It’s perhaps measure of how badly these last few days have sucked that a few moments ago, back in the car, when I was digging around in the glove compartment and laid my hands on a small bottle of Purell Instant Hand Sanitizer, my reaction was to inwardly exclaim, “Finally! Something has gone right!”
By contrast, here’s a list of what has gone wrong.
On Friday I had this terse e-mail exchange with the irritating makers of First Response home pregnancy tests. I more or less ripped them a new one over the fact that their test was so lame as to not register my pregnancy when other, less boastful tests had done so. They replied with a totally condescending missive about how one goes about reading such tests, (insulting my intelligence and experience in such things which sadly is vast) and the meaning of various lines, and then a cold suggestion that I see my doctor “to confirm that you are pregnant.”
This had a delayed effect, several hours later, of causing me to be gripped by sudden fear that maybe I WASN’T pregnant after all. (Never mind several positive pregnancy tests and two weeks of nausea.) It struck after dinner and then I alerted Ben to my need to rush off to Dave’s grocery store and by a new test (or two) for reassurance. Also I had to pee, so this was important timing. So he sequestered Isaac in a game of hot ramps and I rushed off, bought the test, and was home and in the bathroom (needing to pee desperately by then) when this annoying woman appeared at the door asking me to write my congress people to stop the privatization of Social Security. In fact, she wanted the letters not in five minutes, but NOW and in hard copy, not e-mail. I had given this bleached blond, pink-frosty-eye-shadowed waif $15 for the cause a few hours earlier, but this had not appeased her.
Anyway, after she was sent packing I returned to my peeing task and then found that the test was so— so— so— faint as to be almost negative. I mean, my hCG levels had DROPPED like a stone since my last test. See? This is why people compulsively continue to test even after they have a positive result. Or should I say we.
So I told Ben, who started freaking out, and then we needed to talk about it for literally like two minutes and Isaac would not let us. We put him in his room and closed the gate, where he screamed full-on the whole time and we went over the facts in the bathroom. We reasoned that maybe it was just dilute because I had been drinking water all evening and also it was late at night and the hCG is most concentrated in the morning. So we agreed to retest in the morning, first thing. In the meantime I obsessed about whether or not it was a tubal pregnancy, which gave me plenty of room to worry about tubal rupture, bleeding to death, surgery, and/or losing one half of my fertility.
I woke up at 4 a.m. having to pee so retested then and found once again a line so painfully faint it was almost invisible.
So then I lay awake for two hours listening to Isaac (who was in our bed due to night terrors) and Ben sleep. I nodded off at some point around dawn. When I woke up at 8:00 or so, Isaac and Ben were already up. I threw on some clothes and drove in the rain over to the local CVS to buy a better test, the EPT I so respect. I took it and found it positive, but maybe a bit less so than it had been on Tuesday. At this point I decided to call the doctor and at least get an hCG blood test done so we could have some accurate information. However, it was Saturday. There was no answer at the doctor’s office, which I thought was very odd, seeing as it’s a hospital. I expected at least a machine telling me who else to call, but no. So I called the Cleveland Clinic Main Campus and they sent me back to Hillcrest, the hospital that houses the OB dept. Then Hillcrest denied everything and sent me back to the Main Campus, who maintained their stance that I needed to talk to Hillcrest. Finally I got someone who would stay on the line with me to hear Hillcrest’s denials directly and this time the Hillcrest person relented and took a message for the OB on call. (They just moved the OB department a few months ago and apparently no one knows what is going on.)
The OB on call called me back after a while and was very reasonable and nice. She said that she would put an order in the computer for me to get blood drawn for an hCG test that day and also Monday (today). But she was in the process of delivering a baby and couldn’t get the test into the system until after noon. In typical fashion, the outpatient lab that would normally draw my blood closed at noon.
So there was only the question of where and who would actually draw my blood on a Saturday. You would not think that in a gigantic medical complex, spanning at least a mile in each direction, with countless huge buildings, this request would not be so odd or hard to fulfill, but it was.
The lady I finally got a hold of (again after lots of tries) said that I should simply come to the “L” building, and park in the Emergency Room parking lot. She made it sound so easy. “Just tell them you’re going to the blood bank and they will buzz you in,” she said.
