The Duchess

Hide n' Watch

One of the best people I have never met in person said it best.

You better hide n' watch.

 

this blog is coming back full force and password protected. Want in? Email me. Don't want to? Your loss.

 

“In a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” -Warren Buffett

Absurd

I hit publish on Monday and breathed a huge sigh of relief to put that story out there, to have people help carry a little of the fear and doubt.

Then I went to dinner on Tuesday we were meeting my SIL and BIL (they are my husband's stepmother's son and wife...but we like them so much we would choose them for family) and their two kids. I had been looking forward to the outing all day and was fully unprepared for the news they would deliver.

A good family friend (and my SIL's best friend) found out on Monday that her baby had passed away, her and I have been trading notes on and off throughout our pregnancies as she is only a week behind me. She felt decreased movement on Sunday and when she went in on Monday the baby had already died. After a very long a difficult induction she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy this morning.

For obvious reasons I am physically staying far away from the family but I was able to help set up Now I Lay me Down to Sleep and after talking to the wonderful JDEGirl I was able to pass on sound advice that helped my SIL feel more prepared for today's events and the events that are to come in the following weeks.

I feel horrible that they have to go through this, I feel sick that it came on the heels of me telling her my story and I feel guilty that my baby is okay and hers is not. Her story is not mine to tell and the only reason I am writing about it is that when it came time to set up the crib on Wednesday night I found myself almost shouting NO at Duke. That and the nightmares I have had the last two nights and the panic attack I had at dinner tell me how affected I really am, so I am doing the only thing I know to do and that is turn to you to help me shoulder some of the fear, guilt and sadness.

Not what I intended to write...

I logged on to my google reader tonight, after a long day of car travel, with great excitement, a few bloggers I have been following since my days at the Lost and Found table are expecting babies and I hoped someone had popped over the weekend.

In truth I started following Cece because she was on my list of people, I kept following her because she was fun to read, so different from me and yet so very much in the same boat; we both WANTED a baby. I am lame and have no hobbies, Cece knits and bakes and decorates and remodels, she is crafty and smart and sweet leaving me kind messages and overall just rocking. We both became pregnant within weeks of each other me via IUI and her IVF she was due before me and had Hulk via C-section. When she found out that she was pregnant with spontaneous twins due right around the time of her son's first birthday I couldn't believe it, I may have even giggled and thought that could never happen to me.

Needless to say finding myself in a different but similar spontaneous situation just a few months later had me running to her blog for comfort and another dose of Cece's can-do spirit.

She gave birth to beautiful twin girls on the 29Th of November and it is with the heaviest heart that I say one of her daughter's Nora passed away on Friday the day before Hulk's first birthday. I am writing this in the hope that you will go over to her site and offer words of love, encouragement and hope and also congratulations to Hulk on hitting a very major milestone. I haven't always been the best at leaving comments but as we all know they are verbal gold in times of need. Please go now and share your kindness and love with someone who has always taken time to share herself with us.

The memory never goes away.

Two weeks ago Duke and I went on a double date with a sweet couple we met about a year ago. In that year they have become good friends of ours, close friends but not the type where you have exchanged full life stories, when we met I was 22wks pregnant and H. was about 14wks along. H. and M. had decided to "try" for a baby and fell pregnant that very first month. So different from Duke's and my story that I never really felt compelled to share the road that brought me to that 22nd week.

Sometimes I forget that people don't know my story. Sometimes I minimize those three long years and the loss in my mind, I speak of them in a clinical way using medical terms and little emotion because honestly if I let the emotion come through; the hurt, the pain the gratitude, I think it would be very off-putting and a bit overwhelming.

As we were leaving the movie we were all looking at a movie poster for Burno and the tag line was 'Borat was so 2006'  As the three of them started dropping lines from the movie I couldn't think of anything to add, noticing I was quiet H. asked if I had seen the movie. I told her I had seen part of it but I had fallen asleep in the movie theater, it was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Of course she asked why and I was honest when I told her I was pregnant and sick and exhausted even though I didn't know why I felt that way at that time. H. kind of cocked her head to the side and was all, "but you just had...oh" and there it was that awkward moment where I insert a joke and try to make the other person forget that they had just stumbled onto my emotional landmine.

I can call it an ectopic instead of a baby it tends to affect people less but the only difference between those two words for me was the four inches that embryo failed to travel. For six weeks I was pregnant even though I didn't know it, I had the symptoms but thought they were all stress related, for two hours after getting the positive blood test I was on cloud nine and in a 90 minute ultrasound all of that was ended.

On the car ride home from our double date I allowed my mind to wonder back to that place to those memories, the ones that never go away.

A Clean Cave at Last

I made it! I checked into the hospital around 10 AM on Wednesday and I was home by five. The short stay unit had some of the worst nursing I have ever been subjected to. Apparently my new name is Honey, or Sugar and sometimes Darlin'. I had to request that my hospital bracelets be put on, after which she only put my main bracelet on I had to again request that she attach my bright orange allergy bracelet, you know so if they gave me drugs they wouldn't be the wrong ones and I Would Die

If you have been around this site for a long time you know my history, if you are new thanks to twitter and my big mouth you may want to go into the archives and look at the first few posts, I am not linking to them because, well for a lot of reasons and I don't have to. So thanks to said history, and resulting PTSD, I tend to freak out when there are things on my face or I can't move my arms. I am VERY clear about this when I do my pre-op screen w/ the hospital and with my doctor and with the nurse who sucked and again I have to tell the nurse who comes and puts in my IV and she promised she would tape a note to my file (which as a side note is kept in a 2" three ring binder) and of course she doesn't but I can hear the nurses talking about me because their station Is Right Outside My Door. I finally can't take it anymore and start to cry. I am advocating for myself and it feels like no one is listening. Why the hell do you tell us to "speak up" if you are still going to ignore me because I have a newsflash if you don't listen you are going to have one freaked out woman on your hands and that isn't good for anyone.

