Informal Pole

I read a quote somewhere recently (which, of course, I didn't bookmark and now can't find) about how some infertile people make friends with couples who have school-aged kids (and vasectomies) and therefore aren't going to be talking about babies or growing bellies, and that this is somehow okay, because the infertile person wants a baby, not a runny-nosed 6yo obsessed with the latest craze (at the time of the quote it was Pokemon--which really dates the source). And my first thought was, "Really? An infertile person could be okay hanging out with someone who has reproduced just because their kids are school aged?" Because that's not true for me. I want that 6yo almost as much as I want a baby. I love kids of all ages, shapes, and sizes. And, although it's extremely painful to see bellies and babies, it's also hard to see parents with toddlers and school-aged kids. Sometimes it even hits me hard to see a parent with a teen, because they look like family, and I know that if we become parents through adoption, my children might not look like me. Sometimes I even get a pang around people who's kids might be adopted . . . Because I just want to be a mom so much.

So I thought I'd run an informal pole. What types of families are painful for you to interact with (or even see in the grocery store)? Is it just the ones with obvious pregnancies or very young babies? Or is it anyone with kids? Can you be friends with someone who has older kids without constantly feeling jealous of their ability to reproduce? Does it change anything if you know the person struggled to get or stay pregnant? (It does for me--I'm more comfortable with someone who's "been through the mill" so to speak.)

Note: I want to know how you feel and how you deal with friends and family and socializing, but I don't want to hear that the way I feel is wrong, just because it's different from the way you feel. Personally, I think my ability to love and enjoy children of all ages is an asset, even if right now it makes going through IF/RPL a bit more painful for me than it might be for other people.

P.S. I've been posting a lot on my new, private blog. That's where most of the specifics of what I'm dealing with right now are showing up. If you want an invite, e-mail me at tls_with_woman (at) yahoo (dot) com.

We Have Lift Off

Literally. In the original sense of the phrase. This morning, The Mister and I watched the launch of the first of the line of products for which he is a test engineer. The launch was successful, and item number one is now out in space, fully operational and ready to go. It was quite exciting and special to be able to watch the launch together. I can't say much more about specifics, since I really don't know much due to security clearances and so forth. Suffice to say, this was a big deal for The Mister, and the success means that he will probably continue to have excellent employment. Which is good. :-)

~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~ . ~

Later, we watched The Blind Side. I really enjoyed it. The story made a good movie. But I have to say that, even though I know it was based on a true story, it's a one-in-a-million story. Most foster kids don't grow up continuing to believe that the world is a good place. Most of them end up living very, very difficult lives. Most of them are seriously traumatized. A story like that is not a good reason to become a foster parent, not because foster parents can't make a big difference in kids lives, they can, but because too much was glossed over. Maybe the real, nitty-gritty daily grind was that simple, but I doubt it. When you condense two years into two hours, stuff is going to get left out. And since this was a success story, I bet a lot of what got left out was hard stuff.

It can't be easy to live with a kid as silent as Micheal Oher was. For weeks and months and years. That kind of silence, that unwillingness to let people in very deep, that's got to be hard to live with. I bet there were a lot of frustrations along the way for those parents. And I bet there was a lot that their biological kids put up with, particularly in the beginning, particularly from their peers at school.

I am not a foster parent (yet) but I have read enough, researched enough, to recognize a dramatization for what it is. At the end, there is a comparison made between Micheal Oher and another kid from his same neighborhood. Micheal Oher went on to fame and fortune, and the other kid died in a gang shooting. Both had athletic talent. One is rich and famous and the other is dead. The subtle implication was that, with a more stable home and legal guardians or adoptive parents, the kid who died would have made it. I think that's an over-simplification. I think a big part of Micheal Oher's success was his personality and the personalities of the couple who became his legal guardians. Another kid in the same situation, would have had a different reaction.

It's too simple to say that all these kids need is a stable home and parents to love them. Most of them need a whole lot more. Figuring out what they need and offering it to them is hard enough, but not all of them will accept help, even when it is available. You can lead a horse to water and all that. I'm not blaming the kids for not accepting what's offered. It's just that, when you endure abuse and trauma from a young age, the psychological scars can make it really hard to trust opportunities and make the most of them. The kids in the foster system have been effected by their experiences. How they respond will be part history, part personality. Each child has a different way of coping with what life throws at him or her. There is no one simple fix that will make life better for all these kids. If only it were that easy.

