I consider myself a fighter. When life gets hard, I fight back. I don't let the circumstances win. After my initial panic, I will fix this. I will do whatever I can to pull myself (and my family) up.
If money is insanely tight, if I don't know how we are going to pay the mortgage, if medical bills try to swallow us whole, I will fix it. I will get a job and work a million hours. I will instantly cut everything non-essential. I will save change, turn off everything plugged in, stop using the cell phone, make potatoes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I will find the money somewhere.
If one of my babies die, I start almost immediately trying to heal. To find groups, other women. I journal like a nutcase. After Liam died, I joined a local Faces of Hope Group and read endless online articles and blogs. After Riley died, we joined a MISS group and a local grief group. I made things for Riley, planted flowers for my babies. We redid our backyard. I stayed busy. I worked out. I lost 37 pounds. I tried to be the best mom I could. I did tons of grief work. I FOUGHT BACK.
I can't fight back anymore. I have nothing left. After my 3rd loss in 3 years, I am just done. Today, I am pretty sure that the surviving twin, Baby A, is dead too. I have no nausea whatsoever. I'm the type of person who pukes drinking a glass of water and I'm not nauseous at all. I'm done trying to be positive, trying to pray. I'm done trying to continue on and not let the grief drown me. I'm drowning.... and I'm done swimming.
Other loss moms will tell me that not all babies die. It's easy to feel like all babies die when you are in a community missing lots of dead children. But they don't all die. Lots of women get their rainbow baby. I know that's true. Not all babies die, but all of MINE do.
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Friday, November 23, 2012
My blobby friends
In under 3 hours I will be going into my OBGYN for another ultrasound and Hcg levels blood draw. Turns out I'm not pregnant. "What?!?" you say. "Hcg levels = pregnancy" Oh you wonderfully naive person I just made up in my head... I do love you so. I am not growing a baby up in that uterus of mine, but a mass of cells. Lots of masses of cells. Little tumors. My blobby friends. I have a molar pregnancy.
Ok, honestly the doctor hasn't confirmed it as a molar pregnancy, but that's what it is. I saw the ultrasound. I saw the blobs. I had them throw the images out, but here is a googled image that looks the way my uterus does.
All that wonderful cottage cheese cellulite stuff? Tumors..... Masses..... Whatever word you chose to use.
To remove my growths, they have to do a D&C (a surgery to scrape out your uterus) and they may continue to grow. These bastards are incredibly resilient. My Hcg levels (because my blobby friends put off Hcg just like a baby......how nice of them) will have to be monitored for 6 months to a year before I'm allowed to try to conceive again. Hahaha... as if.
When they confirm the molar pregnancy, they are not just saying to me, "Yep, Amy, you are pregnancy with blobs, not baby." They are also saying "You're done with kids. No more babies for you. You are done having children." Granted, that isn't their choice, but mine. After 2 losses in 11 months, then this a year later.... I. AM. DONE.
My husband, the wonderful math geek, figured out the chances of us having a 13 week miscarriage AND a miscarriage due to an amniotic band (Riley was stillborn, not really a miscarriage, but that shit is so rare there aren't any statistics on it), AND a molar pregnancy....
1 in 1.8 million. The chances of those 3 things happening to one little family, 1 in 1.8 million.
I seem to always be the 1. The low statistic. That's me. Here I am. So the number around this molar pregnancy scare me. 80% of the masses are noncancerous. 10-15% of women with a complete molar pregnancy need chemotherapy to kill off the masses. (1% in partial molar pregnancy). Very rarely the moles (aka my blobby friends), can form a choriocarsinoma (cancer) spread beyond your uterus (1 in 40,000).
Can they just.......take out my uterus? That's sounding a bit easier to me.
Ok, honestly the doctor hasn't confirmed it as a molar pregnancy, but that's what it is. I saw the ultrasound. I saw the blobs. I had them throw the images out, but here is a googled image that looks the way my uterus does.
