Spring is Here!

I'm not sure how things are where you live, but it's been crazy warm here for the last three weeks.  I've been wearing non-summery sandals to work (I'm a teacher) and have been enjoying the early blooms, long walks with the pooches and spending time in the sunshine.

Baby A is now nine months old.  I cannot believe how quickly time is going!  She's been crawling since six months and now officially stands up on her own and is able to let go for a few seconds, too.  Two teeth came through about a month ago and one up top is ready to pop.  It's tough but I love every minute of being a mommy.

Also, as of tomorrow, Mr SC and I are officially finished with TTC and any thoughts of a future child.  Mr SC is having a vasectomy.  I keep pausing about how final it is and thinking about how I should be sad.  Truth be told, I'm not.  We know that somehow we ended up with Alaina and with all that we went through to have her, that she was it.  I can't say with certainty that at some point I won't grieve for what could have been ( I still wince when I see pregnant bellied women in public) but now, I'm happy and we're happy with our family of five (Mommy, Daddy, A and our two pooches).

"Oversharing" Pregnancy Loss and Adding Insult to Injury

Yep. As cliched as this sounds, I've been injured and now I'm insulted.  Honestly, insulted isn't strong enough of a word.  Disgusted and outraged are more appropriate.

If you haven't already read it, there's an article in Macleans about couples "oversharing" pregnancy losses.

Dear Anne Kingston (author of the article),

I'm writing as the author one of the "myriad of miscarriage blogs" that you refer to.  And guess what?  I'm proud of it.    Clearly you have never experienced a loss yourself or your insensitivity and lack of empathy wouldn't have been so obvious in your article.

My husband and I tried to have a child for three years.  While trying to have a child, we experienced four miscarriages in a one and a half year time period.  We sought several medical opinions and I underwent numerous procedures, yet I continued to miscarry.  We found out that we were pregnant again in November 2010 and I gave birth to a healthy baby girl in July of 2011.

We will never know why.  We will never have answers.  Although we are eternally thankful for our baby girl, the never knowing will always haunt us.

I tried therapy.  I tried medication.  I eventually retreated emotionally and pretty much suffered in silence.  People didn't understand.  Sometimes I felt like my husband didn't understand.  What got me through those three years were the "myriad of miscarriage blogs and stillbirth tribute pages" that you referred to.


Why?  The infertility and loss community is like no other.   Online, I was able to connect with people who understood and who didn't minimize my pain.  Sites like www.facesofloss.org allowed women to attach a story and name to their face and connect with others.   Though blogging, I "met" countless other people who shared my experience and "got it".  I finally, finally felt understood.  Had I experienced that type of understanding in real life, coping with the grief would have been much more bearable.


Those who reach out to others when they are grieving aren't going "from stigma and silence to over-sharing as boundaries are tested and even blurred", as you stated in your article.   They are trying to cope and reach out to others for support.   What could the possible harm be in reaching out to others?  

Because of the stigma attached to miscarriage, here I am at the end of my letter to you and I don't know how to sign it.  There's a large part of me that feels it should be anonymous.  Why?  Why should there be  a stigma associated with miscarriage?  Why should I feel ashamed or embarrassed for suffering such painful losses?  I shouldn't, yet I do.  Why?  Because people like you judge those of us who reach out to others for comfort.

Truth Be Told

Hi, everyone.  I miss you.  The IF/RPL community is like no other.  The connections.  The support.

I've been here countless times, trying to write a post.  Truth is, I feel like some sort of traitor.  I've lost followers. I've tried Twitt.er but it's just not the same.  And, although I have things to blog about, they're often mommy things and it doesn't feel right posting them here.

When I do check my blog roll, I always am so happy to *hear* from you.  I think of so many of you often.  I mean, seriously, when you talk about your uterus and se.x all the time, a certain bond forms, doesn't it?

So, here's what's going on.

1.  I went back to work about two months ago, just shy of A's 6 month birthday.  Mr SC was hurt at work about two weeks after A was born, so he's still home with her, which makes it easier.  I also love my job, which makes it easier.  It still is so incredibly tough.  I pride myself on only two meltdowns.  :)

2.  I wish I had more time.  Time to spend with my daughter.  Time to spend with my dogs.  Time to spend with Mr SC.  I feel like every second of every day I try to jam so much in that I'm having trouble settling down to sleep at night.

