Am I dreaming???

Positive?

 Is it just me, or is there a faint line there? I feel like I might be searching for a positive, hoping our efforts earlier this month paid off. Knowing most women don't have a normal ovulation after a miscarriage makes me doubt. What if this positive is from the miscarriage? I've gotten several negative tests since everything ended, can the hormone go back up? I'm going to take this as an evaporation line and call the Advice Nurse if tomorrow I get another positive. Maybe they'll have my HCG test ready, too.

I'm so nervous and anxious I swear my heart is going to explode. This is such an awful feeling - not knowing!

First time blood work.

Today I had my blood drawn for the first time. Not so bad, actually! I have to wait a few days to get the results in. I've been having some symptoms now along with the spotting. I'd swear I was pregnant again.

This just worries me further because I've read if a miscarriage doesn't complete, your body will assume it's still pregnant, and you'll have all the symptoms like a normal pregnancy until it realizes there's no baby. I passed so much tissue with the initial miscarriage, it's hard to think it didn't complete.

I've had very mild cramping again. The spotting is minimal. My breasts are now incredibly tender again. I "feel" pregnant.

Still no clue.

This spotting has been going on now for over a week so I called the Advice Nurse. She says it's not a period because at least 1 day out of all the days spotting should be heavier, even only 9 days after finishing a miscarriage.

She said I should have some blood work done to see if my HCG levels have dropped to 0, meaning the miscarriage completed its self. If it hasn't dropped, that would mean I need a D&C - scary! I'd hate to have to relive the miscarriage again. This is horrible. As "normal" and "common" as all of this is, it's horrible.

Starting off on a wrong note.

My first order of business here in this journal is to reminisce my recent loss. Take into account my emotions and memories; Remember.

My husband and I tried to conceive for a little over a year. Well, "trying" for us was trying the day my cell phone calendar said I should be ovulating. Just the one day each month. We'd try random other days, but it never worked. In September 2010 we decided to try sooner in my cycle as well as the day my phone said to, and it worked. We found out on our trip to Maui that we were pregnant. I had all of the symptoms to go with it, too. Like clockwork, every day around 2pm I would get unbelievably exhausted. I felt like someone hit me with a ton of bricks. I'd fall asleep no matter where I was.

I also had severe breast tenderness like I've never had before. I couldn't sleep on my stomach and laying on my back or side just added awkward pressure on them. I was always uncomfortable. I had lost quite a bit of weight before our trip so none of my bras fit when we left, but by the time our trip was over all of my bras fit again.

I had minor cramping, which at the beginning made me think my period was going to start any time. They were sort of twinges, not very painful, just irritating. The cramps would come on for about 5 minutes then go away for a couple of hours every day like clockwork. I also had some rather vivid dreams - most about work, others about chocolate chip cookies.

Oh and the cravings! I don't even like shrimp, but I wanted shrimp SO bad! Another symptom was the moodiness. I would cry over everything and anything. Everything made me upset. Everything made me angry. I was also bleeding the entire time, too. Just spotting, and the color was different than that of my period, more brown and very very light.

These symptoms were very obvious to me. I always clock my cycles, I keep track of every monthly cycle and everything I feel. I was definitely pregnant. I even felt "bloated" as my uterus was growing. It was awkward already to sleep on my stomach, and we would have only been about 6 weeks at that time.

A few days before we left to come home I had noticed my symptoms lesson. The cramping almost stopped, the spotting was still there, the fatigue was gone, the moodiness was less, and my breasts still hurt like mad. I just assumed I was getting used to the symptoms.

We got home on the 28th of October and on the 1st of November I started getting period like cramps. Really bad cramping. I hadn't had any that strong since my previous period in September. The bleeding also changed from brown to red, which I had read was something to look into with a doctor. So I immediately emailed my doctor. Told her about the harsh cramps and the bleeding and she had someone call me immediately to set an appointment for later that day. Her concern was an ectopic pregnancy. At this point I should have been 8 weeks along, so ectopic pregnancy symptoms would start showing at this point.

She did a physical examination first and noted I was indeed bleeding. Then she did a vaginal ultrasound to see if it was ectopic, which showed it was not. So she focused her attention on the baby. She showed us the screen and said that we were either not as far along as we thought, more like 5 or 6 weeks, or that the baby had stopped developing several weeks prior and I was about to miscarry. I knew we weren't 5 or 6 weeks along, that would mean it took 3 weeks for my egg to be fertilized, impossible.

At that point I had already prepared myself for the news. I wasn't shocked, I wasn't even upset. I just told myself, "Well, we can try again."

That was, until I got home.

I went to the bathroom because the physical exam left lots of gel in awkward places and right then and there I miscarried. I could literally feel my uterus push and everything come out. I felt my uterus shrink, I felt suddenly empty. The absolute worst part was seeing everything. I personally did not look for the sac like other women I've read about online. But knowing that somewhere in that mess was our baby was the hardest part. Having to flush our baby down the toilet made me crack.

I cried for 3 days after that. I couldn't function, I couldn't focus. I couldn't eat or sleep. I could feel my body reverting back to it's pre-pregnant self and with every twinge I would cry. I felt my breasts shrink, I felt my uterus contract back to it's normal size, I felt so completely empty.

I had one day of really bad cramping, two days after the initial miscarriage, when the rest of the tissue passed. But then everything came to a stop after that. The heavy bleeding lightened and stopped, the cramps went away, my breasts felt normal again, and I could feel the hormones disappear as I stopped weeping so much and the irritability went away.

I read somewhere that it's possible to conceive within the first month following a miscarriage, so I emailed my doctor to ask her opinion. She said the benefits of waiting were low and the risks of trying now were also low, so to go ahead. And "go ahead" we did. It was hard to try making another baby, I was NOT in the mood, I kept feeling like, "If we hadn't lost the first we wouldn't be here forcing it again." I started to feel the guilt, even though I know the miscarriage wasn't my fault. I even broke down and cried one night when we were trying. I felt like we could NOT miss the one day I may ovulate so we had to try EVERY day, no matter what mood I was in.

The miscarriage took place on the 2nd of November, ended by the 9th. We started trying on the 12th, 13th, 15th, 16th and 17th. We skipped the 14th but started trying on the 15th AM, so there was only 36 hours in between.

On the 18th AM I started to bleed again. I had read you must go 20 days without any bleeding for the miscarriage to be over and the next bleeding to be considered a period. This bleeding seems different, though. Just spotting. Very very light spotting. I emailed my dr and she said this may be my next period coming on, even though it's only been a week and a half since the end of the miscarriage, that we'll have to wait and see.

The spotting seems only to take place in the morning, and it's really just a few drops. The 18th and 19th were like this. The 20th it was the same but accompanied by mild cramping. Today, the 21st, it seems less. The cramps right now seem to have diminished. I don't know what it was. It's not the miscarriage still, there's not enough blood or cramping. It's not my period, again not enough blood or cramping.

So we'll have to wait and see.