Dagny (and Tracey & Sophie)

[anjela]

Hello - well, I took your advice and registered so here I am (instead of cluttering up your inbox)...
Thank you so much for telling me the story of Katelyn's short but precious life Dagny. I am not good at telling the story of Katie (too upsetting) yet but briefly - first ICSI July 03 +ve - thought that the heartache of IF was over and our life with our baby could begin. Very sick all through pg. 35 weeks of pg arrived and one fateful night realised I hadn't felt the baby move recently. DH got concerned, phoned hospital. In we went for a check and it became obvious quickly that something was very very wrong and no heartbeat could be found. Katie induced next day and delivered 2 days later on 17 March. The post mortem showed that she had an abnormally short cord, and that as her head had started to engage it had stretched tight and cut off blood and oxygen. She was perfect.

As you said - it has been like being in a different world since. One where there is no logic or sense and one where it is difficult to find reasons to carry on. I have been searching the internet looking for people who have experienced a still birth after fertility treatment but it is rare - which is why it is so nice to be in touch with you. I have been feeling so completely persecuted - everything we went through to have Katie and to have her snatched away just a few weeks before she was due was devastating.

Still - we have hope for the future. You told me about Tracey and Sophie who are now pg with twins so maybe the future holds multiples for us too!

I am in the Midlands and will get my tx in Birmingham (Priory) and will be 33 in Sept. I am terrified that I won't be able to get preg again and obsess all the time about being too old, egg quality (not a prob as far as I know), not being able to produce enough eggs (9 last time, 7 were mature and 6 fertilised), not producing good enough embryos (2 good ones put back last time) etc. etc. etc. Basically I have turned into a completely neurotic wreck of a woman who just wants to get pg (but will be terrified when she does) and have a baby. DH keeps telling me that everything will be okay - I got pg last time on the first attempt and therefore I can do it again.

I am still on maternity leave (Hah!) and therefore too much time on my hands to obsess - are you working?
(Long post - hope you're still reading!)
A
xxx

[Dagny]

Hello and a BIG welcome Anjela

I am so glad you have decided to join us. We will be here for you whenever you need someone to talk to a cyber shoulder to cry on or ask any questions. I know I can speak for Tracey that she will be here for you as much as I will be here.

Tracey was my absolute rock through my time of grief after losing my precious angel Katelyn and she has some incredibly wise words. I don't know what I would have done without her.

Thankyou for sharing your story about Katie I know it must have been hard for you. What a tragic end. I am so sorry. In your email I could feel your pain but reading what happened a bit more made me so sad. Why do these things happen to us? Haven't we been through enough with all the treatment and trying to cope with that? Life can be so cruel and some of us seem to draw the short straw every time.

Anjela, time IS a great healer and it will get easier although some days tend to be harder than others. I have good days and then bad days but I find I am starting to have a few more better days than bad.

We will never forget our darlings for as long as we live and Katie, Katelyn, Oliver, Jannet and all the other precious miracles who didn't quite make it onto this earth will be our Guardian Angels, keeping us safe. Not many people can say they have that can they?

When you are allowed to start treatment again everyone on here will hold your hand and guide you. The girls on the other side are wonderful

Take care and welcome again.

Love Dagny xkx

[Tracey S]

Dagny

could not have put it better myself - thank you

Anjela welcome and sorry we had to meet on this forum but hopefully we will meet on the pg one too soon! Thank you for sharing your story. I wish I had the answers - Dagny might say I helped her through but I was helped by others Woppa and Scorry and it helps to help others if that makes sense (excuse me but I don;'t always make sense - pg or not) The worrying thing is Dagny understands me.

What we all had is very precious and though I feel blessed every day that I am pg with twins I still feel very cheated that my special Oliver was taken away so cruelly and if anyone asks if this or these are my first I always answer no and say I had a little boy called Oliver. Some are particularly insensitive and say so the first ones really then - no you silly dollop I just told you!!!!!You know the thing.

I had an ectopic on my first just before my wedding and then 3 failed tmts before Oliver - he had several things wrong with him - none of which particularly killed him but he was not a well little boy and had fought as long as possible.
I obsessed about ever being pg again - part of me used to think - yes been pg twice so can do it again and never miscarried so not really my "fault" and the other side used to think "what if I have had all my turns". I then put on my fighting hat and went out and thought no way is Oliver's death going to be in vain and no IVF will beat me, took a holiday with my DH, got a puppy and off I went 2 months later before the PM results were in on his death (They took 13 weeks!).
I am lucky and am lucky to see all of my friends bar one who had these dreadful losses get pg the very next time. One has had one tmt but am sure she will go on to get pg again! The worry never goes not for tmt or when you are pg as you will never be truly able to relax again.
Hold on to this you two - the chances are very good in both your cases that you will be pg again and very quickly. The body once it has done it seems to have its receptors turned on and off it goes again -saying "I know what to do here - let's go again!" I do so hope this happens to you.

