My World Shattered
I had many positive pregnancy tests and we were getting excited. We went to Maine for Christmas and told everyone the news. I was excited. Then a 31 hour gallbladder attack landed me in the hospital so we missed our flight back to Georgia. The next flight out that we were eligible to board was a week away. We spent an extra week in Maine, and Michael got to see plenty of snow, This made him quite happy after spending two nights on a TINY, short hospital couch. 6'4" 300lb men don't fit well on small couches. That was dedication.
We couldn't get my gallbladder out, because the baby was too small. The anesthesia would kill the baby. I was in the hospital for 3 days, and home in pain from tensing my muscles for so long during the gallbladder attacks for 3 more days while my muscles healed. We left Maine on Friday to get stranded in Baltimore over night. We were waiting for our checked bags, and wasted 2 hours until we figured out they were not being released. The airline put us in a hotel. We were able to get 3 hours sleep, and then had to be back at the airport at 530 am for a 710 flight. Unfortunately, they cancelled our flight due to the polar vortex outside, and we had to stand for 40 minutes outside in a check in line until they figured everything out. We were put on standby with everyone else from our plane. Amongst the passengers were 5 men from the army. If anyone gave up their seats it would be for them, so the odds of us getting seats was slim. Michael got us a flight to Birmingham Alabama at 10:00am. We took turns napping until the flight came in. The flight went to Chicago first, We then traded our seats for an exit aisle, and had much more leg room. Again, big man, small airplane, makes him crabby. At least now his legs weren't crushed.
We arrived in Birmingham 2 hours late, but we arrived. Our luggage would take over a week more to arrive in Atlanta. Michael's father picked us up. I started spotting due to exhaustion so I limited myself to resting on the way home. We stopped off for a seafood dinner at Shownies (spelling?), which is the family tradition whenever we travel through Alabama to Mississippi. After a day of a good breakfast, but only peanuts and pretzels for the rest of the day, a good meal was welcome.
That week I saw a new OBGYN with an office fully equipped for my needs. I was told by my previous doctor that they thought I had a uterine septate. I was told by my new OBGYN that she couldn't know either way with any confidence without inserting some cameras, and she wasn't doing anything of the sort, because I was already pregnant. We saw the baby that day, and Michael couldn't stop staring. My inlaws became excited as well. Michael and I started working out the following week to start getting fit for labor coming up in less than 9 months. Then things started to go down hill.
I couldn't stop spotting. It started after the exhausting plane travel, and got worse after my pelvic exam by the doctor. Then Thursday night the spotting turned bright red and I passed some sizable blood clots. I became scared. I called my doctor the following day, and she scheduled me in immediately. We took an ultrasound and there was a shadow we could not explain blocking the view. We found the baby though, and it's little heart was going. It was healthy, and perfect sized. I was still a little confused though, because the measured size was much smaller than the projected age based on my missed cycles.
I confined myself to bed rest for the rest of the day hoping the bleeding would stop. It didn't. Around 10pm I went to the bathroom. Michael as on the phone with his father about having lunch with them on Saturday. My cries made him hang up and rush to the bathroom. He saw me reaching into the toilet and started to say that maybe it wasn't the child, maybe it was... Then I showed him a fully intact fetal sack, complete with a half inch baby inside with 10 little fingers and 10 little toes. It was much larger than the ultrasound pictures. This baby was easily the size of my projected growth rate based on my cycles. I was both grieved, shocked, and confused. I passed the fetal sack and my entire uterine lining. Michael was hysterical.
Yes I saw something traumatic, but being exposed to so much trauma over the past six years has limited my emotional responsiveness to pain. PTSD caused a coping response that is useful in someways, but really makes me seem like I am less human. I shut down in response to traumatic things, and the trauma does not extend past my logic and knowledge centers. It touches my heart only when I am safe, alone, and willing to grieve in my own way. Until then, I am fully functional, logical, and rational. It's creepy, but it's who I am now. I guess that is what happens when you witness a smiling, evil women abuse coworkers to the point of endangering their lives, and then claim victim hood, and a pastor reject responsibility for so much violence, abuse, and mistreatment in the business he is listed as responsible for. Seeing a beautiful kind woman, weep as 2 year olds climbed her swollen legs, because she was commanded to come into work or lose her job so that her boss who makes enough to pay for a house; that boss, she needed to see a doctor. Forget the employee who's heart was malfunctioning and her legs were filling with fluid. Forget forcing that same diabetic employee to come into work with the flu, and risk going into a low blood sugar coma. That same employee was paid so little that she was living in a broken RV in a trailer park to survive. Those were the easy stories to recount. The ones that gave me nightmares I won't list here. So this is why I am now resistant to trauma.
Yes, I just held my 10 week old baby in my hand and looked at it's tiny little eyes. It looked like a toy used in biology class. So perfectly preserved, but in reality, it was my dead baby. The sick part was I asked God to see the older twin yesterday in the ultrasound. I knew I was pregnant long before the projected date of that baby on the ultrasound monitor, and I was suspicious that I had twins conceived on different months. If I had a septate I hypothesized that if one side had a baby, the other side of the uterus may not have gotten the memo and continued to release eggs. It was possible to have two separate pregnancies on either side of the septate. Stranger things had happened.
The baby in my hand was too big. It was bigger than the ultrasound pictures. Further developed than the data I was told. I got an answer to prayer in a very sick and twisted way. I got to see the older child on Friday, but it wasn't through an ultrasound. It was through fishing my child out of the toilet. I was angry at God.
Since then I have watched for any sign of the 7 week old baby. I have not seen it expelled yet. The bleeding has diminished rapidly when I was told it would increase. Instead of my pregnancy hormones dwindling, they have been revving up again. I woke up this morning with morning sickness, which I thought was a sick joke, until I realized I still had hope that I was carrying twins, and maybe only one was aborted. I still had hope that my septate caused two linings, and only one was expelled with my baby.
