Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Pregnant but Not Having a Baby (A Ring of Hell)

I am so exhausted. I want to tell you about the past several weeks.

As you may have read a few weeks ago, I learned I was pregnant but it was a chemical pregnancy and I would soon lose the pregnancy. Only that never happened. It's been almost three weeks and all I have had is some spotting. Over these weeks I have had several blood tests that all show my HCG levels rising (although still on the low side of average). This last round showed that they were not increasing quite as fast as they should at this point. After the first two surprise rounds of "good" results from HCG blood work, we had to consider a new option I ovulated late and everything is just off by a few days to a week. While this was a nice option and helped keep me sane for days on end, it doesn't seem like this is what is happening. There have been over these weeks several periods of waiting days for the next test, result, or action. Every test has led to more waiting and few answers. I should have lost the pregnancy 3 weeks ago, shortly after it started. We have been on this roller coaster of mourning the loss of this pregnancy all this time. Our two week wait has turned into five weeks of waiting. Eating and sleeping are hard to do.

Last Tuesday I had an ultrasound that was still in the gray area timing wise and it showed thickened lining but nothing else. It may have been to early to see anything, so I was scheduled to come back on Thursday of this week to try again. Initially my spotting slowed down after this and I had to find a way to stay sane for nearly ten more days. I was making it through one long day at a time, all the while feeling both premenstrual and pregnant. Yesterday morning I woke up to cramping and light bleeding. This was met with an urgent ultrasound that still showed exactly nothing. What I am told is happening now, is that there is trophoblastic (spelling?) tissue growing but not an embryo. There isn't much talk of having ovulated later. There is really nothing positive happening. Essentially it is Holy Week (for my non-church types read: the busiest most stressful week of my entire year) and my insides are falling apart. At this point I am waiting for my body to miscarry. My doctors are eager to help this process along with medicine that sounds like it's straight out of a horror movie. I am not as eager. First off, see above, it's Holy Week, I don't have time to slow down or for pain killers. I simply cannot preach all hepped up (or down) on pain killers. Next week I was scheduled to travel for study leave, this has now changed and I plan to take it as "vacation" to deal with all the fall out from this.

I am hoping my body will in the meantime take care of it on it's own. However my body in all it's infinite assholery doesn't like to do what it should when it comes to this sort of thing. I was seeing a therapist about six months ago that wouldn't let up on how I need to love my body and how amazing it was. I quit seeing said therapist and this is why, if I heard that this week I might end up in prison. I have been betrayed by my body, AGAIN. Maybe one day I can think about that but not during this process. I am giving it what it needs, shrinking it, and still it insists on doing this weird ass shit! I am growing freaking like a quarter of a placenta and no embryo... I am not even losing a baby, I am losing a placenta. Dream of a baby sure.

I might mention hormones are in full swing. I cried last night and couldn't stop not because of no viability but because I STILL DON'T HAVE ANSWERS OR A RESOLUTION!

What happens next: We are not proceeding with any more treatment at this time. We have been through a lot in our 20 years together but this is by far one of the worst experiences of our combined lives. Should we decide to go forward again, we won't be telling anyone we have. It has been exhausting to talk about this constantly the past several weeks as we rode the viable not viable roller coaster. Every set back or step forward we had to inform all sorts of people. I even had to tell my board at work because it has been such a twisted process and he had to tell his boss. I don't even want to tell this story, not because it sucks but because it is unbelievable.

Today I am grateful for my constant partner in all this shittiness.



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