Bad News

I thought something was weird when I woke up this morning. I realized that I had slept soundly--I hadn't woken up even once to go to the bathroom. This was my morning for progesterone injections, and I lay on my stomach for 20 minutes while Mr. X took care of those. When Mr. X. left for work and I rolled over to go back to sleep for a while, it occurred to me that my breasts weren't sore.

I woke up again to hear my cell phone ringing. I jumped out of bed, because my doctor's assistant said she'd be calling me today with yesterday's HCG results. But it wasn't the assistant. It was the doctor. With bad news.

It turns out that my HCG level dropped from 1320 last Thursday to 900-something yesterday. I'm going to have a miscarriage. I felt lightheaded and started to see stars.

I give my doctor a lot of credit for calling me himself. He was really very kind about the whole thing. I have to go in tomorrow for another test, and they'll keep monitoring the levels until the HCG is gone. And now I just wait for the bleeding to start.

I didn't want to tell anyone until my husband had heard, so when I didn't get him on the phone, I text messaged him to call me. He managed to get away and call me while I was drying my hair, and I told him. Then I called my mom and the PPVI Institute.

I pulled myself together for work, where I was heading to a meeting with my two closest coworkers. The meeting was for fall planning, so yesterday, I told one of them that I'd most likely be on parental leave in the fall (and swore her to secrecy), and I was planning to catch the other one before the meeting to tell her. Fortunately, I caught the colleague I told yesterday before the meeting so I could tell her. I plodded through the rest of the day, and now I'm home.

My parents sent flowers. I e-mailed the costumer for the opera--I'm so embarrassed now that I told her! To get an almost complete stranger's phone call announcing a pregnancy, followed by a miscarriage announcement the next day, is a lot to take. I just couldn't face calling her again, and I figured an e-mail doesn't pressure her as much to respond in the moment. And I called my best friend, too. So, now the only person left to tell is my voice teacher, and I'll see her tomorrow.

It's not fun to technically still be pregnant and know it will all end any time now.

I really don't feel like cooking any of the good healthy-pregnancy foods I bought at the grocery store this weekend for dinner tonight. I'm thinking pizza and ice cream.

I'm trying not to drive myself crazy by thinking about what I might have done wrong. The bottom line is that I'm not in control. And, really, thank God I'm not. And I know that some good things will come of this--for one thing, we know conception is possible, and that had never happened before. I hear (don't know how true it is) that chances of another pregnancy soon after a miscarriage are good because your body is ready for it. And it will certainly give me more humility (because of the reminder that I'm not in charge) and empathy. But right now, I'm just really sad.