To remove my growths, they have to do a D&C (a surgery to scrape out your uterus) and they may continue to grow. These bastards are incredibly resilient. My Hcg levels (because my blobby friends put off Hcg just like a baby......how nice of them) will have to be monitored for 6 months to a year before I'm allowed to try to conceive again. Hahaha... as if.
When they confirm the molar pregnancy, they are not just saying to me, "Yep, Amy, you are pregnancy with blobs, not baby." They are also saying "You're done with kids. No more babies for you. You are done having children." Granted, that isn't their choice, but mine. After 2 losses in 11 months, then this a year later.... I. AM. DONE.
My husband, the wonderful math geek, figured out the chances of us having a 13 week miscarriage AND a miscarriage due to an amniotic band (Riley was stillborn, not really a miscarriage, but that shit is so rare there aren't any statistics on it), AND a molar pregnancy....
1 in 1.8 million. The chances of those 3 things happening to one little family, 1 in 1.8 million.
I seem to always be the 1. The low statistic. That's me. Here I am. So the number around this molar pregnancy scare me. 80% of the masses are noncancerous. 10-15% of women with a complete molar pregnancy need chemotherapy to kill off the masses. (1% in partial molar pregnancy). Very rarely the moles (aka my blobby friends), can form a choriocarsinoma (cancer) spread beyond your uterus (1 in 40,000).
Can they just.......take out my uterus? That's sounding a bit easier to me.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Feast
The exact same Preschool event two years in a row. Fall Festival, the Preschool Feast. All the parents bring snacks and hang out with the kids for an hour. There are turkey hats, silly songs, and fancy treats galore. Last year: 38+ weeks pregnant. This year: 4 (or 5?) weeks pregnant.
Last year I sat talking with a Grandma attending the event of the year. Talking about birth, how I was eager for Riley to be born any day. How she went into labor on Thanksgiving with her son and maybe I would too! Maybe! Thanksgiving! Maybe she would be born tomorrow!
Riley died that night in my belly. That was the last time I felt her move.
I have to go again in just a few hours and this year, I am pregnant again. Super early pregnant. It hasn't been confirmed by a doctor. I go for my first ultrasound tomorrow.
I want to puke. I'm terrified.
School Teachers, please don't make us say what we are thankful for. My response to this last Thanksgiving was Riley and Hunter. I was thankful that they were healthy and happy. I didn't know she was dead. I didn't know I was being thankful for something that didn't exist anymore. I don't think I will ever be able to take part in that tradition again. I can be thankful every other day of the year, but not on Thanksgiving.
Fall Festival, please be kind to me.
Last year I sat talking with a Grandma attending the event of the year. Talking about birth, how I was eager for Riley to be born any day. How she went into labor on Thanksgiving with her son and maybe I would too! Maybe! Thanksgiving! Maybe she would be born tomorrow!
Riley died that night in my belly. That was the last time I felt her move.
I have to go again in just a few hours and this year, I am pregnant again. Super early pregnant. It hasn't been confirmed by a doctor. I go for my first ultrasound tomorrow.
I want to puke. I'm terrified.
School Teachers, please don't make us say what we are thankful for. My response to this last Thanksgiving was Riley and Hunter. I was thankful that they were healthy and happy. I didn't know she was dead. I didn't know I was being thankful for something that didn't exist anymore. I don't think I will ever be able to take part in that tradition again. I can be thankful every other day of the year, but not on Thanksgiving.
Fall Festival, please be kind to me.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Day 10 - Symbols
The 3 stripes match the stripes on Liam's urn. Birds remind us of Riley who flew away too soon.
Day 12: Scent.
Scent?? Really? Scent?!?
I don't have a single good smell for Riley. Not one. I have the smell of blood, raw hamburger, and death. She smelled like blood. Like raw hamburger.
What a fucking terrible photo prompt
I don't have a single good smell for Riley. Not one. I have the smell of blood, raw hamburger, and death. She smelled like blood. Like raw hamburger.
What a fucking terrible photo prompt
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
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