Stymptom Spotting: Nasal Stuffiness

Nasal Stuffiness. Now tell me why all the hype about a heightened sense of smell if you can't even smell anything? This might also be the reason I wasn't particularly blown away by the so called "super smell pregnant-power." For the first month I couldn't smell anything.

I thought I had a cold. I had no idea a stuffy nose was a sign of being pregnant. I would blow my nose and think, how in the world can I tell if I'm pregnant if I can't even check to see if I can smell?! It was a forest for the trees type of scenario for sure.

If a heightened sense of smell can be equated to a super power then the stuffy nose is definitely it's kryptonite. Come on, you knew the Superman reference was coming.

Symptom Spotting: Sense of Smell

Heightened Sense of Smell. Before I was pregnant the first time I had no idea what this meant. I equated it to Spiderman, like getting spidey-senses from a spider bite. So I waited on something that cool to happen.

Some articles describe women throwing up at the smell of their favorite hand lotion, or running for the hills at the slightest hint of the odor of eggs. And I'm not saying those aren't true examples. I'm just saying its not always like that, and for me those articles were pretty misleading.

When I walked by my co-worker's office and smelled the Dr. Pepper in the cup on her desk I didn't think wow Peter Parker would be amazed. Or when I caught a whiff of cheese-its and knew my five year old step-daughter was sneaking snacks before dinner, I didn't think that was necessarily a mind blowing experience.

I noticed a heightened sense of smell in a much less noticeable way. A more practical way. When I was pregnant I could find a dog turd in any corner of the house. (We have a puppy in potty training). And now that I'm symptom spotting for the second time, knowing what I know now, I'm much less dismissive when the cheese dip in the crock pot smells like pumpkin pie.  

On an unrelated note, I'm listening to Nicki Minaj. What the hell is "pelican fly?"

Eating With the Dead

My two previous ramblings about the Indian Funeral had a point. And that point is, the tribe of my husband believes that in the hours after the burial the dead will share with the family a last meal, a feast.

We shared a meal with my husband's grandmother, after her family took up shovels and rakes, took off jackets and hats, and buried her themselves. The men dispatched by the county to take care of such things stood in the background in their faded denim, watching the family take up their shovels.

Grapes of Wrath dirt makes a terrible lonely and hollow thud when it hits a casket 6 feet deep. Being Baptist, I'd never heard such a sound. Baptists don't usually bury their dead. We don't eat with them either...

But my husband's tribe does. And during the feast, while I sat behind my husband, spouses can't sit beside the blood-kin, I thought about our little one, gone too soon. The family probably wondered why the white girl was crying on her fry bread.

I didn't just eat with his grandmother. I ate with my baby too.

The Effect of Not Knowing

I'm putting myself through agony. My husband and I BD'd November 1 and November 8. I O'd somewhere in between those days.  

I've counted from October 22nd to today, and to yesterday, and to the day before that. I've counted so many times I have to count again to make sure what day this is. And still I'm not sure. Is it 8dpo? Or 6? Or 7? 

And every online ovulation calculator, calendar, chart, etc says something different. I might as well not even waste my time relying on those. But I will. Because I can't help it. The process is such a mystery, so uncontrollable, so stealthy, so secretive in my own body that it doesn't even seem fair! 

Why is my body keeping secrets from me! Or did it tell me, and I wasn't listening???  That's the real agonizing question. And then I started wondering, was that cervical mucus stretchier than I thought it was? Did I feel twinges the other day? Is this stuffy nose trying to tell me something?

When I'm lying on the bathroom floor with legs spread and feet on the counter and finger in my yoo-hoo up to my knuckle and I'm thinking, is it open, or closed...open...it feels soft, what does hard feel like..am I even touching my cervix...-Okay that's when I know this baby making thing has gone beyond rational.  

But whatever. When I go to the bathroom at work I don't care if  my co-workers wonder why I'm taking so long in there. I check my panties, I look at the toilet paper, I look for mucus. I pull my shirt up and look at my boobs, are they bigger, is that a vein, are my nipples sore, are they tender, do they stand out more? 

And then the following day I think...was my cervix soft yesterday? Or did I imagine that. 

Bitches.

Bitchy female co-worker to another less bitchy but very pregnant co-worker today at work, "Ugh why on earth would people wish being pregnant on themselves." And then they dish on how awful it is to be pregnant. Bitches.

