Stupid computer or blogger.com

So I have a blog post that I want to "publish", but there are a few more things I would like to add to it.  I am trying to add a video and a couple of more pictures, but I keep getting an error message.  UGH!!!!  I will hopefully get it posted soon.

And the saga comes to an end...

Bill was on his way to the hospital and I was on my way back to a waiting room.  Once I was in the waiting room, I was bombarded with people.  I think, at one point, I had 6 people in there all asking me questions.  This was definitely more choatic than the first D&C. 

They got me hooked up to an IV and administered the anesthesia.  I remember being wheeled out of the room and down a hall.  From there I have no idea what happened.  I don't even remember waking up from the surgery.

After everything was done, Bill loaded Carter and I into the car and we were on our way home.  I just wanted to eat (I hadn't had anything since dinner the night before) and sleep.  We were all looking forward to some sleep.

A couple of days later (August 23rd), I had an appointment with my Ob/Gyn.  It took them a little while before they got me back to be seen.  It turns out that the ultrasound tech wasn't sure why I was being seen and was trying to get all of my paperwork together.  She thought I was following up the original D&C, she didn't know I had an emergency one. 

Anyway, after explaining the whole situation to her, I got an ultrasound done to make sure EVERYTHING was gone from my uterus.  And thank goodness, it looked like it was.

After some more waiting, I met with my doctor.  She was very apologetic about the whole situation.  She was positive that she had gotten everything on the first D&C and that she did it on the correct side.  They even reviewed the original ultrasounds to see if they had missed something.  A substitute ultrasound tech had done my original transvaginal ultrasound so they had contacted her to make sure she was positive she had done it correctly.  I guess if you get the "wand" turned upside down then it will flip the image on the screen.  She was sure she had done it correctly. 

Well looking at the ultrasound pictures a little closer, they made a discovery.  She was correct in that the first pregnancy had been in the right side of my uterus.  She had gotten a shot of my left side as well.  In that picture, they saw a dark circle in my uterus, which my doctor said could have been a gestational sac forming.  If this is true, then I was pregnant with twins that were conceived 4 weeks apart!  We are not 100% sure this is what happened.  My doctor stated that it is one of many possibilities, but it is what makes sense to me.  My doctor said that she has had the hospital mess up on previous D&Cs she has done before.  They have sent off the blood to pathology rather than the tissue.  That would explain why the pathology report came back saying there was no "conceptual byproduct".

To make sure I was not pregnant, I had to go in once a week to get my HCG levels tested until they reached zero.  It took three weeks of getting my blood tested before I was no longer considered pregnant.

Such craziness!  We are not sure exactly what happened.  I could have been pregnant with twins conceived 4 weeks apart or it could be an even greater mystery.  I guess we will never know.  I do know this, it has been a very difficult situation for me.  I constantly ask myself why, what, how.  "Why did this happen to me?"  "What did I do wrong?"  "What could I have done differently?"  "How could this happen to me?"  I also wondered where my miracle was in all of this.  I had been told there would be a miracle.  All I found was heartache. 

Today is the eve of my due date and though it has gotten a bit easier, it still hurts.  I have been struggling with the fact that I am still grieving and get choked up about it.  I have constant reminders that I am not having a baby.  There are 2 women in my neighborhood/ward that are due within the next couple of weeks and I have had to watch their bellies grow while mine does not.  I have had to hear of others exciting news while I, myself, have a broken heart.  I do find comfort in the fact that these women do not know my pain and I hope they never will.

I have learned from all of this.  I have always wondered how women who already have children can grieve that they are struggling to have more.  Why couldn't they be happy that they already had kids?  I now understand.  Wanting more children does not mean you love your child/children less, in a way it means you love them more.  I also learned that it is okay that I am still grieving.  We all handle things in our own way and our own time.  I prayed wondering what was wrong with me and how I could get through this.  I received my answer in the Febraury 2013 Ensign (I swear most of those articles were written for me), more specifically the articles called "I Can Decide","The Refining Fire Of Grief" and "Lifting The Hands Which Hang Down".  Reading these articles brought me some peace and made me realize that I was okay to still grieve, but I also needed to move beyond myself.

Now you may be wondering if I ever got my miracle out of this.  In a way, I did.  Or should I say Bill did.  After the first D&C, I went to Boise and Bill went to Idaho Falls.  He was struggling with the loss and decided he wanted to be around family.  Bill's uncle Ellis was in the hospital and had declining health.  Bill was able to go visit him and see him one last time before he passed away a short time later.  Had we not had the miscarriage, Bill would have never gotten that time to spend with his uncle.

