So much for throwing care to the wind and seeing what happens. So now I have to take Prometrium tablets (some have to do sepositories - so I'm lucky) every night starting on day 16 of my cycle through day 32 - at which point I have to take a HPT. If it's negative, I stop taking the Prometrium and have my period. If it's positive, I faint, then call the Dr.'s office.
The last time I took Prometrium - I actually was pregnant, so it feels a little weird. Pre-natals in the mornings, fish oil and Prometrium at night. And I sleep. Hard. Like the alarm is a distant annoying noise I can't seem to wrap my head around - hard.
But, on the upside, all of this has enabled me to find some new annoyances in my life:
Mothers Day.
Crying for no good reason. In public.
Skinny, pregnant, bubbly blondes - for who life seems so nonchalant and easy.
Friends who are in the small number of people who know what we've been through yet never ask
how we are or mention what we've been through - and otherwise seem to avoide us like the plague
since the MC. Why is that?
Church friends that flock to any babies in the room and make a huge deal out of them and their
mothers right in front of your face and knowing what you've endured and seemingly not caring.
A husband who's blissfully unaware of what a hard time I'm having with this.
Do you ever feel alone in a crowded room? Like you're the only person that feels the way you do? Like you can't talk to even your closest friends about the things you're thinking or how you feel? Like you're standing on the outside looking in? Like you're standing outside the fire with no notion of how to get in or be in...
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Mean Girls
I can't say I've always been the nicest person in the world, but I've never been intentionally mean. However, I HAVE been incredibly immature. When I first started working straight out of college, I worked with a lady that was extremely eccentric. She had so many, countless, unimaginable stories she shared, dressed crazy, said crazy stuff. Everyone in our department talked about her, me included. I have a quick wit and people laughed. It wasn't meant to be hurtful; it was just an incredulous awe at this woman and her antics.
Long story short, we hurt that lady's feelings because someone somehow felt they should let her know what was being said about her - in an effort to get back at us I guess. I felt horrible. But I couldn't undo the things I had said or done, yet I did apologize to her face to face. And she accepted that seemingly and we went on to have a decent interaction with one another in the coming years until she left my company. I never meant to hurt anyone, but I did. And I feel so sorry for that, but you can't exactly go back and tell your 20-year-old self to quit being so stupid. If that worked, there are a lot of other things I would have told myself not to do as well.
Another girl I worked with though, she also joined in at being appalled by this woman - said plenty of hurtful, mean things herself. And then, one day, she decided SHE was offended and stopped talking to me. That was 8 years ago. I have no clue what I did or said or what someone told her I did or said. I've tried multiple times to engage her, to apologize to her, to try to tell her I'm not who I was 8 years ago. She refuses to listen. It makes for some really awkward elevator rides sometimes. Still, every time I pass her in the hall or the parking lot or even alone on the elevator, I smile and say hi and try to make small talk. She huffs and snarls her nose up at me and ignores my complete existence. My husband says I should shake it off and move on, but I can't let it go.
I can't stand for someone to not like me and I feel it's unjustified at this point. It's fine for you to not prefer to be around me, but I think she should have common courtesy and not just huff and snarl when you see a coworker for the past decade or so. I want to tell this lady that even criminals have been paroled and forgiven in this amount of time and yet she won't even have a conversation with me to tell me why she hates me so much. Staff meetings, parties, elevator rides, parking lots, there are SO many awkward encounters in our work week. I just would like to no dread these parts of my day. Any suggestions on how to deal with her continued bitterness and my past sins?
Long story short, we hurt that lady's feelings because someone somehow felt they should let her know what was being said about her - in an effort to get back at us I guess. I felt horrible. But I couldn't undo the things I had said or done, yet I did apologize to her face to face. And she accepted that seemingly and we went on to have a decent interaction with one another in the coming years until she left my company. I never meant to hurt anyone, but I did. And I feel so sorry for that, but you can't exactly go back and tell your 20-year-old self to quit being so stupid. If that worked, there are a lot of other things I would have told myself not to do as well.
