My face in that of others...

I am reading a book where the main character has isues with hospitals. She sees herself in the faces of the people there. I can relate. Never put it to words, yet I feel that dread, that feeling as if I will be in that position. And already in my life I have played the role of helpless patient. It is a feeling that haunts you. To have your life completely out of your control. To face ones own mortality. That tody may be the last, or even worse, that this may be the last day of your life as you know it. To leave damaged. Each surgery leaves it's mark on ones phisical and psychological self. Scars may be little, or not even visible on the outside, but they are there, forever a change, forever altering. Phisiologically, it leaves holes in your life. Moments of time that you will never remember. Taken from you as the anesthesia consumes you. Time when you are unable to control the most primitive functions of being human. Time when you are laid bare, no way to protect yourself. No doubt the trauma to the psychological self can easilty outweigh the body damage. Yet has this been addressed? Does anyone care?

Midnight... The last day of waiting

Midnight.. Here i sit. Unable to sleep.. Numb all over.

I have taken the long bath. Lots of special bath bomb from my favorite goat milk soap place. I sat there, stewing in hot french vanilla water, trying to read a book "Your roots are showing" while my Christmas present candle burns next to me. I ate chocolate, truffles, yet somehow... Did not seem to ease my mind.

I put new sheets on the bed, and put on the new quilt I was given at Christmas. Nothing eases me more than a nice orderly bed. But somehow it was not enough..

My heart aches. I will never know why my journey is the path that it is.. I will never know why I have been chosen to suffer, suffer the loss of children. Suffer physical pain, suffer through fear. A fear so strong, I shake.

My mind reels with emotions, thoughts, blurring together as I sit here, hours away from voluntarily having my body made unconscious. Walking to yet another cold metal table. Putting my vulnerable self bare to the world of medicine with their needles, IV catheters, dialaters, curettes... It seems like some horror show as the items flash before me. Cold medical pictures from textbooks.. Items made of cold hard steel, with horrific intentions, poke, scrape, tear, force.

All to force my body to relinquish it's hold on a life that just will never be. No amount of hope, no amount of prayer will change this path. And no amount of faith in my body will change the fact that my body has let me down again. Again I have created a broken life. Again my broken body will not do what it must. I must endure a forced removal of what my body cannot accomplish on it's own.

My husband told me something really sweet today, as I am in the middle of a downward spiral. He told me no matter how "broken" my body may seem to be, that I have one really good part. A heart and soul that out shines any other part of me. And that he loves that part, and that part is what is me. Not the broken bits.

I wish I could love that part and forgive the rest of me....But I can't. I can't accept the broken bits that force the rest of me, my mind, my soul to live a tormented existence. Haunted by the lives I could have nurtured. Haunted by the angel wings on babies that I have never held, although I have given my heart to.

I try to find the good in life. To say what I have somehow scraped out, a wonderful daughter who is my reason to exist. Somehow that one life has to make up for all the holes in my soul. Tonight as she lay sick in my bed, all I could do was stare at her. Her perfect eyebrows, her little nose.. And I cry because I have failed her. She may never have a baby brother or sister. She may have to play alone her entire life. No sisters or brothers to share birthdays, Christmas, or life's joys and sorrows with. I feel like I am dooming her to a sad existence without companionship. I never wanted an only...

I am scared shitless of tomorrow. Be it irrational, but I am. I will be giving myself up to these strangers to care for me, when I do not trust. Because trust is earned, and I have yet to have a medical professional I completely trust. But somehow I must surrender, I must close my eyes, dream of a happy place, and let my body be assaulted.

In the book "A women in residence" she calls the end of a D&C "the cry of the uterus" it is a feel, a texture of the muscle wall when all the interior lining has been scraped and suctioned away. My uterus will cry, as it is yet again damaged, damaged in the pretext of doing good.

I worry about the future consequences this will have, yet I am at a moment in life when I worry I will have no future use of my uterus. A barren dead zone. I worry if I will ever be able to do this again. To try again... How much must I endure? How much suffering must I go through? How much physical pain and bleeding before life will be better? Maybe six losses is not enough, maybe I am doomed to loose more, never have another.

I cannot sleep.. Yet I am exhausted. drained to the core of my being. I have been fighting for weeks now. Trying to keep going, to somehow push my loss, my mourning, my pain to the back, in hopes of a good outcome, my body resolving this on its own. Yet now, after 30 days of waiting, I can no longer keep up these appearances. I am crying. I am broken. I cannot go on carrying a death of a dream within me. Without any idea when my life will ever be able to start to heal.

Today I cried to Joanne Shenandoah's "Grandmother moon". I also find comfort in the words, which escape me at the moment, but are about the light of the Grandmother moon finding, holding, and guiding me. And that is what I want I want to fall into the arms of the Grandmother, I do not want to carry these burdens anymore. I do not want to carry these star children with me, tearing me down. But I cannot find the path.. I do not know how to let go of something that has been there for so long. I do not know how to let go of my dreams, desires. It seems that my dreams and desires are attached to my pain and losses. How can I cut that tie? How can I free myself from pain?

My mind spins as my body shakes. I do not want tomorrow to come, yet I need tomorrow. I need to move on, and this is the only path forward. It is hell to look down the path in front of you, one full of fear, pain, out of control, and force yourself to walk it. To tread through lands of darkness, some days so dense that even breathing seems to be impossible. Why? Because I know that i must walk this path, that somehow on the other side, life will continue. I wish I could write that on the other side is some sort of great reward, when my suffering will be replaced by joy, and that all my dreams will come true, but I am a realist. And quite honestly I do not know what the other side of this path holds for me, may be more pain and suffering as the path's I have taken previously brought me to. But I must walk it.