My heart aches everyday that I don't get to have my little one, but I know one day I will.  As time passes, it will get easier and more days will pass between each thought.  While I grieve the loss of a little one who I did not know, I cherish the little one that is currently filling my home with love, laughter, and life.  Until next time...

The saga ends...?

Alright, so I left you at being checked into the hospital and being taken back to an exam room.  Once I was in the exam room, the nurse had me change into a hospital gown and get into bed.  She then proceeded to ask me what was going on.  I told her about the bleeding and cramping.  I also had to tell her about any previous surgeries I had had and of course that included the D&C from 5 weeks earlier.  She then asked me what my pain level was at on a scale of 1 to 10.  I told her "11".  I had never felt pain like this before and I have sprained my ankles a number of times and had a c-section.  Then the ER doctor came in and I had to answer the same questions.  He also asked me if I wanted morphine for my pain.  I don't know why, but I froze.  Why would I suddenly, with the pain that I was in, decide to go the no medication route that I usually take?  The nurse saw this hesitation and said, "Her pain is at a 10, she will take morphine".  Her saying that clicked me out of my fog and I said, "yes, I will take the morphine".  Within a couple of minutes, I had some morphine and was feeling much better.

I don't know how long I had to wait, but the ER doctor finally examined me.  WARNING: GRAPHIC INFO!  He took a cotton swab and swiped my womanly region.  He ended up getting a mucus like ball of goo out and sent it to be tested for HCG (pregnancy hormone).  Within a couple of minutes, the nurse was back with a positive test.  I was pregnant!  WHAT?!?!?!  How could I be pregnant?  I had just had a D&C done 5 weeks prior and knew there was no way I could be pregnant again.  The doctor decided that I needed to have an ultrasound done to see if there was any of the baby-like material in my uterus.  I was wheeled to another room where this would take place.

Again, it was a waiting game.  The ultrasound tech had to be called in and he had another patient before me.

Well he finally made his way into my room and oh joy, I got to have a vaginal ultrasound.  Men are so lucky!  That's beside the point.  He was performing the ultrasound and discovered that I had a bicornuate (heart shaped) uterus.  I already knew this, but he was finding out for himself.  He checked one side of my uterus and then the other.  He kinda had a perplexed look on his face the whole time.  He had been told of my circumstances so he knew I had had a D&C.  He asked me which side my pregnancy had been on and I told him the right.  The perplexed look returned to his face.  He said that he found "stuff" (and by stuff I mean, gestational sac, tissue, etc) on the left side of my uterus, but there was nothing on the right.  He said the stuff was consistant with a pregnancy, but there was no heartbeat.  He gave his findings to the ER doctor and I was on my way back to the exam room.

The ER doctor came in and told me that they contacted the on call OB/Gyn to come in and take a look.  I would have to wait though because he was busy delivering babies.  At this point, Bill decided to take Carter home to get some breakfast and some sleep.  I think it was around 8am, but I'm not sure.

Carter and Bill left, while I got to try and get some rest while waiting for the on call OB/Gyn.  Let's just say, it is not easy to get any rest in a hospital, even if you are running on only 2 hours of sleep.

I don't know how long I had to wait, but it seemed like forever before the OB/Gyn got there.  He was actually having to deliver 2 babies before he could come see me.  Anyway, he examined me, had the ultrasound results and the results for my first D&C  He asked me what I thought was going on.  I told him I had no idea.  Instead of telling me, he asked me again what I thought was going on.  After doing this a couple of times, I finally said, either my doctor had screwed up the first D&C or my body was weird.  I was a little irritated with him.  I wanted to yell at him that I had only gotten 2 hours of sleep and I was there because I was not a doctor and so therefore I didn't know what was going on.  He either sensed that I was getting irritated or he was done playing his little game and decided to tell me what he thought.

He said that according to the pathology report from my first D&C, there was no "conceptual byproduct" found.  Meaning there was no tissue, gestational sac, etc.  Nothing that would indicate that I had been pregnant.  All they got was blood.  He said he thought that my doctor had done the D&C on the wrong side of my uterus and that the issues I was having was from my body trying to naturally pass it on its own.  He thought that since it had been as long as it had (5 weeks) since the first D&C and my body hadn't passed the baby naturally, we should do another D&C.  He also said due to the amount of bleeding that was occurring, I was more than likely hemorrhaging.  At this point, I just wanted everything to be done and taken care of.  I told him to go ahead and do the D&C.  I called Bill to let him know what was going on and that I would be going in for surgery shortly.  He said to call him before they take me back so he knew when to leave to come get me.

It was probably no more than 20 minutes before I was calling Bill back to tell him to head over to the hospital.  I was on my way back to the OR.

Again, another long post that will have to be finished another day, another time.  Until next time...