I’ve become part of a new group and there is a new language to learn. I’m on both a pregnancy loss board and one about trying to conceive after a miscarriage. I didn’t really join any of these boards before I was pregnant, so there is a lot of catching up to do. I have to admit I hate all of the abbreviations. It is easier than typing things over & over again, but I just can’t do it.
Here is a short list of abbreviations.
I’ve been doing so well. I hadn’t really cried since Saturday when I told a good friend that we lost the baby. (Yeah, it was only 2 days, but it was progress.) That wasn’t even in person because he moved to Finland. I’m dreading having to talk to people face-to-face.
Today I decided to put the ultrasound pictures away. We have one from 5 weeks where only the sac is visible, then one from 7 weeks. The 7 week one basically looks like a blob, but you can see the difference between the body and the head. Plus the ultrasound tech showed me on that picture where the heart was.
That picture was in a card that the hospital gave us. I was walking down the hall with it and it fell out. I absolutely lost it. I started thinking that since the baby stopped developing soon after that ultrasound that he/she never made it past that.
UGH. I feel like I’m in limbo right now. I’m still healing from the D&C and know I have to wait at least until after the first cycle to start trying again. I had so many hopes for this baby. I don’t want to replace this one, I just want to continue. I’m fine for the most part. I just think I’ll feel better when we are able to really move on. When we have new dates to look forward to. A new baby to dream about.
Part of it is that I don’t have anything to focus on right now. I’m in bed because I feel a lot better when I relax, but there is only so much TV you can watch, and only so many websites to go to. I should probably continue studying since I still have to take my Fall exams in January.
Last Thursday and Friday I got a total of 3 flower deliveries. The first were some beautiful tulips from my Aunt Sue & Uncle Jr. Then my old boss and her husband brought over some flowers to us. Friday I opened up the door and had a very pretty white arrangement from our close friends B & J.
I wanted to thank all of you for sending the flowers, they really did brighten up our day. (BTW, if anyone is ever at a loss about what to get me -I’m a s
Having a strong, supportive group of friends and family has made this a little bit easier. Thank you all for everything you’ve said and done. Thank you for listening to me when I repeat myself over and over again, and thank you for caring about us.
I put a Feedjit blog stat counter on the blog and it tells what searches people have used to find the blog. Today, mind you just today, the searches were:
These are the exact searches used to find my blog. The most commonly viewed entry from above searches? This one about some pillhead. Funnily enough, someone randomly found it back in September too.
I think I’m going to get rid of the Feedjit thing though. It’s a little bit creepy. I’m not sure that I want to know how people are finding the blog. Plus, the fact that so many people are trying to figure out how to call in fake prescriptions just makes me sad for all of us.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is a post D&C topic and if I were you, I wouldn’t read it.
The blood. Oh gawd. The blood. I stopped bleeding the first day and was just spotting a little bit. Now today, day 4 after the procedure, it’s out of control. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but still. I have really easy periods. Almost no cramping, light bleeding 3 days from start to finish.
Now I know what regular women feel like. I’m bleeding a lot and the cramps. Oh gawd, the cramps. I gave up on my idea of just taking ibuprofen today and took a Vicodin. Then I decided to take another Vicodin because it didn’t help. Now I’m waiting for it to kick in. Ouch. This sucks.
From what I’ve read online this is what happens when you don’t follow your doctor’s orders to “take it easy”. This is the only way the body has to tell you to sit down and chill. Not sure if that’s true or not. This might just be part of the process. Brandi? Any insight? Hushbear has put me on bed rest. Not sure how long he expects this to last or how he plans to enforce it.
I was planning on mailing most of my clothes up to Michigan before I go. I didn’t want to mess with a suitcase on the plane. I don’t check my bags because mine in particular get lost too often. I first planned it because of the hyperemesis, but now that the nausea is gone, it’s because of the procedure.
Even if I don’t send most of my clothes up, I need to mail the Christmas/birthday presents up. I guess I can get Hushbear to go mail the box off before he goes to work tomorrow.
I hope if I do just hang out in bed/on the couch for the next day or so the bleeding and cramping will stop.
I just want this to be over.
Since the beginning this has been a secret blog. I didn’t even tell hushbear about it. It was a place for me to vent about work, and I couldn’t really let anyone know where I worked. Once I wasn’t working much anymore it became a place to bitch about school. It got admittedly less funny as time went on. (Not that I think it’s particularly hilarious at any point.)
Since Monday, 12/08/08 it’s become a place for me to express my pain and insecurity. I’ve given out the blog address to some of the people who are important to me (hello, you know who you are) and I’ve put it on as my sig on babycenter.com. I don’t know why I changed my mind, but I did. I think it’s easier to let everyone read the raw written experience than to tell it to them directly.
