In keeping true to this blog being mostly an electronic diary for myself, this post contains mostly a run down of the past few days. There's nothing much deep or witty coming from this brain today.
My husband went to Pennsylvania this past weekend to run in a 5k with my father, sister and brother-in-law. I cherish that after 11 years together (not a long time by any means), my husband and I sincerely and wholly miss each other when we're apart. In today's world of divorces and lack luster marriages, I am so grateful we still prefer to spend more time together than apart. Anyway, I was really excited for him to return home and just as he arrived, I was hit with this pretty intense abdominal pain. Nothing says "Hello, honey" like being doubled over on the couch.
My initial thought was to curse the fact that I had eaten an entire frozen pizza by myself.
Now before you go judging me, please know it was a small frozen pizza and eaten over the course of three meals and two days. But, nonetheless, I was 100% blaming that pizza for that abdominal pain. At that point, my thoughts were leaning more towards a gastrointestinal pain than anything else. A pepto and three ibuprofen seemed to do the trick for that night. My poor husband was greeted with nothing more than me complaining about my pain.
(Side note: Ever notice how a woman must be almost hospital bound before getting major sympathy points from a man, but a man gets a runny nose and a 'tickle' in his throat and the world must come to an abrupt stop? Hope I didn't generalize too much. You know what I mean!)
On Monday, I went about my day mostly pain free, though I did have some residual tenderness just under my right rib cage. At this point, I was thinking perhaps I pulled a muscle from all the cleaning I did on Sunday. Maybe I carried the vacuum cleaner up the steps funny? Maybe I strained myself opening all the windows and cleaning both sides of them? The point is that I was not alarmed in any way and was trying to justify my pain.
But about 4:00 on Monday afternoon, I was hit with so severe of a pain, I could barely stand up straight. I thought I would pass out on the way home from work and was so grateful I only live two traffic lights away from my job. I called Paul just before I left and told him how awful I was feeling. The only thing I could think of was an ectopic pregnancy. For those of you who may not know, an ectopic pregnancy is when the embryo implants into the fallopian tube or outside of the uterus. The word ectopic means "in an abnormal place or position". The only early symptoms of an ectopic pregnancy are abdominal pain, a missed period and a positive pregnancy test. If the ectopic pregnancy is in your fallopian tube, most women won't realize it until their fallopian tube ruptures, they hemorrhage and pass out from blood loss. Lovely! I was not about to mess around with my pain since Dr. Google had convinced me the pain I was feeling was from an ectopic pregnancy.
I have been to the ER two times in my whole life (unless my parents took me when I was a baby for that whole constipation episode). My first ER visit was in December 2002 when my appendix was inflamed. The subpar hospital I was at (out of state and holiday time), sent me home with antibiotics. Three months later I had my roommate in college take me to the ER on a Thursday night around 11:00 pm and by 6:00 am, I was having an appendectomy. I don't go to the ER on a whim.
When I got home from work on Monday evening, I made the executive decision to go to the ER because my pain was THAT intense. My period had still not arrived and it did not feel like a miscarriage. Luckily, I made an educated decision in the heat of the moment (hooray for being a thinker, not a feeler!) and called the after hours on-call fertility doctor. I was soooooo grateful the doctor on call was the other doctor in my doctor's practice and not one of my two former fertility doctors. How awkward would that have been??
The on-call doc was an integral part of putting together the Race to Parenthood and we had met him several times. I explained all my pain, my fertility treatments, our fertility history and he calmed me down. I was talking to him on the phone while Paul was driving me to the ER. Based on my low beta numbers, he determined I was not at risk for actually having a fallopian tube rupture and he suggested I visit my doctor on Tuesday morning for an ultrasound. So, we made a u-turn and ended up going to our small group meeting that evening. Luckily, my intense pain subsided to a manageable ache for the rest of the evening.
I went to work on Tuesday morning and called my doc. Fortunately, they could squeeze me in at 9:45. Wouldn't you know, JUST before I went into the doctor's office, I finally started to spot. Nothing like eating a little humble pie when you're in front of your doc after being an alarmist.
He could neither confirm nor deny the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy because he couldn't see any pregnancy tissue anywhere. The positive side was that he also couldn't see any active bleeding from my fallopian tube. This particular scenario gave me an opportunity to see how differently Paul and I process the exact same situation as he had gone with me. I was grateful that the doc couldn't find anything definitively wrong and Paul was upset that he couldn't tell us more. Which just goes to show that (like most men), Paul does not like feeling helpless.
Over the course of this journey, I've learned how to laugh at life's timing. Certain situations will arise where all you can do is laugh. Even if it's something you should probably cry at…because, seriously, what are the odds? For example, after my appointment (& lab work where I got stuck twice b/c my vein rolled in my one arm and then she tried the other arm), I returned to work. I wasn't feeling bad just yet and had the goal of making it through my afternoon staff meeting. Every two to three years, we do a new pictorial directory at work. Wouldn't you know, yesterday was picture day. What are the odds that my staff picture day (once in three years) would fall on the day I started my miscarriage? I had my picture taken and then barely made it through my staff meeting because things got intense fast.
Hello feeling like I'm in 7th grade again.
I can't even begin to express how grateful I am to work in a place where I can tell my boss exactly what I am going through and have her give me orders to go home and take care of myself. My employees were great too and practically kicked me out the door. (Hopefully because they wanted me to go home and relax and not just to get rid of their boss! ;) )
Today, I'm choosing to embrace a day of sleeping in late (after waking up super early to catch the Lunar Eclipse), watching awful daytime TV, snuggling with my pups and being so.freaking.lazy it may just kill me.
Maybe I'll shower today, maybe I won't.
Here's to hoping I feel a little more normal tomorrow.
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