3.  I'm still struggling with weight.  I started out pre-pg  much heavier than I would have liked and now, although I'm back to my pre-pg weight, I'm still so, well, soft.  Ick.  When I have a minute to myself though, it's tough to choose exercise, even though I know I should.

A is getting big, big, big!  She navigates the entire living room floor by rolling over and over.  She's been up on  all fours, ready to officially crawl since just before six months, but we're still waiting.  She can sit on her own and eats like a champ!  The last time she was at the doctor she was 18 pounds and 26 inches.

I can't believe that she's seven months old already!

And...here she is!

With Santa !

At the official seven month mark

on Christmas Eve (not the best pic of me but I love this one of her!)

Pay it Forward

To this day, I don't know how I would have survived my pregnancy without my doppler.  Starting at about 12 weeks, I started to listen to Baby A's heartbeat daily, until well into the 2nd trimester (when I felt her move daily).  Although there were a couple of times her hb was a little difficult to find, it was always there.  

I want to help someone feel better, the way I did, if possible.

So, I'm giving away my doppler, along with three large tubes of u/s gel to go with it.  Why I felt the need to buy three tubes?  I don't know.  Told ya I listened a lot.  :)

I believe it was about $90 total for everything when I bought it.

What would I like in return?

1.  For you to pay the shipping costs.

2.  For you to give it to someone else when you no longer feel the need to use it.

Please email me at pennstatekelly at gmail dot com

Living Life to Forget

So many of you have blogged or posted about your emotional state and how IF has changed you.  I really thought that, in all, I had dealt with things fairly well when going through our losses.  I knew that I went into self-preservation mode and retreated a bit.  I knew that I grieved.  I just didn't realize that the last several years of my life are pretty much absent from my memory.

There were a few instances where I thought this could have been the case but I brushed them off.  A couple of weeks ago though I was at the last PSU football game of the season (the first one without Joe as coach, which was a strange, strange thing).  My friend was commenting about games we had been to previously and was talking about a weekend trip we had made with her husband and Mr SC, too.

I remembered none of it.  Absolutely none of it.  In all, there were about five different things she had talked about that I easily should have remembered (several of which were significant) but I didn't.  The only thing I did remember (quite vividly) happened in the fall, just after we started TTC.  Before any of our losses.

The experience really got me thinking and talking to Mr SC about things when I got home.  I'm so upset with myself for essentially losing several years of my life completely.  What's worse is that I didn't even realize it.

I've spent time this morning reading back through my blog and the entries particularly from my pregnancy with Baby A.  I don't want to forget any of it but wow, to read back through it hurts like hell.

I wish more than ever I didn't essentially throw those years of  my life away.  I should say also that I wasn't drinking or heavily medicated to the point that I shouldn't remember, either.

I had thought that all of this had taught me not to take life for granted.  Turns out, by essentially not living through those last few years, that's all I was doing.

This morning, I woke up and thanked god for this miracle, as I do every morning.  I'm also thankful that I was given this day, too.  A day that, more than ever, I'm going to concentrate on embracing.

Angels and a Babe

This year, as we have done the last four years, Mr SC and I went to pick out our Christmas tree on Black Friday.  The last two years, we have spent Thanksgiving away, just the two of us.  The holiday falls on our EDD from our first loss and, well, we decided we wanted to devote that time to healing ourselves and our hearts.

This year, it was a truly emotional day.  Not only did we cook for my parents, but we got to spend our first Thanksgiving with our rainbow baby.  I got all choked up at dinner and was completely overcome with emotion.

As we decorated our tree, we hung our angel ornament that we bought two years ago, which was our way of including our lost babies in our holiday.  This year, we hung Alaina's first ornament, right next to the angel.

the ornament for our angels

Please ignore the bizarre things the sun/shadows did to my face!

                                      I don't have a fat lip! :)

My Little One

I wanted to share a couple of pics of Baby A from Halloween (which, here on the east coast, including a record snowstorm, complete with power losses for a week plus in some areas!)