Well, Facebook has dominated the bulk of my computer-based connections with people, the result of which is that this blog has been largely ignored for... hmm, nearly five months? Time to jump back on the horse. Note to self: this is an EXCELLENT journaling opportunity, which you will happily look back on when Elizabeth is ten and is no longer saying "Mommy."
I feel like I should at least note what has been going on for the last half year - it will either be good therapy, or at the very least, a good source for when Kam and I get into the eventual "when did this happen?" argument.
January: Liza was 11 months old, and still not walking, but I wasn't sweatin' it too much at that point. A couple of times that month I started getting the baby fever, but it passed. I was at the peak in my music studio, with about 20 students and preparing for a recital in a matter of weeks.
That reminds me. This DID all start in January... I even remember, it was Tuesday, January 12th, because I didn't have to work on Wednesday so I was totally relaxed when I came home - I had the whole day with my baby. I was spotting a little bit, which is weird, because I'd never done anything like that before. So Kam said, "hey, let's go get a pregnancy test," and when I took it, it basically turned into a neon light that said "PREGNANT" on it. I was scared to death. I knew it was all over when I called Meg - I went to bed that night crying because our five year plan had included moving out of country so that Kam could get his degree. Wow, how things change - that plan is gone, and all I feel about that attitude now is chagrin. Although, I think the chagrin came about pretty much the next day.
The next day, the 14th, I spent the day at the Vowell's talking baby things. I was getting so excited, had names bouncing around in my head, started reworking our five-year plan in my head (because that's what I do to cope...) and had started calling family. I spent the whole day in a whirlwind of emotions, until sundown. I don't remember where Kam and I had gone, but wherever we were, I started bleeding, and when I called Meg on the way home, she said that I had most likely had a miscarriage. So, to repeat: sundown the 13th, find out I'm pregnant - sundown the 14th, find out I didn't keep it.
Hold on - there's a twist.
I called Katrina the night of the 14th because I just couldn't stomach the idea of going to work with a miscarriage. My emotions were... weird. Not crazy, not depressed, not even necessarily down, just... weird. When I woke up the next morning, I decided that I had to know, one way or the other, how things were going, so I called Megan and asked her if she could go to the hospital with me. Sweet lady, she did, which ended up being so good. I'm 21 years old, and I like to think of myself as a competent, together woman, but at that juncture I felt like I needed someone else to take care of me for a while.
I took Liza to have Mara watch her, and Meg and I went into the emergency room-- that's right, we had JUST gotten insurance, at the beginning of that month... thank the LORD! -- where they took some blood draws, told me I was pregnant, but that the bleeding indicated a miscarriage. Right. Got that. It's after they did the ultrasounds that the twist shows up. No baby. No trace of baby. Trace of something, but no baby. The lady doing the ultrasound was so great - probably her and Meg kept me from imploding. The story after the ultrasound really spans the next five days - in and out of the emergency room (probably too many times), a whirl of blood draws, ultrasounds, IV's and refrigerated examaning tools before the diagnosis: molar pregnancy.
Which, by the way, is not caused by bad flossing habits. Which was my initial impression.
Basically, material. That never lived. That I had been naming. Weird feelings got weirder. Because, how do you understand that?
In any case, I met with a very nice OB/GYN, Dr Drake, who recommended a very simple surgery to remove the material, one that they use to remove tissue from abortion (yeah, just throw that bit of knowledge into the soup as well), which I did about 4 days later. Those days were very memorable, for a few reasons. 1) I scared my husband to death a few times. No details in a semi-public blog, but it wasn't pretty. Poor guy. He's better now. 2) I felt very loved - a lot of people were very loving. 3) I didn't feel so hot. 4) I wasn't the most lively hostess. Poor James. I think it was around this time when he brought around his bachelor's version of a meal for the sick - I think it was two half-eaten bags of cookies, a half-eaten chicken (complete with bones, one can of soup, one frozen dinner, and some chips. He's so great - it was the perfect thing to bring over.
Anyway, the surgery was an outpatient procedure, so we were in and out within a few hours (it seems to me, anyway... but hey, I was out! What do I know?). I left with instructions to have my blood drawn every week to make sure that the hormone levels that indicate molar prenancy (beta hCG, if anyone is interested) were going down like they were supposed to...
Which, of course, I got too busy to do.
Dinner needs to be made. More journaling later........
