*Trigger Warning*
The first two rounds of Letrozole didn't work, I did not ovulate. Dr Ripley prescribed me a higher dose of 7.5mg. How the rounds work is I take provera for 10 days to induce my cycle when it does not come on its own. Once my cycle starts, that is day one; on day five I take Letrozole for 5 days (1 pill a day). On cycle day 20, I go for blood work to see if I ovulated.
I hadn't heard from Dr. Ripley but I had a "recheck" appointment with him on October 15th. If my cycle doesn't start on its on the following month, I am suppose to take a pregnancy test and if it's negative I start provera again.
On October 6th, 2019 at 6:30am I woke up and decided to test as my cycle hadn't started and I was over a week late. I was in complete shock to see 2 pink lines!!! They turned dark pink and fast!! I was upstairs in the bathroom because James was still sleeping but I ran out and screamed down the stairs for him to come up here now! He knew as soon as I screamed that it was positive. I take tests every month, negative test after negative test.
We both cried and cried and cried. We were SO HAPPY!! I texted my mom right away a photo of the pregnancy tests, by that time I had took a second one to be sure it was positive.
The next business day I called the Dr Ripley's nurses line at the IWK to see what to do, It was a week before I saw him. They said to just keep the appointment and they would go from there. On October 15th off I went to see Dr. Ripley, I was nervous and excited at the same time.
He walked into the room and said "I have good news, you ovulated", I said "I'm pregnant". He was shocked and very excited. I said on October 6th I took two tests and got two very positive tests. He wanted to do an ultrasound that day to confirm, if I didn't mind waiting around for a little bit. Boy, was I nervous.
It was a lovely internal ultrasound, we saw the gestational sac and he confirmed pregnancy but It was too early to see much. I was roughly 4 weeks. I went for bloodwork to check my HCG levels which came back great numbers, a couple weeks later I went again and my numbers were way higher. He was excited and booked my first ultrasound for November 25th, 2019. We were over the moon!
I started a pregnancy journal, took a photo every week of my belly. James would rub and kiss my belly everyday. Our dreams were finally coming true. We were waiting until the first trimester was over to officially announce it but all our family knew. We had the cutest Disney announcement ready.
My mom and aunt Brenda were coming up on November 20th to go see Johnny Reid with me. I woke up that morning feeling great and at around 1 pm they arrived to my house. I had to pee and when I went to the bathroom I started bleeding heavily. I knew what was happening and there is no worse feeling in the entire world then knowing you are having a miscarriage and there is nothing you can do about it.
All I wanted was my husband, I just kept yelling for him. Mom was in a panic and didn't know what to do. We got ahold of James and he came straight home. By the time he arrived, I had already passed our baby. My heart was broken into pieces.
We headed to the emergency room in Halifax, where I waited a couple hours without being seen, I was in so much pain and still heavily bleeding I decided I wanted to leave. I didn't want mom and Brenda to miss the concert. They had front row seats. We went home, they got ready, we dropped them off at the concert and went to the emergency room in Sackville. I will say they didn't want to go but there was nothing they could do for me at that point and I wanted them to go.
By the time I arrived, I was very weak, very grey and started getting sick. They took me in and hooked me up to IV right away for fluids and pain. I was having what seemed to be contractions, I don't know what was worse the pain or my heartache. James was heartbroken and beyond worried about me. I had lost a lot of blood and when my blood results came back my HCG levels had dropped to the 400's.
I was released a few hours later and had to return first thing the next morning to get more blood work and an ultrasound to confirm. We returned the next day for the ultrasound which confirmed I had a "Spontaneous Miscarriage" and it was complete which was a good thing, no chance of infection. My HCG level dropped to 150 and my iron was really low. We left there and went home to try and process what happened.
The next few months were absolute hell for me. James too but I can't speak for him. He was my absolute rock. My mom stayed up with me for quite awhile and Duke (my mom's dog) was my emotional support. When I was pregnant he would sit in front of me and put his paws on my belly....then the night we got home from the hospital he cuddled beside us and wouldn't leave our side.
We thought we were having a baby but instead we have an angel. One thing that my husband said to me that has helped me beyond words was that "Nanny Diane just wanted baby Peake in heaven with her". Going through this made our marriage so much stronger than I can describe.
Stay tuned for my next blog as I continue on this journey and what happened next.