And now.

I live in fear of pregnant women.  I live in fear of babies. To me, they seem not of this world.  I want to scream at their mothers with questions, "How did you get him out alive?!"  Almost six months ago, my innocence and ignorance of the miracle of life was shattered.  It's been six months, and I still can't look at pictures of  babies.  It's hard for me to even look at pictures of my own daughter from when she was an infant.  How bizarre is that?  The only pictures of infants that I can look at without getting that scared, sinking feeling that starts in my womb and spreads to my heart and lungs, are other angel babies.  I drown myself in these pictures. With these pictures, I find solace, peace. I recognize each of them by their features in threads and forums, the way (normal) people recognize live babies on their news feeds.  I feel honored to see these pictures, knowing that these are the only pictures we have of our babies. Pictures that we can only show  other babyloss parents because others will not understand.  Or worse, they will chastise us.  I feel selfish at times.  I can't look at the babies of family and friends, but I am completely at ease when seeing photos of angel babies.  I can see in them so many similarities to my Nicolai.  The cherry lips, the darkened nail beds, the peacefully sleeping eyes.  It is in these sacred photographs that I find the most beauty.  As babyloss parents, we are connected, the survivors, bound to each other by the invisible string of grief.  We are family.

In my struggle to find medical answers, I keep finding things that are wrong with me. Things that are just enough to be clinically significant and treated, but not significant enough to definitively classify as a reason for our loss.  I feel broken most days.  I thought I was doing good by only being diabetic.  I can now add Hashimoto's Disease (an autoimmune hypothyroid condition), polycystic ovaries, and a high ANA titer to the list.  Each of those carries a risk for subsequent pregnancy loss.  And don't forget to add in the risk of already having had a stillborn and being 10lbs overweight.  I feel at times that the cards are stacked against me in ways I never dreamed possible.

I didn't think that I had a problem getting pregnant, but apparently I do.  It was easy with Natalie, I was much younger and free from any of the medical issues I have now.  I was even on birth control when I conceived her.  Fast forward 5 years to last year - 30 years old, diabetic.  It still took us less than 6 months to conceive our angel.  Now, present day, 31, a host of medical concerns (plus some that I am sure I am not even aware of) and I am under the care of an RE, being injected with and stuffed with every female hormone (and then some) known to mankind.  I now have to take Clomid from CD5-CD9, have mid-cycle ultrasounds to look at my (polycystic) ovaries, administer a huge, scary looking HCG "trigger shot" around CD14, then use messy, icky progesterone (Crinone) for another 14 days until the next cycle begins.  Each of these hormones have their own list of side and mood effects, all of which my husband has the poor misfortune of experiencing (as if I wasn't crazy enough already).  What's the worst thing you can do to a babyloss mom who is now having trouble conceiving?  Why, inject a huge syringe full of pregnancy hormones surging into her bloodstream for the next 14 days and give her false early pregnancy symptoms!  Fucking brilliant.