I started the new year by giving up on fertility drugs and letting my bonfire of hope fizzle down to a tiny flame of light, like a candle in an already lit room, easily ignored. Hope was there, but not really. I'd said my goodbyes to the possibility.
Monday, January 14 was 10 DPO. I took a pregnancy test on autopilot, knowing that even if I were pregnant, it would probably be too early for it to show on a test, especially one of these cheapies that I bought 25 for $8. I didn't even look at the test, just carried it back to my desk at work and went about my business.
Five minutes later I remembered that I needed to throw away that test. I glanced down at it and saw two lines. A very obvious positive. I don't think I smiled. I think I was confused.
When the confusion finally turned to acceptance, that little candle of hope set the room on fire. My first month off fertility drugs, and we finally did it! Twenty-two cycles. Twenty-two failures. And we finally did it.
Tuesday, January 15. 11 DPO. Nausea, hunger, and cramping. The cramps covered my entire abdomen, twisting and squeezing my stomach. (Hooray, pregnancy symptoms!) It gradually got worse. And worse.
And worse.
There was no bleeding, so for the time being I ruled out miscarriage. This was something entirely other, destroying me from the inside out, an alien planted near my stomach readying itself to burst out of my body and tear me apart.
By 7:00 pm I was scared. I was alone with Fletcher and crying and vomiting and not sure what to do. By 8:00 pm I was in the ER in the worst pain of my life, wondering if I were dying.
Part of me was scared of leaving Fletcher without his mother. Part of me was worrying about project deadlines at work. Make it stop make it stop make it stop.
The morphine brought me back to sanity. Then they ran a hundred tests, I had a hundred pelvic exams, and the results came back inconclusive. Story of my life.
The ER doctor guessed that an ovarian cyst had filled with nasty fluid and burst, the fluid inflaming everything inside me. The possibility of an ectopic pregnancy was suggested, but it's too early to see where the baby is. There's no bleeding so, for the time being, I'm still pregnant.
But once again, I find myself saying my goodbyes to the possibility. If the little one can survive all of this, I will be impressed. Baby Deuce will have to be Iron Man.
Today I tried eating and vomited again. The Vicodin has made me shaky and probably even more nauseated. There will be several follow up appointments with my doctor, monitoring my hormone levels and searching for the tiny ball of cells that would change everything.
Iridescent by Linkin Park. It is a song that grows, building up and building up, until we hover at the top wondering how it's all going to end.
You were standing in the wake of devastation
And you were waiting on the edge of the unknown
And with the cataclysm raining down
Insides crying "Save me now"
You were there, impossibly alone
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go
And in a burst of light that blinded every angel
As if the sky had blown the heavens into stars
You felt the gravity of tempered grace
Falling into empty space
No one there to catch you in their arms
Do you feel cold and lost in desperation?
You build up hope, but failure’s all you’ve known
Remember all the sadness and frustration
And let it go. Let it go.
No comments:
Post a Comment