One more time…

Today’s challenge is to a. tell a sad story without sounding depressed, and b. tell a scary story without too much gore. Here goes.

You can probably guess what the sad story is about. I had a doctor appointment and ultrasound on Thursday, and both confirmed a miscarriage. I was expecting the news because my body finally started showing signs of that possibility on Monday. I was a grump all day on Monday and I cried and complained and felt sad. Then I accepted it. So when I had the FINAL WORD on Thursday, it was more of a relief to know for sure than a shock. I felt very calm at my appointments.

They even took out my PICC line on Thursday! I was nervous about being vein-flossed again, but I was surprised that I didn’t even feel the nurse pull out that 40cm of purple tube from my arm. Now all I have is a little tiny bandaid on the hole, and I’ve been indulging in some much-anticipated arm-scratching where the big, waterproof bandage covered the same skin for 7 weeks. It feels great!

After my ultrasound and feeding tube-removal, I left the hospital feeling kind of excited that I wouldn’t have to go back there any time soon. Over the past 2 months, I’ve spent a lot of time in almost every corner of the Sunnyside Community Hospital and even though they are so nice and helpful there, hospitals are tiresome! They smell like plastic, antiseptic, and stale cafeteria food! I was free! On my drive home I saw a few runners on the bike path and I started feeling excited to RUN soon. So mentally, I was in a very good place for a miscarriage…”victim.”

Friday afternoon, Jeff came home from school early and I went to the doctor one more time. Dr. Weaver inserted a tablet that makes the pregnancy STUFF come out. Normally I’m a “let my body handle it naturally” type of person, but this late in the game it was advisable to speed up the process. Hence the medicine. It was very effective. I had the tell-tale cramps almost instantly, and they got stronger and stronger as the night went on. By about 6pm, they were approaching the pain level of active labor! I was so not prepared for that. I have to mentally prep and psych myself up for at least a month before real labor so I can handle it without any pain medicine. So having some medium-level LABOR pains unexpectedly was unpleasant and kind of hard. Before this, I never realized how much easier hard things like labor are when you’re doing them for someone else, like a baby. This time around I was just having gut-clenching annoying pain to END this long, gut-wrenching, painful 2 months. Not fun at all!

Now on to the scary story. The semi-laborish pains subsided around 9pm. Yay! But then the bleeding picked up. Like a lot. Here’s where I smooth over and edit out most of what happened between 10pm and 1am. Suffice it to say that it was incredibly unpleasant. I sat in my chair and watched Bones on Netflix, with frequent bathroom breaks. Around 1am, I got up to go to the bathroom again, and half way there I started feeling very weird. When I got to the bathroom door, I suddenly felt SO dizzy that I yelled “Ahhhh!” and sank to my knees and just curled up there. I could not move because if I did, I felt like I was going to pass out. Ahhh is right! I called out to my sleeping husband and he came to help me up very very slowly. When I made it back to my chair, I called Dr. Weaver. He told me to go to my favorite place—the hospital! Joy. Jeff called his long-suffering family and valiant Steph came over in the dark and snoozed on our couch (somehow—she’s 7 months pregnant!) while we made that DRIVE again.

I have felt weak from uncontrolled puking and long term hunger, but weakness from blood loss is so much weirder. It wasn’t just a wobbly weak feeling, it was scary because I felt like I was going to pass out at any moment. I must be a control freak because I don’t like anything that takes my body out of my control: I despise and avoid strong pain medicines, anesthesia, epidurals, and even local numbing shots. So feeling like I was about to completely lose control and faint was scary!  

We arrived at my “home away from home” and Jeff wheeled me from the car in a wheelchair. So…dizzy… My blood pressure was super duper low. In a room with bright lights, 3 or 4 masked nurses connected me to machines with so many wires that I couldn’t even roll over. It’s all kind of a blur, but I distinctly remember the irony: I had to get an IV jabbed painfully into my hand barely ONE DAY after I had my PICC line removed. They couldn’t get any blood from the IV so they went into my other arm and gouged around for a less-dehydrated vein to take some red stuff for tests (all the time I was thinking hey, there’s a very good steady source already flowing—why stab me?). Apparently blood loss dehydrates just as effectively as vomiting. I was given 2 bags of IV juice, and thankfully that helped enough so I didn’t have to get a blood transfusion. Whew! I felt much less dizzy and finally they discharged me around 4am. It was a long, sleepless night.

I crashed into my bed and slept a few hours. Jeff and I were zombies all day yesterday. It was hard to tell how much of my dizziness was from tiredness and how much was from my…condition. But everything has stabilized, and  now I’m on the mend! Not mended enough for church today, but I plan to be back in action as soon as possible.

WHEW, there’s the story. It’s long. Every single thing about this pregnancy was ultra-intense and HARD, even the end. I’m just glad that since it was going to end sans-baby, it ended now instead of waiting longer! On my grumpy day I kept asking why couldn’t it have ended earlier to spare me the…everything? But while the trial is still to fresh for me to really appreciate it, I do feel grateful that I made it through.

Hopefully now that I’m finally feeling more normal, I can do better posts without so much jumbled pain and drama! More pictures, less pain. That’s a major perk of being un-pregnant. The best part about all of this is I LIKE FOOD AGAIN! Bring on the menus! Bring on the recipes! I still have 5 pounds to gain!