When I think about the challenges of foster parenting, I wonder why I am so drawn to it. Am I being realistic, or am I buying into the fairytale that stories like The Blind Side portray? Do I really have what it takes to be a foster parent? Or will I crack under the strain? I know no one can answer these questions for me ahead of time, but it's something to think about.

P.S. Stop by To Many Fish To Fry to read a very interesting post and comment discussion about Mother's Day in the ALI community.

P.P.S. Thanks to everyone who answered my questions on my last post. You reminded me that hope takes many forms. I may not have a lot of hope for a successful pregnancy right now, but I do have hope for a future and the many different ways I can share my life with children.

Dollars and $ense of Family Building

This is my first blog hop, but the topic has been on my mind for a while, so I thought I'd join in. Welcome! 

Money is a big factor in my approach to treatment. It took having several miscarriages to understand why people would drop $$$$ on procedures like IVF that only offered the chance of a baby, with no guarantee. Now, I think I do understand, but luckily that hasn't been an issue for me, yet. In fact, I feel very lucky that the tests and treatments I have needed so far are all fairly reasonable priced. Still, I am constantly aware of how things are adding up, especially things like acupuncture, herbs, and supplements, that are, mostly, out-of-pocket (oop) costs. I am not counting pennies, but I am still very aware of the costs we are incurring.

Even with all the oop costs, the treatments we are looking at are still less expensive than adoption. If it gets to the point where I need a full immune panel and some of the more expensive immune treatments, then some reevaluation of priorities will probably be in order. I know that we could reach a point where the chance of a successful pregnancy won't be worth the cost of treatment for us. Although the experience of pregnancy and giving birth is something I have always dreamed about, adoption has also always been in my heart. I don't know exactly what my tipping point will be, but I know that I have one. I suspect that as the costs of suggested treatments go up, my willingness to gamble on the chance of a biological child will go down. I also don't know if I would be more open to treatments if they were covered by insurance or socialized medicine. I know that finances play a big role in my decision making, but there are other factors as well: emotions, time, physical side effects, etc.

Another interesting twist on this whole financial thing is the possibility that my immune system might reset following a pregnancy, and we might need less treatments for a second or third child, potentially reducing our total family building costs. It's certainly a very seductive possibility, although I know that it is also possible that I will need at least as many treatments for every pregnancy I carry to term. 

Finances have also influenced my current sense that I no longer want to pursue my dream of having a homebirth. There are emotional reasons why I am now more inclined to plan a hospital birth, but finances are a part of that decision. Dropping several grand on something that is only a possibility, and that I have a pretty high chance of getting risked out of, just doesn't feel right to me.

So, on to the specific Blog Hop Questions. I'm going to answer them from my current perspective of pursuing RPL testing and treatment. If we someday decide to adopt, I'm sure some of my answers would be different:

Consider your now or future children as adults, and consider the fact that you had to spend money to either conceive them or make them part of your family. What effect do you think the latter will have on the former one day? What, do you think, your grown children might feel about the funds it took to create your family?
I don't know what effect it will have. Just like I don't know what effect accepting certain treatments will have. I worry about long-term side effects of medical treatments and procedures more, but of course there are emotional effects as well. I am mostly, actually, afraid that my child(ren) will feel some sort of pressure from me to be perfect, because of what lengths I went to, to bring them safely into this world. I don't want to place that kind of emotional burden on my child(ren). I hope that they will know that they were loved before they were born, enough for us to spend significant time and money on bringing them into our lives, but I also hope that knowledge won't be a burden for them.
 
How did/would you handle it if your child asks you, “Mom, how much did I cost?” How would you answer at age 7? At age 18?
In either case, I am spending money as much on my own health as on my future children. Most of the treatments I am undergoing improve my overall health. At age 7, I might say, "It cost us more money than some parents because my pregnancies were high risk. It was worth it to us to spend that money, because we wanted you to be born safe and healthy."

At age 18, I like what Baby Smiling said: "Bringing you into the world cost a lot less than we’re about to spend on your college education." I think I would say something similar. I would probably avoid giving a dollar amount, but I might give some kind of value equivalent. It would depend on the child and the context of the conversation.

Now, if my child was having his/her own challenges with family building, that might be the appropriate time to share more information about specific treatments and costs. But because of inflation and medical advances, the information probably wouldn't be very relevant.