Another girl I worked with though, she also joined in at being appalled by this woman - said plenty of hurtful, mean things herself. And then, one day, she decided SHE was offended and stopped talking to me. That was 8 years ago. I have no clue what I did or said or what someone told her I did or said. I've tried multiple times to engage her, to apologize to her, to try to tell her I'm not who I was 8 years ago. She refuses to listen. It makes for some really awkward elevator rides sometimes. Still, every time I pass her in the hall or the parking lot or even alone on the elevator, I smile and say hi and try to make small talk. She huffs and snarls her nose up at me and ignores my complete existence. My husband says I should shake it off and move on, but I can't let it go.
I can't stand for someone to not like me and I feel it's unjustified at this point. It's fine for you to not prefer to be around me, but I think she should have common courtesy and not just huff and snarl when you see a coworker for the past decade or so. I want to tell this lady that even criminals have been paroled and forgiven in this amount of time and yet she won't even have a conversation with me to tell me why she hates me so much. Staff meetings, parties, elevator rides, parking lots, there are SO many awkward encounters in our work week. I just would like to no dread these parts of my day. Any suggestions on how to deal with her continued bitterness and my past sins?
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Tests for Progesterone Issues and Polyps
So my new doctor wants to figure out why I've had 2 miscarriages. I appreciate this immensely and am so glad to be finding reasons for losing the baby so I no longer have to stress whether it was the coffee I drank before I knew or the hot dogs, because who knew you can't have hot dogs!
First, she wanted to check my progesterone level. You do this by getting blood work done so many days after you ovulate. Only after you miscarry, you have no way of knowing when your next ovulation or period will be because according to my Dr. the miscarriage does not count as a period.
So we had to buy a Clear Blue Easy ovulation predictor kit at the not so low price of $55 and I had to pee on a test strip every morning for weeks and wait for the smiley face to show up telling me I was having a LH surge. (As a side note, it's not that easy to aim at 5 am when you're half asleep!) Once that happened, I had to call the Dr's office and they told me which day to come for blood work. Turns out my progesterone level WAS low. It was 9 and she wanted it to be 15. That's not terribly low though she said. When we get the green light to try again, I'll have to take progesterone supplements once I ovulate and stay on them until like day 33 of my cycle when I'll take a HPT and if it's negative, I'll stop the supplements and have a period.
Because my period sometimes starts before I'm supposed to, even when I was on BC, she wanted to check for uterine polyps. This was a fun one. You have to go for internal ultrasound while you're on your period - somewhere between days 6-10 of your cycle I think.
The Dr. called the other night around 8 pm - never a good sign when the Dr. calls that late. She had just read my entire chart and the U/S results. The U/S results showed a mass the size of a nickel consistent with a polyp. She said I had 2 choices - exploratory surgery where they dilate your cervix and go in with a scope to see what it is and if it is a polyp, remove it OR wait until I have a period again and repeat the ultra sound. You know I chose the ultra sound... Ha! Theory is that there's a chance that the mass could be "remnants of the miscarriage" and the next period would flush it out if so. Even so, it's strange to think you have a mass of some sort lurking inside your body.
So now we wait. Such a strange thing to go from TTC and aiming for that 5 day window to trying to completely avoid each other for a 7 day window just to be safe. And everybody says you're most fertile after a miscarriage, but we're missing that window all together.
And still - no one knows. And those that do know, they don't ask. It's hard and I think about it a lot more than I let on, even to my husband.
First, she wanted to check my progesterone level. You do this by getting blood work done so many days after you ovulate. Only after you miscarry, you have no way of knowing when your next ovulation or period will be because according to my Dr. the miscarriage does not count as a period.
