Thanksgrieving

Thanksgiving used to be my favorite family holiday get together. I have an extended family of individuals who love to cook so it was wonderful to create a meal together, with all the laughter and fun the day would bring. We'd relish in a delicious meal, enjoying the company, then watch football, maybe take a little nap, finally, we'd start the annual viewing of Christmas Vacation to kick off the season, drinking egg nog (or wine, I definitely drank wine) out of moose mugs.

This Thanksgiving is different. This year, it's called Thanksgrieving.

For those who have experienced loss, it is just hard to find thankfulness and joy in a time that you feel there is a big blinking arrow pointing to where the one who is missing should be. You need change, you need different because it can be too hard to be in the same setting where that person was or where they were anticipated to be.

Figuring out the holidays has definitely been a struggle. Because I write this as a healing method for my heart and soul, and because I've connected with individuals who have found my posts, individuals that are also on a journey of loss or grief, I'm going to remain candid with you. I know there are scrolling eyes in need of sharing a similar path as well. I had hoped to be entering this Thanksgiving pregnant again. In a time of joy to the rest of the world, I had hoped to put one foot back on that side of the dividing line with a new pregnancy to begin the holiday season to ease the pain, soften the heart, have hope and promise with a new life.

I'm an individual that looks really hard into everything. Always have, always will. I over-analyze and create symbolic meaning for things. For example, numbers. Our house number is 819. It was perfect because 8 is my lucky number and then 9-1 equals 8. Double eights. Or, it's 8 (the day of the month of my birthday and our wedding anniversary) and 1+9 equals 10 (Max's birthday). Therefore, a perfect house number for us. Or when I turned 24 and my birthday that year was 8/8/08 which equaled 24. I've always done things like that, for as long as I can remember. The cycle of my chemical pregnancy, I thought it was so symbolic that I would have a positive test that time because the due date would be 4/4. My birthday is 8/8, my brother's is 7/7, my dad's is 12/12. How symbolic and perfect to have my Rainbow Baby with the same pattern. That was not the case. So this time, doing the calculations based on this last fertile window, it would have put my due date the same as Hudson's original date. My doctor has said that for all of my future pregnancies, I will be induced at 38 weeks. Monday, July 18 would have been the start of the 38th week. In my heart, I saw that as some kind of beautiful symbol of the struggle of losing Hudson and the new life that would have come from it. I wouldn't look at that date as a sad milestone of a missed due date, it would have held a new purpose, a special purpose. Instead of mourning that date again, it could be celebrated with new life and Hudson's May 27 birthday would be his day and July 18 would be the date this baby would share as another bond with his big brother and guardian angel. 

Well, as of Tuesday morning of this week, that is not the case. After five tries, my doctor is treating me for what she calls secondary infertility, when it was easy to conceive the first time and then not the next time. The past three of five tries have involved ovulation tests, terms I've learned like TTC (Trying To Conceive), DPO (Days Past Ovulation), CD (Cycle Day), BFN (Big Fat Negative), BFP (Big Fat Positive), PAL (Pregnancy After Loss), women wishing other women to have "baby dust" sprinkled on them this time. I know many women are instructed 8 months to a year, my doctor typically has a six month TTC rule, but she told me I more than likely will not feel "normal" until we have conceived again and she wants me back to that point as soon as my heart can bear it. My head and heart are there, though I know PAL will bring it's own new set of trials, fears and yes, even still sadness. But it's a step in the direction we need to be in, a direction we need to get back to.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of taking a pregnancy test like my fertility app had me set up to do, I will start my first round of Clomid, followed by Estrace. I will continue ovulation testing every morning, every evening, tracking the lines to look for the surge of LH (Luteinizing Hormone) to indicate ovulation. On CD21, I will go in for blood work to check my levels and know if an egg truly did release. My doctor said that though I've seen positive ovulation tests, I could produce LH but the egg may not be actually releasing. Clomid should force that, then if fertilized, Estrace will help implantation stick. In a perfect situation.

So back to Thanksgiving. A time of thanks and joy. No, it's Thanksgrieving. My child was taken from me and my womb is still bare. I have to seek out thanks and joy because it isn't occurring naturally over here.

While most of me wanted to run screaming for the hills this Thanksgiving, we are focusing on distraction and keeping busy. Cooking makes us happy, it's what we love to do together, so we are hosting just my immediate family members for dinner. Then, our door is open to any friends who are orphaned without a place to go or have finished with their own families and want to come over and watch football, have dessert and play games in the evening. We are going to surround ourselves with family and friends, with distraction, in our own home so that I can escape if I need to, and there won't be any little ones or expecting parents to trigger an unsightly reaction. I know, it's kind of awful of me to still feel that way. I can't wait to be on the other side of that.

So, we cook. We bake. We get the house ready to entertain. I have the centerpiece done, the china out. I've mapped out a list of what needs to start cooking when, how it will stay warm until we serve, and where it will be placed in a serving line. We will cook our big Thanksgiving feast, but no Parade on the TV this year because of all the reminders of the child I should have such as the Wiggles, Sesame Street and of course, Santa. 

If you are a prayerful individual, my prayer request is this: while of course I want this next cycle to be successful, for this solution to be the little nudge my body may have needed, I ask that you continue to pray for peace and comfort in our hearts. Every time there is a negative test or my cycle starts, it results in waves of my grief all over again, crashing down. It is so defeating and gut wrenching. I mourn losing Hudson all over again, I mourn the life we don't have with him, and there is an intense sadness that it is not yet time for our Rainbow Baby to bring us out of the storm. The next time I will be eligible for a pregnancy test? Christmas Day. Fantastic.

I pray for this next HJS (Harrison James? Hadleigh Jane?) baby. I pray for the continued healthy development of the Rainbow Babies I know that still have a little ways to go and the parents fearfully, yet hopefully, awaiting their arrivals.

I pray for the Parents of Loss whether they are facing their first or twelfth holiday season without their precious child. I pray for those who are missing a loved one no longer at the table this year. I pray for any person struggling with infertility and long to hold a child of their own. I pray for all of these hearts during this holiday season, a time when it is so apparent as to what is missing.

I pray to see the incredible gifts that have been bestowed on us, though grief can make you blind to them.

I recite Psalm 136:1 over and over as a mantra to my heart.

I am thankful for the man chosen to be my husband, the home we have built together, the pup that helps heal us and fill a void of someone to take care of. I am thankful for our families. I am thankful for our health, our family's health, and our friends' health. I am thankful for food on the table. I am thankful for a support system that continues to lift us. I am thankful to be Hudson's mommy.