WE are so very unlucky all of us and lucky at the same time if that makes sense. Unlucky is lucky turned inside out and negative is positive turned inside out. If you have the strength do not give up - some of use are chosen for some reason to have a tougher time of it - I am not sure what I believe (I am not religous in the true sense like Dagny) but have my own beliefs of how life is and how we slot in. Humanist you might call it. I used to rant how unfair it was that I had all the doodoo in life whilst my brother for one swanned through effortlessly smelling of roses all the time. These things make us who we are and I for one are very proud of who I am and happy with it.
Little steps is what I told Dagny and this is what she has been doing - do the same - it really works. Concentrate on one day and then start looking at your dream - your dreams are there for both of you and I am sure with help you will both reach out and grab them............
Loads of love and I am here when you need me and won;t take offence if you don't
Love
Tracey
xxx

[anjela]

Thank you Dagny and Tracey for making me feel like I've finally found people who understand (And you were right Dagny, Tracey really does come out with some pretty wise words!).

I too am obsessing about ever being pg again - but hopefully time is on my side and my Katie is willing me on to make her a little sister (because for sure it will be a girl!) Unless I get a couple like Tracey.

I was so pleased to see that you Tracey have had a positive result now and are expecting twins. What a fantastic result! I know that every single day of pg must be so incredibly worrying - but everyone I've ever spoken to who has had a stillbirth seems to be absolutely fine in their next pg. And, as you seem to be such a fighter, and Oliver was such a fighter - I have a pretty good idea that your twins will be pretty stubborn!

I am glad that you are having more better days than bad Dagny. I have come out of that nightmare bit which happened immediately afterwards where I thought I was having a massive panic attack all the time and was felt really sick and shaking a lot. I guess I'm moving into the next phase. Even my tissue consumption is reducing as the crying becomes less '24 hours a day'. Kleenex are going to notice a reduction in their profits this week!

Thank you for caring-
Anjela
x

[Tracey S]

Anjela

You are very welcome - I went through tissues at the rate of knots and sleeves I am afraid to say!!!!!!!!! Sorry.

One day I managed a whole day and it goes from there - days without crying.

I have a funeral this pm for a friend in the village who died last week. It is the first funeral since Oliver's but this is a grown man and whilst sad is not quite the same -she says hoping. Hopefully it will be a cathartic experience.

You both have great spirit and I feel if there is any justice in this world you will both go on to realize you dreams and I will be here to cheer all the way!
Love
Tracey
xxx

[Dagny]

Hello Girls

I am finding that my crying is now quite limited but the anger is still as raw.

I remember sitting in my lounge just after Katelyn's death and hated the way life went on around me. I hated every single person who walked passed my house. I wanted to shout at them "Don't you realise what's just happened to me? How can you just carry on? Stop smiling and looking so bloody smug - My baby has died!!!!!!!!!" But they kept on walking passed without any idea of the nightmare going on in my house and my heart.

I felt like all my rational thoughts had disappeared. I became a manic lunatic desparately trying to find an answer but the answer wasn't going to bring my baby back, nothing was and no one could help me, so I hated them too.

There is not one moment of each day that I don't think of Katelyn and I am so scared that I will never get pregnant again. I mean, if God decided to take Katelyn away then why would he give me another one? Wasn't having Katelyn good enough? Why does he do what he does? What are his reasons? How can they be justified?

I am sorry girls I am having an off moment and I feel a need to vent. I know that there are no real reasons for what happened to Katelyn, Oliver, Katie and Jannet it just happened and we have to accept it one way or another.

Tracey - I hope the funeral isn't going to be too hard for you? Say a prayer for our angels.

Love Dagny xkx

[anjela]

I too feel the anger like nothing before. I am fed up with being a soggy crying thing all the time with red eyes and kleenex up both sleeves - but screaming and banging my head against the wall (which I have done and which worries my husband greatly) doesn't seem to help either. I would never have thought it possible to feel like this - sometimes I feel detachment, as though I am watching someone else go through this horrendous nightmare and then I think 'no, hang on, thats my life'.

The anger is that this had to happen after such a long road, and anger that most people's lives seem so oblivious to tragedy. I know everyone has their own problems and worries, and the 'grass is greener' and all that - but this is pretty near the top of the list of nightmare scenarios.

Tracey - the anger is also acting as a kick up the backside for me too. I am thinking, there is no way that this is going to beat us and I will fight for this because it is too important not too.

