The End.

Starting this blog it seemed almost like an anonymous way to release my thoughts and feelings on this grueling journey with some hope that it may help some other infertile woman out there, as other blogs have helped me.  If in no other way than to just see that other women are out there and they are just as anxious, just as desperate, and sometimes, just as sad and discouraged dealing with infertility.  Along the way, though, this blog has become a calling card of sorts that I could hand out to people that wanted to know more about our journey, but didn't want to actually have to have conversations about it, which let me off the hook from having to deal with it outside of my laptop.  There have been many times that this arrangement has saved my sanity, today is one of them.  Ending this blog, I realize that it has captured some of my most truly, intimately emotional moments of my life.  I don't regret putting them here, I just wonder if I'll have the courage to ever go back and relive these moments by reading this blog.

Now on the update.  It turns out that the RE last week was not being quick and insensitive, but rather discrete in what he already saw as a "threatened miscarriage".  Apparently, he could tell just by looking that things were "not right", but didn't want to let on.  Today was a different RE, one I have seen the most through this process.  She came into the room with a somber look and casually asked if I was feeling any sickness yet.  I told her "no", which I have already processed in my head to not be a good sign long before this moment.  She did the scan and explained that the fetus was just not as big as it should be at this stage.  She further explained that of course women that walk in with just a LMP to go by, there's room for missed dates, but with IVF, you should measure exactly what you are.  She measured the fetus and being 8 weeks today, I only measured 6w4d.  There was obvious "cardiac activity", which she didn't discount, but again said she's sure this will not be viable.  She said that normally she would discuss the option of a D & C, but since there was cardiac activity, she realized I probably wouldn't choose that option right now.  She told me to come back next week, I sensed to eventually confirm that the HB has, in fact, stopped.  She left and sympathetically said she wished she had better news.

After she left my DH and cried together.  He said he was just so sad for me and for our DS who has been begging for a brother or sister lately (he even asked if he could have a twin, like his cousins - too cute!).  I can tell my DH is upset, he's acting differently, so now I'm sad for him too.

I've spent most of the day trying to stay distracted.  Any idle moments I start to cry.  I think about how blessed and lucky we were to get my son, seemingly so easily, with IVF.  I think about the past 4.5 years and begin to wonder if I've paid enough attention to the details of my DS that I'll never get to experience again.  The milestones I couldn't wait for him to reach, not realizing I'll never have another baby, walker, toddler, potty trainer, big boy bedder, paci-giver-upper, ever again, and did I pay enough attention to those moments?  Did I take enough pictures?  Did I love him enough?  Can I pour all of my love into him without creating an unbalanced, spoiled kid? 

I've already been asked today if we are having another child.  My DS's preschool teacher was throwing a "going off to big school" party today and asked if my DH and I would send the next child through this center.  I told her there wasn't going to be a "next child" and she innocently replied that I had to have another one, you know try for a girl.  I had perfected my response to the "are you having more kids" question which was "We'd like to, but we'll have to see what happens".  Now I guess I'll have to come up with something simple enough to tell the truth without dumping any baggage.

So now I'm signing off of this blog.  There's nothing left to share.  We're done and our fertility journey is over.  Also, it is just simply too painful to live here in this anymore.  This is the end of this cycle, this is the end of this torturous journey, this is finally the end.