When calculating the costs of your family building, what do you include? The direct costs are easy (such as RE fees for a cycle or homestudy fees), but what about fees that didn’t directly lead to your child’s existence in your life, such as cycles that didn’t work, adoption outreach avenues that didn’t work, failed adoptions, avenues that were explored (and that cost something) but not pursued, etc.?
In my mind, I am counting the oop expenses more than the total costs (including what insurance covers). So far, most of our expenses have been oop for things insurance wouldn't cover anyway. I count all the acupuncture, herbs, and otc supplements, as well as the doctors visits, lab fees, and prescription meds. But I'm not actually adding them all up. I just mentally consider them all to be related to this first child we are hoping to have.

Have you considered having ART treatments abroad, either due to lower cost or due to certain methods being unavailable or illegal in your own country? In your decision-making, how did you balance the financial savings against issues like the unknowns of the country, perhaps not speaking the language, and medical practices that may differ from those of your home country? If you did travel abroad for treatments, what was your experience? Would you do it again?
I have considered the possibility that, if we get a full immune panel done at some point, there is at least one treatment, LIT, that is not currently easily available in the US. I might seriously consider medical tourism for that treatment, if (and this is a big if) it seemed to be the only thing that might help me carry to term. However, one of the reasons this treatment is not available is because it is very controversial. That aspect of it would give me pause. I would have to deeply consider many implications before I accepted that treatment.

As far as unknowns of the country go, I would look for referrals to particular treatment centers, and I would try to learn the language, at least enough to get by. I haven't thought about different medical practices, but that is certainly worth consideration as well. Medical tourism is not something I would choose to do on a whim.  

Visit Write Mind Open Heart for more perspectives on the Dollars and $ense of Family Building and to add your own link to the blog hop by May 1, should you want to contribute your thoughts.

Letting People In (Edited)

(Edited because on second read-through, this came across too defensive/aggressive. My intent was not to attack or criticize, but more to express and explain my own point of view and motivation in my choices regarding sharing my story.)

I've been thinking a lot lately about letting more people in on what is going on in my life with regards to my miscarriages. I'm not sure when it started, but it the feeling has grown, gradually, over the past few weeks. There are a couple particular people I have in mind, that I want to share my experiences with, but I also have a general feeling of just wanting to be more public about my miscarriages.

Still, I am not quite ready to go completely public. I want to be cautious, since I have had a history of sharing too much and then regretting it later. You can't ever un-tell a person, once they know, and sometimes it turns out to be a problem, if it's a person you can't simply cut off contact with.

Once a Mother (who wrote the post I referenced here) left a comment I'd like to address:

Thanks for your kind comment on my post, and for introducing me to your blog. I suffered a miscarriage before losing my daughter and then went on to suffer secondary infertility and needed IVF to achieve this pregnancy. The reason I am telling you this is that each of these are topics that can be considered taboo to talk about, or bring uncomfortable comments from others, and to that I say tough. If I inhibit what I share for the sake of others, or the fear of what they are going to say, it will eat me up inside. None of the losses we experience in this ALI world are by choice, and we shouldn't have to feel as if they are our burden to bear silently. I say share your story. You never know, the woman sitting next to you listening, may too really need that outlet, and a beautiful connection may be made. As far as people's rude comments, I always say if you can't stand with me in sorrow, i don't want you there with me in joy.

I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts with me, Once a Mother and I agree that the more people in the ALI community share their stories, the more we will life the taboo on these subjects. When a bereaved mother wants to talk about her losses I think she should be able to talk about them. I applaud you for knowing that she would prefer to share her story, even if it makes other uncomfortable, and I appreciate your encouraging me to do the same. However, in general, I don't think I "inhibit" myself, or stop myself from sharing my story when I really want to, neither for the sake of others nor out of fear of being hurt. It is true that I am quite selective; I consciously choose with whom to share, and under what circumstances. I take my time, consider the relationship I have with the other person, and weigh the risks of offending/receiving painful comments against the benefits of potentially deepening our relationship, before I tell my story. Sometimes, people surprise me. Often, I have a good measure of the other person, and the response I get is in line with what I expected.

I agree that the losses people in the ALI world experience aren't chosen--no one would chose this pain. However, everyone responds to pain differently. Some people feel caged, or inhibited, if they don't share their story. Others prefer to keep their pain close, because it is so personal, sharing it may feel to intimate for many situations. I think that going through IF/PAIL puts people into a closet, and we all have to choose if, when, and how to out ourselves. That is each person's choice to make. My choice is to out myself slowly and carefully over time. Someone else may never speak of her/his struggles. Another person may tell everyone she/he comes in contact with. Some people have less choice about outing themselves--a late-term loss, stillbirth, or infant death can't easily be hidden from the people who knew about the pregnancy/baby. But even these people may try to chose how and when to share their news.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that we need to respect each-other's choices when it comes to how much each person in the ALI community shares of her/his story, when and with whom. We need to support each individual to make her/his own decisions about what level of sharing is best for her/him. What I see as caution and self-preservation may look to another person like fear or inhibition. It's a matter of personal preference, and it is hard to really understand the motivation behind another person's choices looking in from the outside. I respect and understand that many people choose to share their losses much more openly than I have chosen to share mine. I only ask that in return I be given the respect, space, and freedom to share my story on my own timetable.

