Baby Madness - Part 1

Okay so my baby craziness deserves it's own entry :-D Prepare yourselves, as my desperation isn't pretty! :-D

Oct 17/07

Alright so on October 17th I had a phone appointment with a psychic (blogged!) in which I had wanted to ask if I'd be able to physically have children. I've always been worried at the back of my mind, that that challenge would be mine to bear. Before I even had a chance to ask she told me that I'd be having them soon. And that I'd better be sure before we started trying as it wouldn't take me long to get pregnant. That night Tyler & I went out for our 7 year Anniversary (we celebrate our "official" dating anniversary as well as our wedding anniversary). At dinner I discussed what the psychic had said with Tyler. I had been sort of working on him to have kids for a few months. I have always been a little antsy about having kids as I'm not really a "mom" type of person. I've never been one to ogle over babies or children. In fact I'd take a puppy over a baby in terms of cuteness. I think this came a lot from having such a big age different between my siblings and I. I had really felt like I had gone through "raising" kids and was pretty realistic about what it entails unlike some people who have build fantasy worlds around it.

However, two pretty close friends of mine had had babies recently, one in August & one in September and they seemed to be surviving it. My younger brother had also found out that he was expecting a baby which made me think "if he can be excited about becoming a father than Tyler & I should be able to handle it". We are certainly old enough and had all the things you want to have in place first: jobs, home, vehicles, marriage, etc. Tyler isn't big on doing things just cuz it's the thing to do or cuz everyone else is doing it so he had to be convinced it was right for us. I managed to convince him with the fact that we didn't have prescription coverage and I'd have to pay for my birth control pills from then on LOL I had just bought another month's worth though so he insisted on me starting and finishing that pack first. It was really important to him though that we weren't "trying" per say as he knows I am very 'type a' and could go a little crazy with each passing month that might go by without a pink plus sign on a stick. So roughly four weeks later we were "letting happen what happens".

Nov 28/07

A woman from HR that I had never met before showed up unexpectedly at my office. She asked to see me privately and I got really nervous wondering what I was getting in trouble for...it hadn't occured to me that her visit was related to the restructing happening in our government office. Turns out the Regional Office for Insurance that I was working in was being 'abolished' (lovely word isn't it?). I had work until the end of December and then if I wanted, I could accept a position three levels lower in another department in Lacombe. It was the same position I had started in with the company three and a half years earlier and was supervised by a woman I really didn't care for. I wasn't really happy in my job but had gotten comfortable - expecially as I liked the people I worked with. After discussing it with Tyler, I decided that I didn't really want to stay with this company anymore. Although my future employment was uncertain I was really excited for the opportunity to do something new & exciting.

Dec 14/07

It was Friday night & I was on facebook (as I always was then) and had typed in "Crystal has a secret" under my status. I didn't really have a secret but I was looking for a response from a particular person about something (long, very silly story - don't ask). My friend Shelley noticed my status and being one of the few who knew about our baby plans messaged me to ask me if I was pregnant. I jokingly wrote back "no i don't think so, but i'll go pee on a stick to find out". I had a test in my bathroom so did the whole urinate thing but set it aside as I was getting ready to go out at the same time (& facebooking): we had plans that night to go out for dinner with my two couple friends Kyla & Michael and Shelley & Scott (yes the one who had messaged me). Well mid message, and five minutes later, I casually turned over the stick and was shocked to read "Pregnant". Shocked because I had just had my period less than two weeks prior and we had only been sexually active sans birth control for like 4 weeks! I was like "wait - does pregant really mean pregnant?" cuz that didn't really make sense with the information I had. And it wasn't even one of those + or - it was one that ready "Pregnant" or "Not Pregnant" I ran to the bathroom to review the informational package, searching for a clue to how I could really be pregnant. Most research would have me being ovulating at this point in the cycle, not pregnant!

Needless to say we were very surprised/overwhelmed and in shock. We hadn't expected such quick results but I was pretty excited about it. I went to the doctor's office to confirm it (as maybe the drugstore stick was wrong) on that Monday and the doc was a little surprised too. But yep we were pregnant and given an estimated due date of August 28th (making me only like two weeks pregnant). Well I've never been good at keeping good news to myself, so despite not intending to tell ANYONE I had told quite a few people (some co-workers, Kyla & Shelley, my mom who point blank asked me, my hair stylist friend who i had an appointment with...etc).