So we had to buy a Clear Blue Easy ovulation predictor kit at the not so low price of $55 and I had to pee on a test strip every morning for weeks and wait for the smiley face to show up telling me I was having a LH surge. (As a side note, it's not that easy to aim at 5 am when you're half asleep!) Once that happened, I had to call the Dr's office and they told me which day to come for blood work. Turns out my progesterone level WAS low. It was 9 and she wanted it to be 15. That's not terribly low though she said. When we get the green light to try again, I'll have to take progesterone supplements once I ovulate and stay on them until like day 33 of my cycle when I'll take a HPT and if it's negative, I'll stop the supplements and have a period.
Because my period sometimes starts before I'm supposed to, even when I was on BC, she wanted to check for uterine polyps. This was a fun one. You have to go for internal ultrasound while you're on your period - somewhere between days 6-10 of your cycle I think.
The Dr. called the other night around 8 pm - never a good sign when the Dr. calls that late. She had just read my entire chart and the U/S results. The U/S results showed a mass the size of a nickel consistent with a polyp. She said I had 2 choices - exploratory surgery where they dilate your cervix and go in with a scope to see what it is and if it is a polyp, remove it OR wait until I have a period again and repeat the ultra sound. You know I chose the ultra sound... Ha! Theory is that there's a chance that the mass could be "remnants of the miscarriage" and the next period would flush it out if so. Even so, it's strange to think you have a mass of some sort lurking inside your body.
So now we wait. Such a strange thing to go from TTC and aiming for that 5 day window to trying to completely avoid each other for a 7 day window just to be safe. And everybody says you're most fertile after a miscarriage, but we're missing that window all together.
And still - no one knows. And those that do know, they don't ask. It's hard and I think about it a lot more than I let on, even to my husband.
A Chemical Pregnancy?
I'm so glad I switched doctors. I don't think my old OB/GYN would have cared to figure out why I miscarried. In fact, last fall I got a positive home pregnancy test (HPT), but it was a Dollar Store cheapie, the kind with the two lines that make the plus sign... When I took it, the 2nd line was really faint - but my period was 3 days late and my boobs had gotten huge overnight and I was an emotional wreck - none of which are typical period symptoms for me. A couple of days later, I took a digital test and it said NOT PREGNANT. I was so confused. I just knew I was and now it said I wasn't. I looked on the Internet and thought maybe I'd had what's called a "chemical pregnancy" where the fertilized egg never latches on to the uterine wall and just flushes out so it appears to just be a late, heavy period.
I called my old Dr's office and the nurse told me she just thought my period was late and it was no big deal. I cried on the phone with her. I never cry. Ever. I told her that maybe I wasn't and that was fine, but something was wrong with me, that it wasn't normal for me to act or my body to act this way. She said fine, come in for a HCG test. That's all she checked - nothing else - who cares if my hormones are out of whack I guess. When she called with the results, she actually said, "I was right, you're not pregnant." I was floored. I demanded to know the number and she said my HCG was 2. It was interesting to me that it wasn't 0. But any number under 5 is considered not pregnant. Yet still, why was it 2?
When I changed doctors, the new doctor (based on what I just said) agreed with me and said that I probably had had a chemical pregnancy. So now when she talks to me, she refers to my miscarriage as my 2nd miscarriage, which is really weird to hear.
I called my old Dr's office and the nurse told me she just thought my period was late and it was no big deal. I cried on the phone with her. I never cry. Ever. I told her that maybe I wasn't and that was fine, but something was wrong with me, that it wasn't normal for me to act or my body to act this way. She said fine, come in for a HCG test. That's all she checked - nothing else - who cares if my hormones are out of whack I guess. When she called with the results, she actually said, "I was right, you're not pregnant." I was floored. I demanded to know the number and she said my HCG was 2. It was interesting to me that it wasn't 0. But any number under 5 is considered not pregnant. Yet still, why was it 2?
When I changed doctors, the new doctor (based on what I just said) agreed with me and said that I probably had had a chemical pregnancy. So now when she talks to me, she refers to my miscarriage as my 2nd miscarriage, which is really weird to hear.