We'll see on Monday. Maybe it's a fools hope, but hope is hope.
We couldn't get my gallbladder out, because the baby was too small. The anesthesia would kill the baby. I was in the hospital for 3 days, and home in pain from tensing my muscles for so long during the gallbladder attacks for 3 more days while my muscles healed. We left Maine on Friday to get stranded in Baltimore over night. We were waiting for our checked bags, and wasted 2 hours until we figured out they were not being released. The airline put us in a hotel. We were able to get 3 hours sleep, and then had to be back at the airport at 530 am for a 710 flight. Unfortunately, they cancelled our flight due to the polar vortex outside, and we had to stand for 40 minutes outside in a check in line until they figured everything out. We were put on standby with everyone else from our plane. Amongst the passengers were 5 men from the army. If anyone gave up their seats it would be for them, so the odds of us getting seats was slim. Michael got us a flight to Birmingham Alabama at 10:00am. We took turns napping until the flight came in. The flight went to Chicago first, We then traded our seats for an exit aisle, and had much more leg room. Again, big man, small airplane, makes him crabby. At least now his legs weren't crushed.
We arrived in Birmingham 2 hours late, but we arrived. Our luggage would take over a week more to arrive in Atlanta. Michael's father picked us up. I started spotting due to exhaustion so I limited myself to resting on the way home. We stopped off for a seafood dinner at Shownies (spelling?), which is the family tradition whenever we travel through Alabama to Mississippi. After a day of a good breakfast, but only peanuts and pretzels for the rest of the day, a good meal was welcome.
That week I saw a new OBGYN with an office fully equipped for my needs. I was told by my previous doctor that they thought I had a uterine septate. I was told by my new OBGYN that she couldn't know either way with any confidence without inserting some cameras, and she wasn't doing anything of the sort, because I was already pregnant. We saw the baby that day, and Michael couldn't stop staring. My inlaws became excited as well. Michael and I started working out the following week to start getting fit for labor coming up in less than 9 months. Then things started to go down hill.
I couldn't stop spotting. It started after the exhausting plane travel, and got worse after my pelvic exam by the doctor. Then Thursday night the spotting turned bright red and I passed some sizable blood clots. I became scared. I called my doctor the following day, and she scheduled me in immediately. We took an ultrasound and there was a shadow we could not explain blocking the view. We found the baby though, and it's little heart was going. It was healthy, and perfect sized. I was still a little confused though, because the measured size was much smaller than the projected age based on my missed cycles.
I confined myself to bed rest for the rest of the day hoping the bleeding would stop. It didn't. Around 10pm I went to the bathroom. Michael as on the phone with his father about having lunch with them on Saturday. My cries made him hang up and rush to the bathroom. He saw me reaching into the toilet and started to say that maybe it wasn't the child, maybe it was... Then I showed him a fully intact fetal sack, complete with a half inch baby inside with 10 little fingers and 10 little toes. It was much larger than the ultrasound pictures. This baby was easily the size of my projected growth rate based on my cycles. I was both grieved, shocked, and confused. I passed the fetal sack and my entire uterine lining. Michael was hysterical.
Yes I saw something traumatic, but being exposed to so much trauma over the past six years has limited my emotional responsiveness to pain. PTSD caused a coping response that is useful in someways, but really makes me seem like I am less human. I shut down in response to traumatic things, and the trauma does not extend past my logic and knowledge centers. It touches my heart only when I am safe, alone, and willing to grieve in my own way. Until then, I am fully functional, logical, and rational. It's creepy, but it's who I am now. I guess that is what happens when you witness a smiling, evil women abuse coworkers to the point of endangering their lives, and then claim victim hood, and a pastor reject responsibility for so much violence, abuse, and mistreatment in the business he is listed as responsible for. Seeing a beautiful kind woman, weep as 2 year olds climbed her swollen legs, because she was commanded to come into work or lose her job so that her boss who makes enough to pay for a house; that boss, she needed to see a doctor. Forget the employee who's heart was malfunctioning and her legs were filling with fluid. Forget forcing that same diabetic employee to come into work with the flu, and risk going into a low blood sugar coma. That same employee was paid so little that she was living in a broken RV in a trailer park to survive. Those were the easy stories to recount. The ones that gave me nightmares I won't list here. So this is why I am now resistant to trauma.
Yes, I just held my 10 week old baby in my hand and looked at it's tiny little eyes. It looked like a toy used in biology class. So perfectly preserved, but in reality, it was my dead baby. The sick part was I asked God to see the older twin yesterday in the ultrasound. I knew I was pregnant long before the projected date of that baby on the ultrasound monitor, and I was suspicious that I had twins conceived on different months. If I had a septate I hypothesized that if one side had a baby, the other side of the uterus may not have gotten the memo and continued to release eggs. It was possible to have two separate pregnancies on either side of the septate. Stranger things had happened.
The baby in my hand was too big. It was bigger than the ultrasound pictures. Further developed than the data I was told. I got an answer to prayer in a very sick and twisted way. I got to see the older child on Friday, but it wasn't through an ultrasound. It was through fishing my child out of the toilet. I was angry at God.
Since then I have watched for any sign of the 7 week old baby. I have not seen it expelled yet. The bleeding has diminished rapidly when I was told it would increase. Instead of my pregnancy hormones dwindling, they have been revving up again. I woke up this morning with morning sickness, which I thought was a sick joke, until I realized I still had hope that I was carrying twins, and maybe only one was aborted. I still had hope that my septate caused two linings, and only one was expelled with my baby.
We'll see on Monday. Maybe it's a fools hope, but hope is hope.