The One That Wasn't.

I originally began reading blogs when I was pregnant with my almost two-year old daughter. For preservation of her anonymity, I will call her R.  I loved nothing more than reading a good birthing story and I thought I would start there with this blog.  But to truly tell R's tale (and E's tale - the second daughter), I need to go back further in time, to the one that wasn't.

Mr. Mine and I had been married for about 4 years.  We had a house, health insurance,  and two dogs... It was time for a baby!  Yay!  The first month of trying (June 2005) came and went. Nothing.   Month 2 was a good one!  The pregnancy test was positive!  Whoo hoo!  And Yikes! We made our appointment for the 9 week ultrasound.  I was feeling great and we were getting so excited.   We held off from telling anyone and I am glad we did.

Appointment Day arrived.  We were in the examination room, waiting to see the little one on the ultrasound screen.  The tech looked and looked and got very quiet.  She said "I am very sorry, but there is no baby.  It appears growth stopped right around conception, but the womb continued to grow.  It is called a blighted ovum."  We were stunned and very, very sad.

Things got worse.  My doctor spoke with us and a D & C surgery was scheduled.  I was so very sad and scared of having surgery.  I had never been under general anesthesia before.  The surgery took about an hour total and, boy, did I have some wild dreams while I was out.  I was crying and seeing Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas scenes in my sleep.  I remember trying to tell the tech this.  I think he was confused by my ramblings.  The surgery itself was pain free.

After the surgery I went home and slept.  I went to work the very next day and it was like nothing happened - except it had.  I was advised to wait until my next period had passed before we tried to get pregnant again.

I waited...and waited....and waited.  No period.  We had marital relations.  Still no period.  I took a pregnancy test and it came up POSITIVE.  Whoa, okay.  My doctor sent me to the lab to have blood work done.  The blood work came back with pregnancy hormones present, but very low.  I had to go back in a week.  The count was still low.  

People, this went on for ALMOST SIX MONTHS.  Every week I had blood work done and it kept coming up slightly positive.  I was losing my mind.  What was the deal?  I wasn't having my normal evening wine just in case I WAS pregnant and it was HARD.  So, off I went for ANOTHER ultrasound.  Surprise!  They apparently had not removed all the womb tissue from the the first D & C and it had been GROWING.  Oh. My. God.  My doctor wanted to schedule another D & C.  

I BEGGED her to give me some other alternative to that.  She really wanted to do another surgery, but offered me the "abortion pill" misoprostol (sp?) to see if that would expel the tissue in conjunction with a single shot of chemo (yes, people, CHEMO) to kill any growing cells.  I tried it.  Chemo shot - NOT FUN, VERY PAINFUL and given in your butt cheek. Misoprostol - the pain was worse than my actual deliveries.  It hurt that bad.  I have NEVER been in that kind of pain.  I was rolling around on the floor in agony.  After all that pain,  I was hopeful SOMETHING would happen in the period department.

It kind of did.  I had a little period.  But not all the tissue was gone, according to another ultrasound.  So, I sadly agreed to another D & C.  It was now December.

Like some Christmas miracle, two days before the surgery, QUITE A LOT of tissue passed.  I was FINALLY done with the womb that would just NOT GIVE UP!

My mind had been seriously messed with for about six months over this and I was ecstatic that things were back to normal in my lady parts area.  So normal, in fact, that by February 2006 I was pregnant again and an ultrasound at 6 weeks confirmed that all was good in the 'hood.

Next up - Baby R's Birth!