I get a little weepy if I think too hard about what I was doing exactly one week ago today.
Last Sunday night, after a fabulously fun progressive dinner with the high school youth group, I came home and my tummy felt a little crampy and "off," which seemed like it had everything to do with eating WAY TOO MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD. (Seriously, all other thing aside, the brownie hot fudge sundae at our last dinner stop was probably not my best decision.) Went to the bathroom before leaving church, and whatever Saturday spotting had been there seemed to have gone away.
During the twenty-minute ride home, I had some serious cramping, and was really uncomfortable, but again, figured it was intestines and food-related. I went to the bathroom, and, well, lots of bleeding. Lots and lots. It didn't freak me out as much as it just made me sad. I knew right away that we were losing this pregnancy.
Last Sunday night was pretty terrible. Painful cramps that came in waves, and steady (though not ridiculous amounts) of bleeding. I kept awake, thinking that this would be like our last "regular" miscarriage a few years ago, where it was over quickly, and so I stayed up, thinking it would be done and I could then just go to bed. Matt stayed up with me, until we "gave up" at 4am and tried to get some sleep before the next morning's regularly-scheduled "check for a sac" ultrasound.
I called the doctor's office early Monday morning, just to check in about the bleeding, and got scolded by an unhelpful nurse for not having called the pager overnight. Bah. Whatever. They added a blood draw to my appointment, but just said to come in at our regularly scheduled time.
The ultrasound showed a sac. With a yolk sac. Measuring exactly 5 weeks (pretty spot-on). BUT. Sitting right on top of/in my cervix. I assumed that this meant it was a regular pregnancy on its way out. My u/s tech was so sweet and so kind as she explained to us what she was seeing, and as we all knew that this pregnancy was unviable.
But here's where things went even wonkier. They took me across the hall for my blood draw, and my u/s tech made a beeline for the office of the nurse practitioner who works with my RE. She came in while they were in the middle of my blood draw to say that it looked like the sac had actually NOT been on the move from somewhere else in my uterus, but that it looked like the sac had actually implanted there. Which wasn't just unviable, but worrysome. She had us hang out in the exam room until she could get ahold of my RE, and then they did a second round of bloodwork, and they scheduled me for another round of bloodwork and u/s for the next day.
When they finally let us go, I took the rest of the afternoon off, but had to buck myself up for a different sort of hard business. See, last Monday, I had to tell my supervisor that I have taken a new position. And I had to tell him on Monday, because it was the first day we were both back in town after the holidays, and we had a budget meeting that very night, and since me leaving DIRECTLY affects the budget, there was no choice but to set aside all of my health stuff and take care of this other big piece of life. [The quick version of this storyline is that my supervisor was sad but totally supportive, and the council was sad but totally supportive, and I sent a letter to the whole congregation, and they, too, are sad but supportive.]
Last Tuesday, we went for our follow-up appointment. Sac was a little bigger, in the same place, but starting to change shape and collapse on itself. Monday's HCG levels had been about 1500. Tuesday's numbers were down to about 1000. My RE was actually in the office after my u/s and bloodwork, so I had a chance to sit down and talk with him, which was a bonus. (Remember how I've talked about how wonderful he is? Yeah. Seriously. Wonderful.)
He said they couldn't 100% confirm it, but it seemed probably that this pregnancy was, indeed, a cervical ectopic. You didn't know those existed? Yeah, neither did I. It's weird and comical, in its own way, that for me, EVERYTHING that can go wrong is going wrong with me with regard to fertility. He told me a little bit about what medical intervention might need to happen (everything from meds to surgery), but was hopeful that we could watch and wait a few days and see if it would resolve itself. He felt so bad. He said that he was SO EXCITED when my beta came back positive back after Christmas. And we agreed that this is about the craziest string of bad luck ever.
The "good" news, if you can call it that, is that my numbers dropped from 1000 to 100 between Tuesday and Thursday, so I've dodged the medical intervention bullet, at least as far as we know. Repeat beta this upcoming Thursday, and weekly as necessary until I get down to under 5.
I could write another whole blog post about how I feel about all of this. Last week was just very long. The emotions of losing a pregnancy, of losing our first successful IVF pregnancy, of losing it in such a weird and complicated way...the emotions that come with crazy hormones...the emotions with being excited about a new venture but sad about leaving my congregation...the emotions that come with the logistics of having to buy a house and hire movers and pack up our apartment and start over somewhere else, and all that I have to do in this next month before we leave...
If there is any way to sum up the last seven days, it is to say that I am TIRED. My body has been doing a lot of weird work. And my emotions are overwhelming. And in the midst of it all, I've had to put a lot of energy into keeping up appearances, because there's too much going on to shut down or take time off or be anything other than normal. And so that takes work, too. So I am tired right now. My brain is sort of fuzzy. I have a hard time getting up the energy to do anything useful, or anything fun, even. When I haven't been super-busy this last week (which was most of the time!), I've just been wasting time. Hopefully a little rest, a little slower week this week, and plenty of coffee will help me reclaim a little energy, get out of my funk, and get back in the game for real.
