4974 in only 32 hours! It was an amazing jump, and as the nurse said, "just about the best outcome we could hope for." I was still blood/clot-free all day Wednesday and Thursday, so we decided that things are looking up. 

We think what happened was a subchorionic bleed. Although it didn't show on the ultrasound, it's the most common reason this would happen. We just have to keep an eye on it at my next ultrasound to see if it comes back. I'm still taking it easy and trying not to lift anything--including my 3-year-old. And I'm spending lots of time with my feet up on the couch. I go back on May 4th when we'll try to hear the heartbeat. I'll be just over 7 weeks at that point, so hopefully everything is on target.

This was certainly an exhausting week, and my nerves are just about shot. But I'm thankful that, at least for now, our little bean is still stuck! Physically, I'm feeling good. And emotionally, I'm trying to shake the negative worry and replace it with a deep breath. A deep if-I-can-handle-infertility-I-can-handle-anything kind of breath. And then I feel strong.