9/13/2016 0 Comments Almost PregnantJust a few days past surgery and I’m surprisingly healing up quite well. My incisions are very small, but quite bruised. The first couple of days moving was pretty painful but the meds definitely helped. The worst part was the process of standing or sitting. Once I was actually standing, walking, or sitting things were okay. Leaning forward to reach for things while seated or bending over was pretty painful too. I tried to get up and walk around as much as I could as the doctor suggested. I also re-watched seasons one and two of Grace and Frankie. I think deep belly laughing, while painful, worked some of the soreness out. One thing I was really not expecting was how much coughing I’ve been doing. It seems worst when I’m lying down. Another thing I wasn’t expecting was how difficult it was to empty my bladder. At first, I was pretty much convinced my bladder was broken. Apparently it takes a while for your muscles to wake up after anesthesia and it's totally normal. It only lasted a few hours, but then there was lots of burning. This also only lasted a few hours and is very normal from catheter irritation. The hospital called to check in on me yesterday and assured me that everything I’ve experienced is normal and should be gone by tomorrow.
I think the euphoria of the surgery has subsided. I’ve had lots of internal conversations with myself and discovered I must have more than two hands… I keep saying things like “well, on one hand….” But I apparently have four or five hands. I always thought the first time I saw a positive pregnancy test would be the happiest day of my life. Turns out it was pretty much the most miserable of days I’ve ever had. I decided to take a pregnancy test. I have no idea what I was thinking. I kept looking at the calendar trying to figure out when exactly I got pregnant. I had convinced myself that pregnancy tests don’t work on me. Before starting the Provera to start my period I took 11 different pregnancy tests made up of 4 or 5 different brands over the course of at least a month. I used the pink dye, the blue dye, digital and cheapos. All of them said negative. For sure my last pregnancy test was August 10th because that was when I started the Provera. How in the world did I get pregnant when we weren’t trying? It must have been somewhere between or on taking Provera or even when I had started the birth control?! I can hear the haters saying, “I told you that you would get pregnant when you weren’t trying.” So, yesterday when I peed on my umpteenth stick I sat and waited. Within no time it popped up, “Pregnant.” After a few minutes the weeks estimator popped up, “2-3 weeks.” It was the most devastating thing I’ve ever read in my life. All this time I thought seeing negative after negative was the worst thing ever. Now seeing “pregnant 2-3 weeks” knowing my little bean had already been removed (along with my Fallopian tube) is undoubtedly the worst part of this whole journey so far. On one hand, I am so thrilled to know that we are capable of getting pregnant. On the other hand, I would’ve much rather had a pregnancy that had a shot at being viable. But, on my (newly discovered) third hand I’m also somewhat glad it was ectopic because of all the medicines I had been taking, not to mention all the medicine and anesthesia the day of the surgery. I cannot imagine the guilt I would’ve carried if I had harmed my own baby because I didn’t take a pregnancy test prior to the surgery. On yet another hand, I’m also glad I had no idea I had an ectopic pregnancy. I can’t imagine the loss I would’ve felt if I had thought for any amount of time that we were actually pregnant. So I am (irrationally) thankful that this situation played out the way it did. I had to, once again, cut myself off of Google. There is absolutely no way to estimate how long it will take the HCG (pregnancy hormone) to exit my body. I called the doctor’s office today to see if they could give me more hope. Alas, they could not. Everyone is different and it could take up to 6 months. Once the HCG is gone I will still have to wait to start my period which could take a few more months. Which means we will have to put off trying (again) until the HCG is all gone. Also, the doctor’s office wasn’t able to answer my question right away because they didn’t have access to the doctor’s surgery notes. I simply got an electronic message (hours after I called) saying they confirmed that I did have an ectopic pregnancy and that we can talk more about it in 2 weeks at the post-op appointment. So, here I am again stuck in this wait hole of infertility. I feel beyond broken and overwhelmed. I was so excited for this surgery and a plan. Here we are again waiting with no real plan to speak of. My heart sinks and feels crushed every time I see someone posting about how hard it is to wait 9 months to meet their baby. I can guarantee that waiting 18 months (and counting) just to get pregnant to wait 9 more months is even more difficult. When I see or hear women talking about their 5 or 7 or 10+ years journey, I can’t help but wonder where the hell they got all of their strength from. I admire these women more than any other people that I have ever met (or haven’t met). Their stories help keep me going. I have been trying so hard to not calculate what my due date would’ve been had I had a viable pregnancy. Almost every month we’ve tried, I’ve calculated my due date. At this point, there are no months that I don’t stop and realize I should have a growing baby boy or girl. Hell at this point, I could’ve almost had two babies by now. I try not to wonder if our little bean was a boy or a girl. He or she obviously took after my side of the family because it ran out of gas before it got to the final destination and got stranded in the wrong place. I can’t help but wonder what color eyes or hair he or she would’ve had. How long and how much would he or she have weighed? Which one of our delicately picked out names would we have chosen? I’ll never get to know the answers to any of these questions. I found a quote from one of my all-time favorite TV shows: The Wonder Years. "I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had."
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Heather Joyce
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