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. 

D&C: The Surgery

The hospital scheduled my D&C for the wrong date but they were "adding me on." By the time the nurse in Surgery figured out the dilemma it was almost noon. I signed in and waited with my husband - a woman sprawled on the couch behind us was snoring, her pants were down and I could see her thong. I pointed it out to him and we shared an immature chuckle. There was an older guy on his speaker phone yelling about a car. He kept asking the woman on the phone if she was Sherry. Yes, she kept saying, this is Sherry. 

The nurse at the desk didn't have my chart. I told her I was scheduled for today but the hospital got the date wrong. "So you aren't having the surgery today?" She asked. "Oh wait, you're the add on." She produced my file and shuffled through the pages. Turns out I had no anesthesia paperwork in my file. I was starting to wonder if this was one of those eerie portents, a warning - maybe if I had this surgery I wasn't going to come out alive. And people would say, all those signs... the wrong date the wrong paperwork - why did she go through with it?

 I signed the permission slip - I give consent for the hospital to put me under and to suck out my fetus. 

When they finally swept me into Surgery, away from admits and the general hospital population, I felt better. I'm not going to say I felt great, but I felt better. My husband sat with me in a private room and stole Fall Risk bracelets from the desk drawer. He put on my surgery cap. We made fun of the hospital gown. The anesthesiologist gave him a sticker for good behavior. 

After the IV was in and  I was tucked under warm sheets waiting to actually go to surgery, the door opened and a young nurse entered. She had a pamphlet in one hand and a piece of paper on a clipboard. She handed me the clipboard and asked me to read it. I saw the words "Floral Haven," and immediately handed the clipboard to my husband. "You read it," I said. Floral Haven was a funeral home. Later he told me the form gave the hospital permission to cremate our baby's remains. I told him their timing sucked. The nurse handed me the pamphlet and then, because she knew the timing sucked, she snatched the clipboard and practically ran from the room. I looked at the folded up rectangle in my lap. MISCARRIAGE was stamped across the top. I handed that to my husband too. He handed me a tissue. 

The rest of the procedure went off without a hitch... as far as I know. They knocked me out in the operating room and I woke up thirty minutes later. The first thing I wanted to do was pee. It was also unfortunately, the very the last thing I wanted to do. 

But I peed, and thank god everything seemed to be okay.   

D&C: Wrong Day?

It was time for the baby to go. For two days after we found out I didn't take a shower. I didn't want to look at my midsection. That might sound weird. I don't care. It's part of why I'm writing this down. To get the weirdness out. 

For several days I kept thinking, there is a dead baby in there. When I got dressed I thought, I'm putting a shirt on over my dead baby. I'm walking the dog with my dead baby. I'm taking my dead baby to work. 

Horrible horrible thoughts. I was in a terrible melancholy mood. Friday couldn't come fast enough, and I think my husband would have agreed with me.

Friday morning I got up early and despite the warning not to eat or drink anything after midnight I had a cup of coffee. And half a brownie. In five hours my baby was going to get sucked from my uterus, I needed some chocolate and a little caffeine. I told my husband I wasn't supposed to eat or drink, but that I was going to eat this anyway. He was okay with that. It's one of the reasons I love him.

He also made us late. It's one of the reasons he drives me crazy. Schedules are suggestions to him. "You don't really have to be there two hours early," he said. 

"Yes. I do." 

"We'll just be waiting around for two hours." 

When we parked the truck in the parking garage we were already thirty minutes late. It was a fifteen minute frantic walk around the hospital looking for surgery before we found Surgery Admit. Despite the circumstances the nurse at the desk did not respond to my situation with "character." 

"You're here for what?" She asked.

"A D&C." I said for the second time since our initial introduction.

"What time were you scheduled?"
"One o'clock." I looked at the clock on the wall, it was 11:45. We were scheduled to be at the hospital at 11:00 for Pre-Op Admissions. But my husband was my driver, and I've already talked about his attitude toward schedules.

"What doctor?" The nurse asked, looking at a computer screen. 

"Blackstone." 

"What's your name."

I told her. Robyn Jones. 

"You aren't on our list. I don't have your chart. Can you sit over there please?" Sure, of course. I was dressed in sweatpants and no operating room to go to. This is why we get here two hours early. I started to cry.

The nurse came over after a few minutes with a piece of paper. I saw she had scribbled my name down. And it was spelled wrong! Relief was so intense I almost laughed. That's why I wasn't on the list. "My name is wrong," I said, "It's R.O.B.Y.N. Not with an I. It's my fault, I should have spelled it for you." Whew. I smiled at my husband, I don't remember if he smiled back. She shuffled off with my corrected name on her paper. 

"Is your birthday May 2, 1983?" She called from her desk.

"Yes." 

"I found you! But you are scheduled for 11/12/12 not 10/12/12," this time she was the one laughing. Not really laughing, just a chuckle, but to me it was a mean spirited hateful laugh. Like, you dummy you came in on the wrong day! Come back in a month. Haha.

"No," I said, "you have the date wrong. It's scheduled for today." 

She looked doubtful. "What are you scheduled for again?"

For the third time, "A D&C." 

"Let me call the surgeon."

Over the whoosh of the automatic OR doors opening and closing I could hear her muffled conversation with the doctor's office. I was having my own internal conversation with myself, I'm not leaving here with this baby, I'll go to another hospital, I'll find another doctor, they'll have to pry me out of this chair if they think I'm leaving without one less person- 

"Ma'am," the nurse was back. "We're adding you on." 

Thank you Jesus.