I haven’t been on here in awhile, but I’ve needed to write somewhere. My sister passed last Monday very suddenly and unexpectedly. I had to make a slideshow for her funeral and I was asked to write her eulogy. I’m just so heartbroken. We text from wake up to bedtime, and were texting all day the day she passed. It doesn’t feel real still. Her funeral is on Thursday and I just can’t imagine it. I’m pregnant and due in March, I never pictured having a baby without her being the aunt. There’s probably a lot more I need to write, to get out, but just acknowledging her passing is something I need to keep reminding myself.
I probably shouldn’t post about this on here because it’s so personal, but what the hell.
Trigger warning: miscarriage
I’ve debated a long time about having kids. I wasn’t sure if that was something I wanted out of life. C and I finally decided to bite the bullet and do it. He always wanted kids, and regardless of my inadequacies of being a mom, he would be a great dad. I’ve always thought he would be a great dad.
We tried for three months and got pregnant on the third month. I was so excited, but so stressed. I tested often and had hcg beta levels drawn twice on 16 days post ovulation, and 20 days. They were adequate for that timeline.
I went for my first ultrasound when I was 7 weeks and 5 days on 4/19, C went with me. The doctor told me I was 6 weeks and 5 days. She said I was probably just off with my dating and my last period. I had that horrible gut feeling in my stomach, but she showed us everything. The gestational sac, the yolk sac, the embryo, that little flickering heartbeat. For two weeks, I struggled. I knew so deeply that something was wrong, but thought it was just the nurse in me overreacting. I finally couldn’t handle it and went to an ultrasound place where they said there was no heartbeat, I knew before they told me, I could see that little embryo with no movement. I was on hold for thirty minutes, but I was able to get an appointment with one of the doctors in my group to do a transvaginal ultrasound to confirm.
Did I mention I work with these doctors? That I’m a L&D nurse that is well aware of what was happening. That the office staff tried to convince me I just needed to go to L&D to be evaluated, but I know we don’t see patients until 18 weeks, that I know I would be in ED for hours with a non emergent situation. When I told them that, they immediately found me an appointment. I shouldn’t have had to tell them that. They shouldn’t be favoring me because I work in the same healthcare system and know the way things work.
The doctor told me I could have asked one of them to scan me on the unit, which I could have, but then everyone at work would know I’m pregnant. She told me the clinic I walked into was maybe wrong because it was an abdominal ultrasound, and 8 and a half weeks was still too early. As soon as she found the sac I knew again though, she pointed out all the things that were there, but I told her there wasn’t a heartbeat, and she agreed. She told me I was measuring at 7 weeks 5 days, so it had been a week since the baby had last had a heartbeat. I already knew all this, I knew that sinking feeling I had at the first appointment was right, I knew there was a reason I couldn’t see us turning our extra room into a nursery, why I wouldn’t talk about the future with C when he’d ask me baby names.
She gave me the options. I could pass naturally in the next 6-8 weeks, I could get a d&c, but she recommended the mifepristone and misoprostol, so I agreed. I took the mifepristone in office, and 24 hours later I took the miso. Thirty minutes later I started cramping, and within an hour I was throwing up and cramping worse than I ever had with periods. A couple hours later, I saw the littlest placenta I’ve ever seen in the toilet.
I feel so empty now. Like all those plans I had in my head don’t mean anything any more, and maybe it’s because I never said them out loud. There won’t be a little dragon baby any more. December 1st will pass and it won’t mean anything to me, even though it should have.
I went out with C a little bit ago, and I kept having to remind myself not to cry. I’m not a crier, but maybe I am now. And now I have to continue like this wasn’t ever going to be. I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant, so how do I tell them now I’m not?
And then one day, we just try again? I just one day put myself in the position that I might miscarry again?
And then I go back to work on 5/20. I go back, and I deliver other peoples babies and pretend my heart isn’t going to break again and again each time? I go back, and know that I’m going to cry at work one night, and my carefully curated personality is going to be ruined because all my co workers are going to see, they’re all going to know I’m broken inside, and they’re all going to try to make me feel better. I know after my managers saw my doctor’s note from a doctor on my unit that they’re going to know what happened, and they’re going to pull me into their office to try and make me feel better, and they’re not going to know what to do when I cry because I don’t ever cry.
How do people come back from this? How am I ever going to come back from this?
I don’t know how I have anything left to cry, I don’t know how I keep crying.
Grief is a hard thing to hold with all its weight and sharp edges. Don't hate yourself on top of that. Everything may not be okay today or tomorrow, but it can be later if you let it.
the feminine urge to become unhealthily fascinated by the yellow wallpaper of the bedroom in which your oppressive husband has confined you in order to recover from female hysteria, only to slowly descend into madness caused by said wallpaper and husband.
Ppl should stop putting so much pressure on gay ppl to "come out" and more pressure on straight ppl to stop assuming everyone's sexuality is fucking straight
