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Sunday, November 28, 2004
Free time? What's that?
Ok, so world's quickest catch-up post.
In the week to come I have:
- 8-10 page paper due Wednesday analyzing a patient from the viewpoint of a specified personality theorist (I'm leaning toward using Adler, but might opt for Rogers as his approach is rather simplistic). Status: Unstarted.
- 15-25 minute presentation due Thursday detailing a lesson plan and how it would be assessed, with emphasis placed on appropriateness, fairness, validity and reliability of assessment. Status: 90% complete.
- First appointment with perinatologist Tuesday for "second opinion" before moving to the RE in NYC.
- Plan and prepare for party Friday night to watch lights parade, lighting of city Christmas tree, and fireworks display over the river.
Please, don't expect to hear from me before Thursday night. And unless I state that all my work is done? Feel free to yell at me for posting any sooner!
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Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Welcome to our pool!
I've spent the last several days in a mad frenzy of cleaning. My house now smells vaguely of a YMCA pool. Yes, the Clorox and the Lysol have been flying. All in an effort to make my mother think that despite the 18 years she witnessed my bedroom on a daily basis, I am, in fact, a neat freak. So tonight she'll arrive for Thanksgiving, and she'll smile and tell me how lovely my home is. And then on Sunday, she'll get in the car, turn to my stepdad and say, "We've raised a fine little actress."
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Saturday, November 20, 2004
Grief and Mourning
At heart, I am a teacher. Because of the blows dealt to me by my reproductive system in the past year, I felt it best to stop teaching until this situation is dealt with in some form. I need to get to the point of feeling resolution in order to deal with the kids I so deeply love. Or rather, to deal with their parents and with the circumstances these families live with.
I teach in a city district. A city filled with gangs, drugs and violence. The problems are astronomical when compared to the actual population of the city. And today has been a strange one.
I was in the grocery store and bumped into the father of a student I had last year. I know this man well because his son is extremely gifted. And a huge pain in the ass. He constantly got in fights, was annoying as all hell (to me and the rest of the class). He's in middle school this year. Sixth grade. He's in a building with roughly 900 kids. But this year, at my recommendation, he is in the accelerated program. He may actually be able to be challenged! Which could have a serious positive impact on his behavior. His dad said he's doing well and likes it. I'm thrilled. I'd been really worried about him.
Then tonight my husband looked at the newspaper and came across a name. He said, "Didn't you have this kid in class once?" And I had. When I started teaching in the district, I was doing a long-term substitute position teaching 7th grade life science. I'm still in shock over the article in the newspaper.
One of the sweetest, funniest boys, athletic, attractive, kind, an all around good kid was stabbed Thursday night. He was unresponsive when the ambulance arrived and died in one of the local hospitals within minutes of arrival. Reggie was one of my favorites at the time I taught him, but I haven't seen him since December 2000. He was so full of life and promise. I remember once I gave him detention for talking too much in class. He "forgot" to come up to my classroom after school. I happened to be meeting my husband in the parking lot to help bring in some things, and saw my student. And I made him come upstairs. He and his friend followed us upstairs. My husband quietly watched as this 13 year old checked out my ass, nudged his friend and whispered "DAMN!" And then he became embarrassed in that cute way that little boys have when they've been caught and refused to look at my husband for the rest of the afternoon. The rest of the time I taught in that building, Reggie made it his mission to keep the rest of the class quiet when I was teaching. He was an amazing boy. And he and his friends continued to volunteer to help out whenever he could after school. But now? He's gone. And I don't understand it. I don't understand how this could happen.
This is the second of my students to die. Both of them this year. I taught both of them the same year. John was a pain in the ass. He had issues with authority, he lied frequently, he was the child that you look at and know that something bad is in store for their future. Or maybe I felt that way because his mother's response to my calls home requesting her intervention to help save her child from the path I could clearly see in front of him was less than acceptable. She actually said, "Yeah, I can't do nothin' with him. He just don't like women. Deal with it." He died while skipping school, drunk, in a stolen car driven by a friend who attended an alternative school for disciplinary reasons. The car crashed and John and another passenger died. The driver, of course, survived.
All in all, it's been a pretty bad year, filled with heartache. And tonight, I mourn the loss of yet another child who did not have to die.
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Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Insurance, My Ass!
Before I get started, let me first give the update on my brother. He was told this morning that he does not have an aneurysm. So far we've learned the lump is not cancer (or if it is, his blood tests aren't showing it) and now this. What we haven't learned is what any of these things are. Thankfully, though, it seems my brother is not in any real danger in the immediate future. Starting to wonder if it's too soon to back out of that little deal God and I made.
While we're on the subject of that deal, I decided that my husband and I should pull up our insurance policy on the web and see exactly what is covered in terms of our fertility issues. I thought it was important since we would be meeting with Dr. P for my post-D&C follow-up this Thursday and that we would most likely have an RE recommended. This was apparently a big mistake.
