The Follow Up, and Other Ramblings

Last week I got in to see my own Dr. Wunnerful. *sigh* Have I ever mentioned how much I love him?

The first thing he said to me was, "Well, that was a shock, huh?"

So he explained to me that I most likely had some scar tissue from my C-section, which caused the ectopic. And, that this is one of the risks of C-section.

This would have been good information to have had before Mister and I threw caution to the wind, and (amazingly, shockingly) got me knocked up again. Maybe, had I known that ectopic was a risk (even if a slight one) I might have been on the look-out. I might have taken my symptoms more seriously. I might have gone to the doctor sooner. I might have saved my tube.

But of course, since Dr. Wunnerful was out of town the weekend my water broke and I went into labor (a week before my scheduled C-section, which he would have performed), another doctor performed my C-section. Ironically, that was Dr. G., the same doctor I used to see when I first started down the path of trying to figure out why I couldn't conceive. The same doctor that performed my D&C in 2006 after our loss. The same doctor who looked at my labs and told me 'everything was normal' even though the RE looked at the same labs and told me later, my FSH was high. She is also the same doctor who pooh-poohed me when I brought up endometriosis.

Thankfully, my gut told me, when it was time to go back in 2008 for a check up after a failed IUI, I decided to switch doctors. And I've been with Dr. Wunnerful ever since. Dr. Wunnerful who did NOT pooh-pooh my thoughts on endo, who performed a lap....after which I conceived my daughter.

I often think, 'if only I had switched doctors sooner.....?!?' but I can't go there.

However, after my C-section, performed by Dr. G. (again, ironically, almost exactly 4 years to the day after she performed my D&C) I was required to see HER for my follow-up check up 6 weeks later. During my follow up I was asked what form of birth control I would be using. I had to laugh. The thought of birth control, after 6 years or so of not being able to conceive, just seemed silly. So I asked, 'is there any risk, or concern, if I should become pregnant, after my C-section?'

Her answer?

No. You'll be fine.

No mention of the risk, no matter how slight, of scar tissue or possible ectopic.

Not that anyone could have necessarily seen this coming.

And, with my history with Dr. G., she probably figured my baby Grace was a fluke, and future pregnancy was not likely anyway.

Who knows.

But I can't go there. I get too angry.

So, back to the present.

Dr. Wunnerful said, 'Well, you probably want to know about the condition of the other tube.'

As if he were reading my mind. Yes.

To make a long story short, he is recommending doing another lap procedure, during which he'll do another dye test to check the flow of the other tube, right before we decide to try again.

Wait, what, hold up...So, Frenchie, does this mean you ARE going to try again?

At first we were unsure. We were very happy with our two, and figured, what are the odds I could get pregnant again? We would just 'see what happened' and would be happy either way. Then, when this ectopic happened, when I learned there was a baby inside me, that I would not be able to carry...it was like everything crystallized. Our 'what-will-be-will-be' attitude shifted, and we knew: we will try again.

But, when? Right now, the timing is crap. We have so much work to do with Handsome Man. He really needs my full attention right now. We are still trying to wade through this diagnosis--and to find the best treatment(s) for him. We are dealing with issues of extreme impulsivity, opposition, hyperactivity, rage, and frustration. I am trying to forge through the red tape of the Board of Education, to get him a much-needed one-on-one assessment in the classroom, so we can see if we qualify for assistance. If we do not get this soon, I don't know if he will be able to continue at his preschool. Most days I feel exasperated, stressed, tired and spread too thin. Add to this I am trying to care for an 8 month old...and, well, now is just not a good time to add to our family.

So when?

In a perfect world, we'd wait a year at least. After which, hopefully, Handsome Man will be doing better, and by the time the baby came, he'd be going into Kindergarten. And by that same time Grace would be about ready for preschool. Hopefully by then things would be a little less crazy around here.

But. Time is not necessarily on my side, either. I turn 39 in a couple of months. And, after that, I'm staring down the barrel at 40. I know plenty of women have babies after 40, but let's be honest, there's no guarantee. Plus we don't know how long it would take with my one tube.

Dr. Wunnerful told me not to start trying for at least two months, to give my body time to heal. I feel like 6 months sounds like a better time frame. Physically. I am not ready for any more activity in my pelvic region right now. I need time to rest, get my energy levels back up, eat right, take my vitamins, take care of myself.

