my body is a deceitful bastard, part 2 or here today, gone tomorrow

Let’s just cut to the chase: it’s over[1]. I played with fire and I got burned. On Friday I went in for my second blood draw, to see whether the pregnancy was progressing normally. The hope was that my HCG level would have doubled (or, because I’m an overachiever, tripled), signifying that it was viable (at least for now).

On Wednesday, my number was a moderate, but perfectly respectable, 65.8. By Friday? 69. To say it wasn’t living up to it’s potential would be one way of interpreting things.

The nurse broke the news kindly: I’m sorry. This is what we call a biochemical pregnancy. An early loss. A miscarriage.[2]

Then I cried through my mouth said some things amidst the tears – which must have been nonsense because she offered to call me back after I took a minute to, ahem, get my act together. But, bless her heart, I made her suffer, asking, essentially, the same question in eleventy bazillion different ways: isn’t there any way this could be a viable pregnancy?

‘Fraid not. But she did have one exciting alternative: I could have an ectopic pregnancy. Because I’m a sadist they need to make sure I don’t, I get to return on Monday for another blood draw (my veins, and patience, are wearing thin).

When I got home from work, C and I shed some pretty solid tears. It’s funny (but maybe not in a “ha ha” way), but I actually think I was more prepared than he was. Among many others, one of C’s best qualities is his optimism – he doesn’t like to dwell in the negative, meanwhile I buy up all the real estate in glass-half-empty-land and hunker down for the winter. And now that I’ve fallen into the vortex of infertility blogging, I’ve been exposed to most of the oh-my-god-the-shit-has-really-hit-the-fan-now pregnancy terror.

Still. While more prepared than C, I do have my moments. To say this has been A Complete MindFuck devastating would be reasonably accurate. Am I, objectively speaking, happy that his happened now, rather than after hearing a heartbeat? Absolutely. Do I realize that this is exceedingly common and not necessarily an indication that I will be forever barren? Sure, intermittently, at least.

And while I have scoured every corner of the oracle, all-knowing interwebs seeking anything (no, really, anything) to the contrary, I know intellectually that there are no miracles here – that this round is over.

Divine, internet sages tell me that early miscarriages happen generally for the same reason the much later, oh-dear-god-so-much-more-emotionally-difficult-ones happen – chromosomal abnormalities in the developing cluster of cells.[3] But there could be other, somewhat more harrowing reasons (which C is researching in his professional, peer-reviewed doctor way while I direct my queries to Ask Jeeves.) Anyway, more on that later.

This weekend I will be grief eating cookies under the covers while watching Girls dusting off my boots and preparing to get back on the proverbial horse.

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[1] Oh dear readers – all six of you – I’m so sorry I took you on this journey so slowly. Thanks for sticking with it. 

[2] A chemical or biochemical pregnancy basically means that an early miscarriage occurred at the time when the only indicia of pregnancy was a home pregnancy test or HCG test. The thing is, women who are not extravagantly monitored by round the clock blood draws would probably just assume a late period with extra cramping. But not me. I got to feel the euphoria for just under 72 glorious hours. *dramatic sigh*

[3] It’s weird to say “baby.” It just is. Maybe it’s because I’m rabidly pro-choice, or maybe it’s a measure of self-conscious self-protection. On the other hand, I guess I could use the ultra clinical “products of conception.”