It was around this time that I caught my lucky toe on an edge of carpet and dislocated it, adding intense and jolting pain to the anxiety and confusion I was already feeling. I drove over to the place the lady had said, and hobbled into this place beside the Emergency Room. In there the lady said I had to go outside and two doors down to the Emergency Room itself. It was raining and my toe was killing me and I didn’t want to go into the Emergency Room at all, knowing as I do what I could expect to find there. And indeed, as soon as I hobbled in I was treated to the sight of someone in a wheelchair vomiting into one of those paper buckets I’ve had ample opportunity to get friendly with myself in past hospital excursions.
There was no one in reception, of course, and no one else around, so I just kept walking towards what I hoped would be the right place. Soon I was walking down a darkened corridor, where two cleaning personnel were chatting. I asked them where the Blood Bank was and the guy said, “Isn’t that in the L building?” and I said, “Yes! The L building! Where is the L building?”
He said he would take me there, and I guess I should add him to the very short list (1. finding the Purell) of things that have gone right lately. He walked me (with my slowness and limp) all the way across the street, into this building, down a dark hall, past a check point thing where he had to swipe his ID card, up an elevator, down another hall to a window where this person sat. The blood bank! There it was. How in god’s name did the lady on the phone think I would ever find it? I profusely thanked the cleaning guy—I mean, come ON! A random cleaning person is the only one I could find to help me??? – and the lady in the blood bank directed me to go wait in a semi-darkened and deserted room around the corner. So I waited and after what seemed like a long, long time this little squeaky cart driven by an older lady came all the way down the hall. The lady was nice, drew my blood efficiently, said if I only have one child it’s okay because it’s God’s Will, and then refused to validate my parking.
Just when I thought this Kafkaesque experience was going to end, the parking situation dragged it out a little bit longer. I realized at this point that I had no cash whatsoever, none. I walked (hobbled, in the rain…) up to the little parking attendant booth where my car was incarcerated The lady very kindly explained that if my ticket wasn’t validated it would be $10 and that she didn’t take credit cards or checks. She said that she thought there was an ATM in the Emergency Room. So, dreading what fresh hell of head wounds and such I would see in there, I ventured in again. Again there was no one at reception and no one on hand to ask such a question as where is an ATM. I found a policewoman in this little security enclosure and asked her. She said that the nearest one was over in the “A” building, a goodly hike away through a labyrinth of skyways and tunnels.
My heart sank; my toe throbbed. The thought crossed my mind, “Should I stay here and have them x-ray this toe?” But this notion was quickly rejected by an overwhelming need to escape.
Just then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a furtive worker who looked like the sort of person who would have a parking validation stamp. I showed her the bandage on my arm and begged, “I just had to come and have blood drawn and the lady wouldn’t validate my parking and I don’t have any cash on me and the ATM is way over in the A building…” She said nothing, wordlessly took my ticket, stamped it, and handed it back to me.
A goddess among women!!
Again my list of good things continues to grow into a litany!
I got back into my car and was set free by the parking lot lady.
However, my elation was dulled a few moments later in a phone conversation with Ben. Apparently his fear and anxiety about our threatened pregnancy had translated into churlishness bordering on hostility. I was in no mood for attitude and we ended up almost hanging up on each other.
The rest of the afternoon sucked too—we rushed all the way over to this special Playhouse Square festival so that I could take Isaac to this children’s concert I had been looking forward to (and Ben was suddenly on strike against—he dropped us off) only to find once there that Isaac didn’t like it one bit! He endured a few songs (Dan Zanes, who is excellent, and his wonderful colorful and friendly band, the whole audience was doing animal sounds and it was really more like an exuberant kids’ party in there, and free, and great) and at the end of each song would say brightly “It is all done now? Can we go now?” So finally I gave up and took him out of there. He was focused on the “jumpy thing” this inflated sort of trampoline with sides that kids could jump in. No one was in it and so we had a long turn all to ourselves. I say we because Isaac insisted that I come in with him because he was “too shy” to go in by himself. So I sat in it and he jumped all over the place. Occasionally I got knocked over backwards and had to wallow around like a beetle with my legs in the air. He landed on my toe at one point, which killed, but may actually have put it back into place. We both got covered in glitter from the face painting art adorning previous jumpers.
Then we waited in line for a balloon animal, only to be further annoyed by three very huge and very loud and obnoxious teens who unaccountably were waiting for balloon animals with us. They were in our personal space constantly, dancing and yelling and talking on cell phones. With that and the din of the nearby kareoke (sp?) machine I was really getting a headache. I had to hold 30-lb. Isaac in my arms the whole time because I didn’t want him to get trampled. He finally got to the front of the line and got the fish on a fishing pole made all of balloons that he has so long desired.