The Funeral Part Two

After we drove over the Green Bridge, the bridge with the Green Man, we turned left onto a narrow blacktop. On the corner was an old red and brick fire station, barely kept running on what I'm sure was a diminished fire tax revenue.

On the left side of the narrow blacktop, set back against the fall colored trees, was an old looking tent or canopy. Under the canopy sat a huge, what looked like a...it sounds corny but it looked like a big cauldron or a big wok, over a smoldering fire. Men sat around the fire in captain's chairs. I was reminded of old men smoking and drinking beer and sitting on porches. 

I pointed it out to my husband as we drove past. "What's that? What are they doing over there?"

He shrugged, "I remember going down there when I little," he said, "but I don't remember that much about it."

Little did I know that's where the "feast" was cooking.

The funeral itself was beautiful. Sacred songs were sung, heart felt eulogies were given, tears were wept, prayers were said, hugs were passed around to everyone. 

People introduced themselves as sons or daughters of so-and-so and members of the this-and-that tribe. I was continually asked who I was. My husband began telling people I was from the "Scottish Tribe." From my pale skin, freckles, and red hair I guess it was obvious that my ancestors never hunted a buffalo. From my genealogy research I can confidently say that no, we hadn't. For that brief moment of meet and greet after the last song was sung but before the casket was carried away I became "The wife from the O'Malley family of the Scottish Tribe."

The name was made up of course. My husband thought it a hilarious joke. 

It wasn't until we arrived at the grave sight that things took a turn from slightly parallel to my Baptist experience with death minus the diaphragm belching native songs to a distinctly different and, to my white mind, a weird place.

Driving To The Funeral And Green Men

My husband and I went to an Indian funeral. 

He's Native American. If you want to know blood quantum, he's a lot Native. One-half to be exact. His grandmother, who passed away, is of two specific bands who celebrate a warrior existence. 

My husband is Indian, but he is also very white. And I don't mean the color. 

The day before the funeral my husband said, "there's going to be a feast."

"A feast?" I was shocked at the use of the word "feast." Who seriously uses that word in an everyday sentence. 

"Yeah," he said, "I guess we're eating afterward." 

That's what I mean when I say my husband is white. He didn't get the significance of the word "feast." And of course I didn't either. I'm raised Southern Baptist, I've never been to a non-Baptist funeral in my life. In my world, after a funeral, we eat casserole. So I thought, cool, can't wait for some chocolate pie.

The day of the funeral my husband and I drove from our cozy suburban neighborhood into the autumn colored hills of back wood country. 

The town we drove to stopped growing twenty years ago. Maybe even thirty or forty years ago. 

The first road sign I saw was, at first, unrecognizable. It made me disoriented, like the "off" feeling you get when you glance at your living room right after rearranging the furniture.  

The sign was not like the typical stop sign. It said, "Sook So <ee <it." I think the octagon shape made it feel familiar. And maybe the red color.

After the sign we crossed a bridge. It was metal, and painted a hunter green. Later, driving from the cemetery in the back of the car, my husband's Aunt told us she used to be afraid of the bridge. 

"Our people called this the Green Bridge. We had a story for the bridge," she said, "our people would say a little green man lives under the bridge. When my father would take his post at the gate into town I would bring him food, and I when I got to this bridge I would always run because I didn't want to see that little green man." She chuckled, and then in a soft voice, in a tenor and a pitch I think only native peoples have she said to the glass of the car window, "We Indians are a scary people." 

November! Finally!

October is over. I'm still tense, waiting to see if November will hit us with the force of this past October. We've had so much going on the last thirty days.

It's the second of November and so far the remaining pets are still alive, no one is sick, no one is dead (again), and we got paid. Although we do have to go to a funeral Saturday. My husbands grandmother died October 31st. I guess that was the creme de la creme - in other words, the icing on the cake, the straw that broke the camels back, the cherry on top - and every other corny phrase that basically means:

"can't shit just get better already?!"

It has to be better because my husband and I BD'd for the first time since the end of September. When we found out the baby had no heartbeat October 4th it was just weird to think about "doing it" with you know...yeah....

Then after the surgery I  was on two weeks of "pelvic rest" - no tampons, douches or penises - Doctor's own words.

