A very real reminder (Writeen Feb. 2)

Dear Rowan,
My period came in the night. Of course it wasn’t a surprise, but it was a very real reminder that you still don’t exist.
Not that I needed any reminders. The loss is very real to me. The pain is still very raw. I remember our second IVF, when we transferred three pitiful looking little embryos. They didn’t make it either. The grief was very difficult to bear. I searched for comfort in a book, “The Infertility Companion,” by Sandra Glahn and Dr. William Cutrer.
“If you have experienced a loss following an IVF cycle – whether your embryos didn’t survive, you had a miscarriage, or you lost one or more children in a multiple gestation – grief is a normal response to your situation. Couples who experience such losses have nothing tangible to connect them to their child – no lock of hair, no photograph – so they often struggle with the pain they feel, even doubting whether the pain is legitimate. It certainly is. That tiny life is of infinite, eternal worth to the Creator. A human life has been lost, and grief over that loss is real and valid.”
The words that struck me then, and again comfort me now are “infinite, eternal worth.” You are of infinite, eternal worth to me and to your father and to God. Even if no one else in this life recognizes that we have now lost seven children, we recognize it. I honor those seven little embryos each day in my heart. And, I hope that the three that are waiting – frozen in the lab – will survive.
Life goes on, Rowan, even as we wait for you to emerge. The demands of daily life continue -- work, home, bills, relationships. We can’t hide in our house and wait for the grief to subside. Instead, we go on. And, I begin to run through what our next steps should be. Should I have more tests to see if something is wrong with my body – is there a reason why my embryos can’t implant? And, I start to think that maybe Greg should see a specialist here in the states – someone who could offer more explanations and perhaps a treatment – that our Italian doctor could not.
But, mostly, I think of you and I feel such sadness.
I miss you, Rowan.