Bittersweet March 1st

Published by Bethany on March 30, 2018March 30, 2018

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]March 1st was a bittersweet day. We found out our first embryo transfer worked, and Sadie went to heaven.

Both of these events were unexpected. I had four egg retrievals in six months that garnered exactly two usable embryos, one of which was mosaic. What were the chances that both of them would stick? And although Sadie had undergone major surgery a few weeks earlier she was as energetic as a puppy.

It’s the details that make things both memorable and excruciating. If there was any way to block the six hour period from five a.m. to one p.m., I would do it. I don’t want to relive them anymore.

By one we were waiting for two calls—from the Reproductive Endocrinologist’s office, and the other from vet mid-surgery to let us know whether anything could be done for our girl. At one- thirty. we found out our transfer had worked. Fifteen minutes later, the surgeon at BluePearl told us we had to let Sadie go.

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“Bittersweet- when something is good but there is a bad part about it”

 

— Urban Dictionary

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]My biggest children related wish was that Sadie would live to be a part of things. Anytime I ever thought about pregnancy or babies, Sadie was front and center in my daydream. She was so gentle and tender with children and I imagined her thinking of a tiny human as “her” baby. Anytime I thought of a pregnancy announcement, it involved Sadie.

Sadie did live to be a part of things, but not in the way I’d hoped.

For several weeks, I couldn’t bring myself to say the word “pregnant.” How could I expect things to work when life seemed so fragile? And how could I react the way I “should” when the news was so closely tied in with my grief? After, everything I imagined with the pregnancy had a big Sadie -shaped hole in it.

Our first blood test numbers were sky-high, then the second, then the third. This can be correlated but is not necessarily indicative of multiples. One afternoon about six weeks in, I crashed when I got home at four PM, exhausted. I had a dream about Sadie and woke up sad with a sense of dread. Then I realized I was bleeding, a lot, and ended up in the ER.

I was so sure we had lost everything—my girl and now the embryos, too. That night in the ER was our first ultrasound, and John and I saw two tiny sacs but only one heartbeat. The next day there were two heartbeats and everything was fine. We still kept things mum, but it seemed a little more real.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image image=”2682″ img_size=”full”][vc_column_text]Over the next two weeks I started to look pregnant. Already. Which made me feel more like I was. We took in a foster dog, which gave Bailey a playmate and brought us joy. We scattered Sadie’s ashes at the lake and remembered her together.

By eight weeks I was in maternity clothes. And yesterday we saw two strong heartbeats, and two babies growing right on track. It still doesn’t seem real. There’s still so many things that could go wrong. And I still miss my girl so much. But I’m so thankful for everything we have, too.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]