Diary of a Miscarriage
It was my first real pregnancy. (We had a chemical pregnancy previously.) I didn't know what to expect. I was supposed to start my period on Saturday, but starting the Thursday before, I started having lots of cramps and extremely sore nipples to the point if rolled over on them in my sleep it would wake me up. When I didnt start on Saturday, I took a hpt on Sunday and it said PREGNANT. I was floored. I kept thinking that NOT would pop up in front of the word PREGNANT eventually, but it didnt.
I didnt have any nausea, but they say not everyone does. I just had the sore nipples, fever blisters, and diarrhea. Kinda made me wish for nausea instead. By Tuesday, I could feel a tight ridge down low just above my pubic bone. It was so fun reading everything about the baby's development. I had so much to learn, too. No hot dogs, no deli meat, no coffee, the lists of things you can't do or eat is overwhelming. When I called the Dr's office as a new patient (hated my old OB/GYN and wanted a change), the nurse asked me lots of questions.
She worried my Progesterone was low because I have irregular and early periods - even when I was on BC. She told me to come in for blood work and she was right, my Progesterone was 17 and the Dr. wanted it to be 20. I started Prometrium orally that night. My HCG was 120. We didnt tell everyone we were pregnant - just our closest friends and our parents and siblings. I'm thankful for that. I had lots of cramps, but no bleeding for several days. Being my first pregnancy, I didn't know what was normal.
Everyone talked about being tired, and I was once or twice, but not all the time or every day. If it weren't for my boobs feeling heavy and sore and the cramps with no period, I wouldnt have known I was pregnant. Around the 5 week mark though, my boobs stopped being so sore. They were still not normal, but they weren't as sore. And that little hard ridge I could feel? I couldnt feel it any longer. I just knew that something wasn't right. That was Saturday. I had my second blood test to check my Progesterone on Tuesday. Monday night, I went to the bathroom and just like I had 500 other times since I took that pregnancy test, I wiped and looked at the toilet paper just to be sure nothing was there - only this time, something was. It was pinkish brown. It wasnt much, but it was something. I freaked out.
By the next morning, every time I wiped there were brown specs on the toilet paper. Never red, just dark brown. I never had cramps. My back never hurt. I read all the miscarriage symptoms over and over, but I only had minimal brown spotting. I went for my blood work and when the nurse called, it confirmed what I already knew deep down. It was 6 days later and my HCG was only 212. She said the spotting and the low HCG were consistent with signs of a miscarriage. I stayed home from work that day and cried, sobbed...my husband came home and stayed with me. It was awful. I never expected it to be so gut wrenching. I cried for 2 days straight.
I spotted the brown stuff when I wiped (it was never to the point of needing a pad or tampon) from Monday night until Friday afternoon. On Thursday night, I started having this horrible pressure down low - right above my pelvic bone. When I walked around or bent over, it felt like something was going to fall out. I called the Dr's office and the nurse said it sounded like the "products of conception" getting ready to come out. Doesn't that sound pleasant?
She had me come in for another Beta test to be sure and ordered the results to be rushed. I failed to mention that even though I was spotting, my next appt wasnt for 5 more days. Can you imagine spotting for 7 days before you can see the Dr. or get more blood work? But because I had the pressure, this nurse had me come in and rushed my results. I'm so glad she did - just for the answers.
She called me back within the next few hours and confirmed what I already knew - my HCG had dropped to 26 - a sure sign of miscarriage. That afternoon, I started spotting red. By late Friday afternoon, I was cramping and hurting so bad I went home early from work. By Friday night, the cramps were miserable. I barely slept at all because I had to keep going to the bathroom and because I was hurting so much. Saturday I laid around on the couch, but the pain was radiating through my back and my cramps were so severe that I felt no effects from Tylenol every 4 hours. It was horrific.
No one warned me about how painful a miscarriage would be. By mid-day Saturday, I had passed a ton of clots. And then, I passed something that looked like a deflated balloon that was shredded some. It was a grayish-red. I can't explain it, but to say that it looked like tissue and not like anything I'd ever seen in a lifetime of periods. After I passed that, the cramps went from being horrific to normal bad period cramps. They were still awful, but they were typical awful - if that makes sense. And by Saturday night and Sunday, it was like having a normal period. I don't know how long I'll bleed for, but its manageable now. Its just like having my period and I can handle that. I think the worst is behind me.
