My Story Vol. 9

Christmas Eve at my folks house in Morristown began early. Really early. For some reason my mom thought it'd be a good idea to do brunch for Christmas Eve. Egg casserole+car sickness+morning sickness=Happy Times. But, I'm a good at making nice so I did as expected and enjoyed the day with only a couple of trips to the loo. I just wanted to make the day as normal and good as possible. It was Christmas Eve and Christmas is the time to always have a good family time.
So what if there was a huge elephant in the room. 'Should we talk about the pregnancy that the doctors are saying to terminate cause it could kill you or should we just ignore it?' kind of day. To add to the uncomfortableness my grandparents' were in from Florida. These are my mom's dad and stepmother. We don't see them too often. At one time I would have lambasted them as useless but in recent times I am finding out about all manner of ugly skeletons in my families closet so I'm learning not to judge them too harshly. Not an easy thing to do since this is how I was raised but I am giving shaking off how I was raised a very valiant try. But that is getting off subject all together.
It was awkward talking to my step grandmother about about being pregnant and all the hopes and feeling that come along with it. She never had a child and it shows. Around the corners of her eyes. They get all pinched and tight when she is trying to relate when it comes to the subject of children. I don't know if it is because she wanted one and could not have one or if she never wanted one and is just trying to 'relate'. Either way, it was awkward.
The only real reference to the baby that day was a little bitty pair of Christmas socks mom gave me. I still have those socks.
Luckily, since mom wanted to start the day off so early, that meant the day could end early too. I was so ready for that day to be over with. I don't even remember leaving.
One family Christmas down, one to go.

My Story Vol. 8

Matt and I left the Nephrologist with quite a bit of fear in our hearts. He gave us a list of diseases I could have; minimal change disease due to untreated strep, Lupus Nephritis due to SLE, cancer... None of them walks in the park but at least minimal change disease is a temporary and very treatable thing. God, I really wanted it to be minimal change disease.
Next up came Christmas.
The drive from Indiana to East Tennessee usually takes five hours. This time it took eight. I've never in my life been car sick. I am one of those people that can read while riding in a car. It just never bothered me. Until I got pregnant. Now, Matt gets car sick going through the drive through. His kid was doing this to me. Around about Cookeville I seriously contemplated stopping, getting a hotel room and calling the family and letting them know if they wanted to see us they'd have to come there. I threw up about every 50 miles. I was miserable. But I perservered and made it to Dandridge, TN. Dandridge is located right in between both our parent's places'. We are going to my side on Christmas Eve and Matt's on Christmas Day. Yay, more time in the car.

My Story Vol. 7

Since all the immediate (and not so immediate) family knew about the appointment with the MFM doc the phone started to ring not too long after Matt and I got home.
Matt answered the calls from his side and I took the ones from mine. Not easy phone calls to take, let me tell you. How do you tell your dad his little girl is very sick? Not only very sick but sick and pregnant with his first grandchild and living five hours away. I stuttered a lot. My mom took it as she always does when it comes to me. She acted like I was making much ado about nothing but that is a whole other story there.
They all wanted to know 'what next?' and there was not a lot I could tell them other than my kidneys were spilling protein in huge amounts and the doctors don't think I could survive the pregnancy. Jeez, that sucked to have to say out loud much less think. It sucks to have to type even now.
The next appointment I had was with a Nephrologist. Nephrologists are scary. Their offices are filled with very sick people. I didn't belong there. I felt like a fraud. But I wasn't. The nurses were so nice. The doctor was so nice. He explained things to me and called me 'sweetheart'. I'll call him Dr. Suresh.
I've said it before, but again, I was so scared.
Now Dr. Suresh explained to me what they thought might be going on and why they all were freaking out so bad. See a person can spill a minute amount of protein and be ok. If you work out really hard or, for women, are near your period you can spill a little bit of protein. Something like less than a milligram. Mild kidney disease spills between 1 and 3 grams. Moderate kidney disease spills between 3-5 grams. Severe kidney disease is over 5 grams. I was spilling over 9 grams of protein a day. Not good. Not good especially since I was only 13 weeks pregnant (at the time of the Nephrologist appointment) and protein spilling like that, without prior kidney disease is due to pre-eclampsia. I was way too early to be pre-ecplampsic. I had to have far advanced kidney disease. They needed to find out what was happening with me ASAP.