November 1st we did "it"! Without a condom. Which is a little nerve wracking because... well if you've been reading you know the because. If you not, let me fill you in: Missed miscarriage in October at 10 weeks, then D&C, then first cycle October 22nd, then we were told wait another cycle to start trying.

I'm only 22 days from the D&C. I've had one cycle. I'm scrounging around baby bump forums reading about others getting pregnant after a D&C. There is sooooo much conflicting information out there.

For today I've decided to take the "if I'm ready it will happen if I'm not it won't" approach. Because after all, what the hell else can I do?

It's A Boy

We took my step-daughter trick-or-treating tonight. 

Every year when we go to that first house we're both kinda nervous, and she clings to me, and the lights are on as we creep up the sidewalk - I always think, "Is this gonna work?" I get a little worried that when I ring the bell the homeowners are going to come to the door and ask me what I'm selling. As if the magic of leaving the porch light on is somehow going to vanish between one Halloween and the next.

Like one day leaving the light on isn't going to mean anything any more.

It's a silly worry. No one's told me to go away.

Standing in the fifth driveway of the night, watching my little Monster High girl ring the door bell, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was my co-worker, announcing to everyone via mass text that her daughter was having a boy. Whoo hoo.

While thinking about whether I should respond with the obligatory albeit fake congratulation my five year old step-daughter yelled, "No one is coming! Should I ring it again?!"

"Sure," I yelled back, "Ring it again!" And I put my phone away.

6 Weeks

"Try again in December." That's what the doctor said. "It'll go by fast, with the holidays."

My husband said, "It's a little over one month. It's not long." 

This is exactly how long it is:
It is 4,205,648 seconds
It is 70,094 minutes 
It is 1,169 hours
It is 48 days
It is 6 weeks

What am I going to do for 6 weeks? It feels like an eternity. 

This may sound dramatic, but you can't look at someone dying of thirst and say, "wait 6 more weeks, you'll be fine. Just focus on something else for a little while." Does that person just stop being thirsty? No. I wouldn't think so.

Go Away October

A friend paid us a surprise visit on Sunday. When the doorbell rang we thought it was our neighbor returning our dog. He frequently escapes from under the fence. Lately it's been a source of contention between us and the neighbor. So when the doorbell rang my husband and I froze. Shit, is what I first thought. 

But when we opened the door and saw who it was we were relieved. Well, I wasn't entirely relieved because it was the friend who's wife had the baby shower I skipped out on. Damn. 

But when we filled him in on our recent bad news I didn't feel so bad. We've had a rough month...

-Missed Miscarriage

-D&C

-My husband's grandmother had a stroke and we had a late night rush to the ER, the way our luck is going she could pass away by Halloween. We're all still kind of waiting...

-Our cat ran out and a stray dog killed her

-We took the stray dog to the pound and since we told them it killed our cat in front of our very eyes I'm guessing it didn't last long. 

He said he was sorry he only brought us a political yard sign. 

How Stupid

How stupid was I? To think I could get pregnant again, so soon after the D&C. 

We discovered no heartbeat October 4. I was 10 weeks pregnant. The baby measured 9 weeks. I was sent home, told to wait. In my older posts I talk about the wait, and the decision, and the surgery. 

After the D&C my first cycle started October 22. I thought we could start trying again. I thought we could be carrying the news home for Thanksgiving. I thought this could be the week.

The doctor sat down in front of me today. One of her eyes is a little...off. Sometimes it rolls a bit, not much but enough to notice. I always try  not to stare, to focus on what she's telling me. It's only the third time I've seen her so, I haven't gotten over the initial- shock is too strong a word, lets call it "awareness." The initial awareness that something's not quite right with one eye. 

Anyway, she looks at me with her eyes, both of them this time, and asks what the plan is. "Um, well...I started last Monday, my first cycle. Bled for five days..." At this point see I was still thinking we would be back in the baby making sack by Saturday. I was thinking she was going to agree with me.  

"We're ready to start right away." I said that last bit positively, with certainty, this is what we want. 

My doctor looks like a grandmother. With a lazy eye. She's older, she feels maternal, she even sounds like a grandmother. Her speech is soft and a little slow, and she punctuates every bit of her bad news with a smile, a smile that says it hurts now but wait, it won't hurt long.  

"Well," she says, "you know when a woman gets pregnant so soon after something like this there is a 50/50 chance, " and I KNEW she was going to say "they get pregnant again." I was ecstatic! I had built this moment up in my head, I KNEW what she was going to say. 50% chance we'll be pregnant again, I'll be eating turkey for two by Thanksgiving. I knew she said that. I knew it. 

