Brie Fit

Some really great comments last night, guys.  You all are awesome, as always.

Today was a less awful day than yesterday.  I feel more stable and like my hormones are finally leveling out a bit.  The mood swings of the last few days have really (obviously) thrown me for quite a loop…I’m really not accustomed to being quite so volatile.  It was a bit scary.  I’m obviously reserving judgment until I’ve held stable for a few more days, but I suppose I’m headed in the right direction.

Other good things I did today include purchase a bunch of Christmas presents on Amazon, minimal candy at work, and CrossFit.  (A night class, because there’s no morning class today.)

So, as you can see, 5 rounds of 30 grasshoppers, 20 box jumps with a medicine ball, and 10 burpee pull-ups.  We also did a broad jump trial at the beginning of class.

Results:

I finished in 18:13.  I did the modified burpee pull-up by doing 10 burpees, and then 10 jumping pull-ups, no band.  I also used the 16” box with a 14# medicine ball.  It was a tricky workout because the grasshoppers and the med ball box jumps required a lot of coordination.

PS: Anne, on the board, who I met tonight, is a blog reader.  Hi, Anne!  (Do any of my other CrossFit comrades read this?)

I also put down my December goal:

While I like “Live through each WOD” as a general goal, I chose “10 perfect toe push-ups.”  I feel like this is attainable but still a stretch.  Check in with me in a few weeks!

Also, side note: if I hear one more person say that Michelle Duggar’s miscarriage was a sign that she should stop having kids, I am going to scream.  I can get behind the sentiment of “Michelle Duggar is of advanced maternal age, has a history of previous dangerous pregnancy complications and losses, and her children take up 1.5% of the world’s natural resources, maybe she should consider stopping.”  But I feel like a lot of people are being way too reductive about this and going straight to the, “Well, this is probably a sign from God that she should stop.”  Having a miscarriage does not mean one should stop trying to conceive.  It’s a matter of semantics, but be careful how you phrase your opinions.  It’s been surprisingly hurtful to hear that sentiment over and over today, and makes me wonder, “Hmm, I wonder if they think I should stop, too?”

Anyway, in conclusion, I feel like I’m in a better place than I was yesterday.  And I’m glad.

Duggars: like ‘em or hate ‘em? 

I am a mess today.

The combination of going through a chemical pregnancy/basically having my period/going cold turkey off progesterone supplements is like a perfect storm for turning me into a hateful, weepy harpy.  It’s baaad.  One minute I want to sob in the middle of my office, the next I want to quit over something stupid, the next I feel totally fine.  Rinse, repeat.

I didn’t get to CrossFit this morning.  It was an exhausting weekend and I needed the extra sleep.  Tomorrow, I will be back.

Tomorrow, I also get to go in for bloodwork.  I called my OB’s office this morning to be all, "So, I was pregnant for about ten minutes. What now?" and they want to monitor my HCG levels back down to zero.  Good times.

The one thing that has made me smile all day was thinking about going home to our gorgeous new house.

Last night was so wonderful–it was our first night, just the two of us, not unpacking anything, in the house.  Tim worked in his new office while I relaxed in our fancy bathtub, and then we watched The Virgin Diaries on TLC (which was truly a masterpiece of reality television editing).

And tonight after work was also enjoyable.  We definitely need a couch, and some stools for our island, but that will get checked off the ol’ to-do list this weekend.  (We hope, anyway.)

It felt good to NOT eat take-out, or random pantry remnants, for the first time in a long tonight—just a simple dinner of roasted chicken and sweet potatoes.

So, suffice it to say, I love this house.  I love the location, I love the quiet neighborhood.  I love having tons of space.  I love having a shorter commute to work every day.  I love imagining filling this house up with children.  I am so thankful it is ours.

And, to finish this random post, a few around-the-horn style blog posts to check out that I’ve liked:

• Jen’s birth story made me cry today.  It is beautiful, and reading this really gave me so much hope: "I cannot properly describe what I felt in that moment. The goal was never ovulation, a positive pregnancy test, a beating heart on an ultrasound, meeting my kick counts, or reaching full term. The goal was this moment: when a crying baby was placed on my chest. I could not believe it actually happened to me. It was the most surreal moment ever."
• Shelby BQed this weekend at CIM!  And she’s funny anyway, so go check her blog out.
• Temerity Jane once again reads Cosmo.  Prepare to gigglesnort.

