Where do you start?

It all feels pretty shit right now. It's the roller coaster again. Nothing like the first ride, but this is the ride where even as you "coast", feeling just somewhat ok, you know that somewhere the wheels will fall off the rails.

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We got through Ciaran's birthday, just like any other day. We had our friends staying, and we travelled to a festival and market in another town. But other than having him in my mind all day, there was nothing more to celebrate. Not even a balloon. I hate that, but I'm not sure what I can do about it. Hopefully in future years Toby will help me to come up with something.

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Two days later was "lions den day". Return for a second scan to confirm where we stood with our little one.

Shane held hope. I held none. I tried to, quite honestly, but all I could think is where can you go from "no heartbeat". Hearts don't miraculously start beating again. And even if they did, the damage of it having stopped in the first place would be major and irreparable.

And so it was routine. No further growth. 20.7 cm consistent with 8 weeks 4 days. The previous scan day / Thursday.

Thanks for coming and see you next time.

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Last night I watched "What To .Expect When .Expecting". Grand choice for someone in my current position, hey? But I'm working on my hard faced, cold hearted bitch persona.

Anyway, I vaguely remembered someone saying there was a loss, so it wasn't too much of a shock when it happened. It was "only" an early loss, such as mine (not sure how far along she was) but I watched her when she was told the news, and felt totally disconnected and alien. Like "what's wrong with me". Whilst she wept and curled up in a ball, I was continuing my small talk with the sonographer (who I have known for several years now),with no tears, and even some small laughs.

I don't get me anymore.

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Next step? Theatre. Friday morning last, 9.30 am admittance.

Routine. Like I do it everyday.

I don't do surgery. I don't do needles. And I definitely don't do IV's. but I don't think there was even a butterfly disturbing my stomach. I sent Shane away whilst still in the waiting room, as a tired Toby was starting to climb the walls. And I sat there by myself.

I met with the anaesthetist, who had also done my last EPU. He looked at me with puppy dog eyes and told me how sorry he was. He said to me that it was ok for me to cry at any time. While we talked or when we went to theatre. He told me that often women were emotional after these procedures and came out of the anaesthetic very upset, and that that was ok too. He told me I didn't need to be embarrassed.

Except that that didn't happen to me. The only time I felt I almost cried was when he told me that I was allowed to. Because pussy footing around me like that is sure to do it.

So instead I calmly went under my anaesthetic, and came out of it just fine. I talked and laughed and shared stories with the nurses.

And now I think they probably wondered what planet I would be from. How heartless.

But really, I've mostly felt.... Accepting I guess.

I'm pissed off that it had to happen. I'm doing plenty of beating myself up in some form. But it's the kind of beating where I tell myself that of COURSE it happened.... Because its me! And the universe hates ME! And all of that negative talk.

I know it's not really like that. Logically. And if you are churchy then you would tell me that it's Satan speaking. But it just is what it is.

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The D & C went fine. I've felt dandy enough since. Enough that I managed to wander the shops casually for a while and have lunch before our three hour drive home.

The worst was Saturday night/Sunday morning constipation like I never have been before. Oh man. Enough said.

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But the cruelest thing is that at least four people in my world are due a week or so either way. Three of them are mothers of an.gel.s and I certainly wish all of them a safe journey to meet their little ones.

But it's the old "happy for you but sadder for me" thing. As soon as I heard each of them were pregnant I felt the dread. With one announcement I even said to Shane that I didn't like it because there's too much chance that we'll be the one who doesn't come home with happy news. Because that seems to be the way it goes for us. Glass half empty much? And yes, I am feeling sorry for myself.

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And words are haunting me again. Someone inadvertently told me how lucky I was when she found out I was pregnant again.

It annoyed me even at the time. But it's such a double edged sword. Firstly, let me say to my beautiful friends who might be reading this that I know I am so very lucky that I have Toby. And I treasure knowing it every single day. So these paragraphs are not meant to hurt any of you who aren't so lucky.... I just need this to be about me for a moment.

Yes, I'm lucky I have a living rainbow child.

And using words that a friend who was supposedly suffering uterine cancer some years before either of us had children "at least you (I) can fall pregnant". (Need I bitterly add that this person also schemed to fall pregnant and fell within the first month of trying, smoked her way through, and managed to have a healthy child).

But "luck" really is one of those debatable words is it not? Because I'm so lucky that to fall pregnant I have to spend thousands that we don't have using IVF, I have to inject my belly with Ckex.ane for the entire pregnancy, I have to take a regime of pills and potions, some of which cost $10-15 per day. And that's just to fall and maybe maintain the pregnancy. If we're lucky enough to get far enough along in the pregnancy then there is the unknown "luck" that we are dicing with, as to whether the baby will survive being born. Hopefully they will be lucky like Toby. Or worst case lucky like his cousin who lived with a trache.ostom.y for three years before undergoing a complete airway reconstruction. Hopefully they are not as unlucky as Ciaran.

I have been lucky enough to fall pregnant four times now.

Yes, I do know how lucky I really am, but it doesn't stop the bitterness seeping through. Falling pregnant is expensive and hard bloody work. Being pregnant is hard work and stressful.

I somehow moved back into a bit if a naive state. Naively thinking that things would be smooth sailing thus time. Do I look like someone who has multiple miscarriages? Pfffft. Not on my agenda. But perhaps that's where I went wrong.

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Where to from here? We have one frozen embryo left. I don't like its chances. It was from our first batch, with one pregnancy (miscarriage) and none from frozens.

I don't know if that will be the end. It probably won't be until next year anyway, by the time I get the ok to go ahead, and then the Christmas holidays.

Another fresh cycle was not in the budget. I do t know as its an option. I dont know if I can handle doing it.

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I just got the letter from my FS about the first scan saying no foetal heart rate was detected.

I'm not sure how I feel about a following comment from her saying "this is surprising given the strong FHR noted two weeks prior". I feel like I did something to cause it.

Even if I know it was nothing I could prevent.