Milestones

One year ago today, Atomic and I happily trooped into the ob's office, eager to hear the heartbeat of our nearly 11 week fetus. Instead, we learned that there was no heartbeat. An ultrasound showed a perfectly formed, and perfectly still, fetus on the screen. At that moment the sky came crumbling down around our ears. All we could do was clutch each other and sob.

A few days later, Atomic held my wedding ring as they wheeled me into the OR for a D&C. He later told me that the sight of me on the gurney, being wheeled away from him, nearly made his heart stop with fear.

After the miscarriage, we received many loving messages from friends, family, and colleagues. Many people gave me hope that we might conceive again quickly. The first pregnancy primes the pump. Your body knows how to do this now. Only one, in sharing her own miscarriage experience, warned, "You know, it could take a while to get pregnant again. It took us a year." I didn't like hearing that at the time. I wanted a new baby NOW.

I had naive hopes that we would conceive again right away. After a few months of trying, I downgraded my hopes to a pregnancy before my original due date. That day came and went, along with my 39th birthday.

We found out my ovarian reserve was low. And that I have a funny shaped uterus. And that I had scar tissue from the D&C. And that I have a dip, kind of a quasi-septum. And that I have adenomyosis.

We tried intrauterine insemination. It worked, and then I miscarried again.

More milestones: The one-year anniversary of when we found out I was pregnant. One year since we'd told our relatives. The Christmas that was supposed to be at our house because of the new baby.

On Monday, Atomic's heart leapt again as he held my wedding ring and saw me wheeled off on a gurney for a second time. Only this time, it was to retrieve the seven eggs that maybe, just maybe, will make our dreams come true.

We don't know whether this IVF cycle will work. We don't know whether, at this moment, our six fertilized eggs are growing, or whether they are healthy, or whether they have the right number of chromosomes in the right places, or whether they will nestle in and stick to my uterus, or whether any of them will grow and become a baby.

What we do know is that one way or another, when the time is right, and regardless of whatever milestones have passed, we will be parents.