Now I can't remember the exact dates of the week for the following but...I ended up having some pretty sharp pains in my side/pelvis area. I avoided going to the doctor (ignorance is bliss!) but after complaining the whole day, having severe pain all night, my boss lady Cynthia insisted that I at least go to the walk in clinic. The walk in doc thought it was pain from my uterus stretching (at 2ish weeks??) but said we could do an ultrasound to make sure everything was all right and that it wasn't an eptopic pregnancy (fertilited in the fallopian tube - very dangerous). The ultrasound was going to take a month to schedule until I explained how important it was and I got in for the next day @ 1pm. My pains were pretty intense the next morning and probably worsened by the fact that I was trying to drink ship loads of water. Thank goodness Tyler was able to leave work to come to the ultrasound with me as he was working in town then. The technician couldn't see anything and then decided to do an internal ultrasound too (horrible by the way when you are already in pain down there). She called a doctor in & they whispered back in forth (thanks guys). Then I was told I could go get dressed. When I dressed I noticed some spotting and knew that was not a good sign.

The doc came to tell Tyler and I that they couldn't see any baby on the monitor but observed fluid that could be a sign of an ecptopic pregnancy. They told us to go to the emergency @ the hospital. Tyler & I was pretty confused and worried as they didn't do a great job of explaining anything to us. Especially when the doctor said "oh it should be okay. they might have to remove one of your fallopian tubes but you'll still have the other!"

Emergency wasn't much better. I was taken to a bed with very little explanation and Tyler was told he had to wait in the main waiting room. Someone eventually came and took my blood and I was asked if I had every had surgery before. Then left on my own. A good hour later I finally asked if I could at least get my husband at this point and/or wait in a chair as I didn't need to be wasting a bed. They went and got Tyler & we waited again. Then they moved us to another room and waited. Still with no information. I kept trying to find out what was going on: was I waiting for surgery, did they know what was wrong?? No one really seemed to know anything or be able to tell me anything. Finally at about 5:30pm (yeah 4 1/2 hours after my ultrasound appointment) we went into a room with a doctor. He told me that the blood test was for a quantitative test to see how my much hCG (pregnancy hormone) I had. Apparently if you have less than a certain amount (I think it was like 1500) nothing will show up on an ultrasound. My hCG was low, only like 275 or something. Typically it is suppose to double each day at this time so I was told to come back on that Saturday for another blood test to see if we could do an ultrasound to see if anything was wrong.

Saturday, Dec 22/07

At a very early time in the morning (I think it was 6am) Tyler & I went to the hospital. I am not very good at being in the unknown so I wanted to find out what was happening as soon as I could. I had continued to have bleeding over the last few days so was really worried. My parents were up for our Christmas celebration with them so I obviously had to tell them what was going on. I gave blood for another test and we waited the three hours to see what was going on. A pretty young male doctor took us into a room and informed me that my hCG was about 250. So not only had it not gone up significantly, it had actually dropped, indicating miscarriage. I started crying of course but tried to keep my cool and be logical. Afterwards Tyler told me the doctor's hands were just shaking the entire time we were in there. We wondered if it was the first time he'd had to tell something that. The doc said they don't really do DNC's anymore unless they had to, so everything would pass normally like a period and then we could start trying again as soon as we were ready.

A mere 7 1/2 days after finding out I was pregnant I found out I had miscarried. Needless to say this was very much an emotional rollercoaster for me. I hadn't really had time to accept the fact that we were expecting a child let alone adjust to the fact that we no longer were. It was Christmas holidays and I was trying to put on a happy face when I just really wanted to either mourn it or be in denial about it. Part of me wanted to get wasted drunk to drown the feelings but the other part didn't "just in case" the doctors were wrong and I was still actually pregnant not miscarrying. We first were in Saskatchewan with Tyler's very large family and then we went to Medicine Hat with my aunt & her family, my parents, sister, grandma, brother & his undeserving 4/5 month pregnant girlfriend. Undeserving in my eyes, very subjective I'll grant you.

It was tough. Tougher than I wanted to admit. Tougher than I still want to admit. I was lucky enough to be somewhat prepared for the possibility of miscarriage. My doctor on the Monday had told me that 1/4 pregnancies miscarry for absolutely no known reason. However you don't want to be the '1' you know? It took a long time for the miscarriage to complete physically which I didn't really expect. I believe it was into February before I stopped testing positive with at home pregnancy tests and it was really hard for me mentally to wonder if I was re-pregnant or still faux-pregnant. It was hard for Tyler in a different way. I don't know if he really mourned/mourns it the way I do as he didn't feel it the way I did. All he saw was his wife going a little crazy about pregnancy, exactly what he didn't want to happen.