I must keep going. I must walk this path...

Why?

Because I refuse to give in. Because I have been beaten down, but I still smile at the sun. I still love the moonbeams on my bed at night. I still love the sounds of birds in the spring. Because somehow I love this F=ed up life! Because I can not forgive my broken body, but slowly accept that it is not that bad.. Because I DO have one blessing that was given to me. And I need to be here for her. No matter what my life brings to me, I have a responsibility to her. To teach her all I have learned in life, to hope and pray that her life will be a kinder, gentle life. To do all I can to give that to her.

Well, half a box of kleenex later, and past my NPO cutoff, I somehow have to will my body to sleep... Because tomorrows journey will be long and hard, but tomorrow's night I will rest.

Closure?

Well everyone, Things will be moving along in my life as of tomorrow.

After weeks of paitently waiting, I am emotionally unable to keep going. This weekend was the worst by far since this whole thing started.

I was able to see my OB today, and we did one more US just to make me feel better about things. My OB was hoping since i still have nausea, sore boobs, etc, that she would see a baby. I unfortunately did not share her hope. I just wanted to know that it was not some cancerous tumor or anything..

And just the big black hole was there.. Nothing else. No worry about molar pregnancy, etc, but no sign of any bleeding, anything in there either.. So we have scheduled me for the D&C surgery tomorrow. Time undetermined since I am an "add in".

I am at peace with this as much as I can be... I honestly feel that I have tried everything. Herbs, time, etc.. But for some reason, my life journey is supposed to take another path.. Why I do not know.. What the implications this has on my future, I do not know...

I am of course scared S-less about surgery, but I am comforted with the knowledge that my OB is kind, caring, and gentle. She is an experienced and skilled OB. She reassured me that NO ONE but her will be touching me, and that helps a lot since I had pretty bad PTSD after my first D&C. She gave me the spiel of risks, etc, but also told me that in all of her experiences the complications are very rare.. So that makes me feel somewhat better, even though I know enough to make me worry.

Next hurdle is meeting with the anesthesiolog


Well, that is my update. Soon I will be able to change my ticker and say I am moving on with life...

Keep me in your thoughts/prayers tomorrow Feb 3rd.

I will update when I get a chance and feel emotionally able to.

Why I do not want a D&C

So leaving the office and having the nurse tell me "you will want a D&E" brought back a rage. I wanted to yell at her. NO. I will NOT want another surgical scraping of my uterus thank you very much!

So what is attractive to a D&C that so many women "demand" them? Well first, D&C is the medical term for dilation and curettage of the uterine contents. Why would women want this? Part of me states out of ignorance, but the true answer would be convenience, and some think of it as an "easier" way out of a crappy situation. Now don't get me wrong, like any surgical procedure, they can be life saving, but I am talking about "ELECTIVE" terminations.

Physiologically why have a D&C, it is stated as a 'controlled' event. Instead of a spontaneous miscarriage ruining your new beige linen pants, you schedule a convenient day. Shave your legs all nice, get a pedicure, and then go get your uterus scraped out. You wake up, and have minor cramping, "current practice is to tell you to take Tylenol for the "menstrual like" cramps" and some light red bleeding. Bleeding lasts 2-3 weeks, and expect your period to arrive 6-9 weeks after surgery. Voila. All done.

Emotionally why have a D&C. Some may find the thought of carrying around a dead baby too much to deal with. Some may find waiting unbearable. Some may be afraid of having a miscarriage, after all we all have heard horror stories {So and so bled all over the place, the ambulance had to take her out of work! Oh the pain was so bad I passed out! etc.}. Who would take that route if the blue pill was offered.

Why not to have a D&C, physiologically. First it is uterine surgery. They first "sound" the uterus with a blunt metal rod (oh, that can't perforate a hole in your uterus now can it?) inserting it up to see how large your uterus is. Then they forcefully dilate with metal rods of varying diameter. Insert a suction catheter, swirl it around a couple of times, and then introduce the currette, think a hollowed out spoon where the inside surface is razor sharp, and scrape the lining. If you want a better play by play read "A woman in residence". It is quite horrific, she an OB resident states how "graphic" and how violent it is. So what are the risks associated with this? Perforated uterus, infection, hemorrhage, scarring (which can interfere with future implantation and placenta) etc. But that is the risk of only the actual surgery on the uterus. Due to it being under anesthesia "twilight sleep" or general, you now carry the risk of those as well. Blood clots, anesthetic reactions, broken teeth, damaged vocal cords, etc. Not to mention they sometimes throw in a urinary catheter so add urinary tract infection to the list.

The emotional reasons to not have a D&C. It is a procedure that is done to you. you are unconscious. You are completely at the hands of strangers in a strange place. The "twilight sleep" anesthesia is enough to weird anyone out. It is where they give you meds to make you not remember, but you still can answer their questions, and react and do as your told like "spread your legs". Now that is enough to make any rape survivor wig out! In the end, you do not have the feeling of closure, just a feeling of emptiness. A hollow void. They call the baby "products of conception" and ship it off to the path lab to be tested and thrown away as medical waste. It is a day event, and they send you off home all better now.

I had a D&C, and I will post the horror event another time.