What have you read and liked lately?

I haven’t written much the last few days because I’ve been on kind of a downswing, emotionally.

The following things have made me sad:

• Seeing an adorable cooing baby in the Boise airport.
• Going to Target.  I swear to God it was pregnant lady day today.  It’s stupid, but I haven’t gone since we lost the baby because, well…I bought pregnancy tests there.  And the Mizzou onesie that’s now stuffed into the back of a drawer, and the maternity fat-pants band. 
• Hearing my hairdresser tell me that we’ll “have to fill our new house with kids!”
• Getting a fucking $11,000 bill from the hospital.  ELEVEN THOUSAND DOLLARS.  To lose our baby.  What an insult.  My favorite is how they framed it as “This is an $11,000 bill” with a tiny footnote on the bottom stating “this will be submitted to insurance.”  I have very good insurance, so I’m pretty sure we won’t have to pay more than a few hundred, but…oh my God.  The concept of paying $11,000 to have a miscarriage makes me want to throw up.
• The holidays.  I usually have a lot of holiday spirit and this year I’m kind of indifferent to it.  I imagined being pregnant for the holidays this year, and…I won’t be.  (Well, probably not.  Though I’m hoping for a Christmas miracle.)

So, I don’t know.  I’m doing well overall, but there are good days and bad days and the last two have been achier than most.

My flight got me home last night around 10:30.  I hit a deer with my car on the way home from the airport.  I’m fine, the car is fine, and I presume the deer is fine because she got up and ran away.  But scary nonetheless.

I fell asleep around midnight and still made it to CrossFit, which made me feel pretty excellent.

Today’s WOD was 7 rounds for time of…

• 10 front squats (45#)
• 10 push press (45#)
• 5 thrusters (45#)
• 30 abmat sit-ups 

I decided to forget about time and push the weights.  The 45# bar was challenging enough that I had to take it slow, but not impossible. I thought I’d have to go down in weight, but I didn’t!  I finished behind most of the class, in 19:58, but still feel great about it.

Busy weekend ahead: CrossFit in the morning, more packing, lunch with friends, brunch with Tim’s uncle, more packing…should be fun.

I’ll be honest.  Before I had a miscarriage, it was a topic I didn’t know how to deal with.  A friend of mine miscarried last year, and I felt very awkward about the whole thing.  I sent a card, but beyond that…I didn’t know what to say, or do, or how to act about the whole thing.  I thought that now that I’ve been through this, while it’s still fresh, I should post some dos and don’ts on WTF to do when a friend or family member of yours is unlucky enough to join the miscarriage club.

So, this post deserves a disclaimer: these are things that make sense to ME, and that I liked/would have appreciated when we were going through the worst of the pain.  Not everybody reacts to a loss the same, and what worked for me may not work for others.  But I suppose it’s better than a shot in the dark.

Do:

• Say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”  It’s simple, but it means a lot to me when people acknowledge that yes, this is a loss, and not an embarrassing medical problem.
• Check in, but not too much.  If the person is a close friend or family member, in those first few days, I’d recommend letting them have a bit of distance to process everything.  A simple “I’m thinking of you, is there anything I can do?” text or email works. 
• Avoid the phone.  This is probably a personal thing, but I hate talking on the phone.  I especially hated talking on the phone during this time because sometimes, I needed a bit of distance and time to process the support of others and the phone made me feel cornered and like I had to hold it together.  I infinitely preferred emails and texts that I could respond to when I felt ready and up to it.
• Send food.  God, I wish someone had done this for us.  The first week, I was still unfairly dealing with pregnancy nausea AND all kinds of emotions.  We got our first carry-out pizza in 11 months and ate cereal for dinner.  If the person lives far away, see if you can send a gift card to a take-out or delivery place near them.  I would have given my left arm for someone to show up at my door with a pot of soup and a loaf of bread, with no expectations of hosting them for dinner or having a bra on or anything. 
• Offer distraction. Maybe not right away, but a week or two later, see if she wants to go to dinner, or to get a pedicure, or to a movie.  It’s easy to shut yourself down and hide away, but getting out and being social has really helped me focus on the positive and not wallow.