I feel I should warn you, most entries about pharmacy have a lot of foul language. Most entries about school make no sense because of the insomnia. Most entries about pregnancy were just me whining and moaning about throwing up.
All of the entries about the miscarriage are stream of consciousness. I didn’t really edit them and I haven’t gone back to read them. I’ve been told by at least 2 people that they are painful to read. It’s what I was feeling at the time and I admit, I cried the entire time I was typing them.
This is me good, bad, or otherwise.
If you have any questions for me (and I don’t know you so you don’t have my real email address), I’ve got an email address linked to this blog. It’s seasonblogs@gmail.com
Oh, and the picture under “about me” -yeah, that’s exactly what I look like, just ask anyone that knows me!
If anyone happens upon this little blog and lives in Houston, I cannot recommend my OB enough. I’ve been going to her since before Hushbear and I were even engaged. She’s always amazed me because she doesn’t rush you. Other OBDocs I’ve been to hurry you along because they’ve got other patients to tend to.
Mine always takes the time to answer any questions I have without making me feel like I am wasting her time or the most stupid person on the face of the earth. She talks to me like a person, not a child, and doesn’t assume that I am either an idiot or went to medical school.
She has been really understanding over my apprehension about getting pregnant because of my seizures, and has been amazing through the entire miscarriage. Not only is she a wonderful physician, she’s “good people”!
There’s more I could say about her (like that she has small hands), but just ask me if you want to know anything else.
Dr. Patrice Firpo with OBGYN Associates
@7900 Fannin
713-512-7000
I was laying in bed reading and realized that the nausea is gone. Dr. Firpo said within 48 hours it should be better, but I never anticipated that it would be gone so quickly. It’s been around 60 hours since the procedure and it’s gone.
I thought I would be sad, but if anything it’s actually made me hopeful. My body is healing quickly. I’m getting better emotionally and physically and that means hopefully my body will be ready for a baby again soon.
It’s getting easier, but the pain is still there. I felt stronger emotionally today, and I haven’t cried, so that’s an improvement.
I decided not to take my Vicodin this morning to see if I could handle the pain. Bad idea. Really stupid, really bad, really dumb idea. The pain isn’t so severe I can’t manage, but it’s quite uncomfortable. I’ve decided to continue the Vicodin today and possibly tomorrow then switch to the ibuprofen.
I’m not nervous about getting pregnant again. Even after going through this I’m not scared about it happening again. After hours and hours spent online reading stories of other women I feel confident about our chances.
I don’t want to be like a lot of these other women though. Many of them are so strong and happy about their pregnancies, but then there are others. Those who are terrified. They can’t even enjoy their pregnancy. They take every symptom (or the lack of symptoms) as a bad sign.
If they feel the same way they did with their last pregnancy then they are certain the current one is going to end in miscarriage as well. If they don’t have any strong symptoms they don’t count themselves as lucky, they are terrified that it will be over soon.
My heart breaks for them. They can’t stand the thought of going through the pain of another loss, and they are so consumed with fear that they can’t enjoy what they have. I’m not judging them. Honestly, I don’t know how I will feel when the time comes, but I want to be one of the women that enjoys every moment of her pregnancy.
Even though I don’t anticipate losing another baby, I don’t think we’re going to tell many people when I do get pregnant again. Obviously I will tell my mom, and my core friends. I can’t imagine not telling some people. I think that might be it though. I’m not afraid of letting people know, and I’m not worried about jinxing the pregnancy or anything. I’m more worried about other people’s reactions.
I know the above will be happy for us and supportive, but I’m worried others might say or do something stupid. I don’t want people trying to compare this pregnancy to the next one. Even healthy, happy pregnancies can follow the same path, or be completely different.
My Dad said that he and his whore of a wife were talking and she’s wondering if it’s not my medications that caused the baby to stop developing. I wanted to say “Are you fucking kidding me? Are you really saying this to me?” Instead I told him that my doctor said it has nothing to do with me. It’s not my fault and my medications did not cause this. There is nothing I could have done differently to change the outcome of this pregnancy.
Next pregnancy, I’m going to ignore everyone. I’m going to ignore every suggestion that everyone has, every unsolicited opinion they decide to share with me. I know I couldn’t have changed this outcome.
oops..I just noticed that I never published this. It was in “drafts” guess I’ll just send it out now.
I had the D&C today around 12:30 or so. I arrived at Fannin Surgicare at 11 am as instructed and there were babies everywhere. Wow, that was kind of hard. I imagine the first visit to Dr. Firpo on December 29th is going to be hard too because there is usually at least one baby in the waiting area.