My Story Vol. 6

Now, I realize my last instalment was all vague and scary, well, that's exactly how the whole experience was.
Here is this woman whom I have never seen before comes in and rips my life apart. Tells me to give up the one thing I've fought for, for so many years, and the one thing I've ever truly wanted - my child. All based on one set of lab tests and a couple cups of pee. She orders lots and lots of new blood work, tells me she wants me to have an amniocentesis at 14 weeks gestation, then gives us all her phone numbers, email addresses and even home address. Holy shit, this is serious.
Oh, and then she tops is all off by telling us we are the last patients she will be seeing in Indiana because she is moving to Arizona the next day. NEXT DAY!!! WTF?!
Matt and I are then led out of "the room" and back to the receptionist's desk. This time she is nice to us. We scheduled our next appointment for two weeks away , I stop off and give twelve vials of blood (not exaggerating) and we leave.
Matt and I get in the car not speaking. each of us too afraid to say anything to the other for fear of what those words could unleash. Neither of us wanted to breach that levee yet. Neither of us could. Too much had been heaped upon us and we needed that drive time to process all we had just been told. I remember listening to myself breath. Listening to my heart beat. Trying to ask that little life deep inside me what I was supposed to do. Lots to ask of a fetus, I know.

MY STORY VOL. 5

After the second ultrasound has been performed I clean up and Matt and I are led into a room with one window, and a table with two chairs on one side and one chair on the other. When the appointment was made with the Maternal Fetal Medicine office it was made with (oh, lets call her) Dr. Williams. We are surprised then that we are greeted by Dr. Spencer. Dr. Spencer is late middle aged with blond hair and a thick Brazilian accent. She tells us to have a seat. My stomach hollows out.
Dr. Spencer then proceeds to regale us with the test results and what they all mean. Honestly I don't remember too much about the ordeal. What I remember most is the window right behind her head. In that window I saw a gray, cold, rainy parking lot. I wanted to crawl out of that window so badly. I wanted to run as far and as fast as I could across the corn fields and soybean fields of Indiana all the way back home to Tennessee. I didn't want to let this thing happen to me, to us. I do remember words being said to me like 'terminate', and 'kidney failure', dialysis, and 'death'. She said she didn't think I'd live to see 40 and to use the time I have left wisely and to not have this baby. At one point during it all I looked over at Matt and he looked so scared. He was holding my hand and touching my shoulder and rubbing my back. He was clutching onto me like I was already starting to fade away and he was trying to stop it all by himself. I've never been so scared in all my life.

MY STORY Vol. 4

A week after I peed on a stick and a week before the first actually prenatal visit I had my first ultrasound to see if the pregnancy was viable. Let me tell you, this is an amazing experience. I'm laying there with my knees in the air, Matt holding my hand, staring with all we're worth at the little black and white screen. The technician is doing her thing looking for the little life. I'm holding my breath waiting, terrified.
And then, there it is, a flicker. Joy swept over me. There really is no other way to describe it. I get all teary just thinking about it now. A flicker and a heartbeat and there 'it' is, just like that. We were going to be parents. God help me, I would do whatever it took. I knew it with all of my being.
My second ultrasound came about two weeks after the first prenatal visit. This appointment is set up for me after those bad tests started coming back. This appointment is with what is referred to as a Maternal Fetal Medicine doctor. This specialty is for high risk pregnancy's. I am about twelve weeks pregnant at this point. The receptionist is snide. The waiting room is cold.
We are finally called back after about 30 minutes. The nurse is late middle aged and kind. I pee in a cup for her. It looks like beer. She tests it with a dip stick type protein test and her eyes go wide. She lets me know the stick is showing 4+ protein. She is concerned.
We are then led to the ultrasound room. I get up on the table and lie down. We are both so excited. How has that little flicker grown? Is 'it' OK? Yay, we get a peek.
The technician finds our little one and begins to check 'it' out. Head, body, arm buds, leg buds, nice looking heart, all there accordingly. All looking just like it should. I begin to laugh. I begin to laugh and 'Bean' (as we are calling 'it' now, cause 'it' just sounds kinda impersonal) begins to dance. The technician is amazed. Matt is floored. I just laugh some more. This will be a constant throughout all of the ultrasounds. When I laugh Bean dances. Cool huh?!