Don’t:

• Ask “how are you doing?” The real answer for first few weeks is, “shitty,” but nobody says that, and it sucks to have to make things up.
• Expect a response. I got many, many emails from friends and readers in those first few days.  I read them and they were all wonderful and lifted my spirits, but I don’t have the heart to tap out 50 thank you notes just yet.  It’s too raw to go over them again. 
• Say, “It’s God’s plan.”  First of all, the person may or may not be religious, so unless you know a lot about their faith…avoid it.  While I’m certainly a Christian, some things people said were not comforting to me because they aren’t a part of my personal belief structure. 
• Make a comment that it will happen again soon, or you can just have another one.  That minimizes the loss, and frankly, it’s not always easy to get pregnant.
• Say, “I know how you feel.”  Unless you’ve had a miscarriage yourself, you don’t.  Even if you’ve lost a close family member, it’s not the same.  A miscarriage feels different than any previous loss I’ve dealt with, because I’m not really mourning a person, I’m mourning someone I never even really knew, and whose life I was solely responsible for.  It’s just a different animal.

Maybe:

• Send flowers.  We got a lot of flowers, and while it was nice to know people were thinking of us, it also made me sad to throw them away when they died.  If you’re looking to send a gift, I would default to food or a gift card if at all possible.
• Share success stories.  More than anything, I gravitated towards other women I knew had had miscarriages and gone on to have healthy babies, and their stories.  Hearing about your mother’s cousin’s brother’s wife who had a miscarriage and had ten healthy kids afterwards?  Sure.  Anything in that arena helped.  But, I’ve also heard that this can be annoying, especially if someone’s been trying unsuccessfully for a few months already.  So, I’d follow her lead on this—if she seems hopeful and optimistic, share the story!  If she seems frustrated, I’d keep your mouth shut.

Anyway.  It’s a tough thing to deal with.  This is by no means the gospel on what to do and what not to do, but these are a few things that really made sense to me.

If you’ve had a miscarriage, any thing to add?

Today was another day where I felt almost normal, aside from being insanely sore thanks to returning to the box after my too-long CrossFit hiatus.

The only thing that’s thrown me off was a comment Tim and I got yesterday.  Someone who knew about the miscarriage made a comment, and followed it with, “Wait until you have kids!”  I know it was an accident, but it was kind of a punch in the gut.  I have a feeling those are going to happen here and there from now on.

I didn’t go to CrossFit this morning—I was doing some local traveling today and it didn’t really work with my schedule.  There’s no morning class tomorrow, so I might go in the evening, and I WILL go Friday morning.

Tim’s working late tonight so I had a little breakfast for dinner.

We also got this totally sweet care package from my sister.

In case you can’t read the post-its, they say “peanut butter chocolate buckeyes,” “double chocolate peanut butter chip cookies,” and “just in case there’s not enough peanut butter chocolate treats.”  Love her.  There’s WAY too much for just the two of us, so I’ll be sharing with my co-workers.

My mom and sister are actually flying down to help us move (and my mother-in-law is driving up the same weekend).  I can’t wait to see them!  We have lots on the docket…not just moving, but some horrid wallpaper stripping and painting, and Christmas decorating, and shopping.  Three weeks to closing!

In other moving forward news, I purchased 25 cheap pregnancy tests from Amazon today.  This morning, I took one that I already had on hand, and although I’m still pulling up a positive, it’s much fainter than it was a few weeks ago, which is good and means the hormones are fading.  I’m ready to go.

I also purchased an argyle dog bowtie for Milhouse’s official Christmas photo.

Also, I currently want to spend way too much money at Lululemon.  I’m trying to be fiscally responsible since we’re, you know, buying a house, but I really could use a little retail therapy right now.  I honestly can’t remember the last time I bought myself a piece of clothing.  I’m very tempted.

What have you bought lately?

I made it! 

This morning I dragged my butt out of bed at 5 am.  (After temping.  I’m starting to try to get back in that habit.  Ugh.)  It was cold and rainy, but I made it to CrossFit.

I am so glad I did.  I always, always say that the hardest part is getting out of the house–once I’m there, I never ever regret it.

