I’m feeling a heck of a lot better. A bit more each day. My appetite is back, to some degree. I’m eating 3 meals a day, and actually am hungry at breakfast. 

I gained 37 pounds during the pregnancy, and have lost about 25 since Jamie was born. That really surprised me. I know the not-eating problem has contributed to it, but I think a lot of it’s just good genes. Speaking of genes, I can’t quite fit into my pre-pregnancy jeans (see what I did there with the homonyms?) - I can zip them up but I have a little pooch hanging over and it’s tight in the butt. The average woman takes 6 to 9 months to lose the baby weight. I think it might go a little faster for me, especially if I start back up with my yoga classes and take regular walks.

Actually, though, I don’t really care if or when the rest of it comes off. I love not caring about my weight!! I think I look damn good for someone who just gave birth a week and a half ago.

Friday was about the worst day I have ever had in my life. I think I had a minor mental breakdown, and I mean that in a very serious way. I’m actually surprised I am writing about it here for the world to see, but I’m not ashamed to admit at this point that I am not Superwoman, and sometimes I need help.

I’ve been getting very little sleep, of course; that’s life with a new baby. I didn’t realize, though, that it wasn’t normal to not want to eat at all after having a baby. So I have eaten almost nothing since he was born. It really was beginning to catch up with me. The less I ate, the sicker I felt, and thus the less I wanted to eat.

Also, I spent most of Friday crying. I couldn’t control it; the tears just flowed no matter what I did. I had begun to regret getting pregnant in the first place. I wanted to go back to my regular life where it was just Doc and me and we got regular sleep and we didn’t have to worry about what we were doing wrong with the baby and why he wouldn’t stop crying. I didn’t want to have a baby anymore. 

I decided to call my doctor and let him know that I wasn’t able to eat. Later in the day the office called me back with a prescription for an anti-nausea medication and one for Zoloft, an antidepressant that they thought might help my appetite return.

Doc picked the medications up for me and I took one of each in the early evening. And then the downward spiral began.

I had a really bad reaction to the Zoloft. My depression symptoms rapidly went out of control. I was having scary thoughts that I don’t want to write down now. I felt like I was losing my grip on reality. I just went through the motions with the baby. Feed him, then hand him off to someone and not care what happens at that point. I didn’t care about the baby or myself or anyone except Doc, and the thought that I was making Doc sad is really what was holding me together by then. Mom said that my “affect” was flat… meaning that I had no emotion of any kind on my face.

Luckily Doc and my mom were around, and Doc’s mom, sister, and her husband had come in for the weekend. They decided that I needed to sleep as much as possible, so I went to bed. Doc and the two grandmas worked in shifts all night and brought Jamie to me when he needed to eat and sat with me until he was done. 

When I was awake I kept telling myself to get on top of it, to get back in control, to figure out a way to deal with it. Easier said than done. Logically I knew this was what I needed to do, but I didn’t have the tools and energy to actually do it. So I spent all my energy breastfeeding and trying to keep my mind in one piece.

When I woke up Saturday morning (and really, “waking up” and “Saturday” and “morning” are all relative terms when you have a week-old baby) I felt a little better, but could still feel the Zoloft fucking with me. I had enough clarity, however, to force myself to eat. I had some grapes and tried to eat part of one of Mom’s homemade cinnamon rolls. Then we left for the pediatrician’s office (we had an appointment to find out why Jamie hadn’t pooped in over 48 hours).

Later Saturday, Doc went to the grocery and bought me a selection of Luna energy bars and some Ensure and Boost, the high-calorie nutrient drinks. I’ve been drinking the drinks fairly regularly between feedings now, but I am still having a really tough time eating much of anything. I’m not sure that the anti-nausea medication is actually doing anything.

I need to call my doctor and ask them what Plan B is for my lack of appetite. My body will take what it needs to make breastmilk for Jamie, but it’s not leaving me with enough resources to keep myself going very well.

I need some help.

My ear is ringing like crazy. A constant high-pitched whine. EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…..

BUT… the deafness is going away. I would say I’m at about 75% hearing now, up from maybe 25% earlier.

After the doctor called, I went home and let some rubbing alcohol and vinegar stew in my earhole for a while. Giggled at the word “earhole.” Could only lay on my right side. Felt cranky and really sorry for myself.  Doc tried to comfort me but I was beyond grouchy at that point. Watched about 10 minutes of “My Super Sweet 16″ on MTV before I had to turn away… possibly one of the stupidest shows I have ever seen. Eyes burning from bad selfish reality television, ear burning from acidic cocktail therein.

It wasn’t helping immediately (me? impatient? no!) and in fact my hearing seemed to get worse. I decided to go back to work, and stopped to grab a quick bite to eat on the way in. The restaurant was so loud and tinny-sounding; the noise from the customers and the bad “mainalternastream” rock playing over the sound system was just making me crazy. My good ear was working overtime trying to hear for two, and each sound was a claw scraping my brain. I ate quick and got out of there.