Why in god’s name did we decide to go shopping after all this? Ben was hell bent on gathering supplies to have a nice dinner party the following night. So from this we went to Crate and Barrel which was packed and which was extremely difficult to manage with Isaac. Like—a sea of fragile and brightly colored vases on low shelves. It was pretty near impossible to debate the merits of napkin fabric and color and the weight of various steak knives while also taking turns chasing Isaac around. (He used a cat tail from a floral display for a lance and starting jousting with other customers, for instance, and at one point rushed into an elevator by himself… the quick and spry Ben managed to run into the elevator, too, just as in time.)
I guess on the upside all this took my mind off the fact that I was probably having a miscarriage.
The next morning, yesterday, I woke up bleeding.
There was nothing to be done, of course, and I just spent the whole day yesterday laying around and feeling like crap on every level. We did have our dinner party, which Ben put together single-handedly and which was very fun and distracting. I took advantage of the fact that I’m presumably not pregnant anymore and drank some of this excellent ’94 cabernet that our friends brought.
Today the bleeding is much heavier.
I talked to the nurse this morning and she said that despite the bleeding (which I had hoped made the situation obvious enough), I would need to come in and have a second hCG test so that they could compare Saturday’s number with today’s and make sure the level is dropping as expected.
Before I went to get blood drawn, I sent an e-mail reply to my friend Pippa telling her that I didn’t come to playgroup today because I’m having a miscarriage and filling in a few of the details. This reply unaccountably went to the whole playgroup list, which is scores upon scores of people. Then I sent an oops letter out and it went twice. I feel… so stupid to be so clumsy and non-tech-savvy, which isn’t really true. And also I’m embarrassed that god knows how many people now know of my situation. In fact the e-mail glitch is sort of what has spurred me to post a blog about it. I was outed already to many people I know.
There’s something about having a miscarriage that seems sort of like a personal or even a moral failing. It’s like—well, maybe it’s the “god’s will” contingent. Like if you were worthy and good enough to deserve this child, you wouldn’t miscarry. And there’s just the smugly perfect people who have no pregnancy troubles at all. I resent them, I really do. I hesitate to wish colic upon them, because that would only give me bad karma, but I do hate it when someone comes along and is just happily pregnant with no strife surrounding it at all.
This morning Ben observed, “Well, it’s not for lack of trying that we only have one child.” And he’s right. I’ve lost track of all my total life list of pregnancies at this point. But what can we say? Four very early miscarriages, now adding a fifth, then preemie Jacob who died, and then Isaac. So what is that, seven pregnancies yielding one surviving child? Can that be right?
Today again I went over to get blood drawn. But this time, at least, the normal outpatient lab, with which I’m so painfully familiar, was open. However, this time my veins were all screwed up and I got poked twice by one guy and once by another lady before they got the sample. I have bad veins in general and I think my body is a little messed up at the moment due to bleeding, plummeting hormones, stress and sadness. Can sadness cause bad veins? I don’t know… but when I was going in for my gall bladder surgery I was suddenly gripped by fear and apparently due to this emotion all my veins disappeared right before the eyes of the nurse who had to place my IV. (Bless the man who showed up with happy drugs…)
I’m bummed that this morning the nurse also said that I need to sit out a cycle, which means that our earliest possible due date just slid from May to July. I’m bummed that we didn’t start a year ago (never mind that not one of the three of us was ready at the time, Isaac still nursing, etc.). I’m bummed that I’m 38 and that all my eggs are getting old and withered. I worry that this is the start of a trend and that I’ll have to have a whole bunch more miscarriages before we get a pregnancy to take hold and thrive.
The good things:
1) We get pregnant anytime we try, instantly, batting an even thousand.
2) It’s barely five weeks along. If it’s not going to work, finding out now is the best possible time.
3) Isaac is wonderful and if he ends up being our only child, that is still fantastic. Ben pointed out that if we looked at our life today from the vantage point of five years ago, this would have been all we wanted and more.
But here I am, drowning my sorrows in German mineral water and Swiss chocolate.
Tomorrow we’ll find out the results of today’s hCG test and will know for sure what is up. (The only reason for doubt is that with Jacob I bled profusely for a full week and ended up still pregnant.) We’ll see what tomorrow brings.