Trudging through the Trenches

It has been a very long 3 days which eventually landed me in the ER over all of this. I am beginning to think there really is no end in sight....but there is......or so I've been told for the 280th time throughout this whole process. In reality I'm probably closer than I have ever been in the last 3 months but the end seems to be ever elusive at this point. And honestly, if you take away the BS and worry over being politically correct, I'll reveal my real heart and say I'm at my wits end...and I'm just not sure I'm ever going to get to the end of this journey. I'm tired. I'm emotionally drained. I'm numb. I'm in a lot of physical pain. And I'm just ready to quit. The most wicked part of this whole thing is that I can't quit. It's like being trapped in some evil carnival ride stuck on turbo speed.

And before I get off on all of the recent events surrounding my own self I must remember to insert the recent happenings of our children. We have a whole host of daily bumps and bruises that they usually sail right through without even a tear shed. In fact, our children really rarely ever cry over physical injuries. And despite how entirely active they all are we rarely ever have any major stuff to deal with. But Gavin was being silly after a bath one night as he and Garrett played. While being silly with a q-tip in his ear he fell onto it and it went through his ear drum. I must say that after being a parent for 11 years that was probably one of the saddest things we've ever watched. There is no fix for ruptured ear drums so he just had to live through it on ear relief drops along with some Motrin and Tylenol. Poor guy. It made for a couple of really LONG nights.



As for my whole ordeal, Tuesday Evye and I loaded up and headed to Fort Worth for an ultrasound to get an update on where I am at this point in the miscarriage. I am now almost 12 weeks into this and doing this naturally is no longer an option, as there is something obviously pretty wrong. I had prepared myself for everything that I might see on the screen except what was revealed. There that morning as Evye waited in the waiting room I stared at the screen in the dimly lit room. On that screen I was met with our perfectly formed, lifeless baby still lying there peacefully within me with no heartbeat. Instead of crying, for I'm quite certain I am cried out at this point, my practical self took over and I busied myself with getting down to the business of this and what it all means for me. My iron level came back at a 5, which is dangerously low at this point despite my best efforts to keep it up with the myriad of different things I am taking, doing and am on at this point. I was told to once again see my dr immediately so that we can deal with this. I was so anemic by this point and my body has been trying so hard to deliver this baby for so long that it was determined that I am at a huge risk of hemorrhaging, and as she put it....a ticking time bomb. They were astounded that I have not had a uterine infection at this point and am still so whole and well....and alive. A uterine infection would probably result in a total hysterectomy due to how short of a time in takes to make a person devastatingly sick and infect everything within the female reproductive system. She noted many times how protected I have been. I was told that a D&C poses a lower risk at this point than continuing to wait it out or trying to induce labor and have the baby naturally, due to my iron count and the high risk of hemorrhaging I face. Pictures were taken of the baby but were not included in the paperwork I was given. I was glad when I first opened the paperwork that night to see what exactly it all said but now that we have past that point I regret that we have no ultrasound pictures of our perfect baby that I carried for so long. I left with instructions to go see my dr immediately. It became a toss up of whether to continue seeing my midwife and physician in Fort Worth or go home and deal with this all from home now. Brad became quite adamant and stated that it was imperative that we be near home and that our life is now in west Texas and no longer in Fort Worth. I cried some more. I don't mind finding a dr here but to do it under such immediate and dire circumstances and entrust everything this involved to them seemed overwhelming to me. But once again I knew that the Lord speaks loudly through my husband and it was in my best interest to just trust and submit...not an easy thing for me to ever do. So, still in a lot of physical pain, I cramped all afternoon and evening, dealt with all of the female end of it that goes along with it all and we packed up and headed home...skipping out on the bread class I was supposed to attend that night. I felt I had done pretty well all day emotionally but as Evye drifted off to sleep and the road hummed underneath spinning tires the anger, the sadness, the depression and all of the disappointment of the last 4 months of our life set in.