So stupid. 50% chance of being pregnant again? That doesn't even make sense. Where did I get that? 

"There's a 50/50 chance of another miscarriage." That's what she really said. And when you read in books that common little phrase, "took a minute to sink in," ha, I know exactly what that feels like. 

For the first time in my whole entire life something "took a minute to sink in." 

Did she just say that? Why? She's telling me to wait. She's telling me its safer. She's telling me she wants to monitor my progesterone. She's telling me it's better to do it this way. 

I don't believe her. And I'm angry. And I feel stupid. 

The Heron

My husband and I had to attend a democratic thing. A dinner. No, correction. A "roundup." 

"What's a Democratic Roundup?" My husband asked the girls in the front office. That's what we call them, The Girls. Even though one is old enough to be our grandmother. They giggled at him. They always giggle at him. Even when he's throwing a tantrum - which sometimes happens. 

"It's where you wear your best cowboy boots and hat," the youngest of The Girls said. Only she said it where the word "hat" sounded like "haaaiit." You know, fake country, long and drawn out. "Then you eat BBQ and cornbread." Again, fake country. Long and drawn out. 

Turns out she wasn't far off. There was a "Best Dressed Cowboy," and "Best Dressed Cowgirl" award for the night. And we ate brisket with BBQ sauce. 

Driving to the "roundup" the two lane blacktop curves around, hugging what is like a wet meadow. Standing in the glassy water was a heron. I was driving, and caught just a brief glimpse as we sped past. I would not have seen the bird at all if my husband hadn't stirred in the seat beside me. "Here lately I've seen that bird every time I come through here." 

"I don't remember ever seeing that bird," I said. 
"I do, I've seen it every time lately."
"Maybe it's just you."

He laughed, "I'll call it Cooper." 
"Good ol' Coop," it was my turn to laugh.

Later, after dinner, thinking about the heron I Googled "heron symbolism." 

Apparently Native Americans believe herons represent the ability to move forward, they also represent lessons in patience.

Coincidence? Maybe. 

Then again, my husband is Native American.  

Staying Positive

I've got this stupid pregnancy photograph board on my Pinterest account. It's all these photos of pregnant women posing for their pregnancy photo shoots. I saw it this morning with my morning coffee and thought, "ugh I've got to get rid of this board!" But, I'm having a change of heart.

Because everyday is like taking one step further from our miscarriage. It feels less painful. Less emotional. Less hurtful. Less angry. Less despondent. Less all those things people feel when they grieve. 

I'm keeping the board AND I'm going to add one - Pregnancy Announcements. 

I mean come on, isn't this too stinking cute?!

Moving Forward

Two weeks. There was no heartbeat on Thursday. By the following Monday I knew two weeks was to long. 

If you have a dead baby in your body don't let it sit there for two weeks. Maybe that's just me.

I called my doctor. "I need a D&C." 

When they told us Thursday the baby would have to come out naturally or surgically I had never heard of a D and C. When the doctor asked, "Do you want a D&C," I automatically said no. I didn't even know what it was. I didn't ask a single question about it. I had to google it later, after the fair, when I realized two weeks was too long. I had asked my husband what was that D thing the doctor was talking about and he said he wasn't listening to that part either. 

Turns out a D&C is like an abortion. When I called the doctor and asked for one the nurse said they don't do them. Excuse me? 

"We have to refer you to a surgeon."

"How long will that take?"

"I'll get the process started and call you back."

"Okay." No. Not okay. Now that the decision was made I wanted one now. 

I reported the news to my husband. "Why don't you call another doctor," he said.

"Can you even do that," I asked, "can we just call another doctor and say I want...this thing done?" He shrugged. He had never done this before either.

I googled again. D&C, Surgeon, Local. I made the phone call. It was Columbus Day and our office was hosting a character building session for the employees. The word of the day was "character," and the guy doing the seminar who looked a lot like Joe Biden defined character as, and I paraphrase, the way a person reacts to a situation regardless of the circumstances.

When I called the surgeon I found on google the nurse who answered the phone reacted with what our Mr. Biden would have deemed, "with character."

"You're how far along?" She asked when I sobbed into the phone about a D&C.

