Anniversary of a Date That Never Was

Today is April 13th. Friday the 13th. A day that has historically been a good day for me. Good things usually happened on this supposedly bad-luck date (going back to high school, when my girlfriends and I would always run into the boys we had crushes on when trolling the mall on Friday the 13th. I think it's safe to let that one out of the bag nearly 20 years later!). But today is kind of a sad day, too. Some 9 months ago I thought that maybe Friday the 13th in April was going to be the ultimate awesome day--it was my due date from the pregnancy that turned out to be ectopic.

Anniversaries in the IF world are hard. There's the anniversary of your time in treatment (September 1st, 2009). There's anniversaries of failed IVFs, which I never really think about. And then there's anniversaries of losses, which I had never had before and now I do. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but I am in a little bit of a funk today.

Even though I was only pregnant for a short time, I really lived every pregnant day to its fullest. I milked that ill-fated pregnancy for every joyous moment I could, including my first ever (and only to date) positive pee stick. Which I did once my numbers got high enough that I was sure it would be positive. My loss was an odd one, because it was a pregnancy that was never going to be viable. Once we knew for sure it was ectopic, I called it my "baby-shaped tumor" instead of a pregnancy because it was a little easier to deal with. It was also an odd loss because I lost it surgically. One moment I was pregnant, and then I passed through the haze of anesthesia and awoke on the other side...not. It was surreal. It was such a short blip in time when you think about it, just two and a half weeks of expectant motherhood, but I think the way I held on to the possibility that my weird little pregnancy could be a miracle made time stand still. For a little while.

And so, today is the day that I would have been 40 weeks, had that little embryo not gotten so horribly lost. Today is a day to be a little sad, but also to be grateful. Because of that little lost embryo, I know that I can get pregnant. It is possible. It just hasn't happened yet (despite a ridiculous amount of medical intervention), but it doesn't mean that it won't happen at some point, hopefully sooner than later. Because of that little lost embryo we have hope that we can have our happy ending. I have a picture of a positive pee stick to prove it. Thank you, little lost embryo that would have been due today but never got the chance to grow properly. We honor your short little existence, we mourn the loss of the opportunity to parent you, and we hope for the future because you paved the way for other little embryos to succeed, minus that defective tube. May your friends have a better sense of direction.