Last time I mentioned my struggles with conceiving was when I shared the story of how Dave and I lost Bean in June. In the past two months, we have gotten the results back on Bean's genetic testing, plus my blood work (15 vials!) and Dave's.
The genetic testing determined that had she lived, Bean would have been a girl. Sometimes it's comforting to know what she would have been, other times it's heartbreaking to know that I could have had a daughter. That word is so different to me now, daughter. The way it pierces my mind now, the context of the word has such a heavier connotation. The thing is, she would have never survived because it was determined that Bean had triploidy, which means she had an extra set of all the chromosomes we normally have. You and I have 46 sets of chromosomes, she had 69. As sad as I am for having lost her, I'm also thankful that I lost her as soon as I did. Although rare, I could have entered my second trimester before I miscarried or even given birth to her only to lose her a short time later. I'm already a mess, if I had gotten through the whole pregnancy only to lose her at birth, I'm not sure I would have survived that.
Dave's genetic blood work showed he had no abnormal genes that would cause issues in pregnancy. My blood work showed no issues either, although we did determine I am a carrier for cystic fibrosis, so Dave will need further testing to see if he is a carrier too. If he is then we are faced with a 25% chance that we could have a baby that suffers from it. So the good news is that there is nothing major going on with us that would prevent us from having a healthy child in the future.
It sounds ungrateful to say but part of me is not consoled by the fact that there is nothing wrong with Dave and I. Had there been, there may have been a chance we could have fixed it. What this means is that we've just had really bad luck and what happened to us could happen an infinite number more times before we have a baby. That, coupled with the fact that we aren't conceiving easily, makes it tough for me to have hope. Like I said, I know I should be more grateful that it isn't something serious, or unfixable, but unless you're in my shoes, its tough to explain.
So the game plan now is to start trying again. The doctor and I have already agreed that Dave and I will try to concieve naturally for the rest of this year and if we don't have any luck I'll go back on Clomid in January. This works out well for me since I will be student teaching this fall (a sign that maybe God had something different planned for me?) and Clomid makes me very rage-y, which isn't a great mix when I'm trying to teach high schoolers.
Now I just wait and hope for the best. My biggest struggle right now (besides all this) is trying not to allow myself to be consumed by trying to conceive and not letting all this get me down. I'm not going to lie, it is not an easy struggle to try and overcome and many days it's a battle I lose. But each new day is a different day with a new outlook, so I take each day, bad and all, one day at a time.