When I got back to the office, where it was blessedly quiet, I noticed that a really loud ringing had started in the bad ear. And gradually, this afternoon, my hearing is returning. The ringing is still hanging around, but I’d rather it be ringing than deaf.

Wait, let me apply a caveat to that last statement: I’d actually rather not have the ringing AND not be deaf! But, comparatively speaking, ringing is less annoying.

NOTE TO SELF, FRIENDS, AND FAMILY: Always apply earwash after swimming from now on. You don’t have to buy the commercial kind; just get a squirt bottle (like an empty Palmolive dish soap bottle) and fill with 1/2 white vinegar, 1/2 rubbing alcohol. Squirt into ears after swimming and let drain.

I am really freaking out right about now. I woke up this morning unable to hear out of my left ear. No signs, no warnings, nothing. I felt completely normal when I went to bed last night and then when I got up about 7:00 this morning, I only had partial hearing in my left ear and this roaring/ringing sound. I feel completely fine otherwise — no blocked sinuses or anything of the sort.

It has not gotten better since.

I talked to the nurse at my doctor’s office just now. She said to try putting a few drops of alcohol and vinegar in there, to see if that helps, but to call them back if it doesn’t get any better or if anything starts to hurt. She seemed to think it might be some water trapped in there from swimming, or possibly a bacterial infection.

I dunno… it seems like if there was water in there I would be able to hear or feel something sloshing around, but I can’t.

I guess if this turned out to be permanent, it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

But I’m freaking out anyway.

Last night when I got home from work, I was feeling pretty down about the huge hospital bill that we received in the mail (why is it so much more than the 20% that I am supposed to pay as per my insurance plan? Now I have to – ugh – CALL Blue Cross and try to get a comprehensible answer out of them). So Doc and I went for a nice long run/walk to try to improve my spirits. After we got back I was really tired but had already planned to cook dinner so I somehow managed to muster up the energy.

I cooked salmon fillets, sauteéd corn with red bell pepper and lemon butter, and Chinese long beans. I really like the salmon recipe (it’s from my book) because it’s so easy. Basically you put the fillets skin-side down in a skillet with a bit of oil in the bottom, and cook on the stove for about 5 minutes. Then put the whole pan in the oven for about 15 minutes to finish cooking, and voila, delicious fish is ready. I usually put a splatter screen on top of the pan to prevent the oil from splattering all over my oven.

Now, every single time I cook salmon like this, I burn my hands on the 450-degree metal skillet handle. Apparently my brain goes on autopilot and I reach out and grab it barehanded without thinking. But last night, I thought: I am NOT going to burn myself today. I’m going to use a oven mitt EVERY TIME I reach for that pan. 

And I did use that oven mitt on that pan, every time. Job well done!

Except that, after the fish was out of the oven, I reached out and grabbed the metal splatter screen instead. D’oh!

So now I have two painful blisters on two of my fingers, and a big red burned spot on my palm.

But I count myself lucky; at least I didn’t cut off half of my thumb on a table saw like my dad did a couple of days ago. Poor dad, he’s all drugged up on Percocet until he can get in to see the orthopaedic surgeon. Unfortunately they didn’t find the missing piece in time; they had to get to the hospital post haste and couldn’t stop to look for it. 

Speaking of PAIN, Doc got us an extremely comical new game for the Playstation yesterday. It is called “Pain.” Essentially, you launch yourself off a giant slingshot into a city, aiming yourself for various landmarks and hitting things for fun. Extra points if you land in strange ways or rack yourself. Wash, rinse, repeat! I like the giant donut on top of one of the buildings. If you aim right you can sail right through the middle! 

I found myself laughing uncontrollably and feeling terrible about laughing at the terrible predicaments we put our little avatar in.

Doc has written his account of the events of two weeks ago. His writing is very sweet and loving and a fair percentage less “squicky” than mine was.

I have been searching the Web for a while tonight, and I have found exactly ONE other blog post on the entirety of the Internets (a series of tubes) (I never get tired of saying that!) where a woman describes in frank and levelheaded detail what her miscarriage was like. One single solitary blog, that is all.

Thank you, tomato.sutra. I really wish I’d found your blog when I was frantically doing Web searches during the early stages of my miscarriage cramps. Our experiences weren’t identical, but I really think it would have helped calm me to read what yours was like.

From Paging Lucina:

There were a lot of posts and writings on the ‘Net from women who (quite understandably) were terrified about what was going on in their bodies, prior to getting confirmation of their own miscarriages. Also quite understandably, there weren’t many follow-up posts that told the greater audience what had happened afterward.

I also found plenty of rather high-level articles and posts from medical or sorta-medical sources. You know the type: they purport to be informative, and some succeed to a degree, but they don’t actually reveal much.

I’m not saying that everyone who experiences something private and painful like that needs to publicly write about it in detail, but I can’t get over how vague almost all the miscarriage information on the Web is. About the only information you can extract is that it’s common, occurring in between 20-50% of pregnancies; it’s rarely your fault; you may experience bleeding, menstrual-like cramps, or the passage of clots; and that sadness is normal.

