***Before reading... I know this post is really long & drawn out, but there are only so many ways to tell a story in detail. Also pretty please excuse ALL spelling & grammar errors. I am not a writer so when I write these long posts I tend to get lost & start to stumble over my words. Thanks!***
Wow! I can't believe 2012 is almost over... Where has the time gone? Crazy to think it has been a full YEAR since I found out I was pregnant! Time has just flown by. Thank god. Not exactly the best year of my life, & definitely one I will never forget. I never blogged in detail about how my surgery turned out & I'm not sure if people still want to know. But I guess it's like everything else I write, nothing more than sheer entertainment. I think we've all learned from Facebook that bored people will read trash about anything or anyone & misery truly loves company. Precisely why Facebook was/is such a great success. On the flip side, my family & few close friends really do follow my blog & enjoy the occasional updates. So with that being said, I will write what I said I would.
Obviously the last post of my pregnancy blog I left the whole situation in shambles. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to deliver the baby or have a D&E. Dilation & Evacuation. If you are unfamiliar with the procedure, google it. I warn you to NOT look at the Google Images. From all the support groups I had joined, the mothers of stillborns who decided to deliver said that it was the most horrendous day of their lives, but they would do it all over again to be able to hold their tiny baby for a moment & get the footprints & hand prints like you normally do with newborns. And for me, I wanted more than anything to have a "real" memory of our little girl. So just maybe, all the time I had invested wouldn't just fade away like most other memories. If I could just hold her for a second & get those prints of her feet, then everything we've been through over the past 5 months would have been worth it?... Doesn't make sense I know. Sounds crazy to me as I type it out. But pregnant emotional women never produce very rational thoughts or decisions. So I called my doctor & told her I wanted to deliver the baby.
Took me about 30 seconds after I hung up the phone to realize I had made the wrong decision. As badly as I wanted to hold her & see her for a brief moment, I couldn't do it. I didn't have the strength to be admitted to Sutter Roseville's Labor Delivery & be induced with Pitocin. I couldn't labor for hours until I was ready to push out my lifeless daughter, hold her for a moment & then say goodbye. I didn't want to sit in the hospital for 3 days crying hysterically. And I knew Eric wasn't ready for that either. I didn't want me first memory of L&D to be of that. Labor & delivery is known for being the happy part of a hospital. For me it would have been the morgue. So I called my doctor back about 2 minutes after I hung up the first time to tell her I changed my mind & I wanted a D&E. She was very taken back & knew then that I had no idea what I wanted & wasn't able to make a clear sound decision. She tried to talk me into thinking about it for another day but I was certain I just wanted this entire thing done with.
I waited a full week for my basic OBGYN to try to find a Doctor who could preform a my D&E. Felt like an eternity sitting on my recliner with a lifeless baby in my stomach just waiting for someone to take her out. At first I was disgusted! I could not get her out fast enough. But as the days past, I grew attached to her again & was scared to lose her. I was terrified to not be pregnant. But we were eventually paired up with Dr. Francis Chan from Sutter Memorial Hospital. He was my saving grace! One of the most amazing doctors I have ever met. He was compassionate, understanding, knowledgeable & made me his #1 priority. I met Dr. Chan on a Wednesday & surgery was scheduled for that Friday.
The following day on Thursday I was back at Dr.Chan's to start the 2 days process. He placed 5 laminaria sticks into my cervix to cause my to dilate. Laminaria sticks are small cylindrical sticks made of seaweed that expand with moisture. Holy OUCH! It took about 10 minutes for me to be in can't breathe, fetal position, excruciating pain. AND I now had to drive home from downtown Sacramento to Lincoln in bumper to bumper traffic. It took about an hour. I was profusely sweating & salivating trying not to throw up the entire time. It crossed my mind to pull over & call an ambulance from work to get me home but I was too stubborn. Thank god I made it home safe.
I proceeded to have the worst night of my life. I sat in the recliner with a heating pad on my stomach popping 10mg of Norco every 2 hours. Forcing your cervix to dilate is no freaking joke. I was up all night & had to stop my Norcos at 7am because of my surgery. Somehow I survived.
My surgery was at 1pm on Friday. Eric, my friend Alison & I sat in the PreOp for what felt like hours. Lots of tears & emotions about what was to come. Dr.Chan was in an emergency surgery with another patient so he was running late. Around 5pm it was finally go time. I had only one request. I wanted to know if the baby was a boy or a girl. Dr.Chan's face went blank when I asked. He paused and then said something along the lines of, "Um yea, If I can." I'm not sure if he was scared for my mental well being, or because the D&E is such a disfiguring procedure. If you googled it like I suggested earlier, than you know what I am referring to when I say disfiguring. It's awful.
I was wheeled away on my hospital bed through the main halls of Sutter Memorial hysterically crying. The operating room was in what looked like a basement & there were at least 6 people in the room waiting for me. Dr. Chan let me squeeze his hand as they injected the Propofol. It felt like a knife! Apparently because the 18 gauge IV in my hand was placed in such a small vein. But I was finally out of my misery.
I woke up the same way I always do from surgery, shaking uncontrollably & crying. The shaking is a side effect of the anesthesia & the crying is usually from pain. I was groggy and in & out of consciousness, but I remember the nurse bringing Eric back to my bedside. He told me she was a baby girl! I remember being happy when he told me. Kind of a weird reaction but it was partially from being high, and partially because I wanted her to be a girl & I finally knew who was living in my belly all that time.
That night was better than expected. I was finally out of contracting pain! I felt like a huge burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Finally we could move on with life. Or so I thought... Over the next few days I battled the breast milk that had arrived for the baby my body thought I had. And then the depression from hell kicked in...
It's hard to remember now, but I spent a good 4-5 months hysterically crying, hating life, hating everyone & everything. Roughly from April to September 2012. I wanted to die. I was so angry with God. I was fat from being pregnant & had nothing to show for it. My skin was out of control. And Eric & I were constantly at each others throats. I was a TRAIN-WRECK to say the least!
I have this amazing ability to block out traumatic memories so well that I never remember the facts quiet right again. A finely tuned skill I developed from my childhood. So I can't remember how I did it, but I survived. I would say it took around 6 months to feel like myself again. Somewhere around September 2012 I was finally happy.
They never did find a reason why our little girls heart stopped beating... All of the tests they ran came back normal. I have a couple ideas but it's hard for me to fit in the time line of when everything happened. It was a 10 day period between a perfect healthy ultrasound, and the no heart beat ultrasound when she passed away. I had a fever, nausea & vomiting somewhere toward the end of my pregnancy & always wonder if that could have done it. But we will never know.
I could not be more thankful to my friends, family & husband for all of their support during this past year. My attitude was like poison & somehow everyone stuck right there with me. I definitely did not feel like myself & I am SO happy to be back to being me!
I will never forget everything that happened but I definitely feel freed of all the sadness & anger. I am still bitter & jaded but I think I was bitter & jaded before all this happened. It will be interesting the see what happens if I ever get pregnant again. My chances of losing another baby are now increased. I was told I will be considered a "high risk" pregnancy & refereed to the appropriate doctors after conception. But hopefully all that means is that I get extra ultrasounds of a new perfectly healthy baby! I would be lying If I said I didn't want another girl. Cause I do! But until I get to have my rainbow baby, it's nice to be back to being me!
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