So, in 6 months or so, Mister and I will reevaluate where we are with the baby thing. Mister thinks I am about bat-shit crazy for wanting to go under the knife again. I told him I would do anything to prevent having another ectopic. If, in 6 months, we are ready to start trying, I'll go have the lap, and see what the status is with my remaining tube. In the meantime, I've got a lot of work to do being a mom to the two children that are here now. And to mother myself a bit, when I can find the time.

How Sweet!

Thank you, Maria, from Mission: Fertile Soul, for bestowing me this lovely bloggy award.

So now I am trusted with the task of giving the award to five bloggers who I love to read, who's blogs have that 'something extra', that little spark, that keeps me coming back.

So here are my five picks:

Reproductive Jeans

Write Mind Open Heart

Good Egg Hatched

You Call Me a Bitch Like it's a Bad Thing

Are We There Yet?

Thankful, Not Bitter

Thank you, my bloggy sisters, for sitting with me as I let out my pain and frustration. I am sad and feel a loss, even though I only knew for a short while I was pregnant.

But. Though in pain (both physically and emotionally) on that Thanksgiving Day, I was, and am, incredibly thankful for what life has given me this year.

-My two beautiful children.

-The joyful and transformative experience of being pregnant, and the safe delivery of my Grace.

-The health and well being of my family.

-My husband's new job, which is fulfilling him professionally, and is supporting us during these difficult financial times.

- A husband who works very hard, and who supports me (financially and emotionally) through my transition to full-time motherhood.

-My two real-life best friends who are REAL friends to me. They have held me up and supported me through so much this year, and celebrated with me too.

...and thankful that I have a stubborn husband who insisted on taking me to the emergency room rather than wait it out. Who knows what would have happened if I had ignored it any longer? I am thankful to be here to be with my family.

How I Spent My Thanksgiving Holiday

....recovering from emergency surgery.

Really?!

Fuck.

We were out of town, staying at Mister's parents' house. They were traveling, so we were there alone. The plan was to spend the week there relaxing, and to also host the Thanksgiving feast for my family and some friends. I was excitedly preparing to co-cook a meal for about 12 people.

Then, in the wee hours of Wednesday morning (the day before Thanksgiving) I woke up to go to the bathroom.

....the rest of this gets sort of icky, so if you don't want to hear about it, leave now....

I was having some cramping....and I thought, 'finally, my period.' I had been expecting it for a week or so. But, no, no period. But pain. Lots and lots of pain. Like some one was stabbing me in the stomach and the groin, and twisting the knife around. I started seeing stars. I almost fell off the toilet. I made it back to the bed and told Mister, 'something is wrong.'

I had been having a sort of nagging pain on my right side for some time. I thought maybe it was a cyst...I figured I'd go have it checked after the holiday. Now, with this extreme pain, I figured I must be having an appendicitis.

When I got to the ER they had me pee in a cup.

Then the doctor told me, I was pregnant.

How?!?!? I had had sex exactly one time in the past two months, and had gotten my period that month. Since my period I NOT had any, ANY activity. So I knew two things: I must be pretty far along, and, something was wrong.

Still, while I waited for the ultrasound tech to come get me, my mind went wild: where will we put the second crib? We'll have to rearrange our storage so we can remove the second set of closets in Grace's room and make some room there. Oh my God, they are going to be so close in age! Will it be a boy or a girl? How will Handsome Man handle it....and so on.

I marveled at how it could be possible that I, a card-carrying Infertile, could now say, "Wow, he just looks and me and I get pregnant!" A saying that I had heard from women so many times over the years, and had made me want to vomit every time. Now here I was, the world's most fertile Infertile. Things like that just don't happen to a girl like me....

And then, the ultrasound. A pregnancy measuring 8 weeks. Alive. Not in my uterus.

Within an hour the OB doctor on call arrived and I was taken into surgery.

When I awoke I was shivering and shaking and all alone. Mister had taken the kids back to the house (at my urging) to get some sleep. When he came to pick me up he told me the doctor had called him after the surgery to let him know how it went. He tried to save the fallopian tube, he said, but it was too destroyed. And there was a lot of internal bleeding.

