{Unfair}

I was fine. I had been fine. I had moments of feeling guilty that I was so fine I was forgetting my dear baby. I had moments of pure sadness. But for the most part, I've been fine.

Today I was fine. Mondays are always hard because it was the start of my new week. I would have been 10 weeks today. I went to work, made it through the day, but it was the on the drive home that this overwhelming sense of sadness came over me and it hit me: my baby died.

It felt like I had just been told all over again.

I was looking forward to the holidays, because for a minute maybe things would feel normal. Now I'm feeling like the holidays won't be as normal as I thought. Holidays are always hard because she, now they, are missing. We were planning on telling our families about the baby at Christmas, and now, I get to sit and pretend everything is okay. When in reality, nothing is okay.

I keep trying to hang on to the fact that it could happen. I think about all of the women I know who are pregnant or recently had babies, and some of them have lost babies like me. They now have babies. It could happen for me. Then I remember it's been 5 times. 5 is such an overwhelming number. Pregnancy and my body have failed 5 times. 5 times I had hopes and dreams and just knew it was going to happen. 5 times I've been crushed beyond what I thought was even possible. 4 times I've survived, the 5th time is still yet to be determined.

This is so unfair.

{Moving Forward- Empty Uterus, Empty Arms}

The last 24 hours or so, I've been thinking about what's next.

It took me a long time to get to this place after my first loss, because moving forward felt like forgetting or leaving my baby behind. I spent a great deal of time figuring out that moving forward wasn't diminishing the fact I loved and missed my baby every day. Moving forward was in a way honoring her existence by simply acknowledging she changed my life for the better despite not being here with me.

There is no denying that my life does not in any way, shape or form look like the life that I want. In fact, I'm so far from the life I want, it's depressing. Now, after losing my precious baby, I'm even more depressed. Professionally, reproductively, even a tad on the personal level, my life depresses me.

Now that my uterus and arms are painfully empty, I have to do something. I have to move forward and toward the life I want. I feel like my life is slipping away. The main problem is that I've made so many hurtles and obstacles for myself, I don't even know where to begin. I've made so many decisions in the last year or so thinking it would help me get to where I wanted to be, but it's done the opposite. My last career move is the prime example. I was teaching an age group I loved, in a center I loved, with a co-teacher I loved. The insurance was sub-par as far as covering infertility, so when the subject of moving came up, I thought it was my chance to find a better job with better insurance. Instead, I settled for an assistant job, making $2 less per hour, in an age group I don't particularly like. But the insurance. The insurance covers infertility treatments and tests... but I'm so unhappy at work that I have to make myself go to work every day. And each time they deposit my paycheck into my account, a part of me dies because I know I won't have enough money to pay my bills.

The obvious answer would be get a better job. But since we live in such a weird place, there are very few career opportunities for me here. Moving back home, I'd have tons, but there again comes the insurance problem. Moving also means long distance for DH and I again until he can find a job, which after almost a year and a half of looking, I have little faith a job will fall into this lap.

I want to move forward. I need to move forward. And I understand that moving forward does not mean that I do not love Daya or Kaya any less. They will always be my babies and I will always love them and honor them whenever I can. But moving forward isn't a simple next step for me right now and that's scary.

{Quick Intro}

I'm no stranger to blogging. I've blogged randomly for years. Something though that I've always kept quiet about was my every day struggle as a bereaved mother and my unexplained (to-date) infertility. This is such a huge part of who I am, and I've always felt like it's not something I can talk about or something I'm allowed to talk about. And I'm not alone. I know several bereaved parents and mothers and fathers struggling with fertility who just keep quiet.

I'm breaking MY silence.

Well, at least anonymously. This right now is the safest way for me to talk about it and not feel like I'm putting it all out there... when I am. Sort of. One day in the future I may be brave enough to break my silence publicly, but for now, I'll just remain anonymous.

My quick backstory:
- seemingly healthy, a bit overweight 27 years old, TTC {& stay pregnant} for 1.5 years
- 1st pregnancy: late "miscarriage" at 16w {early 2009}
- 2nd pregnancy: ecoptic found at 6w, treated with chemotherapy, no complications { mid-2010}
- meds from ectopic cause complications with gallbladder/liver, gallbladder removed
- See specialist - tests normal except for MTHFR and blood clotting disorder, put on meds
- 3rd pregnancy: chemical, or miscarriage at 5-6w {early 2011}
- 4th pregnancy: chemical, or miscarriage at 5-6w {a few months later}
- See specialist again- tests still normal {summer 2011}
- Move for career and love, make appointment with RE in 2 months
- 5th pregnancy: currently still getting BFPs, hoping for a sticky baby

So there it is. I'm 0/4 in the reproduction arena, and hoping soon to carry a pregnancy full term. The first specialist proved to be of little help, so I'm hoping the RE can get to the bottom of what's really going on.

Infertility and baby loss are two of the hardest things a woman can face in life-- and one of the least acknowledged or understood.