I was completely ignorant about IVF/ICSI when I did it last year - and this blissful ignorance probably saved my sanity. Now I'm far wiser and far more stressed about it as I know what can go wrong. I'm panicking my brains out that it won't work. I know I couldn't live with the knowledge that I so nearly had a child, if I couldn't have another one. The desire for a baby is a million times stronger now almost.

I know just how you feel D about the life going on as normal bit. I didn't eat for the first 3 weeks and DH had to eat takeaways as I couldn't go anywhere near a supermarket. It was (and is) just too painful to do such ordinary things as buy food. Even now, the list of things I can't do because of the painful associations, is huge.

I hope that in some way your faith in God is helping you through this Dagny. I wish I could believe in some higher power, and some reason for this happening - but the truth of the matter for me I think is that it was just a random act of nature.

My brain is useless at the moment, so hope some of this makes sense. Going to eat a banana now - I still cannot eat properly as I feel like I have a wooden stake through my stomach most of the day

Hope to hear from you soon girls,
A
x

[Dagny]

Hi Anjela

We have obviously been feeling so many of the same feelings. The sheer thought of going through the whole bloody IVF/ICSI thing again scares the cr@p out of me. I react so badly to most of the drugs and when I got OHSS in the 1st treatment I thought I would die. But my need for a baby made me carry on. Like you said the need now is so much stronger after going through losing our precious baby's when we did.

I do have faith of a sort in God although I am in no way very religious. I hated God at first because HE was responsible for giving Katelyn her heart defect and then took her away when we had decided to give her every chance of life with surgery.

We had Katelyn buried and at the church where David and I got married by the vicar who married us. A beautiful service and I know she is in the arms of loved ones in heaven and one day we will see her again. I have to believe that, otherwise I will go insane.

What kind of funeral did you have for Katie?

Hope your day was an OK sort of one

Love Dagny xkx

[anjela]

Hi Dagny
I do have a sort of faith - there has to be something bigger than the sum of our flesh and bones (conscience, soul, spirit, free will etc.) I guess its a sort of spiritualism. This is probably too deep for 9 in the morning - my brain is barely functioning at the best of times.

Katie's funeral was at the crematorium - which is set in beautiful woods. Makes me cry just thinking of it. It was also beautiful and we really felt that we had done our little girl proud. Her ashes were interred in the churchyard where we were married. Nobody should have to bury their own child before they've had chance of a life - it seems mortally wrong somehow.

Feeling mega stressed and neurotic this morning about the treatment stuff. I just cannot believe where I am right now - I would cut both my arms and legs off to have my baby back. Think I'm going to post something on the general board about my fears!

Hope you have a good Thursday - anything on?
Love
A
x

[Dagny]

Hi Anjela

You know I have said exactly the same about cutting off my limbs. I would do ANYTHING to get Katelyn back!

Katie's funeral sounded lovely. It is unfathomable to think of burying your own child and you're right NO ONE should have to do it. Katelyn's death and funeral seems like it happened in another world. If it wasn't for her photo's I wouldn't believe that it has happened.

I am off to lunch with a friend today who is PG with IVF twins. We were in hospital together when we were first PG. We had our treatment within a week of each other. We made friends in hospital and our babies would have been friends which is now not going to happen. It's hard to accept but there is nothing I can do now.

Glad you are finding your feet and posting on the general board. I am just off to see what's been happening over there in a minute.

It's only natural to be feeling scared and neurotic about future treatment. We can be stressed and neurotic together.

What are you up to today?

Love Dagny xkx

[Tracey S]

Hi you two

Have read all your messages and the experiences are all so similar aren't they? I know what both of you mean about panicking it won't work - I did and still think something horrid is going to happen! I also thought that as my Oliver had been taken away maybe I was being told something by someone that "it was just not meant to be for me and I would always be childless". As you have both been through these horrid things you know what it is like to have and to lose and know more of what can go wrong.
I agree with you over these fears but BOTH REMEMBER you both know what it is like to be pg and what it is like to have things go right - who is to say this was your only chance? Perhaps it is a test to see how determined you both are and maybe ( I am not religious as you know) our babies were chosen or fated for something far more important - let's face it we still have them (not in the physical sense) but we are all much better people for having had them and everyone who is involved with us in their lives are better people for having gone through it. That is an awful lot to give for such tiny babies who never lived their lives on this mortal earth don;t you think?

The funeral................. I managed just fine - I had flashbacks of course and was bowled over by the amount of people who turned up - 350 in to a small church - no sitting room - standing only and the fire service did a special line up and draped a flag over the coffin. It was absolutely breath taking. I went with my friend Bev who lost her precious Trinity at 32 weeks due to the cord around the neck strangling her.