When I was around 9 weeks pregnant, I was chatting with two of my female friends in the class and pregnancy came up in conversation so I spilled the beans.  This morning, I had to un-tell them.  "Where have you been?" one asked, and I had to say, "We lost the baby."  It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to say it out loud.  Little did I know, one of my friends had experienced a similar loss several years ago, and now has two healthy children.  She was very sympathetic and supportive and it was nice to talk about it a bit with someone who’s been there.

Like I’ve been saying, un-telling is hard, but it is so good to know I’m not alone, and that it will happen someday.

Anyway.  I felt surprisingly strong this morning.  Between traveling and the miscarriage, I haven’t really done much exercising for the last three weeks.  It felt SO good to finally focus on what my body CAN do, and not what it failed at, you know?

Today’s WOD was 5 rounds of:

• 12 overhead squats (@45 lbs)
• 12 pull-ups (using the green band)

I finished in 10:36.  I took it slower than normal because I want to make sure my body eases back into things.  Sometimes I forget, but I did just have surgery a week ago, on top of everything else. Mid-WOD, my coach gently reminded me to take it easy and not get too excited to be back.  (I guess I had my angry face on.)

My goal is to do CrossFit two or three times this week, and then three or four times next week, and then back to a regular four to five days a week after that.  My body responded pretty well today, but at the end I was a bit…spotty.  So to speak.

After the WOD we did 100 ab mat sit-ups for fun, no timer.  I am happy to say I finished them all with good form.  I see so much progress in my core strength from just a few months ago, it’s encouraging.

Emotionally, today was a pretty good day.  I’m slowly feeling more like myself again and less like a sad zombie. 

We’re off to meet with the realtors to discuss any fixes we want to request the sellers make.  Keep your fingers crossed!

Sunday was a rough day so I didn’t blog.  We went to church, and I was hoping to find comfort.

Instead, I made it 15 minutes before I lost it.  All-out ugly crying.  And I’m pretty sure childless adults are not what the cry room is intended for, so I looked at Tim, whispered, "I can’t do this," and we left.

The sermon was about Ecclesiastes, and how there are times for everything in life.  As soon as the pastor read, "a time to be born and a time to die," that was it. 

(Via Pinterest.)

If anything will make you struggle with your faith, it’s a miscarriage.  Trust.  One thing that’s been helping me lately has been trying to frame things as, "God, look what happened to us, please comfort me," rather than "God, why did you do this to us?"  The operative word is trying, anyway.  It was hard to hear those words in church and say, “Why wasn’t this our time?”

I hope church gets easier, because I felt like a royal idiot running out in tears.

Anyway, today was another day at work.  No crying, just an ache deep in my chest that takes my breath away from time to time.  A simple “hey, how are you?” makes my stomach flip-flop as I grit my teeth, smile, and say, “Oh, fine.”  Pregnancy announcements feel like a stab in the gut.   My Facebook news feed seems full of ultrasound pictures (that contain actual babies, not empty sacs like mine).  It’s rough.

I didn’t make it up for CrossFit this morning.  I’ve been having a lot of trouble sleeping since the miscarriage, and it was about 1 am when I finally closed my eyes, and the 5 am alarm clock just wasn’t going to happen.

Tomorrow.  It will.  Hold me accountable.  I need to throw around some weights in anger.  I think it will help.

In other happy news (not), our house failed the radon inspection, so who knows what’s going to happen on that front.  I can’t bear to lose this house, too, so please hope the sellers are not dickbags and will mitigate before closing.

In an attempt to eat the rest of our food before we move, I’ve compiled a list of meals we can make with the contents of our freezer and pantry.  I get a little obsessive about eating down our food stores before we leave, so we’re going to be eating some random meals for the next three weeks.
Tonight was ugly salsa chicken night.  Looks bad, tastes amazing.

I failed at making rice to go with it (we were almost out, I tried mixing it with quinoa, it didn’t work and our mortgage guy will be here in an hour) so we’re eating it nacho-style over chips.

It’s rainy and dark today.  The onset of Daylight Savings darkness is not helping my mood.

One foot in front of the other, folks. 

When I was in kindergarten, I was that kid who cried every day because I missed my mom.

Eventually, after my teacher was like, “Um, your kid needs to work on self-actualization,” my mom implemented the No Crying Chart.  For every day I didn’t cry, I got to put one sticker on a piece of paper on the fridge labeled the No Crying Chart.