But nobody talks about what actually HAPPENS! I’m sorry if I have sounded like I’m going over and over this point in the past few posts, but it’s as if the concrete details of miscarriage are classified information! It’s like Scientology: nobody can know the secrets until they belong to the club.

I guess I’m PISSED that I had such terrible physical pain and terrible fright, and that I had no way of knowing in advance that what I was experiencing was serious but normal, that it would require medical intervention but that I was not DYING. And I’m angry that, because we had no information, my poor sweet husband thought he might LOSE ME. I don’t ever want him to have to go through anything like that, ever again.

I guess maybe I’m going through the “Anger” phase of grief, hahaha.

Dear everyone,

Doc and I want to send a big public THANK YOU to you: all our friends and family that have sent us well wishes over the past week while we’ve dealt with the miscarriage, hospital, surgery, and recovery. Thanks so much to everyone that’s called or written with kind words, sent flowers, brought over food, kept us company, listened to us talk and cry about things, helped distract us with talk about other, “normal” things. You’re really helping to get us through this.

I don’t want to be “that guy”… you know, the guy that’s always complaining about something, but it honestly feels like it’s been a tough week… well, a tough six months really. And I’m trying to look on the positive side of things and not complain too much. My life sure could be a lot worse… a LOT worse. I know that. I have soooo much to be grateful for—and I am. Much as I try to be superhuman, though, I don’t think I’m very good at it… and knowing that I have an amazing group of friends and a loving family that will pick me up when I fall… well, you guys are my safety net, and I can’t even tell you how comforting it is to know that I HAVE a safety net. I hope I can be a good enough friend to return the favor if ever you should need me.

We love you. Thank you.

This was the first (and only) ultrasound, taken on December 21. I know that it kind of looks like a face, but it’s just the heartbeat.

I had the D&C surgery this morning (or, as I like to call it, my appointment with Mr. Hoover). Ha!

Hey, just trying to find humor in all this. It helps me deal with it. I think it might make people uncomfortable that I’m trying to joke about this terrible situation, so soon after it happened. But as my friend Kim said, “Sometimes other people’s expectations of how you’re supposed to feel are as hard to deal with as how you actually feel.” I couldn’t have put it any better myself (and am flying high on Vicodin right now so I don’t think I could come up with better words no matter how much I tried).

So anyway, I was supposed to be at the hospital at 10:30 a.m. to check in and get prepared for surgery. The phone rang at 7:15 this morning and the nurse asked me if I could come in at 9 instead because my doctor wanted to move it up if possible. I guess it worked better with his schedule that way, and as far as I was concerned, the sooner it was over, the better.

I couldn’t have any food or water after midnight, and I sure wish I’d had a big glass of water before bed because I felt soooo thirsty when I woke up. Almost as thirsty as I’d felt in the emergency room last week, but I wasn’t supposed to have anything to drink, even water. I started to feel sick to my stomach though, so in order to stave off fainting, I took about two tablespoons of water and figured I’d just deal with the consequences at the hospital.

I was really nervous and feeling nauseated, but did my best to keep it under control as I signed lots and lots of forms at the check-in desk, filled out medical histories, wrote a $1400 check (sigh… damned deductible), got my hospital bracelets, and then they took us back to the pre-op prep room.

I answered more questions about my allergies and told about ten different people that yes, my name and birthday were correct on my bracelet, then went to the bathroom and got into a lovely lovely hospital gown. They also made me wear some really tight white full-leg stockings, apparently to help avoid blood clots, and a pair of those cute blue anti-skid socks like the ones they gave me in the E.R. last week.

A very nice nurse took my blood pressure and pulse, and put in my I.V. This time she gave me a lidocaine injection in the back of my hand so the I.V. wouldn’t hurt. They don’t take those kinds of measures at the emergency room! The World’s Nicest Anaesthesiologist came in to talk to us, to let us know exactly what they were going to do to me and what I could expect during recovery. He asked how I was feeling, and when I told him that I was prone to fainting and motion sickness (on my medical history form) and was currently feeling nauseous, he came back with something to put in my I.V. line that he said would help me feel better.

A few minutes later Dr. Burt came in and greeted us, and talked to Doc for a little bit about how long the surgery would take, where he should wait, and that he’d come out to talk to him as soon as it was over. I was really glad that they were including Doc in everything and treating him so well. I think that they could tell he was concerned and could see how much he loved me and was protecting and taking care of me. I think it makes their job easier when their patients have a good caretaker.

The anaesthesiologist gave me a sedative, I kissed my sweet Doc goodbye, and they wheeled me down the hall. I feel like I went in and out of consciousness during that ride, since I don’t remember much of it. We ended up in a large brightly lit room with a lot of random stuff piled all over the place, and a giant flexible light hanging from the ceiling (kind of like the light on a dentist’s chair) that they stopped me under. Definitely NOT like an operating theatre like you see on TV. The anaesthesiologist lightly placed an oxygen mask on my face and told me to breathe deeply. I remember taking about six nice breaths, and I guess then they put the general anaesthetic in my IV because the next thing I remember, someone spooned a few ice chips into my mouth and told me to chew. Things went fuzzy for a while after that.