For example: today I decided to share my story with someone new. This is someone I see on a regular basis, but don't know extremely well. I consider her an acquaintance. I do, however, know that she has two children, and that her pregnancies were relatively uneventful. For that reason, I thought she would have difficulty understanding, and since she likes to teach and give advice, I thought there was a pretty high chance she would say something patronizing. So all these months, I have avoided telling her anything. She didn't need to know, and I didn't feel a need to tell. Until today. Today, I found myself wanting very much to tell her. To out myself. To give her a chance.

At first, it was just as I expected. Tired, clichéd, patronization. After a few minutes of this, back and forth, with me trying to explain why I didn't agree with the whole "It was for the best" sentiment she was expressing, I finally asked if she'd ever had a miscarriage. No, she hadn't, but her sister had gone through IF/loss, and she had watched that pain. She admitted that she couldn't understand my pain, but I also began to see that she had a good deal of compassion for it. Her heart was in the right place. In fact, within minutes of my asking that one question, she was telling me that she is going to be a surrogate mother. She is well into the process of selecting and being matched with a family, and has started preparing her body for pregnancy. The fact that she chose to become a surrogate out of a desire to help people who otherwise couldn't have children touched me deeply. When she shared that with me, I felt such appreciation for her, that it took most of the sting out of her previous well meant, but naive comments.

So, in the end, I'm glad I shared my story with her, and it did deepen our relationship, but it wore me out, emotionally. I think it will be at least a few weeks before I begin to feel the itch to share with someone new again. :-)

Adoption vs. ART Part II

In re-reading my last post and thinking about it for a couple of days, I realized  that I have more to say about adoption and ART. First, adoption is still a viable option in my mind. Even with all the drawbacks I mentioned in my previous post, I am completely open to adoption. Also, when I said that it is lower on my list than it was 6 months ago, that doesn't mean it's at the bottom of the list. It's just that 6 months ago, it was at the top of my list of family building options if going au natural didn't work. Some of the reason it moved down this list is due to learning that adopting has drawbacks I didn't see before, but it also has to do with learning more about ART.

What I've learned about ART in the past 6 months is that there are many levels of assisted reproduction. Honestly, up until the past 6 to 9 months the only thing I knew about was IVF. I thought you either managed to get pregnant through BD or you had IVF done. I'd never heard of Clo.mid or IUI or Met.formin or anything else on the pre-IVF spectrum. So I thought that if I couldn't get pregnant on my own, my only choices would be to either spend $$$ on IVF with no guarantees (I knew that it doesn't work every cycle) or spend even more $$$ on adoption with a higher chance of ending up with a baby. (Very naive--I know.)

I also didn't know about the weird, middle road of infertility, where a couple is fertile enough to get pregnant, but not fertile enough to stay pregnant. Honestly, it is one of the most in-between scenarios I can imagine. It's really hard to know where you fit--almost too fertile to be an IFer, but not quite fertile enough to relate to most BLMs. Multiple miscarriages from spontaneous pregnancies seems to me to be the least represented form of infertility. At least, I haven't met many other people, on-line or IRL, who've had multiple miscarriages without also needing help getting pregnant in the first place. So that possibility didn't even occur to me before it happened.

Since my miscarriages, I have learned that there are several levels of ART that women go through before IVF becomes their best/only option. I've also learned that getting pregnant and staying pregnant are two different issues, with some treatments being different and others being the same or similar. For example: I've been diagnosed with polycystic ovaries caused by insulin resistance, but I still ovulate on my own and I don't have the most common outward markers of PCOS. Someone with PCOS might need more help getting pregnant, but she and I would probably both benefit from Met.formin. Another example is clotting disorders. They don't stop you from getting pregnant, but they can cause a host of complications once you are pregnant. However, no matter which complications they experience, women with the same clotting disorder usually have similar treatment regimens.