Physically, I am healing. It was not a delicate procedure like my other laparoscopy (which was performed by doctor Wunnerful). I look like I have been in a knife fight. Let's just say bikinis are no longer part of my future.

Emotionally, I have run the gamut of emotions. I know there was no possible way to save an ectopic pregnancy. But the word 'alive' keeps ringing in my ears. There was a baby there. And now there is not.

And I am short a tube.

I am mad at myself for not going to the doctor sooner for the pain. Seriously, had I had any reason to actually think I *might* be pregnant, I would have taken a HPT. I would have gone in right away. Maybe my tube could have been saved. I won't ever know, and I guess it doesn't matter now.

Needless to say, I didn't host Thanksgiving.

Drive By (Complete with Bullets)

• On Wednesday my little Gracie turned 7 months old. Holy heck! Time is flying
• She is now crawling and sitting up on her own, eating solids.
• On 10/10/10 I did my last wedding for my business.
• Since I've had Handsome Man home full time since last March and really been hands-on with him, my gut has been telling me that something more than 'typical' 3-year-old boy behavior was at play....so I took him to a child psychologist recently to have him evaluated.
• He was diagnosed with severe ADHD and ODD
• Now I know I am not crazy, but still trying to figure out what to do next.
• Our crazy do-it-urself-home renovations are still on-going. Presently: the bathroom.
• Total Chaos.

I Will Post Again, I Swear....

And I've got lots to talk about. (If anyone is still checking in, that is).

In the meantime, a few pics.

Lucky.

(August 27, 2009)

The first thing I remember was a woman looking into my eyes and saying, "You're going to be fine." I was confused. I didn't know where I was or what was going on, but usually when someone is telling you everything is going to be okay, it means something is really wrong.

I looked down at my hands. Blood. I felt my forehead, looked at my hand--more blood. Again, "You're fine. Every thing's going to be okay." I looked down at my feet. I was barefoot. My right ankle was the size of a small cantaloupe. I remember thinking, "Oh, this is not good." But where was I? I looked around. The hot, bright, mid-day sun shone down on everything. Blinding. I was on the side of the road. My logic started working. I realized I'd been in a car accident.

The woman was talking to me again. "I found your purse, and your phone. I got them out of the car. Is there someone I can call for you?" I must have given him my husband's name. She stepped away, and came back a few minutes later. I spoke to ____, he is on his way. A female police officer was asking me questions. Accusingly, "Were you on the phone when you had the accident?" I was sure I hadn't been, and yet, I couldn't remember anything. The other woman jumped in. I think she looked through my iP.hone and saw that there were no incoming/outgoing calls within the past couple of hours. I couldn't have been on the phone.

Then the lady came back to my side. Something dawned on me. I looked into her eyes. I said, "I'm pregnant."

"You're going to be ok!"

I remember her telling me, "It must be a girl, then. I have two daughters, and I can tell you, only a girl would do this to you."

Obviously, she was trying to make me feel better, diffuse the situation.

Police officer stepped away and got on her walkie talkie.

Police officer came back and said, "The Ambulance is on its way."

Someone asked me about the car seat in the back of my car. Where is your child? Fear choked me, then I remembered quickly: He was safe at daycare.

The woman, again trying to distract me, asked me about my child. How old? Boy or girl? Handsome Man's face floated in my mind. In that moment I wanted to hold him more than anything, but was so glad he was no where near all of this.

We waited. The sun beat down. Oddly I felt no pain. I looked again at my ankle, how could I not be feeling this?

The EMT's arrived.

Strangely, I remember thinking how cute the young EMT was.

He asked me,

"What day is it?"

I guessed. I got it wrong.

"Do you know where you are?"

I told him I was on hwy x.

I was actually on hwy z.

I had no memory of being on hwy z.

Then, "Ma'am, are you pregnant?"

I looked into his eyes. I felt so strange, like I had just woken up from a dream. Like maybe I was still in a dream. I had dreamed many, many times of being pregnant, only to awake and realize I was not. Suddenly, I wasn't sure any more. I felt stupid. I didn't want to say I was pregnant only to realize I wasn't. To be a joke: pathetic.

"I don't know....I'm not sure!"

The woman told me she was going to call my husband again. She stepped away. She came back to me and said, "Honey, I spoke to ____. You are pregnant."