I was definitely having a hard time waking up, as is to be expected. By the time I was lucid enough to realize that I was in the recovery room and that Doc was there with me, he said he’d been with me for 15 minutes already and that I’d been talking to him and the nurses and drinking water. It is very disconcerting to me that I have no idea what happened during that time. He had already called my mom to tell her that I’d come out of surgery just fine, and I asked him to call Kathryn and let her know too. He talked to her for a few minutes and then put the phone up to my ear. I know I talked to her but now I have absolutely no idea what I said. Like I said, I was having a tough time getting my clarity back. He also called Brittney to let her know, but I don’t think I talked to her.

Doc told me that Dr. Burt said it was a really good thing that they did the surgery because there was a lot of tissue still in my uterus and it very likely would not have passed on its own. So I guess that made it worth it, right there. He also said that everything went very well and that I would probably feel some bad cramping for a day, and it would die off in less than a week. I am supposed to keep taking my antibiotic and my Vicodin as needed for pain, and take it easy for the rest of the week. I’m not sure if I’ll try to go in to work at all; I might just see how I feel on Thursday or Friday but I really don’t want to push it. I think they can manage without me if needed.

The anaesthesiologist had told me before surgery that when I woke up I might feel like I needed to pee, but I really wouldn’t and the urge would just be the residual effects from the catheter. A catheter?! One more reason to be grateful for general anaesthesia. Of course I DID feel like I needed to pee, and tried to ignore it, but after a few minutes pushed my nurse’s call button and asked if I could go try anyway. She walked me to the bathroom, and by god, I urinated. Take THAT, catheter!

I was feeling pretty good by this point, other than the fuzziness in my head, so they told me that I could get dressed if I felt like going home, or I could wait for a while in bed. Doc helped me to slowly get dressed and gather my things, and the nurse wheeled me out front while Doc brought the car around.

He drove me home and helped me change into my pajamas and get set up on the futon bed downstairs. Then he made me some tasty tasty chicken broth, complete with fresh grated carrots and tiny shredded chicken bits, and some crackers that the hospital had sent home with me. He also went across the street to 7-11 and bought me some Coke Zero, since I have decided for the time being that I am going to have as much diet soda as I want while I’m feeling crappy.

So that’s pretty much it. I’ve been taking my painkillers, lying on the futon all day, doing some freelance work, talking to a few people by e-mail and IM, talking to Doc, crying a little bit here and there, laughing some too, and somehow now it’s after midnight and I guess I’d probably ought to get to bed.

I’m glad the physical difficulties are (knock on wood) over and that I’m on the path to recovery. Having a concrete end to that part of it is helping me deal with the emotional side of it too. It’s been tough at times over the past few days, and I know it’s going to continue to be tough on both Doc and myself for a long while, but we have each other to lean on and laugh with and cry with, and I can’t think of anything more comforting than to know that he’s right here with me through all of this, protecting me and loving me. He’s truly an amazing man in so many ways.

One more thing before I go. I read something yesterday that really hit me hard. And it was something that I KNEW already but just hadn’t thought about so concretely. I read that the body miscarries because the fetus has just died. And I knew that of course…. but when I applied it to myself, to my own womb, lifting my shirt and looking down at my abdomen and thinking about my own little fetus right there a few inches under my skin, MY baby’s little heartbeat stopping and my body going into action to deal with it… Just, wow. I busted out into tears for a long time over that. It stopped being ethereal and got very tangible then.

Sigh.

A few people have told me that they were surprised that I was able to write in such detail about my miscarriage, only a few hours after it happened. Yvonne said I was brave. I’m not sure that’s what it is though.

I kind of surprised myself by writing about it so soon. But I was already starting to forget details, and I really wanted to remember the details. And, I guess, by posting them here, I wanted other people to be able to know what it was really like to go through a miscarriage at almost 12 weeks.

And honestly, writing about it was cathartic. I cried a lot while typing, but I felt a little better afterwards. I don’t want to hide what happened.

Before this, I thought that a miscarriage was something that usually happened at home, and was not a big deal physically and was over quickly. And maybe if you’re not as far along as I was, that is closer to the truth. I was just so shocked at how physically traumatic it was. I thought I was dying. I have never seen Doc look so frightened. I was bleeding so much and it didn’t seem like it was going to stop.

I just wish I’d known ahead of time that miscarriages at this point in a pregnancy are very very scary and painful and you generally end up in the hospital. Even now, Googling “what does a miscarriage feel like” gets you very vague results. Why does nobody talk about this?

I hope that nobody was upset by the detail that I went into. I know it seems very personal — and it is. It’s extremely personal, but it’s not something I’m ashamed of. I really truly hope that if anyone reads my account of my experience and then, god forbid, has to go through a similar experience, maybe what I’ve written will help her to not be so frightened and to know that the pain and disorientation and blood loss are normal. An emergency, still… but normal.

This is a really long post, so grab a cup of coffee and sit back.

You still with me? Cool.