When the anesthesiologist showed up in my room to introduce him self (I was offered the same great lady from my C-section but she would have been switched from some cool heart surgery, how pissed would she have been....) I took a chance and repeated verbatim the same three sentence warning I had told 6 other people, he kind of nods and says it is time to go. Or at least I think he says it is time to go, he is a mumbler (new word) extraordinaire in fact he rivals Milton form the movie Office Space (stapler guy). I ask him if I should walk and he says okay and then he proceeds to push my empty bad out of the room and down the hall, everyone working in the wing finds this very funny and I feel stupid. I totally would have ridden in the bed, I have no problem with it at all and now I look like a jack ass. Now that I am typing this however I wonder if my 3-sentence warning didn't freak him out a little. He did listen hear me however because as I was telling the OR nurse (who was trying to put oxygen on me) the same thing and this time crying while saying it, he told her to stop and I was still sitting up and trying to cry quietly, she stopped and put her arms around me and said it would be fine and she was so sorry she wished I had told someone (WHAT THE FRACK). At this point I was so over it and embarrassed that I was crying that I just kind of hung my head. the last two things I remember were looking over my shoulder and seeing the versed in the syringe all milky white, I said thank you to the Doctor and he said no problem and within about thirty seconds I could no longer sit up I said I was going to go ahead and lay down (ever the control freak to the end) the nurse helped me lay down and the Doctor said that should help with the fear and then I was out. and naked for all nine people in the room to see (why so many people you ask, I agreed to students in the room and also the resident (?) working with the anesthesiologist had the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen he also looked mildly shocked to see me made me wonder if he recognized me from somewhere, thanks small town).

In the next minute I was awake and in some rocking pain. I felt like I had just screwed a Rhino with an attitude problem, as soon as I could get out of there I was gone cheeseburger (the nursing may suck but my god the cheeseburgers are to die for) in hand.

Pathology won't be back until next week my post-op is next Thursday. DocAwesome called me the day after to make sure the bleeding had slowed apparently I bled "more than he cared for" during the D&C portion of the day. This whole situation has left me really wondering about another baby; as in how the hell do I get my hands on one, and we all know what that means...

It ended up okay

Duchess: Hi, can I please speak with a nurse.

Receptionist: In regards to what.

D: I will be 33w tomorrow and the baby seems to have quit moving.

R. Hold on just a moment (rustling, shouting at someone) Hon, are you still there? Please go straight to Labor and Delivery for a Non-Stress Test.

D: Oookaaay (shaky voice) I kind of thought you would just tell me I was over reacting.

As it turns out the Cub is fine, she sailed through the NST and finally moved towards the end. Apparently she is getting bigger and therefore clever at finding new ways to give me a heart attack. All I could think about was having to call 30 plus people to tell them that there would be no baby shower this weekend because there would be no baby. All I kept thinking was that I did not want to go to the same hospital and leave empty handed and hearted again.

Thank God she was okay.

Sorry

To the woman I work with who is having a D&C today because she is in the middle of a miscarriage that won't end. I am so sorry. I am sorry that you are having to go through this alone. I am sorry that you have to look at me at work. I am sorry that you received an invitation to my baby shower because even though I tried to call the post office and have it stopped it was already out for delivery and when I demanded to know how to get in touch with the mail carrier they told me I was crazy and hung up.

I am so sorry for your loss.

Because we share everything

I started having some spotting around 3:00 am this morning. Doc Wonder said we should still wait until tomorrow to do the ultrasound, you know because if something is going horribly wrong there is nothing they can do.

This fucking sucks.

I asked for this.

I am still pregnant, this is a fact that seems to shock me more and more everyday. The newest chapter in this saga is the fact that I am sick again. I have this achy flu feeling in my body and a horrible hacking cough and I can't hear out of my left ear I am also trying my best to keep my fever under 100. I have not been sick this much since I was 12. Then you have the morning sickness which is bullshit because it lasts 24 hours a day - everyday. So far the only thing I have kept down is water, Gatorade, soda crackers and a cheeseburger with pickles.

San Diego was beautiful, I however spent most of my time in the many bathrooms the hotel had to offer. The one day I felt well enough to venture out and about I went to the pool. It was cloudy and kind of cold, super windy off and on but I sat out there and read my book and then feel asleep and woke up a lobster. I have only really ever sunburned twice, I have pretty nice medium olive skin so it is usually not a problem but I am burnt so bad that my nose has blistered along with my shoulders.

So there you have it, I am sick, burnt and puking.

My next ultrasound is on Thursday.

I'm on my last leg and Beta #1

I am sick, not quite deathbed dramatic yet but sick enough to lay in said bed all weekend watching the Closer. Sick enough to call in to work for like the first time ever. Sick enough to let the doctor stick one of those wood tongue depressors into my mouth. Sick enough to man up and go get my beta this morning so I Can Take The Good Drugs.

Also so I can have margaritas on my birthday tomorrow. Blood work should be back this afternoon, if you would not mind entertaining telling me, how long did you wait to have your beta?