I have so many unanswered questions like will this happen if I get pregnant again? Was it something I ate or drank? Could I have done something differently? When did it actually stop developing?
So many people around me don't know. They probably think I've lost it by the way I've looked and acted over the past few weeks. I'm glad we hadn't told lots of people. But on the other hand, because no one really knows, I don't really have a support network of people or their sympathy. Its weird. I don't want that and I do.
And I started to not write this because I didnt want to give other girls like me fuel for the worry fires, but at the same time, I needed to talk about it -to voice all this stuff and not keep it bottled up - and I think if I'd given more credence to my diminishing symptoms and hadn't been so stuck on the typical signs of miscarriage, I might have called the Dr. sooner - before we'd even told our parents. And because we told our parents, I now have all these videos of happy, screaming, crying people finding out our happy news - videos I'll never watch again or ever know what to do with.
I never knew that miscarriage would be so hard psychologically and physically. It's a hard, hard road that I wish no one ever had to go down.
I didnt have any nausea, but they say not everyone does. I just had the sore nipples, fever blisters, and diarrhea. Kinda made me wish for nausea instead. By Tuesday, I could feel a tight ridge down low just above my pubic bone. It was so fun reading everything about the baby's development. I had so much to learn, too. No hot dogs, no deli meat, no coffee, the lists of things you can't do or eat is overwhelming. When I called the Dr's office as a new patient (hated my old OB/GYN and wanted a change), the nurse asked me lots of questions.
She worried my Progesterone was low because I have irregular and early periods - even when I was on BC. She told me to come in for blood work and she was right, my Progesterone was 17 and the Dr. wanted it to be 20. I started Prometrium orally that night. My HCG was 120. We didnt tell everyone we were pregnant - just our closest friends and our parents and siblings. I'm thankful for that. I had lots of cramps, but no bleeding for several days. Being my first pregnancy, I didn't know what was normal.
Everyone talked about being tired, and I was once or twice, but not all the time or every day. If it weren't for my boobs feeling heavy and sore and the cramps with no period, I wouldnt have known I was pregnant. Around the 5 week mark though, my boobs stopped being so sore. They were still not normal, but they weren't as sore. And that little hard ridge I could feel? I couldnt feel it any longer. I just knew that something wasn't right. That was Saturday. I had my second blood test to check my Progesterone on Tuesday. Monday night, I went to the bathroom and just like I had 500 other times since I took that pregnancy test, I wiped and looked at the toilet paper just to be sure nothing was there - only this time, something was. It was pinkish brown. It wasnt much, but it was something. I freaked out.
By the next morning, every time I wiped there were brown specs on the toilet paper. Never red, just dark brown. I never had cramps. My back never hurt. I read all the miscarriage symptoms over and over, but I only had minimal brown spotting. I went for my blood work and when the nurse called, it confirmed what I already knew deep down. It was 6 days later and my HCG was only 212. She said the spotting and the low HCG were consistent with signs of a miscarriage. I stayed home from work that day and cried, sobbed...my husband came home and stayed with me. It was awful. I never expected it to be so gut wrenching. I cried for 2 days straight.
I spotted the brown stuff when I wiped (it was never to the point of needing a pad or tampon) from Monday night until Friday afternoon. On Thursday night, I started having this horrible pressure down low - right above my pelvic bone. When I walked around or bent over, it felt like something was going to fall out. I called the Dr's office and the nurse said it sounded like the "products of conception" getting ready to come out. Doesn't that sound pleasant?
She had me come in for another Beta test to be sure and ordered the results to be rushed. I failed to mention that even though I was spotting, my next appt wasnt for 5 more days. Can you imagine spotting for 7 days before you can see the Dr. or get more blood work? But because I had the pressure, this nurse had me come in and rushed my results. I'm so glad she did - just for the answers.
