On the Anniversary of Loss

It's a strange week. On Friday it will be the six-year anniversary of my D&C, which is the date I've chosen to commemorate the loss of my first child. I first learned the pregnancy wasn't viable at 6.5 weeks, when only a gestational sac, not an embryo, was visible on the sonogram. But the body can be cruel, and my beta hcg level continued to rise--regularly, I might add--until I was well into the first trimester. I was pregnant. And I wasn't. And while I lived in that in-between space, I taught my classes, shutting my office door in the afternoons so I could cry. Finally I turned in my grades and had a D&C on December 19, 2002. I was in the last week of my first trimester. I started lactating after the procedure.

It was an awful winter, to put it mildly.

What made it tolerable, beyond the routine of going to class and seeing my friends on occasion, was thinking about trying again, and the support of Wonderful Former RE (WFRE). She called me at home on Christmas Eve to see how I was doing.

We came up with a battle plan for trying again on Valentine's Day, as I sat in her office biting my fingernails into my palms so I didn't cry. The new plan involved shots, lots and lots of shots. Big IM shots of Repronex and little sub-Q shots of heparin. When I told her I was scared she told me that I was bold--choosing to become a single mom in my twenties--and that *this* (the miscarriage, the fertility treatment) was the easy stuff. It certainly didn't feel like it at the time.

She made it possible for me to go beyond what I thought I could handle. And I have an almost-five year old daughter because of her.

I'm writing this now--and not on Friday--because I don't know how I will feel then, if I will be able to put down the words. On both the first anniversary of my due date and the first anniversary of my loss, I was pregnant with LG. I was more scared of losing her than I was of anything else; in many ways I felt more bonded with the child I lost than the one growing in my belly. And in the few years that followed, I didn't think much about the baby I lost, though the dates October 26, December 19, and July 7 are forever seared in my mind.

But now, now, 7 days into my 4th ttc cycle for Baby #2, I think about the baby I lost (my son) a lot. There's a part of me that thinks I'll take an HPT on Friday--10 dpo--so if I am pregnant I will have another association with December 19. And then there's that other part, the one that knows if I'm not pregnant, just how devastating December 19 will be, regardless of the antics LG throws my way.

It's with that year in mind that I'm going to see a new RE on Thursday. Because I can't do this without someone as gentle and aggressive as WFRE at my side. What scares me more than anything is that *this* cycle--my last with Dr. Evil--results in another miscarriage. I can handle being a single mom, but I can't handle another pregnancy loss alone.