Closure

What a funny title, closure.  Does anyone truly get closure after some life altering blow like this?  Does anyone ever move on from it?  Will I ever move on?  I doubt it.  I will always have this journey as part of my story and my family's story.  This is now embedded in the fabric of who we are and what we have become.  We are now officially a family of 3.  Even as I type this is still doesn't feel totally real and final, even though it is.  I guess the fog hasn't truly lifted.  May was spent in a daze, in true disbelief.  June was spent grieving.  Lots and lots of tears.  July was spent angry.
Now it is August 1st and I'm drawn back to the keyboard trying to find a way to deal with all the feelings.  All I know is that I am tired of feeling sad and angry all the time.  So I am calling August my month of gratitude. Years ago I was so defeated that I never even thought I would have a baby.  Then during my pregnancy, the horrible shock of having to say goodbye to one baby and faced with the threat of losing the other, I prayed every day that I would someday get to hold him in my arms and see his smiling face.  Well here I sit and I am blessed with love and laughter every day and at least for August I am going to try and focus on that.  While I will never get over losing our other baby, I am tasking myself with finding a way to mother the best that I can and find a way to bring that baggage along for the ride that isn't detrimental to either of us.  After all we did name him Duncan because it means fighter and boy did he fight to join us Earth side and be a part of our lives.  So now I fight to show him that we can cry sometimes, but that we can also pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and find the good out there.  When I first started writing this blog it was for myself, I needed to find a way to express how I was feeling.  Then I decided to write it for others that didn't have their voice yet.  So many folks battling infertility fight it alone.  But, now I write it for him.  I want him to know his story and how much I loved him for years before we ever met.  My goal is to get this printed and bound for him.  And just like with our journey, we needed an end point, a time to say we did our best and did all we could, this blog also needs an endpoint.  This is just one of the ways I can hope to find that magical mysterious thing called closure.  So I'll end this in gratitude to my dear son.

Duncan, 
You are the stars and the moon and the sun and all that is amazing in my world.  I am beyond lucky and grateful to finally be able to hold the title of your mother.  I hope one day that you will read this and just know how hard your father and I fought for you.  Know that we did all we could.  I am so sorry that you entered this world without your twin.  I am so devastated for you that your start was with loss.  I am heartbroken for how your story began.  We all know how strong you are and I hope that through out your life you can call on that strength whenever you need it. You are that fighter that we prayed for.  Fight every day for happiness and to see the good in this world.   I love you more than words can express.
Love,
Mom

Results are Chemical Pregnancy

We took a blood test on Wed and our HCG came back at 8.  This is extremely low.  It should have been above 20.  We took another today and it came back at 2.  This is officially classified as a non-viable, chemical pregnancy.  I'm stopping all meds and this journey is officially over.

We are of course devastated by the news. Tears haven't even begun to be shed.  It will take awhile to process, but when I started this blog and this journey, part of the reason was to be open and honest about how insane the roller coaster of emotions all of this can be.  How unfair it all can be.  How everything you do can be the right thing, follow all the protocols, the diets, the appointments, spend all the money and still have negative results.  Infertility is a cruel unfair world and sadly we have seen all this before.  I honestly tried my best and did all I could and still didn't get the results we wanted.

I am heartbroken for my son, who not only lost his twin, but now has lost any chance of having a sibling.  I will hold him closer tonight and am truly thankful for the blessing that he is.  As I am typing this, I'm thinking about what little chance we had to have him in the first place, how high risk our pregnancy was, how we had originally been told we were having a miscarriage, how we had a high chance of losing him when we lost his twin.  I always feel blessed to be his mom, to finally be pregnant and then to finally hold this precious baby boy.  We chose the name Duncan because it means warrior and boy did he fight to be with us.  And now he is lucky enough to have two more guardian angels join in looking over him.  I'm going to hold my little warrior just that much closer tonight and try and focus on what a blessing my guy is.

We will battle through this and come up for air eventually and figure out how to move on from something that has been a part of us for so long.  Thanks for all the love, kindness and support all of you have given us.

Much Love,
HEATHER