Yesterday, I went back to work, and I’m proud to say that I earned one sticker.

The tears came but I didn’t let them out.  There was a lot of hand-waving and sinus-sucking and cleansing deep breaths…but I didn’t let any of them go.

Now that the physical part is mostly over, the emotional stuff is swinging back to hit me in the face.  It’s easy to forget what REALLY happened when you’re pouring blood with an IV drip of Stadol, but once that’s all over…there’s still a whole lot that needs to heal, and it ain’t just my vag.

Anyway.  Cheerier things.  Today, we got our house inspected.   (Whoa.  Our house.) 

All is well, so it looks like we’ll for real be closing on November 30th.  There are some minor issues, but nothing we can’t handle.  I took lots of pictures.

Formal living room/dining room:

Family room:

(I am super stoked for real working fireplaces this winter.  Also, a yard for Milhouse so we don’t have to walk him every time he has to pee.  Also, a garage that fits both our cars.  This winter is going to be a million times better than last.)

There are two major eyesores that will need to be dealt with immediately, our laundry room and downstairs bath.  Please note the awful border along the floor of the bathroom.

We’re thinking a bright aqua-and-white (like this, minus the pattern) for the bathroom, and a sunny yellow like this for the laundry room.  The bathroom has no mirror, so I’m thinking I’ll pick up a cheery white-framed one at Home Goods or similar.

Our back deck and yard…

And my lover, the kitchen.  It’s pretty much the kitchen of my dreams.

Electric range!  I’m so tired of cleaning our ugly burners.

I love all the light and the pretty wood floors so much.

Master bedroom.  We’re going to take down the totally pimp mirrors on the wall.

The master also has this bizarre built-in.  Any ideas?  I would prefer it not become a dumping ground for crap, which it may well be if I don’t come up with a designated use for it.

Master bath (taken standing on top of our Jacuzzi tub, holla):

We also have two more bedrooms, and a finished basement with two pseudo-bedrooms, but those just kind of look like photos of beige walls so you can use your imagination.

Tonight, I walked around the mall while Tim got his hair cut.  I didn’t have much of an appetite for shopping.  I kept walking in stores and thinking, “I should be buying maternity clothes right now, not regular clothes,” and then getting sad and walking out.

I also shared a bittersweet moment with my first alcoholic beverage in over two months.

Two Oktoberfests and I felt happily numb.  It was a nice feeling, though temporary.  (Don’t worry.  I’m not becoming an alcoholic.)

Then I came home and packed our guest bedroom up, which my body promptly hated me for as I started cramping and bleeding again.  Fun times.

Anyway, enjoy your extra hour of sleep tonight!

So…the miscarriage is over.

I’m officially no longer pregnant. Not even a little bit.  It’s weird to say, but then again, I never really got used to saying “I’m pregnant,” either, since we were still closeted when I miscarried.

I’m off work today but planning to return tomorrow.  I was supposed to travel overnight Friday, but canceled.  I’m definitely not feeling normal—namely, the anesthesia did a number on my throat and neck.  I’m all swollen and scratchy.  Down below, things are still a bit sensitive, but better.  I’m off Vicodin and feeling much more clear-headed today.  I know I’ll be back to my old self (or, as close as I’ll ever be to that person) within a few days.

But now.  What’s next?

The short answer is we don’t really know.

Physically, we can start trying again after a few weeks of a no-sex ban is up.

Emotionally, I don’t know.  We both seem to vacillate between wanting to try right away and feeling a bit gun-shy.  I am leaning towards wanting to try again as soon as possible.  Yes, it will be scary as hell, but I don’t know that that feeling’s going to go away if we wait, and I think it might just get worse.

Of course, the big question after all of this is just the “why” of it all.

Everyone says that blighted ovums and early miscarriages are the unfortunate result of random genetic happenstance.

But, I have a few clues that indicate to me that something else may be up that I need to get checked out for peace of mind before getting pregnant again.

