So, I took out my cell phone that I never really use unless I am out of town or we have visitors to charge up the batteries and saw that I had two messages. One was from my cousin I., left last Friday. She asked me to call her back because she was going through something personal and her sister C. suggested she talk to me. My heart leapt into my throat. I felt so guilty I didn’t call her as soon as I heard about her miscarriage from my mom. I took a breath, put the negative feelings away and called her up. Turns out, her miscarriage was very similar to mine. She didn’t suspect anything even though her period was weeks late and she had to get bigger pants (ditto), she got in for an u/s right away (ditto) and they just saw an empty sac (need I say it, again?). Time from positive hpt to dropping hcg? Three days. Beat my record of seven days, hands down.
She ended up having a D&C Saturday and for everything she had just gone through, she sounded upbeat over the phone. It was hard to read where she was emotionally, whether she needed support or if she only called me up because she didn’t know whether she should go ahead with a D&C or wait it out. In my opinion, after my long, dragged out experience with my miscarriage, the D&C would probably be the way I choose to do it if I had to again, so I let her know that and I think she appreciated the assurance. We talked awhile longer. She wanted to hear my story. I asked her more details about hers. And I told her that if she needed more emotional support, I would be here for her.
I hope that I can stay true to my word.
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Talking with I. made me realize how insular my world is. It comes with the territory of being introverted (whereas I. is extremely extroverted, bubbly and, it seems, always surrounded by friends). And, for the most part I like that. I like my introverted-ness, the quietness that comes with sitting by yourself or with only one or two people and you can just be. But, I am beginning to realize more and more that if you add deep-seated doubts about yourself to the introverted-ness (I think I’ve used it enough that it has to be a bona-fide word now, don’t you think?), then it can become something that blocks people’s connection with you. I. had many people who asked about her and what was wrong which led to total strangers (people who knew people she knew) calling her and telling her about their miscarriage experiences. From this, she was able to get support, hear encouragement and cope with her tragedy. During the time after my miscarriage, there was really no one in my circle who was able to relate to me or tell me stories about their experience or tell me it was going to be ok, even. I. not only had friends who had gone through it, but a co-worker, a friend’s neighbor, her mom and me, her cousin. I don’t bring all this up to play another round of poor me (though I realize I have been doing that at least once a post for, oh, forever!). It is something that has been on my mind since thinking about how to tread this path of DE/IVF. My SIL, also a vibrant extrovert, went through DE/IVF due to age. Her egg donor literally fell into her lap. Her RE first thought they would try with her own eggs (though I have NO clue what he was thinking since she was 48 at the time), then decided last minute that her chances would be better with donor egg (gee, do you think?). The receptionist at her RE’s office knew of someone who wanted to donate her eggs because she saw a friend’s struggle with IF. They were able to work it out (no agency, no contract, no fees, she just paid the donor’s meds, monitoring, etc.—a completely altruistic donation in my opinion) and started cycling almost right away. My SIL had a total of 5 embies from this donation. Three were transferred and two iced. Today, there are two rambunctious 4 year olds running around our family gatherings.
In thinking about my cousin and my SIL, I can’t help but think that there is some life lesson I should be learning about tapping into the collective web of humanity that I so infrequently participate in either consciously or as an indirect result of playing by myself and liking it too much. I don’t want to become a totally different person than I am now, just slightly…re-formulated. I just don’t quite know exactly how to do it. Any ideas?
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