February 23rd, 2011

When I got up, I quickly realized that I wasn't ok. I was bleeding more, was dizzy, lightheaded, and I felt horrible. I took a long shower, not by choice, but because I had to sit and even lay down in the shower several times to get through it. I was throwing up, couldn't stand, could barely even sit up. It was 6:30 and I crawled to the couch with the phone, calling my sister. "Something's wrong" I said, before I broke down in tears. I explained my symptoms in between sobs, all the while thinking, "This isn't fair."
Out of pure desperation to be reassured that my baby was where it should be and everything was alright, I went to my ultra sound. As I sat there I quickly became aware that my baby wasn't where it should be and everything was NOT alright. There was nothing where it should be. Instead, they thought that they could see the baby in my tube. An ectopic pregnancy. After speaking with the ultra sound technician and then the doctor there, I broke down again. I cried and told this poor ultra sound tech that this wasn't supposed to happen, we just lost a child, we couldn't be losing another, it's not fair. She handled it pretty well, she was concerned that Dayne was there with Steve, waiting for me in the waiting room. She asked if she could get Steve and send him in and take Dayne to get something from the treasure chest. I was so grateful for her to be so understanding. When Steve came in I was dressed and sitting on the chair. He was smiling until he saw his face. He asked "What's going on?" And I could speak. I sobbed and looked at him, choking out, "It's in the tube." and then "I'm not a bad person" He cut me off at that moment and told me to be strong, he said I had to be strong, that this wasn't a punishment, and I needed to stop thinking like that. He was firm and I felt...alone. I looked at him and said "Steven, I'm not strong" And he laughed, hugged me and said "I know, but try" It wasn't the response I was looking for, but it was one that came from a place of love. Once I was calm, we left there, dropped Dayne off with my sister and headed back to the doctor at the walk in clinic that I had been to the day before.
He explained that the pregnancy looked like it was an ectopic, that this is considered an emergency and I needed to get to the hospital. He gave me all the paper work I would need to have them shuffle me past the waiting room into a private room where they would do more ultra sounds, check my blood pressure a million times and make me keep a clip on my finger that measured my heart rate for hours and hours.
I don't know how long I was in that room for. Several doctors saw me, several nurses, and even a few people from admitting. They told me about my options if this ended up being an ectopic, they still weren't sure, the ultra sounds hadn't shown them very much. In the end, I was left in that room, with Steve by my side, hoping for the best case scenario, which was for my body to flush everything out on it's own. And if that failed, the second best scenario, which was a medication which would flush it out. The other option was most likely losing that tube, which didn't feel like much of an option to me.
So we waited. I asked the doctor if I would be able to go home soon, I explained that I wanted to be with my son, he would be missing me. And I was informed that we had to wait.
You're always waiting at the hospital, nothing is ever just explained and done, it's always explained a million times by a million different people, and then you wait and eventually, slowly, things happen. When the waiting finally seemed to come to an end we were told that the blood work that they had taken was essentially useless. The HCG levels were low, too low to see a baby in my uterus, where they hadn't seen one. And this meant that we had to do some more of their favorite thing...wait. They admitted me and told me that I would wait for a bed, in a room on another floor. The room that I would be spending the night in, and possibly another night after that. They had to take more blood in the morning and then wait for those results, to see what was going on with my HCG levels.
It was about 8:30pm when I was finally settled in my new room, Steve had left to get me a few things and then come back with Dayne. They visited until almost 9 and then went home. When I was alone, I read, and stared, I wondered why we had such bad luck. I wondered why I couldn't have another baby, I wondered if I ever would.
You don't really sleep in a hospital, with nurses coming in and out, they check your blood pressure and heart rate, ask if you need anything, it's not a restful time, to say the least. But I tried to get some rest. Who knew what the next day would bring.