18w 6d- Wheel

18 weeks with Blue Sunday

18 weeks with Take Two

Here we are. I am now, technically, more pregnant than I ever have been. At 18w6d with Blue Sunday I was back home around the time I’m writing this- 5pm. I am not as weepy as I was yesterday. By ‘weepy’ I mean sobbing uncontrollably. Today, I’ve barely shed a tear. I also haven’t done a bit of work for work, for school or for myself. I have been sitting looking at a blank screen all day, waiting to see what I would say to mark it.

I want 18w6d to remain about Blue Sunday, but recounting the Last Day is still almost impossible.  I don’t really want to draw the comparisons but I feel that I have to. It is hard to keep sane in a still uncertain pregnancy after loss when I don’t allow myself to acknowledge that this time IS different.  

So- on with it. On this day last pregnancy it was The End. I ‘woke up’ (if that’s what you call re-stirring into consciousness after not really sleeping) early. I felt my belly. I avoided the mirror. I told Blue Sunday how much I loved and would miss him. I dressed in sweats on a cold, cold morning.

I called the hospital and they said I could come in early at 11:30 in hopes of an earlier surgery. We left for the hospital way earlier than we needed to. We hit traffic. When we arrived they didn’t know why I was there so early. I registered anyway.

Hub and I did a few crosswords on my iPad. He went to get himself a coffee. I cried alone. I watched people come and go. I wondered why everyone else was there.

Just as hub came back from the coffee run I was called and led upstairs by a nice woman. She asked why I was there, conversationally I suppose. I told her the baby was sick- had trisomy 18, we were terminating. She look sad. Not judge-y, just sad that there was T18 and that this baby would never be.

I filled out paperwork, where I was classified as a termination. I wanted to write in WHY I was terminating. It mattered to me. This baby was wanted. I didn't write it in, but I did tell everyone who worked with me why that surgery was happening. 

I had a book to read, but I just started at the first page for however long I bothered to hold it open. My veins were really crappy (since I hadn't eaten or drank anything in 18 hours....) and the woman had to put the IV in my hand. I bruised in both elbows and on that hand. I was understanding- it's not her fault.

The anesthesiologist was nice, they gave me a pill to relax me (yeah right) and he talked about what would happen. I was scared. I watched as older women were brought back into the room after being under, groggy and out of it, but well. My legs were horribly and crampy. I just wanted to get up, but I was attached to monitors I don't know why.

Eventually, they let hub come back up with me. That might have been before I talked to the doctors. We were both terrified and didn't say much. I complained about my legs. Just when I was about to give up and get up, I was told it was time to go to the OR.

Hub kissed US good-bye one last time.

The anesthesiologist talked to me on the way down- about nothing really. I was super uncomfortable on the bed still, but the ride was sort of fun- down a big ramp the length of a whole hospital hallway. We went into the OR, it seemed so much bigger than on TV. I scooted over from my bed to the OR bed. It was REALLY narrow. I can't imagine being a big woman and on that.

It was cold in that room.

Someone told me how sorry they were that this happened to me- it might have been the nurse. She held my hand. It was really kind and comforting.

Finally, they were ready to give me the medicine to knock me out. I knew there would be a tube in thy throat and I was starting to get scared thinking about what was about to happen to me. I had said my good-byes to Blue Sunday before we made it to the OR.... that wasn't the place for it.

I remember they had these tables that came out from the side of the bed. One was on the IV and one was being wrapped with the BP cuff. As the cuff was wrapped they pushed the medicine into the IV. I turned to look at my other arm, to see the IV. They asked if I was feeling ok, I said yes....

and then I woke up in the recovery. I was cramping worse than I was before. I could feel the bleeding. I was SO SAD and panicked. I just wanted hub.  It was strange because I was talking when I came to. I was telling them about hub, his job, his school and how much I love him. That's almost nice, isn't it?

I started crying, saying I just wanted hub and they said he could come up once I was lucid. I tried really hard to be lucid.I really wanted hub.

I cried until I saw hub coming towards me.

The nurse who was working with me let him come up early I think. I dosed off for awhile once he was with me. Then I woke up and realized I was bleeding A LOT. I told them I needed to use the bathroom and they let me go in, telling me to leave the pad in the room so they could check it. It was saturated, as was the weird mesh undies, my johnny and everything I touched. It took me a bit to clean up.

When the nurse saw he became busy. They had to give me a shot to make my uterus contract, it hurt. I had to stay in the recovery room for a few hours for the bleeding. I really wanted to go home. Eventaully I was freed, but not before both nurses shared their own stories of child loss. They both had gone on to have healthy kids. I tried to take heart in that.

I went down in a wheelchair, hub brought the car around. It was still cold. I keep a blanket in the car and wrapped it around myself.

We were silent on the ride home.

I took the pain pills and lay on the couch.

1/4/2012

18 weeks 6 days.
 
And if you never stop when you wave goodbye
You just might find if you give it time
You will wave hello again
You just might wave hello again
And that's the way this wheel keeps working now
That's the way this wheel keeps working now
John Mayer, Wheel