I haven’t been writing a lot of personal stuff on my blog in the past few months, and there is a reason for that. I wasn’t quite ready to announce to the world the news that I was pregnant!

It’s been pretty hard to keep from writing about it, since it’s such huge news and it’s hard to think about much of anything else when your whole world, including your own body, is transforming. Although we told our families and close friends, we didn’t want the world to know in case something went wrong in that delicate first trimester, when you’re beginning to get really excited but still not too attached yet since you can’t really FEEL a baby inside you yet…

…But something did go wrong, and I had a miscarriage last night.

Nobody ever talks about miscarriage, other than to say that it happens frequently and it’s usually not your fault. But never anywhere did I read what it was actually like to experience one. Knowing in advance what I might expect would have been very helpful. As it happened, the chain of events seemed so incredibly severe and unexpected that I truly thought I was dying. It was one of the most painful and frightening experiences of my life, tempered only by the fact that my amazing wonderful loving husband was by my side the whole time, stroking my hair and whispering love notes and reassurances that everything would be OK, although I think he was very frightened as well and having to keep it together for the both of us. I don’t mention him in every single paragraph below, but he was right there the entire time, this force of warmth, calmness, and love that was keeping me from losing my mind.

Just a warning to the squeamish, I am about to go into DETAIL about my experience, and I really mean detail about my private bits and blood and all kinds of stuff. This may be Too Much Information and if you don’t want to read about it I won’t be insulted. You can skip ahead to near the end where you see the asterisks ***, then it’s safe to keep reading. On the other hand, maybe this can help someone out there going through a similar experience.

If you want the short nondetailed version, here it is: I began to bleed badly, went to the ER, passed out a couple of times, spent about nine hours there being tested and observed and, frankly, miscarrying; eventually I went home and then to my regular ob/gyn, who has now scheduled me for surgery on Monday. I feel like crap, but am on drugs, and the emotional impact hasn’t hit me yet.

But if you want the long version…. this is what my miscarriage felt like.

Some background: As of this past Monday, January 21, I was 11 weeks pregnant and due August 11. I’ve been having a lot of the classic pregnancy symptoms, including larger, tender breasts (larger! woot!), mood swings such as crying for no reason every few days, forgetfulness and an inability to focus, extreme exhauastion most of the time, and the need to pee a LOT. Thankfully my morning sickness was very mild, and usually quite easy for me to handle.

On Wednesday afternoon, I started feeling little twinges of what felt like menstrual cramps. I’ve had little twinges before that simply indicate a growing uterus, and so I didn’t put too much thought into it. On Thursday morning the twinges were still with me, and a little more frequent. When I used the bathroom at work I discovered that I was spotting blood a little bit. I freaked out at this and called my doctor, who told me not to worry, that cramping and spotting were fairly normal, but to go home early and rest if I could. I had an appointment the next morning for my 12 week ultrasound, so I tried not to stress out… but I was anyway. I called Doc; I think he was frightened about what might be going on, but he offered to meet me for lunch and seeing him helped me to calm down a lot. I left work at 3 p.m. to go home and lie down.

The cramping began to intensify a bit during the afternoon, and I noticed a little more blood. Around 9 p.m. the cramps were getting quite painful, not letting up even for a few minutes’ reprieve, and there was even more blood. Doc and I tried to watch a movie on DVD and I was curled up around my heating pad with Doc rubbing my back and stroking my hair, trying to calm down and ignore the cramps, but I couldn’t concentrate and kept getting up to pee and see if the bleeding had subsided yet.

At 11:00 as I was using the toilet, it was like somebody turned on a faucet inside me and the blood began flowing out nonstop — fresh red blood. By this point the cramping was almost too much to handle. Holding my panic in check by sheer force of will, I called Doc into the bathroom and we decided that I needed to go to the emergency room immediately. The amount of blood was scary. We didn’t have any pads (since I started using the Diva Cup I don’t buy them anymore) so he grabbed me a towel. I got up, shoved the towel between my legs and went to my closet for sneakers. Every time I moved it felt like a warm gush came out of me. Doc ran around locking doors and gathering his phone and coat and my purse, and helped me downstairs and out into the car (the Saturn; I didn’t want to bleed all over the brand new Prius!!). I was wearing old paint-covered sweatpants and sneakers (breaking two of my personal cardinal rules: sneakers are only for exercising and sweatpants do not leave the house) and my hair was a mess and I forgot my phone and my coat but I didn’t care.

I was in such pain on the car ride over but trying to be calm and hold my panic in check. Doc was driving and I did not want to give him any acute reasons to worry; I needed him to get me safely and quickly to the ER. My legs started shaking uncontrollably in the car, but I kept smiling and saying that I was OK, not to worry, just keep driving. The truth was, I WAS worried, but not that much. I figured that once I got to the ER, it would be like on the TV show “Scrubs”: A cute intern would whisk me away on a stretcher and take a look up the old VaJayJay (or was it “bajingo”?), do a little procedure or something, and send me on my merry way home.

Not so.