Why is it that insurance companies will pay for 90% of your fertility testing but absolutely none of your treatment? Seriously, what good does it do someone to know they can't have a child naturally, but will get no help in doing something about it? I do not understand that at all. Still, unless I have some funky egg quality issue, it's not likely that an IUI or IVF would do me much good. Because as I've pointed out before, all I have to do is be somewhere in the general vicinity of an erect penis and I'm pregnant. I guess I'm just really uncertain what this whole process is going to do for me. Except maybe if I'm lucky get me to the point where a living baby is removed from my uterus. Sadly, I'm not holding out much hope for that one.
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Monday, November 15, 2004
Is it Friday yet?
It's been a long week already, and it's only Monday night.
My brother's doctor is NOT IN until Wednesday. The office REFUSED to give him the results of his cat scan. He drove in and got in an argument with the receptionist until the office manager pulled his file to tell him the results. The real fun? There was NO RECORD of his cat scan in the file! So, they're calling the hospital it was done at to find out what happened with the results. My brother is supposed to talk to a different doctor in the practice tomorrow morning. He told them he doesn't care about all the details, he can wait until Wednesday for those, but he feels like he has a right to know if he does or does not have an aneurysm. Wow. I can not fathom this level of incompetence. My poor, poor brother. Already stressed out and now to have to deal with this. I mean, I thought this particular brand of half-assed medical care was reserved for the recurrent miscarriers and the infertile!
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** Editor's Note: Before you ask, this is NOT my brother's regular doctor, or even his usual practice. His regular doctor was on vacation last week and the doctor's covering could not work him in. So, he went to the practice that had delivered their son (imagine, to be able to give birth without using a high-risk OB!). I doubt he'll be going there again any time soon once he's gotten his referrals to specialists should that be necessary.
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Saturday, November 13, 2004
My brother...
...MIGHT NOT HAVE CANCER!!!!
Preliminary results came in. All of his bloodwork (except for a couple of 2-week timed tests) came back completely normal! Apparently the guy who reads the cat scans to know about the aneurysm wasn't in on Thursday/Friday to read them, so he'll have that answer on Monday.
I'm still nervous, but a huge weight has been lifted.
Starting to wonder if God's going to hold me to that whole "don't need to have a baby if" thing. But I'm not going to try to get myself out of that deal until AFTER we know everything about my brother's health.
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Friday, November 12, 2004
The Wait
I'm extremely nervous today. They put a rush on my brother's tests. He'll have preliminary results today. Most of the tests will be in, however there are a few that take 2 weeks to complete. I'm scared to death.
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Thursday, November 11, 2004
Oh no....
I was going to post about going to my grad class last night and how we had to go to the theater because the school was hosting a lecture series with the Mental Health Association. About how I got there and bumped into a friend I hadn't seen since late June/early July. A friend who is now five months pregnant and who was so excited to see me and would I please please just sit with her. And how I did. And didn't cry. And was actually a little bit happy for her because I know she was so afraid she couldn't get pregnant. She had been trying for about 6 months with no success. She knew of my first two miscarriages (last night she found out about the 3rd). She was so afraid. I even managed to be ok when she was dealing with her baby kicking her in the ribs and the pain it caused (which she whispered about to the woman on her other side -- a woman who was also pregnant).
I got home and was so proud of myself for making it through. And then my husband gave me the bad news. The thing that had me praying and saying things to God about how if he could just make *that* ok that I didn't care if He never gave me a baby.
My brother...my ONLY brother...my 31 year old brother went to the doctor yesterday. He said his back hurt, going to the bathroom hurt, he was tired. The doctor did an exam and could feel his pulse very distinctly in his stomach. You really aren't supposed to feel that there. When you do it is a sign (as are all of the complaints he went in for) that you have an aortic aneurysm. If that ruptures, that's it. You die. My grandfather had one almost 4 years ago. His was successfully repaired. It was very scary and he was so weak for so long. In fact, once you have that, if you make it through they guarantee only that you will reach about 90% of where you were before. My brother is married. He has a step-daughter in 4th grade. He has a son who will be 3 in January. This CAN NOT be happening.
As if that isn't bad enough, my brother then asked the doctor to take a look at something else. Said he was sure it was nothing and was much smaller and going away, but could he please look anyway. My brother has a lump inside his mouth. It's sort of under his tongue and beneath the jaw bone (for those of you who do the BBT thing, it's in the location where they reccomend you put your thermometer to temp...that little pocket). His concern with this is that, well, he's been chewing tobacco since his high school baseball team started doing it together in the late 80's. It's definitely in the lymph glands. He is spending today getting a cat scan for the aneurysm, lots of blood work to determine if he has cancer. The doctor said he suspects Non-Hodgkins lymphoma, but that he honestly doesn't think it's cancerous.