She called me back within the next few hours and confirmed what I already knew - my HCG had dropped to 26 - a sure sign of miscarriage. That afternoon, I started spotting red. By late Friday afternoon, I was cramping and hurting so bad I went home early from work. By Friday night, the cramps were miserable. I barely slept at all because I had to keep going to the bathroom and because I was hurting so much. Saturday I laid around on the couch, but the pain was radiating through my back and my cramps were so severe that I felt no effects from Tylenol every 4 hours. It was horrific.
No one warned me about how painful a miscarriage would be. By mid-day Saturday, I had passed a ton of clots. And then, I passed something that looked like a deflated balloon that was shredded some. It was a grayish-red. I can't explain it, but to say that it looked like tissue and not like anything I'd ever seen in a lifetime of periods. After I passed that, the cramps went from being horrific to normal bad period cramps. They were still awful, but they were typical awful - if that makes sense. And by Saturday night and Sunday, it was like having a normal period. I don't know how long I'll bleed for, but its manageable now. Its just like having my period and I can handle that. I think the worst is behind me.
I have so many unanswered questions like will this happen if I get pregnant again? Was it something I ate or drank? Could I have done something differently? When did it actually stop developing?
So many people around me don't know. They probably think I've lost it by the way I've looked and acted over the past few weeks. I'm glad we hadn't told lots of people. But on the other hand, because no one really knows, I don't really have a support network of people or their sympathy. Its weird. I don't want that and I do.
And I started to not write this because I didnt want to give other girls like me fuel for the worry fires, but at the same time, I needed to talk about it -to voice all this stuff and not keep it bottled up - and I think if I'd given more credence to my diminishing symptoms and hadn't been so stuck on the typical signs of miscarriage, I might have called the Dr. sooner - before we'd even told our parents. And because we told our parents, I now have all these videos of happy, screaming, crying people finding out our happy news - videos I'll never watch again or ever know what to do with.
I never knew that miscarriage would be so hard psychologically and physically. It's a hard, hard road that I wish no one ever had to go down.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Miscarriage: You Might Lose It
People always say when you get pregnant that you shouldn't
tell anyone cause you might lose it.
To tell you the truth, I did and I didn't and I did - and I
don't know that it was the right answer. I don't know that there is a right
answer. On one hand, I’m glad that not
many people know because I wouldn’t want to be asked about it constantly – and then
on the other – I feel alone with this burden to carry. We told just our immediate family we were
pregnant and just a couple of friends.
And it’s strange because you think these people who were SO excited for
us would be by our sides through the loss.
I can’t say that was the case.
Our parents and siblings, yes; but our close friends and grandparents,
no. Crazy enough, we feel more
disconnected from the few people who know we suffered a loss than the ones that
had no idea we were pregnant because the ones that know have failed us over and
over. They haven’t asked how we’re
doing, they’ve made comments that are hurtful or unsupportive or have just
avoided us altogether. It’s hard. When I dwell on that, I wish no one knew, but
at the same time, it’s such a lonely, desperate feeling to know you have a
broken heart and no one knows.
It’s also hard because my husband and I have grieved
differently and that difference makes me feel less close to him. I think (and this is my perspective – maybe not
reality) that I’d classify the loss for him as a disappointment. For me, it was a gut blow. I felt guilty like I’d done something to
cause it. Anguish for the loss of
something I wanted so bad. Pain because
no one tells you miscarriage physically hurts so much. Jealous of skinnier, happier, multiple
children mothers. Judged as a failure by
my friends and by his family and the few people who knew. Broken.
And because he’s moved on, I feel guilty to bring it up, but I need to
talk about it and I worry I annoy him by talking about it so I don’t.
Reasons
I feel like I have so much to say and no one to say it to. I have so many great friends and people who love me, yet I feel unloved and unsupported a lot. There's so much I bottle up inside because I don't trust people to not gossip with it or use it against me in some way. I've been burned by the fire...maybe I'm choosing to stand outside of the fire. Maybe I am and I just don't realize it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)