I've also learned about immunology, and the role it plays in fertility. Sometimes it seems to prevent conception entirely, other times, it causes the mother's body to reject all the babies she does manage to conceive. I'm still researching that area, but I'm becoming more and more convinced that it's worth finding out if my immune system is causing problems. I can't imagine how much I would kick myself if I had another preventable miscarriage, just because I didn't follow through and do the immunology testing before getting pregnant again.

So my ideas about what tests and treatments are worth my while have really changed. Knowledge has played a huge role in my attitude shift. I still consider adoption to be a viable option. If having a full term pregnancy turns out to be very traumatic for me, or if I end up having a condition that leaves me with very few options for being able to carry to term, I would absolutely consider adoption. At this point in my life, I would rather adopt than live child free (though I think that is a valid option for those who choose it, as well). However, since I have learned that there are ways of treating infertility that are less invasive than IVF, and since I still want to know what it is like to be pregnant and give birth, I've mentally moved adoption down from it's former place as my second choice family building option, to somewhere in the middle of the scale. I'm still not sure I'd go as far as to do IUI or IVF. At this point, it doesn't quite make sense to me, since I've already conceived without assistance. But I am willing to take medication, even if it means giving up my dream of a homebirth, so I can at least have a chance at a biological child.

There is one more aspect to my change in perspective and my shift in values, and that is the emotional side of pregnancy loss. But I'll save that for another post--this one is long enough.

Adoption vs. ART

This is a subject I have been thinking about for some time, and my opinions have changed as I have learned more about both sides of the story. I consider both to be legitimate ways of family building, and neither to be superior to the other. However, both have their advantages and drawbacks and individual perceptions of these advantages and drawbacks will vary, influencing each couple's decision of how to build their family. This post is about my opinions, past and present, naive and more informed. It is about my current opinions. I might change my mind later. Please bare that in mind as you read, particularly if you found this post in my archives.

As an uninformed young adult, I thought that if my (then future) husband and I had any trouble getting pregnant, we'd adopt. My thinking went something like this: There are so many children in the world who need good homes, why not adopt one of them instead of spending thousands of dollars on invasive medical treatments that might not even work? I also thought I'd be open to adopting an older child. I've always loved kids of any age, and I thought it would be quicker to adopt an older child than an infant. I was so set on home birth that I thought I'd rather adopt than end up with a high-risk pregnancy that required a hospital delivery. Looking back now, I think that I was very naive.

It wasn't until I had two miscarriages and started seriously researching adoption that my thoughts began to change. I learned of the difficulties that often occur in adoptions where the children "older". I learned that there are levels of what is considered "older" in adoptable children. I learned about how the foster care system's focus on reunification can create situations where, by the time parental rights are terminated, the child has so many issues he or she is no longer considered adoptable. I learned that even with infant adoptions, the child will grow up with questions about why he or she was placed for adoption. I learned how these questions can create problems when the adoption is "closed". I learned that "open" adoption is available and generally a positive experience, but that it can have it's challenges as well.

I also learned about all the investigations and paperwork and classes and so forth that are required before an adoption can take place. I learned about homestudies, fire marshal inspections, and background checks, and about age, income and space requirements. I realized that the adoption process is just as invasive as the medical process, only instead of testing and treating your body for fitness for pregnancy, the adoption process tests your lifestyle and evaluates whether you are fit to be parents. I found out that the adoption process is its own emotional roller coaster.

I began to realize that, although it may take less time to adopt an "older" child, that child may have sever issues that the family will continue to deal with indefinitely. I realized that, even in the ideal situation of an open adoption, there will be challenges specific to the child having been adopted, along with all the normal challenges of raising any child. These challenges won't all be parenting challenges. Adoptive parents and their children will have to deal with uninformed people, both strangers and friends/family. They may face prejudice or insensitivity. They will also have to consider the child's birth parents and their desires to stay in touch. Even if this goes completely smoothly, it is something that parents of a biological child don't even have to consider.

As I learned all these things, I began to see some of the attraction of finding a way to have my own biological child. Yes, the process of testing and treatment might be invasive. Yes it would be an emotional roller coaster. Yes it might risk me out of a homebirth. But once my baby was born, many the "extra" challenges would be over. (They probably wouldn't be entirely over. I haven't researched parenting after infertility much yet, but I'm guessing it brings its own challenges . . . ) I would be much like any other biological parent, regardless of how my child was conceived.