I filled out the 900 pages of paperwork (mainly just signing and initialing things) and sat back down. On the description of procedure it said “missed abortion” “D&C”. Now in my head I knew from a biology class that a miscarriage is technically called an abortion even if the body does it naturally. But something about seeing it on paper hurt. I’m about as pro-choice as it comes, but I wanted this baby and don’t like thinking of this terrible situation as an abortion.
The office manager called me back up and asked if they had told me it was going to cost $877.33. I told her yes and made hushbear come and pay it. He asked if we should put it on a credit card, but I explained that this is something I would really rather not pay interest on.
I got to go back at about 20 after 11 and at this point the nausea was at about an 8 out of 10. I didn’t take my Zofran this morning because I was afraid it would interact with something and they wouldn’t be able to do the procedure. Once I was back there and changed, a zillion people came to talk to me. Mostly asking about my seizures and asthma.
The anesthesiologist was really nice, he came to do my IV and one of the nurses tried to call him away to see someone else first. He walked out and told her no. He wanted to get my IV in since so nauseous. Then they would be able to give me some Zofran. I could have kissed him.
Now, if you are squeamish about certain things that start with the letter ‘v’, you might want to skip this part. (That means you, TD)
He looked at my arm and asked me if I had left my veins at home today. He said since I have hyperemesis, even though I’m able to eat and drink my veins aren’t what they should be. He went to put the IV in my left arm and it went in one side of the vein, and out the other. When the saline went in it immediately began to swell. You should see it, it’s still swollen and nasty looking. Ok, maybe not. perhaps not something i should share. 🙂
So, on we go to the right arm where there was a really good vein in my right hand. He numbed it because they use these huge needles in case you need a blood transfusion, and I honestly didn’t feel anything.
Bad part is over, you can come back now.
He left and the surgical nurse came in to tell me a little about the procedure & to reassure me that everything was going to be ok. We had a hard time taking her seriously because she was wearing Christmas tree earrings.
Then one of my new favorite people came in. The nurse anesthesiologist. She was really nice and relaxed me quite a bit with her easy going personality. I wish I could remember her name. Betty? Becky? Sorry, I can’t remember your name, you were awesome though. (I think she was Asian?) She gave me my Zofran right before Dr. Firpo came in.
Dr. Firpo came in and answered all of my questions. She strongly suspects that it was a partial molar pregnancy. She said with it ending like this and the fact that I had hyperemesis, it points towards that. We should hopefully be able to confirm that diagnosis with the pathology. I should hopefully know more at my follow up appointment.
I’m not at an increased risk of this happening again, nor am I more likely to have the hyperemesis again. Especially if it turns out to be a molar pregnancy, that will be the cause of the nausea. It makes your pregnancy hormone levels go through the roof.
Then the anesthesiologist nurse took me back to the OR. She had checked my chart and I had to list every place I had traveled in the past year so she was asking me what my favorite place was. We talked about Paris & Sydney all the way to the OR. She then put the oxygen mask on me and the next thing I remember I was waking up in recovery.
When I came to I forced myself to wake up because I knew the sooner I was awake & alert the sooner I got to go home. They brought Hushbear back after Dr. Firpo talked to him and had him help me get dressed. When a new nurse came back with the wheelchair I blurted out “I have to pee!”. She looked a little shocked, but I really had to go. She sent Hushbear out for the car and took me to the bathroom where she proceeded to watch me pee. I really could have done without that. She could have at least looked away.
Gross again. Skip if squeamish!
I was shocked by the amount of blood. I guess I realized there would be blood, it still surprised me though.
…and, we’re back to regular, non-gross blogging
I’m at home and dizzy, but Dr. Firpo said the nausea should go away in the next 48 hours. I have to admit, I am looking forward to that. All in all, we’re still lucky. Hushbear and I are very strong together and we know that we can try again. I have a good life, a husband that loves me and supports me, and great friends. I know we will have kids soon. As much as this hurts, I know there’s nothing I could do differently. It’s just a fluke and hopefully the next pregnancy will go well.
I found out that my mom, my aunt Tammy, and her daughter (my cousin Alicia) all had miscarriages with their first pregnancies. I think my cousin Heather might have as well. They all then went on to have perfectly healthy pregnancies and babies for their next ones.
Oh yeah, it’s snowing in parts of Houston today. It never snows in Houston and it was hot yesterday! Very strange, but it cheered me up a little. Even though we didn’t get snow at our house, I absolutely love that it happened today.
If anyone from Fannin Surgicare somehow reads this…thank you, you guys rock.
My so Charmed Life 