My Story Vol. 3

So, I go by the lab and am asked a few obtrusive questions by some scary looking lady lab techs. If you've ever been pregnant you know the questions I mean. I let them open a vein and then I leave. I go fill the progesterone prescription and go home.
Did I mention before that I was not feeling all that hot? Morning sickness hit me hard. Oy Vey. Except mine was not in the morning. Mine came in the evening about 5PM every day. If I had not had dinner by then I did not eat till at least the next morning. In fact, the "morning" sickness got so bad toward the end of the first trimester that it began at 5PM and lasted all night and into the next day, so then becoming truly morning sickness.
After getting the progesterone filled I start taking it just like the doctor told me to do. He told me to watch out for some swelling and headaches that sort of thing. I didn't think too much of it except two days into the progesterone my legs begin to swell. And swell, and swell, and swell... I have freakishly skinny ankles and kinda knobby knees. I swelled so badly that I didn't even have knees much less ankles and my feet started to spill out of my ballet flats. Not a pretty sight and a scary situation to be in.
I called the doctors office after hours and got a jerk (OK, so I tried to come up with something nicer and this is as nice as I've got) who told me that I would experience some swelling and just keep taking the progesterone. I didn't. Call me a bad patient but I had a really bad feeling about what was going on. The next day I called the office again when my doc (let's call him Dr. Mac) was in and he wanted me to come in. I did and he says "whoa there" and halves my progesterone dose. The swelling goes down and all is running back on track.
About two weeks after the first prenatal visit I am laying on the couch being pregnant and watching something on TV and the phone rings. It's the nurse from the OB/Gyn's office and she sounds tense. I can tell this is not going to be a good phone call.
Let's call her nurse Betty. Nurse Betty asks me how I am feeling. I tell her I'm just fine now that the swelling has gone down and the morning sickness has not kicked in yet (it was only about 2PM). She then asks me to come to the office right away if possible, they want to run some more blood work. I start to feel a little concerned at this point. I ask her what is going on. Nurse Betty then asks my if I know I have kidney disease. Whah?! Huh?! "What are you talking about" I ask her. She says "your urine came back with over 600mg of protein in it and blah blah blah..." That's about the time the cabin lost pressure.
I say I'll be right over and I get in the car. I know something bad is going on but I'm still not quite sure what. When I get to the doctor's office nurse Betty and the doc are there waiting on me. They tell me that they are not quite sure yet because they have not seen this type of thing really but it looks like I'm pre-eclampsic but I'm only ten weeks pregnant. If I were thirty weeks pregnant then I would be pre-eclampsic but I'm not so they don't know what is happening yet. And over and over again in various ways. I'm starting to feel a little bit sick and I'm beginning to understand the term 'flop sweat'. The room is constricting around me and the air is getting thin. I want to run, screaming out of the room but I am too Southern so I just smile and nod that 'yes, I understand what is going on' ,and 'yes I will go pee in a cup' ,and 'yes I will give more blood' ,and 'yes I will call them if anything comes up, anything at all'.
It is late November in southern Indiana so when I walk out of the hospital it is biting cold outside. My face is hot and my eyes are scalding in my face. I get into my car and drive back to our townhouse. I am hyperventilating and I am alone.
Matt gets home not too long after I arrive. He comes in and sees me crying. He thinks it's just hormones until I start to tell him about my day. He looks like a scared kid. This is so much more than either of us has ever really faced before. This is not just a miscarriage. This has the potential to be bad. Really bad.