"I'm 11 weeks now, I was 10 weeks when we found out."

"How far along did the baby measure?"
"10 weeks."

"Can you come in on Wednesday?" Of course I could.

I did better than my doctor. I got myself a date for a D&C that Friday before his office made their first referral. Despite a situation that seemed out of my control I think that I too, reacted with character. We were moving forward. 

On the Ferris Wheel

The day we learned there was no heartbeat my husband and I emailed work and took the rest of the day off, claiming "bad news at the doctor." Then I put on a roast, fed the dogs, picked up my step-daughter from school, and, as promised, we took her to the fair. Life doesn't stop just because the one in your midsection decided to. 

I cried. I cried when we got home from the second ultrasound. I cried in the middle of our living room after the first ultrasound. I cried when I fed the dogs. And I cried over the crock pot.    

I cried in the car all the way to kindergarten. I stopped crying when we saw her, waiting in the pick up line. "How's the baby?" she asked. She knew we had gone to the doctor. We knew what we were going to tell her. "The baby isn't growing as fast as we thought," I said, "It's going to take a little longer for us to make that brother or sister." 

She seemed to take that in stride, contemplating it in her five year old little brain. I turned around and gave her what I still hope was a confident smile, "We're still working in it, everything is going to be okay." And there it was, the first verbalization that yes, everything was going to be okay. And I believed it, for a little bit.

We took her to the fair for two reasons, 1) I promised, and I believe in keeping promises, and 2) I needed to get out of the house.

Looking back I don't know if that was emotionally the best decision. What is worse, 1) staying at home in bed with the lights out and the covers over your head or 2) riding the Ferris wheel with a frantically giggly five year and a dead fetus in your uterus? Funnel cake never tasted so bad. 

My body had not expelled the baby. In fact, I learned this a week later, my body was still operating business as usual. It's going to come out, the doctor had said, either naturally or surgically but the baby is going to have to come out. And that's a scary thought. 

"When?" I asked.

"Anytime."

"How?"

"You'll feel cramps and there will probably be a lot of blood."

"What if it doesn't?"

"Call me in two weeks."

Two weeks. Sitting in the Sky Ride looking out over the fair grounds I turned that conversation over and over in my head. Two weeks. Dead baby. No heartbeat. Lots of blood.

If a cable broke and our Sky Ride car fell to the parking lot I would not have been even the least bit surprised.

Losing Baby

The doctor told us. I knew he was about to tell bad news, but not from anything my body ever said to me. My body had been clicking along without a clue. 

Maybe it was when the nurse visibly stiffened, or when no one exclaimed "there's baby!" when we knew that fuzzy out of focus bean was the baby, maybe that's when I started to know. 

I had a dream the day before. In my dream there was no baby. Maybe that's where, deep down, in the places you don't want to go, I knew.  

Regardless, I knew it was bad news before the doctor opened his mouth, before he put his tongue to the back of his teeth to make the, "th," sound. The sound in the beginning of the word, "there's."

"There's no heartbeat." And there it was. The Bad News. 

What does a first time expectant mother do with that kind of Bad News? 

I cried. I laid my head on the back of that stupid plastic bed and cried a soundless cry. I stared at those stupid fluorescent light fixtures in the ceiling and cried. I thought about how stupid I was for telling everyone so soon, and I cried. I thought about that stupid gallon of paint in the soon-to-be nursery and I cried. I thought about that stupid baby shower gift list I started, the phone calls, the plans, the dreams. I felt cheated. And I cried.

I wasn't thinking about my husband, I wasn't thinking about Dad. I could sense him next to me, his hand on my shoulder, in my hair, reaching for my hands. Just because his eyes were dry doesn't mean he wasn't crying. I know he was. 

The TV screen was angled invitingly for eager parents to get the first or, if they're lucky the second, third, fourth pictures of their little one. On our screen, for about five minutes, was the black and white image of our baby. And even though the "cameras were rolling," or in other words, we were watching in real time, it looked like a photograph - everything was so frustratingly still. 

I just wanted one little wiggle. 

The doctor asked if we wanted a picture. I guess some people say yes, and they tote home the photo of their dead baby stowed away in purses, clenched hands, breast pockets, back pockets, tucked in bibles, etc. But I declined.  

We'll never forget the doctor's cursor moving over our still little bean while he explained that at 10 weeks there really should be a heartbeat.