THis might sound very odd but I was sitting there saying a little hello etc to all our special babies and the most strange things happened - I am still absolutely amazed - first of all Dagny I looked up and saw on the flag on Micks coffin the letters OK - they were not really there at all if that makes sense but in the patterns on the flag. Secondly as I was thinking of all our little ones up there somewhere a shaft of sunshine came through the church door at the back and shone over our aisle - we were sitting second from the back - it lasted 2 mins or so then went. What do you make of that - I was sitting there smiling. They are all fine you know doing whatever it is they are doing............. and we will be fine too because we have never lost them have we - we have them in a different place.
The service was longer than I would have liked and these two suddenly woke up and started kicking - Mick would have laughed at that as I had to be lifted off the pew for the committal! He was then taken to the crematorium. Anjela we had our service for Oliver at the crematorium and we have his ashes but are awaiting permission from the parish council to plant a tree outside the cemetery so we can put his ashes there! Takes so flaming long for them to decide on breakfast!

It was then back to the pub for drinkies. I went to see Micks wife - she looked so small and shrunken somehow and she is not like that at all - it brings it all back how I must have looked.

I am fine though and it did me good to be there for someone else but to get through this with the strength and dignity I did at his funeral
Must do some work but love to you both
Tracey
xxx

[Dagny]

Oh Tracey

I have to go out in a minute so just a quick post.

Your account of Mick's funeral and seeing 'OK' on the flag sent shivers through me. How strange that must have been. It's amazing what our mind does to us and then the sun shining through, how beautiful.

Well done for getting through it with dignity and grace (apart from the standing up bit!). It is so hard being somewhere that brings you nearer to our little babies. The christening last week for me was torturous.

Love and hugs Dagny xkx

[anjela]

Sounds like it was a really big funeral. Until losing Katie I had never really had to deal with grief and death before so having to organise her funeral was so difficult. (If fact, to be honest I think my darling husband took responsibility for most of it and I just remember sitting in my lounge one day with a vicar on the sofa thinking 'what on earth is a vicar doing in my house? I am on maternity leave and need to be out doing things') Nervous breakdown me? Never!

Spent today with a neighbour who is turning out to be a good friend. Except she has a small child (14 mths) and all the time I spend with her I can't help feeling so desperately cheated out of spending time with my baby. God I need to have a baby so much its as much as I can do to prevent myself going to a local nightclub and propositioning all the men I can find for a quick sh@g

How am I going to do this? (Carry on I mean, not chat up strange men!)

Take care
Anjela
x

[Tracey S]

Anjela

You will do this - I think both Dagny and I were in the same place as you re funerals - it sort of went in a haze and I sat there with the Humanist Vicar thinking why are you here - I shouldn't have to do this! And if he said once he said it a million times "you never lost him - he is not lost just not here" I could have rung his neck at the time - humanist or not!

You will find a way through this Anjela - not sure how but you will. The most important thing is your relationship with DH at the moment - pull together not apart. You are like two playing cards - each will topple over on its own but together you can stand tall!

Think of what you are going to achieve and try not to concentrate and focus on what you have lost or what might prove to be negative - don't make these hurdles for yourself - remember little steps. You are still leaping ahead. Do tiny things each day and don't worry about the tmt until you are there. I will be here ok?

Same goes for you Dagny - you might be able to help more as you were in the same place more recently than me - though mine is still not that long ago in reality! I remember saying the same to you and then you went on holiday and since then each day you seem a little better - that is not to say you will ever forget your babies either of you - I don't but their loss does not take over your present!

Take care
Love
Tracey
xxx

[sophie_rashid]

Hi Tracey,dagny and anjela , i've not logged on for a long time , two reasons really , one i was back at work and absolutly impossible to logon to these sites not very private and secondly i did often feel a bit down when i read the posts . Dagny i dealt with things very differently , i just pushed everything to the back of my mind and didnt think about it and now i am going to be 20 weeks i am even more scared of what may go wrong . I know it is difficult to start the treatment again , last time i thought right treatment has worked all plain sailing from now but reckon i have been stressed since I started ICSI in Jan this year to now , i am worried all the time , i threw away any details of bounty packs etc , will not be buying anything dont think i'll even pack a hospital bag , i know i need some preparation for twins but i'm too scared about it .
I am now back working from home as i started feeling alot of pressure , doctors said shouldnt feel this at 18 weeks , had more prodding and internal scans to check cervix length etc and all is okay so it is just the position of the uterus , they think .but am being cautious and working from home . As time goes on i am getting more worried i have my 20 week scan on the 14th June , then a fetal cardiogram (?) on 5th July and then about another 5 growth scans as i developed diabetes in last pregnancy .I have not discussed anything about delivery although they did say that i cld deliver at 36 weeks and i want a c-section, but then i think what if something goes wrong before , not sure thinking i may say i will go in to be monitored at hospital twice a day from about 32 weeks ....am so scared ! How far are you now tracey ?