There were more appointments then ever. And instead of reading about people talking about beating PCOS and drifting into motherhood, the talk had turned to talk to exclusively the word miscarriage. That word could strike fear in my heart like no needle ever could and it was suddenly everywhere.
Oh my God, could I have come this far only to spend every set aside dime and then lose my baby?!? This never was a thought to me until we started with the injections. The second I was asked to spend a lump sum, and get down to penniless for this “project”, it occurred to me that women lose babies everyday. I wanted to think of the worst case scenario and ask myself if I could handle whatever that was. Could I deal with the bills I was getting from the infertility clinic, the money I’d spent trying to get pregnant, the surgeries I’d had and then the possible threat of miscarriage?
I had never asked myself that question before, I was afraid to. I never brought the word up. I thought if I didn’t, it would definitely decrease my chances of it and at least preserve my sanity. But, suddenly people were coming forward bringing that word to me and I could not escape the thought.
I decided that I would keep my pregnancy restricted to the safety of my family and close friends. In case the threat was real, I wouldn’t have to explain my heartache to everyone. Then I thought about everything I had been through. All the women I had met through writing this blog, and the stories I read about on other blogs. How collectively we all secretly felt when one of us did get pregnant. How it was so difficult to be happy for an expecting friend, yet not question your own infertility. I talked with my husband and we continued to agree this was a private matter.
As happy as we were about expecting, we would try to keep it under wraps as long as we could. Out of respect for what we had been through and out of fear of losing our little girl.
Just when we did, the threat became even more real and I started to spot. I became a basket case and obsessed & dedicated to doing anything to keep her. Don’t get me wrong, I am not sure there is anything you can do. I am not a doctor, nor an expert. But, I put every thought I had into this child’s well being at that moment. I spent two days in bed, mostly crying about the possibility of losing her and I was on edge. They treated both of us with progesterone and that was a nightmare. I was in the compound pharmacy, earlier that day crying frantically. So much so that the pharmacist came and gave me a talking to. I never will forget his words to me. He said, “you will make it! The two of you will make it and I need you to be strong for whoever that is inside you”. Afterwards, he hugged me, and I was on my way. I started the script, and blew right up. I was huge, and the process was gross. We were both growing from the drugs. The prescription was nearly $100 bucks a pop and there was still no guarantee I wouldn’t loose her. Progesterone is simply known to decrease the chances of spontaneous abortion, not to eliminate. The Dr wanted me on it my entire first trimester to make sure I didn’t lose her. It did stop the spotting and get me to about week 5 and for that I was grateful once more.
In the end week five I woke up in the middle of the night in unbearable pain. A pain I knew very well. This was not like the pain of miscarry which I feared the most, this was my crazy right ovary up to no good again and I knew it. I tried to sleep it off. I got up for work a few hours later and started out to the office. I never made it. I did make it to the ER just in time to find out that all the hormones I used to get pregnant and the progesterone I was using at the time, had swollen up my ovaries to the size of softballs on the very same day that I was 6 weeks pregnant.
It was the most painful experience of my life. And even after previous surgeries to my ovaries I was about to go under the knife again, this time while 6 weeks pregnant. I was angry. I was angry because I had had trouble out of these parts before and had asked many a Dr to just simply remove the crazy ovary and her crazy counterparts. And now that this said insane ovary was back and dwarfing my 6 week old fetus I was beyond angry that the darn thing hadn’t been removed in the first place. Throughout the moments leading up to surgery, although I was literally screaming from the pain of the enlarged and now twisted ovary, the threat of miscarriage was still haunting me. I was petrified. But, again I trusted God and I knew if she made it through this surgery as a fetus, not only was she a girl, but she was going to make it thru the duration of this pregnancy.
The same Dr’s that got me pregnant were the same Dr’s that performed the surgery. Now instead of surgery with my regular doctor, who I knew, trusted, and had operated on me before, I was going into surgery with the infertility doctors who I had only known for 6 months. The two of them are a Godsend! They got those ovaries back to normal and they saved my baby girl, in one day! I will never be able to thank them enough for what they did. The moment I woke up I was bonded with the child. I couldn’t stop crying and trying to hold my little bump and telling her how proud I was of her and how much I could not wait to hold her and tell her that to her sweet little face. I was convinced if she never did anything else she was already a remarkable child & she is!
Even after we made it though the surgery we still were uncomfortable with people finding out about our pregnancy. But, that wasn’t working. Word was spreading fast about our little “buttercup”. We had named her that to discuss her in private and without referring to her as “it” or the like. Everyone began to address her as buttercup and my inbox was flooded with girlfriends I never knew miscarried and how proud they too were of “buttercup” and to thank me for sharing my stories via “THE EGG”. It was then I started to feel the love, and after a few family members outed me on a social network, I was starting to embrace the idea of being pregnant. But, I still wasn’t satisfied with everyone knowing, especially in a social networking environment. I just wanted to make it to my 2nd trimester where the rate of miscarry would drop drastically. Only then could I truly feel comfortable to embrace motherhood, especially publicly and in the facebooking spectrum.
The fourth installment is coming soon, but we couldn’t let you wait any longer to meet Belle’s Buttercup!
