Difficulties of Separation?- part 2

This post may be long, but I will separate it into sections to make it easier to read. It'll also allow anyone to skip around if they want to.  This will contain a lot of personal feelings and emotion, so if you don't like that sort of thing, just skip it. So, here goes:

Sick, Pregnant and "Alone"

Before Matt left, I had he and my dad give me a priesthood blessing. We are members of the LDS church and believe the men hold the same priesthood that Christ gave his disciples, which means they can also give blessings as He did. It is all dependent on worthiness and faith. The blessing said that the Lord would bless me to feel better when I need to feel better. It also said to rely on the Lord and trust that He has a plan for me and my family. It said to have faith and everything would be okay. I didn't realize until a week or so later that it never mentioned anything about the baby or it's health. All my blessings with my other kids did. I interpreted the blessing the way I wanted it to be. I would be blessed to have the sickness go away early and that everything would be fine. That's what I thought at least. I was wrong.

Okay, so I was sick and pregnant, but living in a household of people at all times. I wasn't ever even close to being alone, but honestly never felt so alone in my life. I didn't want to rely on anyone, except my parents, for help with my kids and it's really hard for me to ask. When we were at my parent's house, it wasn't too difficult. Everyone at my in-law's house is great, and super helpful, but I just didn't like asking for help. I was grateful enough just to have a place to stay there. They are all quite a bit busier than my semi retired parents. Anyway, the house was chaos. There were cousins in town for a couple of weeks, too much stimulation for all the kids I think, and constant noise.  My kids, having been uprooted multiple times this year, didn't handle this transition very well. Not having their dad with them made it even harder. They didn't understand why he had left. They started acting out, mostly towards me. Harper, my almost 4 year old, would yell at me, talk back to me, listen to everyone else but me and just be flat out mean. UNLESS, I gave her something she wanted. Max, 2 years old, has always been a "mama's boy," but it increased with the chaos. He wanted me near him constantly and would scream if I wasn't. I was still sick and not able to do as much as I'd like to, so that made it hard since he is a very active little guy. His 5 minute bed times turned into 1 1/2-2 hrs for me. If anyone else did it, he would tell them to go away and he'd go to sleep. For me, he was constantly begging me to lay down and stay with him. If i got up, he'd scream. If I thought he was asleep and got up, he'd scream. By the end of every day, I was in tears and calling my husband in a complete breakdown. I was exhausted and didn't sleep well most nights. There wasn't much he could do, of course, except say whatever he thought he needed to in order to make me feel better. The night We got the tickets (huge thanks to my mother in law for those) for me to go visit him I had even told him that I didn't even think I deserved this baby because I couldn't even handle the two kids I already had. Little did I know, I had already lost the baby.

Ultrasound and Discovery of Miscarriage

At this point, I was grateful my husband was a military dentist because I knew there is only a little chance of deployment. I don't know how all these spouses handle the long separations. I'm amazed by them. My husband, I'm sure will be gone here and there for short periods, but not for years.

Anyway, I went in for the ultrasound expecting a routine OB appointment with my kids and I having physicals on top of it for command sponsorship. We decided to get my appointment done first. I lied down for the ultrasound and as soon as I saw the picture, I kind of knew something was wrong. In fact, I had the thought at the back of my mind for a week since I had started to feel a bit better. He measured the baby and it measured 9 weeks 1 day. I was at 11 weeks 3 days gestation. he asked if we had my dates right. We definitely had. My body works like clockwork and my dates are never wrong. The baby also wasn't bouncing around like normal. He checked for a heartbeat, but only saw mine. It was an obvious miscarriage. So, I got teary eyed but didn't break down yet. We had to figure out how to tell Harper that there was no more baby. She was so excited. My father in law just told her that sometimes something doesn't work right, so Heavenly Father has the baby come live with him instead. That seemed to work.