Doc pulled into the emergency room driveway, hopped out and ran inside to get someone to come get me out of the car since I was sure if I stood up that a river would pour out down my legs. A nurse came out with a wheelchair, and she and Doc helped me out of the car and wheeled me inside. I think that the valet guy took Doc’s car key and drove our car off to the parking lot. Don’t ask me why the ER only has valet parking, maybe because of all the nutty construction going on at the hospital, but it came in handy for us.

I filled out a small form at the checkin desk giving my name, SS#, vital statistics, and reason why I was there. There were a LOT of people in the ER waiting room and they told me that it might be a little while before anyone could see me. I thought, ok, I am BLEEDING profusely out my VAGINA, should someone not see me NOW before I die from blood loss in the waiting room?? Nobody but the two of us seemed concerned though, so I sat tight in my wheelchair hoping that they would hurry the fuck up because I was in severe pain. I asked Doc to get me some water; I suddenly felt extremely thirsty, but the paramedics said that I couldn’t have anything before they measured my vital signs. Which apparently might have been hours away, from how things were going so far.

They probably should have let me have some water because a few minutes later I began to see spots. I felt like the whole world was floating away from me, and I remember saying to Doc “I am going to pass out now.” From a distance, I felt myself slump off to the side towards him and everything went dark. The next thing I knew, it felt like I was waking up from a long, wonderful dream, until the reality slowly hit me that I was indeed in a wheelchair in the ER, that THAT was not part of my dream. I was being wheeled along a corridor and someone had ahold of my shoulders to keep me from falling forward. People were saying my name. I was having a hard time responding. I don’t know if I was actually saying anything out loud or making any sense if I was. Doc said that I had passed out in the waiting room and began convulsing. He yelled for help and THAT prompted the ER people into action. I guess I was only out for about 15-20 seconds but it was enough to push me up to the top of the list.

They got me into an exam room and onto the table, and people in scrubs were buzzing all around me, putting IV lines in and taking blood samples, hooking me up to a heart monitor (interesting tidbit: the little sticky pads they apply to your chest are made by 3M, the post-it-note people!), blood pressure cuff, and a little clamp on my finger to keep track of my pulse. I felt like I was in a complete fog, not sure what was going on but in serious serious pain, and people I didn’t know were doing strange things to me and I couldn’t see Doc. They’d sent him out of the room for a few minutes while they got me all hooked up to the monitors, but I asked 3 or 4 times where he was, that I needed him, and so a few minutes later they brought him back in. It was such a relief to see him; immediately I felt calmer and more grounded.

I’m already starting to forget the sequence of events that occurred over the next couple of hours, probably because I was in that weird foggy haze. Doc was by my side through all of it, whispering that he loved me, holding my hand, calming me down. I was very worried that I was dying, bleeding internally and they wouldn’t be able to stop it.

I found it awfully strange that no one wanted to get a peek at the area in question; the nurses initially pulled my sweatshirt off and got me into a hospital gown, but left my blood-soaked sweatpants on. I remember my abdomen just convulsing in pain nonstop, and my entire body shaking uncontrollably again. I think that someone threw some blankets over me, hot out of the blanket heater (did you know hospitals keep blankets heated? I didn’t! I remember telling a nurse that now I knew why my cats liked to hop in a basket of laundry freshly pulled from the dryer), but despite the warmth I could not stop the shaking. I remember at one point raising my head up and actually looking at my body, and the movements were so violent that it must have looked like I was having convulsions again. I tried to calm myself down and stop shaking but I simply couldn’t.

I remember whispering crazy nonsensical things over and over, like “stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it” and “calm down calm down calm down” — which actually aren’t too crazy, but the repetition must have seemed a little crazy. I know I was saying other things too, that made a whole lot less sense. And the nutty part of all this was, I was completely conscious of the fact that I wasn’t making any sense, that I was probably acting like an insane person, and yet I had no ability to control it.

After what seemed like hours of being completely out of my head and waiting, shivering, shaking, whispering, cramping, making “ouch goddamit motherfuck that hurts” faces, a doctor finally came in to see me. The nurses got my pants off, put some fresh absorbent pads under me (actually this was probably the third or fourth time they’d replaced them), and the doctor took a look at my business. His conclusion? “Oh yes, she’s definitely bleeding.” Wow, Sherlock, ya think?! He was in the room for probably a total of 90 seconds before he ordered a sonogram and left.

The crazy shaking continued but began to abate somewhat, and maybe 15 minutes later a nurse came in with an injection of some wonderful wonderful medication into my IV line. A minute or two later I stopped shivering and began to feel wonderfully light and floaty but at the same time very very heavy, like all my limbs weighed a ton.

They turned out most of the lights in the room and left us alone for a while before the sonogram was ready. A woman came in with a clipboard and had Doc fill out some paperwork for insurance. He asked me questions about various things on the forms and I remember trying to speak very clearly out of my pain medication floaty haze. Things seemed really funny for some reason and I think I was talking veeery slowly.