So I began to think that maybe, just maybe, the invasive testing and treatment, the possibility of a hospital birth instead of a homebirth, and all the emotional challenges would be worth it to have a child that was mine, biologically. I know that an adopted child would still be mine, but I also began to see the advantages of at least giving ART a try. So here I am, preparing to use the services of a doctor, a midwife, and an acupuncturist to get pregnant and stay pregnant. I may still decide to adopt, if testing turns up an obstacle that I'm not willing to try to surmount. But it's lower on my list of choices than it was 6 months ago. Part of the change is due to more information about the adoption process itself, but a lot of it has to do with learning more about what I want and what I'm willing to sacrifice to make my dreams come true.

Five Months

It's been five months since my second miscarriage. I notice the monthly anniversary of my second loss much more than my first. It's not that I loved Ember more than Astin, or that I had more dreams for her. It's more that her loss signified so much more. I knew that one loss was relatively common and didn't mean much in terms of whether I'd eventually carry to term. The second loss was more significant in that respect. If I'd stayed pregnant with Ember, I wouldn't have started worrying about FVL unless I developed other symptoms. I'd be planning a home birth right now instead of looking for a specialized OB. I'd be nearly 6 months pregnant. And I probably wouldn't ache so much over missing Astin. I might never have even named him if it hadn't been for miscarrying Ember as well. I probably wouldn't be blogging here, anonymously. I'd be blogging publicly under my own name.

This hurts so much. I ache. I am empty. I have some hope, but it is hope for an entirely different future than the one I planned and expected to have. Life isn't just a matter of planning and following the program. The road curves and we get surprised. Sometimes it looks like the road goes on, and it's not until the last minute that we see the detour sign. I feel like I'm sailing in uncharted waters. I don't recognize the stars anymore. Forget about landmarks--there is no land in sight right now.

I miss my babies. I miss the woman I thought I was. I'm trying to find a way to love the person I'm becoming, the life I've been given. How can the death of my babies be a gift? God? Are you out there? What comes next? Can you please give me a sign--show me a hint that my life will have some good in it again someday? Please?

Why do I have to be so painfully aware of what should have been? Will I ever be able to simply enjoy what is? I hope that someday I will find the silver lining in this cloud. Sometimes I get glimpses of it. I am becoming a more compassionate and accepting person, less judgmental, less critical of others. I'm learning that ideals aren't reality, and reality is often messy and complicated. I didn't want it to be this way. But I'm starting to accept that these are my lemons. Now, where did I put my sugar so I can make lemonade?

Pregnancy & Infant Loss is Equivalent to Infant & Child Death? (Rant)

Really? I just found out that the Miss foundation is campaigning to re-name October "Infant and Child Death Awareness Month". They apparently take issue with using the euphemism "loss" instead of saying "death". I agree with the principle. I don't like euphemisms either. But I have still a problem with the title "Infant and Child Death Awareness Month": it avoids a very important issue--the issue of babies that die during pregnancy. The general public will see this title and stay in their comfortable fantasy where two pink lines always result in a healthy baby 9 months later. And the 1 in 4 women who have at least one miscarriage will no longer have a month to say, "I am a Mother. My child died before it could be born. Please honor me and my grief."

As a mother who has had two pregnancies that each ended before 4 weeks gestation, I feel excluded from the term "Infant and Child Death". My babies were real to me. But that doesn't mean I think they were equivalent to infants. In my mind, an infant would be big enough to hold, developed enough to look human. Many people will hear or see the word "infant" and think of a baby born alive. My babies were probably too small to see without a microscope, and in reality, they probably did look like a cluster of cells. Much of what I grieve for is the potential that was lost. Yes, "lost". As in "gone" or "unable to be found or recovered". They also died, but life can be re-conceived. What I can never recover is those two precious individuals. They had the potential to become full people with personalities and characters all their own. They were individuals. I also grieve the loss of my dreams. When my babies died, I lost my dreams of motherhood, and they lost their potential as developing humans. For me, the phrase "pregnancy loss" is pretty close to the truth.

Of course, I could be uber accurate and say something like "embrionic death", or "fetal death". Accurate, yest, but cold and sterile sounding. On the other hand, I could say something like "pre-birth death", but that sounds like an oxymoron. I understand why people have a problem with the word loss. One reason is that it implies that the survivor misplaced their loved one. My babies certainly weren't misplaced, but my dreams were. My hope was. My innocence was. Those things are gone, and I doubt I'll ever find them again. So the ending of a pregnancy does involve loss. Especially when it ends very early. I'll stick to calling October "Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month". For now. Until someone comes up with a euphemism-free title that is still explicitly inclusive of the death of a baby at any point in pregnancy.