Round

Well, these past few days have still been no fun.

Things came to a head on Wednesday. After a test at a specialist to confirm an ectopic pregnancy (where she could see nothing) my blood tests still refused to drop. I went back to work at our offsite meeting (I’d taken the train 60 min each way back to Paris to do the tests). My doctor’s office called with all the results and said they wanted me to go ahead with the treatment for an ectopic pregnancy, which is an injection of methotrexate. I recruited a colleague/friend who is a physician to give me the shot, but when we went to the pharmacy we found they didn’t stock it and we’d have to pick it up the next day. Later that evening I had strong abdominal pain (which I hadn’t had all through this process, including when I saw the radiologist in the morning for the ultrasound) and 2 hours later I found I was bleeding.   Not wanting to be stupid, I went to the ER.

The ER of course took hours, as I wasn’t bleeding heavily and I had a full folder of my exams of the past weeks with me, and there were more urgent patients than me.  When I was finally seen they ran all the blood work to make sure the liver and kidneys were okay for methotrexate and kept me overnight (this is France, in the US no way would I have been admitted!).  The next day yet another ultrasound (still nothing visible) and bloods and then they gave me the shot.  My husband had flown back from a business trip and was there to pick me up when they were ready to release me, and we’ve been home since.

The methotrexate has me cramping and bleeding lightly, with a very tender abdomen and pain that is pretty strong coming in waves and when I move.  I almost asked the nurse if I’d be able to go swimming this weekend, but that seems so ridiculous to me right now when I can’t even sit at the table for 30 minutes without severe discomfort, and walking around the house is hard.

I had some comfort eating yesterday — bread and butter upon returning home, and then pasta at dinner and a big bowl of ice cream later.  I think all things considered that’s not too bad, and today my husband went to the market and bought a TON of fresh fruits and veggies so today’s food has been much better.  I actually don’t have too much of an appetite, but I am me — meaning I often turn to food when I’m bored or stressed, and now I’m both (stuck at home,  immobile and in physical pain, and the emotional pain and drain from this whole process).  Still, I will not let myself gain weight even with such a good excuse.  I did that last year after my miscarriage and haven’t been able to get the pounds off, and I can really not afford to compound that problem further.

Thanks so much for all the supportive comments you’ve given me these past few days.

My doc’s office was back today and they were so much more efficient and professional than the GYNs who’ve been following me, it was amazing. No waiting for more tests, they sent me today to have them done. But the answer isn’t what I wanted to hear, the blood test today was more than double last week and so it is almost certainly an ectopic pregnancy. I have a special type of ultrasound scheduled on Wednesday morning with some kind of sub-specialized radiologist to confirm the diagnosis (and, I presume, set the treatment ball in motion).

I also have an appointment to see my doc next Monday, his first day back, which means his secretary really thinks it’s important, because she is a pit bull with his schedule.

Of course, this all comes during a busy time at work - I’m at a week-long conference about 75minutes from Paris where I am running a part of the meeting and of course responsible for my team, but I’m not letting that get in the way.  I’ll miss dinner tomorrow night and all the morning on Wednesday, a colleague will take my team with hers for the morning.

It’s hard coming up with credible and not-too-lying excuses but I’m just worn out by the worry and that is not one I’m adding to my list.  I told my boss I had a medical appointment I had to have at that time, no context, no explanation beyond that, and with everyone else I’ll be even more vague, just saying I have some personal business.

Meanwhile today I kept a food diary for the first time in ages - with calories and all (always such an eye-opener).  And the scale was kind, down 1, which I needed to see because I was really feeling like I didn’t much care these past few days, and that helped me back into action.

This whole thing is harder on me than I’m liking to admit.  I keep trying to stay level-headed and calm about it all, but in reality I want to cry and scream and rant at the unfairness of it all.  I try to keep it together for myself and those around me — for myself to not fall into a pit of depression, and for my husband to show that I’m really trying to be “logical” and move forward.  But there are moments when that seems damn near impossible, and right now as I’m writing this is one.  Going to pick up my stepson from school today (which I did as a “favor” although I didn’t exactly volunteer) felt hard.  And I love the kid, and 99% of the time I am happy he is there, but today having to be face to face with the fact that my DH already has a child and me not being sure I ever will…. well, it was hard.

My emotions, my motivation, my diet and my body keep going back and forth.

The miscarriage seems to be largely over, except my blood test was still elevated this week, meaning things aren’t back to normal yet.

My emotions seem largely under control, except when out of the blue I start to cry or just get very sad.

My motivation to exercise comes and goes, as I’ve mainly felt like swimming but my body isn’t always cooperating to allow that to be a good option.

Similarly, the diet.  Huge cravings for fruit, veg and water, followed by cravings for starch and sugar.

In short, I think I’m doing pretty darn well considering what a hellish few weeks this has been, but it’s far too early and I’m far too fragile to beat myself up over slip-ups.

I headed back to work and back to tracking my diet at the same time.  I’m not really starting over - I was eating pretty well on vacation and exercising pretty regularly, it’s just been the few days away when my eating was a bit out of whack - normal for both an end-of-vacation setting free, and also the stress and sadness of the failed pregnancy.

