What Happened, Part 2 - Friday, July 3rd and Beyond

The weekend before the D & C was hard for a few reasons - 1) We weren't ever going to have this baby, 2) Our baby was dead and inside of me, 3) I was worried and scared about the actual D & C procedure. On Friday morning it seemed like Monday was forever away.

We went through lots of emotions that weekend - shock and disbelief, extreme sadness, anger, jealousy when we saw other families, pregnant women, or babies, numbness, attempting to console ourselves with impulse purchases. Can anyone say Blu-Ray DVD player with streaming Netflix and a 50" plasma TV? We did. Oh yes...we really did.

Finally the tremendously long weekend (that I had at one time been really looking forward to) was over and it was time to go into the office for the D & C. As I said before, I was lucky to have an extremely good doctor. He spent at least half an hour just talking to us - asking us how we were doing, telling us what we could expect during and after the procedure, and very patiently and thoroughly answering ALL of our questions about the miscarriage and our future plans to conceive.

Since I want to avoid general anesthesia as much as I can in my life, I opted to have the D & C in his office under a local anesthetic (plus a large Valium + Vicodin cocktail) rather than being completely put under in the hospital. Yes, I was very worried about being awake during it, for both physical and emotional reasons. I was thinking about it all weekend. But in the end I was more worried about general anesthesia.

I went home and waited for the Valium and Vicodin to kick in, then I went back to the office 1 1/2 hours later for the actual procedure. Another thing that I liked about this doctor...they allowed my husband to be in the room with me during the D & C. Having him there to hold my hand and talk to me calmed me SO much. The procedure itself lasted less than 10 minutes. At one point there was some moderate cramping that was relatively prolonged, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the horrific cramps I conjured up for myself in my brain over the weekend. Emotionally I was upset because of the finality it represented, but honestly I was more relieved to have that part over with and to be moving forward.

The first week and a half after the D & C was pretty bad. Lots of hormone shifts, lots of tears, exhaustion, lower back pain, and bleeding. Luckily I was able to take some time off work and work from home for part of the second week. Then the oddest thing happened, which I mentioned briefly in one of my earlier posts. It really felt like a switch had been turned off. A week and a half after the procedure I had a horrible morning full of crying jags and I felt extremely sad. I went home from work early, then lay down on my bed and read for a while. I finished my book, closed it, and all of a sudden I felt a lot better. It was bizarre.

This feeling has lasted ever since then. I mean, I still have my moments. I still feel sad that I lost my baby. I still have moments when I see pregnant women or women with newborns and feel completely jealous of them and tears spring into my eyes. But I feel so much better and generally have a positive attitude.

Now I'm just trying to relax, be present, enjoy the life that I have right now, and be patient. Tomorrow I have my D & C follow-up appointment. Any day now I should start my period. The doctor said that it should happen between 4 and 6 weeks after the D & C. He told us that we can start trying to conceive again after my SECOND period, so that should be sometime next month. Hopefully everything will get back on track and I will be pregnant again as soon as possible. It didn't take long the first time, so maybe I'll get lucky with that the second time too. Please send prayers and good vibes our way. We need them.

Thanks for reading my blog. I'll be updating this whenever I have new information, feelings, or stories to share. Hopefully you'll read good news soon!