As soon as I left the room, he went and told my sister in law (an ARNP at the clinic). I went into the breakroom to call Matt and then I broke down. She came in and hugged me and welcomed me into the family. She and another one of her sisters had already had 2 miscarriages. I went home after calling my parents and texting my brothers and their wives (I definitely wasn't in the mood to talk on the phone). My sis in law asked how it went and I broke down again. They had planned on taking all kids to see the movie "Inside Out" which was great for me. It gave me time to be alone, pack our bags to go to Spokane for a couple of days, and try to sort through all the emotions. I cried a ton, but mustered up enough to call a friend. Speaking with her helped me sort through a lot of things. After telling her about the blessing I had received, I realized that this was going to happen no matter what I did, and that I hadn't done anything to cause the miscarriage. I just knew it was something I needed to go through, as many women do. The timing still sucked big time though. The blessing was right though. I did start to feel better when I most needed it. It was just through a miscarriage instead of the sickness going away miraculously. I also realized that everything was in the Lord's hands and that it was time for me to concentrate on my kids.

I got another priesthood blessing that night from my dad and brother, which helped me a lot. It said I wouldn't need to feel the normal pain and cramping usually associated with a miscarriage. It mentioned that I needed to trust the Dr. and medical assistants who would be helping me through the process. The Lord is aware of me and my situation and that He will comfort me. I need to trust that He has a plan for my family and I and that I will see that come through. It mentioned two different times that there were still spirits/children for me to bring into this world and that it would happen sooner than later. It said I would have a quick recovery and be able to move my family and get settled into a new country. My interpretation: it let me know that I would end up in the hospital getting a D&C, and that our command sponsorship would be approved. Of course the rest of it was comforting. Those two aspects helped me a lot though.

I spent the next week crying on occasion as I was alone and still trying to sort through everything, but I'm doing okay now.

Hospital Visit

We went in and did another ultrasound at around 8:00 that night. I didn't tell my kids I was going because it was the 2nd night I think that I was able to get them settled down and in bed, in the same room, at the same time. Anyway, there were no changes in the ultrasound from the week before. We went straight over to the hospital and admitted me. I got a round of cytotec started with orders for the nurse to give me 4 rounds every 4 hours up to 4 times. At this point, my cervix was still completely closed and nothing was happening. At about 12:15 in the morning, the cramping started to increase. I knew I was due for another round of meds at 12:45, so I tried to wait til then to call in the nurse. I had tried to sleep, but it didn't work. At about 12:35, I finally called in for pain meds. While she was scanning it all in, I felt a pop and thought I started bleeding. Turns out the pop was like a water breaking. I wasn't expecting that. I started to bleed immediately after. I'm not going to go into too much detail about all this, but I will say that after a little bit of time, I was bleeding and passing big clots. Every time, I thought it was the baby and I couldn't look. I just had to ask as the nurse cleaned it all up. It never was the baby. I don't know how long it went up, but everything was having to be changed about every 15 minutes, with a new clot every time. By 2:45ish the nurse had let my dr. know what was going on and he said he was going to call in the surgical team to get ready for a D&C. I knew the original plan was to do that in the morning after he had gotten to work, so it was apparent to me that something wasn't right.

Right after that call, I passed another clot. After it was cleaned up, I sat up for a second, felt immediately sick and wanted to throw up. I said "I think I'm going to throw up and I feel like I'm going to pass out." Everything was spinning and was starting to go dark. The nurse immediately called in for help and I think like 10 people came in. I don't really know. I just knew that all of the sudden, after throwing up twice, my bed was being tilted so my head was below everything else, I had a 2nd and 3rd IV being put in, heart monitors were going on all over, I had oxygen on and cords were just everywhere. I was still confused and just knew something was wrong. This whole time though, even though no family or anyone was in the hospital with me, I felt and knew I was never alone.