I’ve been charting for over a year, and I’ve always had very short luteal phases—8-10 days on average.  The luteal phase is when the baby actually implants after ovulation and fertilization, and short luteal phases can be problematic and caused by low progesterone.  Progesterone is a hormone that supports early pregnancy, and if there’s not enough,

Also, at my first appointment with the midwives at about 7 weeks, bloodwork revealed (surprise surprise) that my progesterone levels were low.  I was at an 8.7, and 10+ is normal for a first trimester pregnancy.  I started supplementation right away, but at that point, it was probably too late anyway, since the ultrasounds determined our baby probably didn’t make it past week 5 or 6.

I’ve spoken with my midwives and they support me going with my gut and we’re going to be running some progesterone bloodwork hopefully the first cycle after my period returns.  I just strongly feel in my gut that this is all related, and if it IS low progesterone, we can begin supplementation right after I ovulate and that would hopefully prevent any future issues.

This is all speculation here, of course, and I could be completely wrong.  But the year of charting data and the low progesterone levels during pregnancy are a red flag for me, and I just can’t bear repeating what we just went through.  So, I’m going to do this testing and hope for an easily fixable issue.

So, moving forward:

• Today, I will shower and make dinner, two tasks that have been tougher than they sound for the last week.
• Tomorrow I’m back to work.  I can handle one day in the office.
• This weekend, we have our house inspection on Saturday.  Other than that, I’ll continue to take it easy.
• November is house and recovery month.  Closing is set for November 30th if all goes well, so as of right now we have twenty-seven days to pack up and move the house we’ve been living in for 2.5 years.
• I will get back to CrossFit as soon as I can.  It’s hard to take it easy with CrossFit, but I may try to go back early next week at a very scaled down level.  My body feels weak after the last week of physical trauma, but I miss the emotional outlet of exercise and want to be strong again.
• Progesterone testing and maybe starting TTC (trying to conceive) again in December.  I’d be a dirty liar if I said I didn’t want a fall 2012 baby.  I miss being pregnant already, even though I never got to experience a lot of the fun, happy parts of it.

One day at a time, one foot in front of the other.  That’s all I can do.  Thank you all again for your support through this remarkably terrible experience.

So, before you proceed further, I am going to warn you that this post talks about things like blood, and lots of blood, and possibly pee, and what it is physically like to have a miscarriage.  And I might talk about things like my uterus and bladder and other lady bits.  Proceed at your own risk.

On Monday, Tim went back to work because I was feeling pretty good, physically.   I had started bleeding on Sunday.  It has picked up a bit throughout the day, but was never heavier than your standard bad period.  Monday morning, I bled pretty heavily, and passed what I thought was a significant amount of tissue.  Throughout the day on Monday, the bleeding slowed up some and I felt pretty great. 

So, I did what any person moving in thirty days (hopefully) would do—laundry, and attempt to go through the closets and throw away some things that we didn’t need.  Apparently, that was a mistake, because by late Monday afternoon, I began cramping and bleeding more and more.

By the time Tim got home from work Monday, and we were placating trick-or-treaters with candy, I was bleeding more than I ever could have imagined.  It continued to get worse and worse until I basically sitting on the toilet gushing blood.  (Happy Halloween, right?)

I called my midwife and she said that if I was soaking more than a pad an hour (an impossible gauge, really, when you can’t get off the damn toilet) for three or more hours, that I needed to go to the nearest ER.

Three hours hit and there was no end in sight so Tim rushed me to the nearest ER.

I nearly turned around and walked out when the triage nurse asked helpful questions like, “Is that a medication?” in response to me stating that I have a serious allergy to a class of antibiotics, and “Do you have a medical history?”  (No, bud.  This is my first time at the doctor.  Who are you?)

Because we had the option to either laugh hysterically or break down in tears, Tim and I just started cracking up.  Which led to the most massive amount of blood I’ve ever seen.  Luckily, that guy was the only questionable employee we saw the entire time.

Anyway.  They finally got me into a room in the ER, and god bless the ER doctor.  She was a complete godsend.  She knew exactly what to say (“I’m so sorry,” and “This is not your fault”) and was amazingly even-keel and calm.

She gave me a pelvic exam and attempted to clean things out a bit manually.  We were then told to wait an hour, and they’d do another pelvic to see if it had slowed and I could go home.

By this point, it was after midnight and we were both exhausted.  Tim snoozed in a chair while I read a book, and felt things distinctly…not slow down.