Last Sunday night, after a fabulously fun progressive dinner with the high school youth group, I came home and my tummy felt a little crampy and "off," which seemed like it had everything to do with eating WAY TOO MUCH DELICIOUS FOOD. (Seriously, all other thing aside, the brownie hot fudge sundae at our last dinner stop was probably not my best decision.) Went to the bathroom before leaving church, and whatever Saturday spotting had been there seemed to have gone away.
During the twenty-minute ride home, I had some serious cramping, and was really uncomfortable, but again, figured it was intestines and food-related. I went to the bathroom, and, well, lots of bleeding. Lots and lots. It didn't freak me out as much as it just made me sad. I knew right away that we were losing this pregnancy.
Last Sunday night was pretty terrible. Painful cramps that came in waves, and steady (though not ridiculous amounts) of bleeding. I kept awake, thinking that this would be like our last "regular" miscarriage a few years ago, where it was over quickly, and so I stayed up, thinking it would be done and I could then just go to bed. Matt stayed up with me, until we "gave up" at 4am and tried to get some sleep before the next morning's regularly-scheduled "check for a sac" ultrasound.
I called the doctor's office early Monday morning, just to check in about the bleeding, and got scolded by an unhelpful nurse for not having called the pager overnight. Bah. Whatever. They added a blood draw to my appointment, but just said to come in at our regularly scheduled time.
The ultrasound showed a sac. With a yolk sac. Measuring exactly 5 weeks (pretty spot-on). BUT. Sitting right on top of/in my cervix. I assumed that this meant it was a regular pregnancy on its way out. My u/s tech was so sweet and so kind as she explained to us what she was seeing, and as we all knew that this pregnancy was unviable.
But here's where things went even wonkier. They took me across the hall for my blood draw, and my u/s tech made a beeline for the office of the nurse practitioner who works with my RE. She came in while they were in the middle of my blood draw to say that it looked like the sac had actually NOT been on the move from somewhere else in my uterus, but that it looked like the sac had actually implanted there. Which wasn't just unviable, but worrysome. She had us hang out in the exam room until she could get ahold of my RE, and then they did a second round of bloodwork, and they scheduled me for another round of bloodwork and u/s for the next day.
When they finally let us go, I took the rest of the afternoon off, but had to buck myself up for a different sort of hard business. See, last Monday, I had to tell my supervisor that I have taken a new position. And I had to tell him on Monday, because it was the first day we were both back in town after the holidays, and we had a budget meeting that very night, and since me leaving DIRECTLY affects the budget, there was no choice but to set aside all of my health stuff and take care of this other big piece of life. [The quick version of this storyline is that my supervisor was sad but totally supportive, and the council was sad but totally supportive, and I sent a letter to the whole congregation, and they, too, are sad but supportive.]
Last Tuesday, we went for our follow-up appointment. Sac was a little bigger, in the same place, but starting to change shape and collapse on itself. Monday's HCG levels had been about 1500. Tuesday's numbers were down to about 1000. My RE was actually in the office after my u/s and bloodwork, so I had a chance to sit down and talk with him, which was a bonus. (Remember how I've talked about how wonderful he is? Yeah. Seriously. Wonderful.)
He said they couldn't 100% confirm it, but it seemed probably that this pregnancy was, indeed, a cervical ectopic. You didn't know those existed? Yeah, neither did I. It's weird and comical, in its own way, that for me, EVERYTHING that can go wrong is going wrong with me with regard to fertility. He told me a little bit about what medical intervention might need to happen (everything from meds to surgery), but was hopeful that we could watch and wait a few days and see if it would resolve itself. He felt so bad. He said that he was SO EXCITED when my beta came back positive back after Christmas. And we agreed that this is about the craziest string of bad luck ever.
The "good" news, if you can call it that, is that my numbers dropped from 1000 to 100 between Tuesday and Thursday, so I've dodged the medical intervention bullet, at least as far as we know. Repeat beta this upcoming Thursday, and weekly as necessary until I get down to under 5.
I could write another whole blog post about how I feel about all of this. Last week was just very long. The emotions of losing a pregnancy, of losing our first successful IVF pregnancy, of losing it in such a weird and complicated way...the emotions that come with crazy hormones...the emotions with being excited about a new venture but sad about leaving my congregation...the emotions that come with the logistics of having to buy a house and hire movers and pack up our apartment and start over somewhere else, and all that I have to do in this next month before we leave...
If there is any way to sum up the last seven days, it is to say that I am TIRED. My body has been doing a lot of weird work. And my emotions are overwhelming. And in the midst of it all, I've had to put a lot of energy into keeping up appearances, because there's too much going on to shut down or take time off or be anything other than normal. And so that takes work, too. So I am tired right now. My brain is sort of fuzzy. I have a hard time getting up the energy to do anything useful, or anything fun, even. When I haven't been super-busy this last week (which was most of the time!), I've just been wasting time. Hopefully a little rest, a little slower week this week, and plenty of coffee will help me reclaim a little energy, get out of my funk, and get back in the game for real.
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