We were both exhausted — he hadn’t slept much the night before either — but nobody left us alone long enough to drift off to sleep for a bit. Nurses came in every few minutes to check my vitals or change my padding, which was getting thoroughly soaked by warm trickles of blood every few minutes. I remember at one point telling the main nurse, I think her name was Jennifer, that she was SO nice and I really appreciated everything and she was making me feel so much better. I think I was kind of high from the pain meds but the sentiment was heartfelt.

I asked Doc to go get her before the sonogram was ready, because I had to pee. There was a little pink bedpan waiting in one corner so I figured that was probably my fate (thank god my fate didn’t lie with a catheter; another nurse had poked her head into our room a while earlier asking if I was the one who needed the catheter! I said “Good god, I hope not,” and she laughed and left).

Nurse Jennifer asked if I wanted to use the bedpan or the bathroom. I had a choice!! Hallelujah! I asked to be wheeled out to the bathroom in the hallway, although I think that Doc would rather I have kept to my bed and just used the bedpan instead. But I’d been stripped and poked and prodded, my bloody bits seen by god only knows how many people already, and I wanted to preserve this one little modicum of modesty. I remember laughing at one point as I was lying on my side, as I said to Nurse Jennifer “I cannot believe I am lying here mostly naked, door open to the hallway, with a nurse washing my butt with a towel. All sense of modesty is gone!”

Nurse Jennifer handed me the world’s largest maxipad (really and truly, it was ENORMOUS), a pair of blue socks with nonskid soles, and a pair of stretchy mesh disposable undies to pull on over the giant diaper. She wheeled me into the bathroom and thankfully did not insist on staying with me as I went. As I was going, eight or ten large chunks of tissue and blood came out of me too. I guess this was all the uterine material that I was finally expelling. It was kind of gross but also fascinating at the same time. And I instantly felt better; the cramping that the pain meds hadn’t taken care of began to die off.

Another nurse wheeled me back to my room, and as I passsed the nurses’ station I told Nurse Jennifer that I thought I’d expelled it all. She asked me if I flushed, which I thought was a very weird question — of course I’d flushed, I’d just gone to the bathroom! It didn’t occur to me until later that they might have wanted to collect the expelled material for testing. A gross thought, actually.

A few minutes later they came and got me for the sonogram. This time they didn’t put me in the wheelchair; they just rolled my bed down the hallways to the radiology lab. Just like in “Scrubs!” I finally got wheeled down a hallway on a bed! The sonogram went quickly; the nurse was young and businesslike and very very fast. She did both the jelly-on-the-belly kind (the first I’ve had like that) and the internal kind, then wheeled me back to the room. By this time it was 3:30 in the morning and we realized that we probably wouldn’t get much sleep before we had to go to Dr. Burt’s office at 9:30.

The doctor came in about 2o minutes later with the sonogram results (a nice suprise for two reasons; one, they told us it might be up to an hour before the results were ready, and two, this was a different doctor, a woman who was very very nice and seemed like she actually cared about what was going on with me, unlike businesslike Dr. Butterfield from before.) Dr. Way said that the sonogram showed that it was an incomplete miscarriage, meaning that there was still some material in the uterus to be expelled. I would need to watch for that and follow up with my own doctor within the next 48 hours. She went out to write a prescription for some pain medications for me and collect up my discharge information.

I asked Nurse Jennifer if I could go pee again, and this time she gave me a pair of gigantic cotton underpants (really, they were size 14, and I wear size 8!) and a pair of gray sweatpants so I wouldn’t have to wear my old ones home. I expelled a little more of the uterine material again, and again felt a lot better afterwards. I wasn’t bleeding profusely now.

I got back to the room and they brought in the discharge paperwork, took out my IV line and taped me up, got me into the wheelchair, and Doc put my old pants and towel, shoes, and purse on my lap. They wheeled us out to the payment area, and I sat right outside the door while Doc sat right inside the door talking to the nurse and paying the co-pay. I started feeling absolutely awful — nauseated, lightheaded, and the severe cramps came back. I began to see spots again. I tapped on the door frame and said “Doc, I’m passing out again. Here I go.” I slumped forward to try to get some blood to my head, but to no avail. I felt my arms go limp and then nothing.

I woke up — again, as if from a very long, wonderful dream — to hear Doc saying my name trying to wake me up as they wheeled me back down the corridor towards a room. I couldn’t say anything, I felt sick to my stomach and dry heaved most of the way to the room. He looked so scared; I don’t think I have ever seen him look that frightened in his life. He was so pale. I didn’t want to get out of the wheelchair because I was bent over and it felt like if I straightened up I would faint again.

The nurse was about to put an IV line into the back of my hand, when I realized I really would rather by lying down. She and Doc got me up onto the table, got me hooked into the IV (it hurts a lot more in the hand than it does in the elbow), and hooked back up to the heart monitor and everything else. They took some more blood to check my counts. I was really cold and starting to shake again so they brought me some blankets. Dr. Way came back again to see me and said “Didn’t quite make it out the door, did you?” and told me she had a call in to the OB/GYN on call for advice.

