Love is an Ocean and other Pretty Things

Posted on by CJandMe


It hasn’t been an easy couple of months.  My embryo transfer cycle brought a lot of traumatic  memories to the surface and created anxiety at a much higher level than I expected. My husband was out of town quite a bit which meant I had to do many of my IM injections on my own.  My nurse drew a target on my booty to help me hit the right spot.  (Pardon the messy room in the photo)


Ultimately, this cycle ended in bad news…a negative pregnancy test.  I couldn’t bring myself to write about it until now and it took me a couple weeks to talk to my doctor.  Sadly, this bad news lead right into the four year anniversary of losing Jaxon (our first loss at 15 weeks) and I struggled emotionally right up to that date (March 23).  I took a walk that day where I discovered the sign above, “love is an ocean”.  Whoever placed it here has no idea how much love is here.  This is where we spread Jaxon’s ashes.  I took the photo two days later on my birthday.

My husband gave me this necklace for my birthday.  He said it represents our home by the ocean but more importantly is a symbol for Jaxon at the center where my birthstone in aquamarine is placed.  That was the first time I thought about sharing my birthstone with Jaxon and it gave me a sense of peace.  This necklace brought a lot of love to me on my birthday.  “Love is an ocean” is what I now carry around my neck and close to my heart.


I wanted to be around something beautiful for my birthday.  My husband and I went with some friends to a botanical garden.  Tulips ruled the land and the colors painted our day, leaving everyone with smiles…and a peacock to bid us farewell.  

6 thoughts on “Love is an Ocean and other Pretty Things”

  1. Well I don’t want to say I’m glad to have found your blog because I don’t want to be glad to find anybody in multiple donor egg IVF situations like myself that also includes miscarriage (like myself), but still knowing there’s someone out there who’s not had success on the donor egg side makes me feel less alone. We are preparing for our sixth and final round of DEIVF (miscarried at 9 weeks after round 4) with the transfer being on April 14th.

    I was curious if you ever ended up having the ERA, as I saw in an old blog post of yours that you had an attempt at one back in 2015 that didn’t go well, but I didn’t see if you ever ended up doing it again? We did one in January, and it came back pre receptive, and when we tried to do the second one, my cervix said hell no you’re not doing that again, and after multiple tries they just gave up. (My cervix has to be manually dilated every time I have a transfer, scratch or biopsy, so this time it just refused to open, and I was having a massive anxiety attack with the pain after multiple failed attempts for him to get in there). So we are going forward with six days of PIO shots as per the initial ERA recommendation (I didn’t want to do any more mock cycles) and calling it quits after this if it doesn’t work. I just feel like I’ve lost so much of myself over these past years, and my husband and I are both financially and emotionally drained.

    Your blog is lovely, and I absolutely wish you the best with this cycle.

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    • Thank you so much for your comment and reaching out to me. I’m so sorry for you going through such difficult experiences like myself. We too are financially and emotionally drained from all of this. In regards to the ERA test, the one time we tried we had a particularly tough time getting through the cervix leaving me in pain, tears and completely panicked. So I totally understand what you went through. Since I have been able to get pregnant 3 times, this leads us to believe the timing of transfer is actually right for me so we did not try ERA again. However, we have done the endometrial biopsy without the ERA test 3 times as it as correlated with getting a positive pregnancy test. There is not really any robust evidence to prove that the endo biopsy can increase chance of pregnancy, but for whatever reason it seem to help me. However, I do the endometrial biopsy (AKA “scratch test”) under anesthesia as that previous experience left me kind of freaked out and I’m too scared to do it again. If you are interested I wrote a detailed blog entry on testing done post miscarriage called “unlocking the mystery of miscarriage” in August 2016. Also, if you are looking for a support network for women like us, I highly recommend the private FB group through “missconception coach”. You have to go to her website and register to request access to the group. It’s been a fantastic group to be a part of. You can get that info on my website, “resources” tab. Best of luck to you!!

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      • Thanks for your comments. We were able to get pregnant as well but the ERA showed that I needed an extra day of progesterone to be in my true implantation window, and having seen a number of fellow repeat IVFers finally get pregnant after adjusting their PIO after the biopsy showed them pre receptive or post receptive, I’m glad I did it. I have had the scratch as well and found it the exact same pain level as ERA (actually my first ERA biopsy was less painful than the scratch!). I always take a Valium and a Vicodin before any of these things, and I’m getting a shot of Demerol this time before the final transfer it’s just to make sure everything goes smoothly 😉

        FYI the scratch is not a biopsy. A biopsy is when they collect tissue and test it, like the ERA, the scratch is literally just that – scratching it to make it heal, and therefore hopefully make your uterus more receptive and less wanting to kick out the embryo (s). The ERA has shown that 20 to 25% of women are having their IVF transfer on the wrong date – they even had a report on NBC news about it a couple of months ago.

        I’ve heard of that forum but I, happily, don’t do Facebook 🙂

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