My story. Vol. 2

Let's see where was I? Oh, yeah I was just about to look at the stick. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but two little pink lines and then lots and lots of tear. The dog thought I was cracking up.
I called Matthew and told him to come home. "Why" he asks, "is something wrong? Did someone die?", all panicked voice. "No" I tell him "just come home, now."
"Are you pregnant?" he asks.
"I'm not going to tell you something like that on the phone, you have to come home."
So, he comes home.
I was so excited. I was so scared. So was Matt.
Have you ever really wanted something so so badly but you never truly in your heart think it will actually happen. In fact just know it will not because that is just not how your life works? That is how we both felt about having a child. We both felt I would never get pregnant. Too many obstacles in our path. But here it was proof positive. Two soggy test (I took the second one right away and watched it turn positive sitting right there on the john) both with glorious twin pink lines.
Next come more phone calls. Calls to both set of parents. Calls to siblings. Calls to all manner of friends and family members. Those were fun phone calls to make!
Then came the phone calls to the docs. Didn't know a soul in town and now had to find a doctor for the most important event in both of our lives. This was going to be interesting.
So, I called the biggest hospital in town and told them my story. I was given an appointment date and a name. What else was there to do? Somehow I end up with a former Tennessean as my Ob/Gyn. How cool is that? Nice guy (which was a switch, I'd always had lady lady doctors), seemed very knowledgeable, took his time talking to me, made sure I had all my questions answered. He thought it would be a good idea to put me on progesterone for the first trimester given my past history and age and have an overview with a maternal fetal medicine doc (yes, I was about to turn 35) otherwise we would proceed as usual. I just needed to stop and give a few vials of blood on my way out.
All is going just peachy keen. Or so I thought...

Redirect - Hope this story will help someone else.

So, here's my story. Vol. 1
In the winter of '06 my husband began to travel with his company. Eventually he was living in one state and I was in another. We did this for eight months. This is no way to live when two people are married. Especially when said marrieds are trying to conceive. So, in the summer of '07 I decided to give up my very good government job and go live with my husband Matthew and move to Indiana.
Now, I'm a mountain girl. Hillbilly if you will and Indiana is flat. Very flat. Not to mention the people (OK, so the women) are well, "different". I think I ran into two friendly people the whole time I was there. Not a good way to start a new life in a new place. I was alienated and homesick and lonely and I didn't feel well. I just chalked that all up to the new situation I was in. The past eight months of constant travel from East Tennessee to Indiana five hours each way at least twice a month can put a strain on a body.
At first my time in Indiana was hopeful. I had never lived out of my home state. I was ready for a change of scenery. I was ready to get away from the people and places I had always known. I needed a change and I needed my husband back. I was going to give the life of a stay at home wife a whirl.
I read a lot of books. I did a lot of yoga. I walked the dog. I took pregnancy tests.
After about six weeks of this I started to send out resumes as well.
A few more weeks went by and a few more tests went into the trash until one day I told Matt that I just could not read one more test. I would gladly take them but he would have to be the one to read them. I just didn't have it in me any more. I just could not face that one solitary line one more time.
Funny how life works out cause that day we went to the local Chinese buffet. This was Matt's idea. He wanted Chinese food so we went. I was not in the mood for food. Any kind of food Chinese or otherwise. I felt like crawling out of my skin. I felt like I was getting the flu. That is where I told him I just couldn't look at a rejection stick one more time. He said o.k. he'd look from now on. "In fact" he said "why don't we go ahead and get another test when we stop by the store tonight."
Thinking this test was a waste of time and money we bought one and Matt said "just take it. You know it's going to be negative but at least that will be out of our heads and hearts for a few more weeks. It will be one less thing." That night I didn't even look at the test. I didn't really even think about it.
The next morning Matt calls me about 10 o'clock and asks if I have peed on the unholy stick. I let him know I have not. He then asks me to go take it. "Go take it to get it out of the way" he says. I poo poo his request and get off the phone. About an hour later I need to do what nature was calling me to do so I went ahead and peed on the stick so I could tell Matt later 'see, I peed on the stick' cause that's the kind of stupid shit you do when you are married.
I laid the stick on the counter and left the bathroom not wanting to acknowledge this soiled piece of plastic with all my hopes and dreams dripping off the end of it. I took the dog for a walk. I came back to the house. I crept up the stairs. I peeked into the bathroom but did not go in. I strained my eyes in hopes of seeing something. I didn't quite have the right angle so I inched into the bathroom just a little bit. Feet still on the carpet but with my body leaning into the room up on my toes, eyes wide. Eyes wide because did I see? Is that really what the test is showing? Is that really two lines in that window?

old photos

I looked through a bunch of old photos last night. Summer photos. Winter photos. Christmas photos. I have no idea who any of those people are anymore.

Away from the crowd

It's been a while since my last entry. I needed some space and time to remove myself from the conflagration. I thought at first it would help to spew about all that craptastic family fallout but no, it did not.
Enough of that and on to better things. No more behaving badly. 2010 will be better than all of that.
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