She came back a while later and said that the OB/GYN wasn’t being as helpful as she hoped, and they wanted to keep me for a few more hours for observation. If I passed out again then they were going to admit me to the hospital. She turned out the lights and left us alone for a while (well, nurses were coming in every so often to check up on me), but Doc and I were able to get maybe 30 minutes of uninterupted sleep before yet another doctor came to wake me up, and told me that he wanted to see if I could get up and walk around.

A nurse came in and unhooked me and slowly I got up and walked the corridor. It was tough but I tried really hard to ignore my nausea and stave off the lightheadedness. I was desperate to get out of the hospital and home. I really did feel a lot better than the last time they tried to discharge me. Yet another doctor came by to remove my IV port from my hand and he brought me and Doc back to the discharge area. I did not pass out this time. We did not have to pay another co-pay; Doc’s theory is that it’s because they didn’t want it to seem like they discharged me before they should have. Which is fine with me!

He went and got the car from the valet and helped me into it, and we headed home. He got me settled in bed and went out to the drugstore to get me some giant absorbent pads, Motrin, and some apple juice. When Dr. Burt’s office opened at 8:30, I called to see what they wanted me to do, and they said that I definitely needed to come in as scheduled. With Doc’s help I took a shower and got dressed (in my fancy Presbyterian sweatpants again!) and we headed up to Presby Plano.

I began crying for the first time since this started when I asked the doctor if he knew what might have caused it. He said that almost all first trimester miscarriages are due to chromosomal abnormalities; the fetus is simply not viable. I asked if it was anything I might have done, and began to cry. He said absolutely not, nothing like caffeine or exercise could have caused it, and that all women struggle with the guilt of this question even when rationally they know the truth.

Doc described my fainting episodes to him, and he said that it was due to the abdominal contractions. When the belly cramps up like that, it signals the heart to slow way down and blood pressure plummets, triggering fainting. I’m not sure quite why this happens, it sure doesn’t seem like an evolutionary advantage.

We told him that we’d been told it was an incomplete miscarriage but that I’d passed some tissue after that diagnosis. He sent me in for a sonogram, which showed that there was still some tissue left (RPOC, or “retained products of conception”). He took a look inside me with the speculum and was able to pull out what he thought was that remaining tissue (NOT a pleasant procedure; it’s like that little *cramp* you get during a pap smear when the tester touches your cervix, but a lot worse and a lot longer in duration), then sent me back for a second sonogram. Unfortunately it showed that he didn’t get that tissue.

He said at this point we had three options. We could wait for it to pass naturally, although it may not actually expel itself, in which case I’d be at high risk for a very serious infection; we could get me in for a D&C surgery right away, which involves putting me under anaesthesia and manually cleaning out the uterus; or the middle ground, which would be to wait a few days and see if it passes on its own, and if not, schedule me for surgery. We decided on option #3. So I’m scheduled for surgery Monday at 11:45 a.m., unless something happens in the meantime. I really hope it does because I do not want to have that surgery done.

*** OKAY, the yucky part is over. If you’ve skipped ahead, you can start reading againg! ***

Dr. Burt didn’t charge me a co-pay for today’s visit, which I think was really very nice of them. Maybe it’s a matter of policy not to burden people who have just had a miscarriage with a bunch of paperwork. Fantastic policy! It was a relief just to get to go home. I called my boss on the way home and told him what had happened and that I wouldn’t be in for a few days at least. I broke down on the phone with him and I was trying so desperately not to. The one person I wanted to be calm on the phone with, I just couldn’t.

We went to Target to fill my prescription for Vicodin for pain, and for Doc to pick up some quick-fix groceries for the next few days, and FINALLY we got home. My wonderful wonderful husband, who has had maybe 3 hours of sleep in the past 48, then went back out AGAIN and got me a grilled cheese sandwich and Dr. Pepper from Sonic. I didn’t feel like eating but can’t take Vicodin on an empty stomach, so I sucked it up and ate what I could.

We’ve each managed to sleep for a couple of hours this afternoon, and we’ve told a few people what’s happened. I don’t think I can talk to anyone in person about it right now, it’s just too hard and I know I’ll break down. Maybe in a few days.

Right now we’re resting in bed and watching Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I’m eating a few leftover roasted potatoes from last night with my evening Vicodin, and Doc is having a chicken salad sandwich.

I guess that I can have a glass of wine this week if I want! Ha. One good thing about all this.

We don’t know what exactly we’re going to do once this is all over. We need to think about whether we want to try again. I know it’s not even a question for some couples, but it’s more of a complex issue with us. There’s a lot of things we’re going to need to talk about. I’m so glad our marriage is rock solid. I feel like this situation has pulled us even closer together. I still feel numb emotionally, although I’ve cried a few times today. I think that the full impact just hasn’t hit me yet. I’m sure once I see tangible things like the maternity clothes I’ve started to collect or the tiny socks that Mom Kerry got us for Christmas or the little stuffed animals from Brittney, it’s going to feel a lot more real. There were so many things that we had begun to think about and do in preparation that I think are going to startle me when I come across them and realize that maybe we just don’t need to do them anymore.

As Doc said earlier today, this sucks donkey ovaries. But we’ll get through it.