So last night, I lay in bed for hours praying. Repeating over and over, "Please, God, just heal my brother. Please."
I spoke to my mom before bed and I told her how people keep saying that whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. She said in her experience that's been true, but she is also of the opinion that we really don't have reason to be this much stronger.
Um....this is extremely poorly written today. Sorry. Best I can do. But please, pray for my brother (and for the rest of us as we rapidly reach insanity). Think whatever positive thoughts, whatever it is you do when things are bad. We definitely need it now.
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Tuesday, November 09, 2004
A Post for the Sake of Posting
Having multiple miscarriages changes a person. Completely. I used to have a happy life. I had a great husband. I was getting my masters degree. I had friends that I would go out and do things with. I cared about things. I was interested in the state of the world. I cared about causes. I threw great parties. I had a clean house. I shopped. I went to the gym faithfully every day. I looked really great in all my clothes.
A year filled with miscarriages has changed all of that. I still have a great husband. I am still working on my masters. I suppose I still have friends, but I don't see them anymore. I speak to them occasionally on the phone but I don't actually call them. In fact, I cringe when the phone rings and I see their names on the caller ID. I care about nothing but the state of my uterus, whether it be empty from surgery or full with a fresh pregnancy (and just waiting an indeterminate number of weeks to require surgery). I don't cook. I don't clean. I don't go to the gym. I don't have clothes that fit me, let alone clothing that looks good. At this point, I settle for clothing that causes my husband to say, "yeah, that looks ok. It's not too wrinkled and it's kind of clean." I also don't throw parties anymore. Because who would come? I've become that girl that people try to avoid--the one who's always got it so bad. The girl that you ask, "How are you?" out of obligation and then pray she doesn't answer.
I hadn't posted this week yet because I didn't want my blog to turn out as one of my parties would. I kept thinking that soon, maybe I would have something to say. The truth of it, though, is that I don't. I can only think about the fact that I'm still bleeding from my surgery. Or that my follow up appointment is next Thursday, the 18th. That I'll be referred to someone else for testing and that means I won't be seeing Dr. P much for a while.
I've also been asking myself the same question over and over. "Am I happy?" I ask my husband this several times a day, "Are we happy?" I mean, if you could take away this one aspect of our lives that has us both so depressed that we just can't get it together to care about a lot of other things in life (see the above), are we happy? Or has the loss of our three children so fully robbed us of hope and joy that we are just slowly drowning together?
I'm afraid it's the latter. And I want to do something about it. Really. I do. I just haven't figured out what. Because in my head, I know that my husband is still the same funny, warm, loving man he's always been. But there's just so much pain there. And deep down I probably still do care about all of the things that I used to. I just can't get to them. Those areas of my brain have become blocked. I only hope it's temporary.
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Friday, November 05, 2004
FUCK
I went back to work. There was a fucking BABY SHOWER in the conference room next to my department. My husband brought me home. I'll work from here for the rest of the day. FUCK.
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Thursday, November 04, 2004
I'm still alive. I'm not well, but I'm alive. The past few days have been horrible. I've been bleeding heavily, running a slight temperature, and breaking down every few minutes.
This is just incomprehensible to me. I was afraid of something like this before we ever decided to begin trying to have children. I had genetic counseling done. I had cardiac testing done. I had pulmonary function testing. I had thorough exams of my scoliosis and spinal cord damage. I had ultrasounds to look at my uterus and ovaries for obvious abnormalities. EVERYONE said I would be fine, that I could do this.
I lost the first one, "it's just a fluke, these things happen, it's God's will, nature's way of taking away flawed genetics..." I tried again and lost the second. "I don't know what the fuck just happened. Things were going great. Probably still not a 'problem'." We did the genetic counseling, the karyotyping, the million and twelve blood tests. No problems. Try again. You should be ok. But we can do the HSG and the endometrial biopsy first, if you want. No. I didn't want.
I got pregnant again. And now this.
I just don't understand how it can keep happening. I'm 27 years old. I had always thought that I would be done having children by the time I was 28 or 29. I thought that I would have 2 or 3. I thought that everything would be so good. That I would be that suburban mom, with the two story house, the white picket fence, swingset and sandbox in the back yard.
And now I don't think I ever will be. I'm going to go ahead and have the tests run, see the RE that I will be referred to soon. But I don't know if I'm going to try again. I'm sure I probably will. I just don't want to yet. Then again, I also don't think I'm going to shower, get dressed and leave my house ever again, and I know I will. I just don't want to yet.
