So a short back-story: I had an ectopic pregnancy that resulted in surgery in October and last week I had a natural miscarriage at 6+1.
I feel like I am constantly in limbo now. Waiting to stop bleeding, waiting for levels to drop, waiting for ovulation, waiting to test, waiting for beta results, waiting to miscarrying… it goes on and on. I’m 9 days post miscarriage now and my levels are back to 0 so I’m, again, waiting to ovulate.
Does anyone have any advice on how to stop “waiting” for something all the time? I’m not necessarily worried or anxious because I have learned that the real anxiety starts after a positive test but I definitely feel on edge.
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I'm so sorry you are going through this. I remember feeling similarly as I went through our TTC/pregnancy/loss journey as well. Usually, I tried to deal with the constant waiting and timeline stuff by finding other things to look forward to as well, like date nights or meeting up with friends or even just new TV shows to watch. At one point after a couple losses in a row, I got so anxious that it was taking a toll on our whole family so we decided to just take a break from TTC for a couple months. That ended up being great for me. I took the time to start working out again and get a little healthier. Ironically, we ended up pregnant again while on our break, and that pregnancy was successful. I still dealt with quite a bit of anxiety during the pregnancy but I'm not sure if there's any way to get away from that after you've experienced a loss. Best of luck to you.
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After our second loss, I poured myself into trying to improve my health before we focused on TTC again.
I had an early loss in Jan/Feb 2014, then we TTC for 18 months before I got pregnant again. Last September I had stillborn baby girl at 24 weeks.
I ended up switching doctors (because I lost trust in them) and started working really hard at charting more accurately so I could work closely with a doctor that would monitor my hormones more closely. I had repeat loss bloodwork done that didn't reveal anything major, but found a few small things I could work on (MTHFR - so I changed my diet and started taking folate instead of folic acid. And I'd been tested inconclusive for celiac, which runs in my family, so I went GF).
The first few months I was more focused on the testing and changes than I was on POAS. It was still disappointing to not conceive, but I knew at least we were making positive steps.
A couple of months of treatment with the new doctor and we were pregnant again. Unfortunately we lost that one to trisomy. We had to TTA for a couple months because of an unrelated surgery, but are just getting back on to the hormone monitoring path.
For me, it helps to focus on the things we CAN work on (diet, supplements, etc) and to focus on my overall health first...hoping that will lead to a healthy baby. But even if we don't get that healthy baby, it will help for me to be healthy - so it's still a good thing.
And mental health is a big part of that. Don't forget about self care. Do your nails or ask your husband to bring home flowers. Spend time on hobbies. Find others that enjoy your hobbies and spend time with them.
I get anxious most when I'm alone with nothing else to do, so keeping busy is helpful.
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I'm so so sorry that you are going through this. I totally get your frustration with constantly waiting. I feel like I have felt that way the last 8 months of TTC as well. I think it is a really common and totally human feeling to have. I could get super philosophical about this, but ultimately it comes down to creating things that are kind of worth waiting for or looking forward to. I've been planning lots of things to do that I'm waiting for to distract myself from the waiting related with TTC. I've planned coffee dates with friends, my sister in law, and have scheduled date nights with my husband (even if it is just cooking dinner and watching a movie). I've recently gotten into reading fiction again for fun. I picked a book series with 9 books, and each book is like over 700 pages. I've also picked new tv shows to watch, because I like looking forward to seeing the next episodes, and then waiting for the next season to come out. I guess it's all about the little things that get you through the waiting, and the more enjoyable and easy those things are to do the better.
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I'm so sorry. I spent a lot of last year tracking and counting and waiting with three consecutive losses. My nurse practitioner asked us to take a TTC break which killed the habit while we were breaking at least. Therapy helped too.
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I had two losses in a 14 month period. The second loss was during month 12 when I'd finally decided to see an RE to seek treatment. Of course when I went in the next cycle my hcg hadn't zeroed out so the RE told me that I had to wait another month. After that second loss, I vowed to be a bit kinder to myself. I planned a getaway with my husband and planned some dinners with my girlfriends. I treated myself to some new clothes because I'd been holding off expecting to be pregnant soon. I felt like when I did get pregnant I was in a much better place mentally. Try to be kind to yourself and hold out some hope.
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Thank you all for your replies. I really appreciate it and it helps tremendously to know that I'm not the only one that has felt this way.
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