The second pelvic exam was a nightmare.  Not because the staff wasn’t skilled and kind, because they were, but because the amount of blood was so staggering I heard the doctor say things like “we should call housekeeping ASAP” and “this light is going to be need to be sent out for deep cleaning.”  And I’m pretty sure I ruined the doctor’s scrub pants.  There was a lot of gushing.  They decided I was going to be admitted as soon as they took a look, but attempted again to clean things out with great vigor.

We waited for awhile after this and I finally agreed to take pain meds for the cramping and anti-emetics for the nausea that accompanied them..  The pain was sporadic, but I felt like I could take until that point, when I just kind of gave up and knew I wasn’t going home.  The drugs were amazing and I felt extremely sleepy by the time I was wheeled up to my room.

The nurse upstairs checked me in and I promptly went to sleep and sent Tim home to tend to the dog.  Sleep in a hospital is kind of non-existent, though.  I was admitted around 2:30, and had a visitor at 4 to check my blood pressure, and a visitor at 5 to take some blood, and another blood pressure check at 6. 

Tim returned around 7.  Where we took the standard “this sucks” photo.

Tuesday was a blur.  I tweeted some, but I was not allowed any food or drink (sucky).  I was on IV fluids the whole day, and had another dose of pain meds in the morning.  The bleeding had slowed some, but was still going on, and it’s really hard to…take care of that…with an IV pole in your arm. 

In the morning, I met with the on call OB/GYN (who was also great, and wearing a Mizzou jacket and therefore trustworthy) who said our options at that point all hinged on the results of a pelvic ultrasound.  If my ute appeared empty, I could go home; if there was a little stuff remaining, I could get pills to help expel it naturally; if there was a lot, the best option would be a D&C, where they surgically evacuate the contents of my uterus.
At about 1 or 2, they decided they needed to give me a catheter to properly inflate my bladder for the ultrasound.  Except everything down there was so swollen it took three (painful) tries and a special kind of tip to get things in.  I never want to do that again.

The ultrasound tech was wonderful and basically told me that I hadn’t passed the sac as I thought I had, and that I still had a vigorous bit of lining remaining.  We waited (and waited, and waited) for the OB/GYN to come meet with us all afternoon (because he was delivering babies, sigh), and I started losing it a bit mentally.  Thanks to the catheter, I was unable to move much and there wasn’t a great way to deal with the bleeding.   I started to lose it during an episode of Antiques Roadshow.

Finally, the doctor came in and told me what we already knew—that there was a lot left.  He said he’d still be fine with me trying the drugs, but he felt the D&C was extremely safe and hinted strongly that it was probably our best option.  Even if I had opted for the drugs, there was a 30% or so chance I’d need a D&C later eventually.  At that point I was so exhausted physically and emotionally, after a week of waiting and three days of horrific bleeding, that we decided to go for the D&C.  I just could not stomach the idea of more blood, and going home to play the “will it work?” waiting game again.

I was wheeled down to surgery and was handled by two extremely kind, compassionate nurses.  I had trouble holding back tears as they prepped me, and when one nurse asked, “No, how are you DOING?” I lost it for a brief moment.  Even though I was confident it was the best decision, damn, it still hurts to realize this is the real, true end of the tiny creature we’d loved for the last fifty days.

Thankfully, the surgery was uneventful and quick.  I remember blathering on about how the nurses should get raises and I wanted a milkshake on the way out as I was waking up from the anesthesia.  The only pain I had was from the anesthesia tube down my throat—it’s still feeling scratchy today.  It was a very easy procedure, and for that I am grateful.

This morning, I feel wobbly and swollen.  I’m still on strong pain meds, as well as the cramping meds that were discussed pre-surgery.  I’ve set myself up a nice little bed on the couch and will probably take a nap as soon as I hit publish.

I wasn’t sure whether to blog the gory details of this, but then I decided (as I usually do) that there’s not much point to hiding it.

Thankfully, I have an excellent blog helper to stop my tears when I’m feeling sad writing this.

It deserves mention that throughout this all, Tim was amazing.  He got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep the whole time, but was there for me throughout without batting an eyelash.

And thank you for all your support through this terrible ordeal.  I am glad to be able to say definitively that it is over, at least physically.

Time for a nap.