With cruise control set on 69 with a speed limit of 70 I had no doubt the miles would fade away with the hours. At one point a trooper entered the interstate beside me. Already in the passing lane and having sped up to 74 to pass the car I just passed him too.....never once even entertaining the thought it would result in anything. Almost instantly obnoxious red and blue lights blinded me as the trooper fell in behind me. At this point I just seethed. I was so irate that tears never even really threatened to come. I was in no mood to even look at him, not to mention speak to him. I have never once driven away from a trooper without a ticket and I knew this would be no different. It never seems to matter that Brad is a firefighter and a fellow brother in the public service world....so I didn't even bother telling the cop. Who cared, anyway. He approached and told me I was going a whopping 4 miles over the speed limit and had a license plate light out so that my plate was unclear in the dark. Yippee. I had no desire to tell him it was Brad's truck or anything else about my life. He asked where I was going, where I had come from and what I was there for. I just stated bluntly and emotionlessly, "a sonogram" at the last question. When he walked away to run the tags I finally did cry....again, for the 281st day in a row. Hearing his footsteps I quickly composed myself, wiped tears away and concealed all emotions. I have major issues with women who cry to get out of tickets. I just think it's manipulative BS, honestly. I looked down in his hand to receive my ticket as he spoke, "I'm just going to give you a warning tonight. Slow down your speed and get that light fixed." I would've liked to have thought it was due to my amazingly good looks but that's entirely laughable and, in all reality, it came down to only being FOUR whole miles over the speed limit. But at this moment as he informed me it was just a warning it seemed to break through my anger at life and I began to cry....and cry....and cry. I was sobbing so hard that he stood at the window of the truck completely and totally bewildered. He asked in all cluelessness but total sincerity, "Are you ok????" Eventually I nodded my head but was crying too hard to really answer. More silence on his part....then, "Are you sure?????" All I could really do was wave the warning slip of paper in the air and say in between sobs, "Thank you. For this." He laughed outloud then. To say that I felt entirely stupid doesn't even come close to conveying how absolutely mortified I felt....but even those feeling couldn't stop the torrent of tears. After some time of him standing at the truck door as I cried I finally started to calm down. He eventually tried to console me a little and tell me that I'd just better sit here awhile and get a grip cause I still had a long way to go before I reached home. Again, I just nodded. He assured me that all I had to do was go to Lowe's or Home Depot, grab a salesman that knew where the plate lights were and it was a quick, cheap fix. He obviously seemed to think I was undone due to my light being out, which made it even worse on my part. I never said anything though. He asked once more if I'd be ok and I finally verbally assured him...albeit, not too convincingly.....that I would be fine. He continued to stand there and finally said something about the deer being thick and to watch out for them too. Once more, I just nodded and finally managed a little laugh...as it was fairly obvious given the shredded up carnage that had gone on for many miles along the interstate and would only get worse as we exited off to wind our way through the deserted hills that lead home. Once the sobs subsided a little and I was just down to streaming tears he finally gave me a comforting wink and tapped the inside of the truck door lightly saying, "You have a better night, alright?" So I sat for another 5 or so minutes trying to regain my composure from all of the day's events and pulled back out onto the road. He followed me to our exit and then let us go on our way. Emotionally fragile and hormonally imbalanced don't seem to even come close to my psychotic behaviour at this point. To say that I am tired at this stage of the game is an understatement in every sense of the word. And that poor cop had to endure some of the explosive content that lies buried within. I actually kind of just thought I was cried out by now....but apparently, I'm not. I didn't feel like telling him about Aubrey. I didn't feel like telling him that I miscarried our baby. I didn't feel like telling him I am still pregnant with a dead baby. I didn't feel like telling him I am still cramping for the 3rd month in a row and still in pain. So, I didn't tell him anything....and he, to this day, has no clue what in the world was wrong with the psycho woman he stopped that night. Oh well.

