infertility, miscarriage and ectopic is this topic..

Since I am going through our past 10 or so years with adoption this subject is one that is always comes up. And today I tell you fine readers that yes, I had an ectopic pregnancy.

Why I wonder, is this subject so taboo?? many (almost all) of my friends have had a miscarriage. It is something that happens, it is nothing we do, it is nothing we ate. It is a shitty fact of life, like acne or bad hair days.

Why do we hide it? Why is there this feeling of failure surrounding it? Why do we make ourselves do it alone?

Hell, I don't know.

I wish I did. Then somehow maybe we could all band together and make the emptiness go away. Make the feeling that our bodies had betrayed us fade and that shadow that can follow us to move it's shadowy ass on down the road.

Here is my story, it is like many of you and like none of you. We heal differently, we process in our own ways and we go on...

When we were living at the apartment in Ann Arbor, we were building our house in Kzoo and I became pregnant. I was scared. No, I was terrified. When you deal with infertility for so many years you really don't think it is going to happen, it becomes a unicorn or the perfect pair of jeans...always out of reach. It did happen and for the first time I saw all the lines and crosses on that white plastic thingie...it was positive.

I called the nurse at the dr. office and she had me come in for a blood test to make sure. She predicted that I was about 6 weeks along. CRAP!! I went in and had my blood taken and waited until the next day for her to call. The test looked great. Everything seemed to be going along fine.

Then...

About two weeks later we were at a birthday party for a friends kid and I started to spot...shit. I didn't tell KPK, I stayed there at the party, wishing it away. I told KPK on the way home, it was Saturday, I had no one to call, there was nothing I could do...

On Monday I went in for another blood test. The numbers were not going up as fast as they should...she told me to come in Thursday for another test...Friday I was told that the numbers were low...really low...I was going to miscarry.

Then the side pain, like being poked no stabbed/cut with a pointy stick. I called the dr and had another blood test (I think that doctors are really just freaky vampires that save our blood in little jars...but I will save that for another post). My numbers we steady, this meant that it was an ectopic pregnancy, that there at this point in time my body was holding onto a mass of cells and they were stuck in my tube, of the fallopian nature.

FUCK!

Personally, I just wanted this shit done. The pain was mind numbing, I had two toddlers at home and a very worried nervous husband that wanted to get a vasectomy NOW.

I drove myself to the hospital, my doctor told me to go to the ER and get the two "shots", this is when I found out it was chemo drugs, to shrink the mass. And yes I am calling it a mass, there was no blood supply so my body was multiplying cells and sooner than later it would get big enough to explode my tube and I would bleed internally...good times.

Following is the high points of the hospital.

-I sat there for 6 hours

-I tried to leave, they told me I could die, I said I could die in the waiting room, they fit me right in.

-Kevin finally found someone to watch the kids for an hour.

-The fuck nut doctor told me I was going to kill the fetus, there was no fetus and I told him so (before you guys get too pissed, this man was written up, put on doctor probation and then asked to leave the hospital).

-I had an internal ultrasound and felt like I was in a woman's prison movie.

-I received two giant shots of the chemo drug in my right hip by a wonderful nurse in complete radioactive gear, her gloves were lime green and looked to be from IKEA.

-I drove myself home.

-I cried.

-I cried.

-I cried.

-It took 12 weeks for the mass to go away...don't put anything in your vagina!

This all happen six years ago. It feels like yesterday, it feels like a dream. Slash that. It feel like it happen to someone else. Someone who was stronger. Someone who doesn't take doctors shit. Someone who can talk about it and not feel like I failed. Someone who holds her children and smiles.

And I am proud to be her.