Still, being more strict felt good, and made some of the choices at a hotel convention meeting for 3 days a lot easier.  I tried to pay attention to eating more fruits and veggies, didn’t allow myself anything other than plain yogurt or fruit for dessert, skipped the bread on the buffet (even though a few times it looked better than the rest of the meal) and had only fruit and tea at coffee breaks.  None of that felt like a big deprivation - I know from years of experience that the hotel-buffet desserts and carb nibbles they set out are mass-produced industrial junk that tastes greasy and sugary and not very interesting.

got lucky with the fruit plan — there were big baskets of fruit at every meal, full of variety, including a bunch of rare exotic stuff that costs a fortune that I hadn’t tried — and luckily one of my dining partners had traveled widely and knew a bunch of these fruits and orchestrated several tastings — YUM!  My favorite was the mangosteen, a fruit I’d tried and loved before but then forgot about it as it’s not easily available near me.

Also interesting but not quite topping the mangosteen was the granadilla, which is a variety of passionfruit and is sweeter and milder in flavor, but gummier and grayer in looks.  Was pretty ugly to see but tasted good.  I wouldn’t go too far out of my way to find it, but if it’s next to the mangosteens (which ARE worth finding the time to get to an Asian market) I’d pick some of them up.

Our meeting ended today and not-too-late, so I was able to get to the pool and swim, which was something I’d looked forward to since the weekend.

Thank you all so much for the outpouring of support and virtual hugs.  I bled heavily over the weekend so I’m pretty sure I completed the miscarriage (I have some testing at the end of the week to confirm).  I’m sad, but also relieved to be out of the awful limbo-land.  And ready to move on.

This week I have a few days of a meeting at a hotel, and a lot of work to catch up on, as last week I’d planned on doing a bunch of stuff that various medical appointments and my incredibly distracted mind just didn’t allow me to get to.  Most of that stuff now can’t wait any longer…

I am feeling like one of the things that will make me feel best is to take really good care of myself - eating healthy foods, cooking, dieting, exercising. I am not about to look that gift horse in the mouth or second-guess myself on this topic, so I’m going with it.

The scale is unmoved since before our vacation (at 210) and I’m setting a goal to get below 200 by the end of October. I rarely make time-based goals about my weight, but I’m really sick and tired of being solidly in this weight range, and I didn’t set a timeline that is too aggressive.

I’ll be updating more regularly again, and I think I’ll integrate my TTC (Trying To Conceive) issues into the future of my endeavors.

No title I can come up with seems adequate, so I won’t even try.

As I wrote a few weeks ago, we’ve been on vacation - one of those indulgent, generous, long French holidays I couldn’t even fathom when I was living in the US. That is the main reason I haven’t been writing recently (I had very difficult internet access for 3 weeks) but it’s not the only reason.

I’ve tried to keep this blog focused mainly on my weight - I’d like to say on my weight-loss, but it would be more accurate to say my weight-maintenance. As such, when other parts of my life become more important than my weight I’m conflicted on whether or not to share that here. Well, right now the major thing going on in my life is not about my weight but as it’s a stressful situation, I could easily turn to my sure-fire comfort, food, at any moment, so I feel the need to return to blogging right now.

I’ve mentioned a few times that we are trying to have a baby and that it’s been a struggle — I had a miscarriage last Fall and this year has been full of many medical procedures that haven’t worked yet. In June we finally moved into the ‘big guns’ stage and started IVF. I spent a few weeks on medication that made me bitchy and itchy, then went on to stimulation medications, ultimately getting 6 fertilized embryos, of which 3 were transferred (3 are frozen). All the intensive medical procedures happened in the week before vacation, and the vacation itself was full of waiting to see if it worked or not… At least I couldn’t obsess about every twinge and minor symptom on the internet.

At the official test day I didn’t feel pregnant the way I did last Fall, and I wasn’t surprised to see the blood test come back negative (although that didn’t stop me from crying because I was extremely disappointed). I stopped taking the medication that helps an embryo implant, and 2 days later my period came as expected. End of Chapter One.

Begin Chapter Two — my period was on the light side of normal, but normal it was. Except the end, in which it just seemed to have the end of the period drag on and on and on. A week later I was really tired of the irregular bleeding and occasional severe cramps, and decided to call my doctor. Since it’s August in France everyone is on vacation, so to save some headache on a lark I took a home pregnancy test on Sunday and it was positive. This was 10 days after my period started, and took me a bit by shock - I really took it to be able to tell the doctor that I’d ruled that out.

The next day I took another blood test - positive, but low (75, for those who know about these kinds of things). Yesterday I saw a gynecologist who is covering for my doctor who did an ultrasound and was able to rule out an ectopic pregnancy (at least one that would date from the IVF) and he was also able to confirm that my uterus is not empty, there is something in there. He actually thinks that it’s likely to have happened naturally from a secondary ovulation and not from the IVF embryos, but in any event it is a super-rare situation.

In all likelihood this is another miscarriage - I’ve been spotting since August 1st, and my hormone level is well below that of a healthy pregnancy. Today I took a second test and the number was 92, which is nowhere close to doubling (healthy pregnancies double the hormone every 48 hours) and yet it’s also not decreasing (as would be expected in a miscarriage).

Obviously, this situation is my major preoccupation every hour of every day. I am trying to maintain a tiny degree of hope while preparing myself for the most likely situation of a non-viable pregnancy. Meanwhile I am trying to live normally, and I am eating well and exercising fairly regularly, and we are still leaving tomorrow for the last part of our vacation in Lorraine, France. Monday it’s back to work.

If anyone can include me & this struggling little potential life inside me in your good thoughts, wishes or prayers I’d be most appreciative.