Wednesday morning we awoke with Gavin's ear potentially infected and many decisions to make concerning where to go from here about my predicament. While Brad took Gavin into town to survey the damage in his ear I began figuring out where to go from here. I called the office of a dr that had been recommended to us by a few people. After explaining where I am and what is taking place she basically reinstated everything I had been told the day before. My chance of hemorrhaging at this point was so high that I am ..once again.....a "ticking time bomb". She said it sounded as though everything within was trying to detach and and I would not survive the 32 mile trip from our home to the hospital and the helicopter could not be here in time to do anything. They refused to even see me in the office for an appt and told me to go straight to the ER. Given what had taken place the night before and the amount of bleeding...sorry for the TMI for all of the male readers......she said I was a walking miracle and to head straight in and she would notify the dr on call that I was coming. So, I did what I seem to do best these days and hung up and cried some more. We made some quick arrangements for the children and in a daze Brad and I headed for the hospital. Another ultrasound revealed that I had passed the baby sometime Tuesday night in all of my pain in Fort Worth and on the way home. So, somehow in all of the mess our baby was flushed down the toilet into the Fort Worth sewer system. It just seemed to be more to this never ending sadness. But, for once, I actually didn't cry. With talk of an immediate D&C and many many dr's, nurses, techs and people later they decided that since so much had occurred in 24 hours after so many months of carrying this baby that they would admit me and watch me overnight to see what my body was capable of. Can this just be over yet????

I was settled into a room and visited by my new dr. Brad and I both told her of our desire to avoid a D&C if possible but really were at a point we wanted to get this over with for my health. She asked if we wanted more children to which we replied that we do so she said she would do everything she could to keep me out of the OR since the potential scar tissue of a D&C poses a risk to our future fertility. At this point I'm just wanting to be done with this already. The next morning yet another ultrasound was performed to see how much progress I had made. It revealed that I am still not yet done with this but have so very little to go. After being on Demoral for hours and it having spurred a migraine I reached the end of myself. I was continually told that they could give me nothing but MORE Demoral to kill it off only for it to come back bigger and stronger. Everyone seemed to be waiting on everybody else to give orders for a pain killer for a headache. Brad snuck in Tylenol but nothing really phased it by that stage of the game. When the dr finally appeared after hours and hours I could hardly roll over and focus on anything. They had not let me eat anything since an emergency D&C was continually in the picture. So, in 48 hours I had eaten one meal. She informed me that everything was back under control and she felt sure I could finish this on my own. She stated that to do a D&C now would be the equivalent of giving an epidural at 10 centimeters. She felt confident that I would now do fine with a mild stimulant to help my body finish the job and keep me out of the OR. In all consuming headache pain I started to cry and tell her I just wanted this all to be over and I wanted the D&C. She said she wanted to honor our desire to avoid it if we could and that we had come so very far. I told her I had changed my mind and just wanted this to all go away. She tried to be comforting and assure me that my body has done an amazing job, I had miraculously not hemorrhaged and it had shown an amazing ability to do this job....despite the fact it has taken almost 12 weeks. Eventually Brad came back into the room and I cried all over again. When he asked what was wrong all I could manage was weakly crying, "I have a headache." I did eventually tell him the news. He assured me that he has prayed so long and hard for me and that he trusted God to work through the dr's He had placed over me. He wanted me just to trust. He felt God was working despite how very tired I am with this whole thing. With the IV finally taken out and release papers signed I walked out with three prescriptions in hand..one of them to specifically bring on yet more pain.....and the promise this should all be over with "in a week or two". Awww....the ever elusive "week or two". Those same two weeks that never seem to come.

So, here I sit with 4 of the children in Fort Worth with Mother, three with Brad's mom and Evye at home for house and animal help. In pain....again...but this time with the promise of "a week or two". The same promise that I was given almost 12 weeks ago now. I have a follow up appt in 2 weeks with yet another ultrasound to see if anything remains of the pregnancy. If so, I will then definitely be admitted for a D&C.

In all, I am thankful. I am thankful for the dr we were given and that God has worked through her when I was just so ready to give up. We are so close to the end...maybe. I am thankful that my life has been spared when no one was even aware of how dire the circumstances really were. I am thankful to finally have some answers. I am thankful to be OUT of the hospital. There are many many things to be thankful for throughout this whole ordeal. So, as I am confined to my bed both today and all day tomorrow I will put pencil in hand and pull out my piece of wrinkled up, creased, colored on paper of thankfulness and begin to write. I am tired. I am pretty much done and at the end of my rope with life. But I am alive. I am breathing. And I am still the wife of Brad and the mother of 8 beautiful children.

Honestly, I don't think the meds are working. Everything it is supposed to be doing it isn't except causing intense pain. So, just pray. Pray for this all to be over. I'm tired. BUT.....I haven't cried today. So, we've GOT to be making progress.