I started crying. Joy, like finding out my dreams had come true all over again, and then, gut wrenching fear for the fragile life inside of me.

EMT said, "Okay, we are going to take you to the nearest trauma center. How do you feel about taking a helicopter ride?"

They landed the helicopter in a field across the highway and rolled me out into the field. Aboard the helicopter, the female EMT said she was going to give me something for the pain. I refused..."I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant." I kept repeating. She told me the drugs would not hurt my baby. I still refused. I think I told her, "It is a miracle I'm even pregnant. I can't risk it."

They had to cut off my clothes. She told me she was going to check 'down there' to see if I was bleeding. She told me, no blood. That's good. Do you have any cramps? No. I felt nothing.

Then suddenly, it dawned on me. I was in a car accident--with another car. What about the other driver. Were they ok? I started to freak out. She told me, "They are going to another hospital by ambulance. I think everybody is ok. We'll ask when we get you to the hospital."

At the hospital: Rolled off the helicopter. I must have been on the roof. EMT gave my vitals, and said, "Six weeks pregnant. Very concerned about the baby. Refused meds." A nurse looked at me and said, "I'm MaryAnn. I'm going to be with you the whole time."

I was rolled in to the emergency room, and off of the EMT's gurney onto the hospital gurney. For the first time I was aware of the pain. I looked at my right arm. My elbow throbbed. I couldn't move it.I was sure it was broken. The doctor used an ultrasound to see if there was any internal bleeding. He moved the Doppler over my lower abdomen. Silence. At six weeks, not much was clear. He spoke to the nurse in hushed tones. He could see the pregnancy in my uterus, but could not detect the heartbeat. I closed my eyes and sent up a silent prayer: "Please God, don't let this be The Worst Day of My Life."

It was determined that I had no internal bleeding, so I was moved into another room. Again rolled onto another bed. Again, more pain. Tests were ordered. MaryAnn stayed with me. She was my advocate: She ensured I had a double layer of lead aprons over my pelvis each time they used the the x-ray machine. And, when I went in to the cat-scan machine to check my brain, she stayed with me, reassuring me, your pelvis is no where near the machine, just your head and neck are in. She ordered a pelvic ultrasound from labor and delivery. We had to wait for them to come down with the portable machine. She waited with me. We talked about my family. My son. My husband. And, why it was such a miracle that I was pregnant. Pretty soon more and more people were (nurses, techs) were in on the story. When the ladies arrived from L & D with the portable machine, MaryAnn held my hand while they inserted the dildo-cam. There was a palpable holding-of-breath in the room while they looked around for the heartbeat. Everyone stared at the screen. Then, there it was: A little flickering light. MaryAnn said, "We have cardiac activity!!" Then she told me, "Call your husband!"

On the phone, my husband was trying to stay calm. He was on his way, but it would take him about two hours to the hospital way up north where I had been taken, from his office in the City. "There's a heartbeat," I said. I could hear him exhale. "There is?" He asked. "Yes, the Baby is alive."

MaryAnn cleaned up my face. Tiny shards of glass were removed from my skin. I asked her to wipe out my mouth with a cloth, as it was full of grit from the exploded air bag. I wasn't allowed to have any water yet until the blood tests were done. The doctor stitched up the cut on my head above my right eye. I knew I would have a scar, but I didn't care. My baby had a heartbeat. Despite the pain I was feeling, I was floating on air.

Remarkably, no bones were broken. My legs were useless. Both legs were black and blue from feet to knees. My pelvis had absorbed so much energy from the impact and was so sore I couldn't stand, even if I could have put weight on my ankle. For many weeks the back spasms I endured were terrible. Especially since I couldn't take any of the "good" drugs due to the pregnancy. But, little by little, I got better. Pretty soon I could walk without the crutches, and with the help of my chiropractor, and physical therapy, within three months I was back to normal. I still have a stiff ankle. I probably won't be taking up marathon running as a hobby. I imagine when I'm older, I'll be able to tell when it's about to rain, because, "my ankle is acting up."

The other driver and his wife were not badly hurt. He had some cracked ribs, and she suffered from a very bruised knee from hitting the dashboard. It filled with fluid and had to be drained, but an MRI revealed no torn ligaments or cartilage.

There were definitely angels on the highway with us all that day.