My dr. (father in law) was called and immediately came in. The surgical team had been called and I was being prepped for the surgery. During all this confusion, I had to sign consent forms and such. My father in law had texted Matt  at about 3:15 AM(he was awake at this point since he was 2 hrs ahead) and told him to call home immediately. He was a bit freaked out. He called as I was being rolled into the OR so I was able to explain it all to him before the surgery. I think I went in for surgery just after 4, was knocked out and finished just before 6 AM. I woke up and the first thing was my dr. telling me everything went well and that he had texted Matt to let him know. For some reason that I still don't understand, I had tears rolling down my face when I woke up and I was on the verge of crying. It was hard to talk. I remember thinking "What the heck is going on?" I was also shaking so bad because I was freezing. My whole body was shaking. They hadn't gotten the bear hug blanket going yet, but it was amazing once they did. Anyway, I was wheeled up to my room to recover.

They made me start eating at about 8:00. First liquids (which tasted nasty) and then some toast. I hadn't eaten in like 14 hours but wasn't all that hungry. Then they had to draw blood to see how much I had lost and if I needed a transfusion. My dr. had told me that the transfusion would help me recover quicker, so I was kind of hoping I needed it. I was still planning on getting on a plane the next afternoon to visit Matt and I didn't want anything to stop me.

So, I read online that normal H&H (hemoglobin and hematocrit) levels for an adult female are between 12-16 for hemoglobin and 28-36% for hematocrit. I still have no idea what the means. I just know that I was told my levels were at 7.1 and 22%. Therefore, I got a blood transfusion of 2 liters. I was finally trying to sleep, but had to get my vitals checked every 15 minutes during the process. I was FINALLY able to get some sleep after the transfusion was finished and I had been approved to walk around on my own. All but one IV was taken out and I was finally able to get comfortable on the bed. After checking my blood one more time, my levels had gone up a bit and I was discharged at around 6:00 PM. I was told at home that I was only functioning on about 2/3 of my normal blood level and had lost around 40% or a little more of my blood volume. He also mentioned that I probably would've passed the baby on my own after a couple of hours more in the hospital, but that I would've lost way too much blood. They would've had to continue with transfusions just to keep me alive and that I'd be sick for a few weeks. I was glad he told me that at home instead of in the hospital. He saw that I was doing okay and approved me to go see Matt, as long as my sister in law drove me to the airport. Thank goodness!!! I needed this trip.

Emotional Roller Coaster

Throughout the whole process, I realized how sucky it was not to be going through it with Matt. I didn't even really know how he felt. He said, it was sad of course, but that we just needed to figure out how to move on. It was pretty easy for me to talk about at this point, so I thought I was maybe doing okay. I had accepted that there was no baby so I thought I was good. It was during my forever long flights (4 hour delay after an already 3 hr layover) that I realized I was still not okay emotionally. I pretty much silently cried the whole flight from Denver to San Antonio. It didn't help that it was early hours of the morning, I can't sleep on planes, and I was exhausted. I knew I needed to kind of sort it through with Matt to help me overcome it all, but I didn't want our weekend together to be ruined by that. So, I would mention it here and there, but not too much. The last night we were together, I asked for another blessing. Once again, it was beautiful and very comforting. BUT, that brought on the tears. I told him that for some reason, I couldn't get the picture from the ultrasound of the dead baby in my belly out of my head. I told him I just felt kind of empty. Then, I just cried cuddled up to him the rest of the night while he studied for a test he had in the morning. I woke up the next morning, and have been fine emotionally since. I think I just needed that time to cry and be comforted by him.

So, now I'm doing a lot better. I'm obviously still exhausted as it will take 4-5 weeks for my body to catch up to my normal blood levels. I also have a bit more to go for recovery, but I am able to play with my kids and do other things....as long as I get enough sleep. I'm still a bit of a beast if I don't get enough sleep. So far, the two nights I've been home I haven't gotten enough sleep haha. It'll come though. I'm lucky enough to have an amazing sis in law here who takes the kids while I need to take a nap. I know I am beyond blessed. I will see why this needed to happen, eventually, but for now I'm okay with it. I know I will have more children, more sickness, more happiness, and lots of family adventures coming in the near future. I look forward to it, and am grateful to be blessed with everything I have. I have two amazing, supporting families; a great husband who loves and adores the kids and I, and a Heavenly Father who loves me and is aware of me and wants what's best for me. I may not understand or see that plan now, but I know I will eventually. I take comfort in that.