What I do know is what I will do if the tests show that there is a reason that I have trouble carrying a child. If I am told that I could probably eventually have a child, but that I'll likely lose many, many more...then I'm out. I'll ask to have my tubes cut/tied (whatever they do now). Fuck it, let them remove the fucking uterus then. I just don't care. I only know that I will not go back on birth control for the rest of my "fertile" years. Because that isn't fair. Making me take a pill because I "might change my mind" when I know what the outcome will be? Don't think so. I am not strong enough to go through this much more.
A friend said the other day, "Whatever doesn't kill us makes us stronger, if you believe that crap." So I asked her, "How fucking strong do I really need to be?" How strong do any of us need to be? Because this doesn't feel like 'strong' to me. It feels like 'broken'. It feels like 'irreparable'. It feels like 'weak'. It feels like 'failure'. It feels like so many things. But it doesn't feel like 'strong'.
Before I end this today, I need to thank you all for your kind words and thoughts over the last few days. I prefer to email people back normally, but with this, I'm not sure there is a response. Most of you know this pain. You have an inkling of where I'm at, because you've been there, too. I need to say thank you. Thank you for your empathy, your sympathy, and for reminding me by the fact that you aren't here anymore that someday I won't be either. I needed that reminder.
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Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Three Time Loser
I spent the day in bed with little bleeding. Then from 3 to 5, I was on the phone with a friend. When I got off the phone, I went in the bathroom and was bleeding profusely and had passed some (smallish) clots. I changed pads and decided to wait exactly one hour to see how heavy the bleed actually was. I ate some egg drop soup and an egg roll while I waited. It was heavy.
I called. It was Dr. P on call. He said to go to the ER. We got there and as they were getting ready to check me in they were talking about everything that a doctor wanted done, betas, and cbc, and on and on. When I gave them my name, they said "Oh" and picked up the phone to page Dr. P. They did my paperwork and I waited and waited for a bed. About 20-30 minutes of waiting and Dr. P came in FURIOUS that I wasn't in a bed. He went in the back, demanded a room for me, so they got busy with the cleaning. He came out to the waiting room and sat beside me until they had it ready. He took me back. And while I was in the bathroom changing into my gown, he was talking to my husband and wiping away his own tears.
He did a pelvic exam. The first speculum he grabbed was large and HURT. He immediately threw it down and searched for a smaller one. The nurse was shocked--she said she'd never had a doctor who cared. I said "yes, but I kick." All that to say, my cervix was closed. He left for a bit while they got me scheduled in to the ultrasound upstairs. I watched TV for about 30 minutes. Then they took me up. I waited about 5 minutes in a hallway as there was only one tech working. Dr. P came up then and waited beside me the whole time. He went in with them for the ultrasound. They saw a clot above the baby in my uterus. They also saw no heartbeat. Dr. P was so upset. Instead of taking me back to the ER, he wheeled me straight into pre-op. Within 15 minutes, he had rushed through all the paperwork, had me hooked up with anesthesia and I was being wheeled into the OR.
I just got home. I'm not in pain. In fact, I'm bleeding less than I was before the surgery. I'm just really numb. I haven't had time to feel this yet. But now I have to have the HSG and the endometrial biopsy and the barrage of other things that I thought weren't going to be necessary. I now truly meet the criterion of recurrent spontaneous aborter.
Really wish that I didn't fit into that group. There are so many of you all whom I love dearly. I just didn't want to be one of you. Just as none of you did either.
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Monday, November 01, 2004
Ok. I don't know if this is in any way ok, or good or bad or what.
My HCG is around 47,000. A week ago Friday it was 6,3?5. This is not doubling every 48 hours. This could be doubling every 36 hours however. So maybe not so bad?
The bleeding continues but is not so bad. Thank you big giant hospital pads that wrap from mid-back to belly button. They gave me a whole bag of them. I had NO pads at home. I rarely use them, so when I'm out, I don't immediately by more. Especially not when I find out I'm pregnant.
The ultrasound was a long drawn out process. 76 images worth of long and drawn out. The baby is measuring 6 weeks 1 day. I should hit the 7 week mark on Wednesday, so we're apparently taking our own sweet time. The fetal heartbeat, which she said was hard to detect, is a bit slow at 127 bpm. Other things we found out: my cervix is closed (good); I have a cyst on my right ovary (doctor said something about luteal, common in pregnancy...); I have a probable but tiny subchorionic hemmorhage.
I'm calling Dr. P first thing tomorrow morning. He will know what to say and what to do. He'll have the right answers. And he? Would totally not have stayed upstairs in L&D and let the ER monkeys take care of me. I'm totally telling on the doctor there tonight. Mean Dr. E! Seriously, she acts like the emergency surgery up there was more important than a bleeding hysterical first trimester in the ER! I've been told to stay in bed for the next couple of days, which means I'll be completely up to date on all the IF/MC blogs thanks to my wireless connection. And that's it folks. It's 2 am and I've been in the ER since before 10:00 tonight. I'm too exhausted to even think.
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