Month: December 2011

friends & family, loss, musings

You can’t reason with crazy.

Keeping up with the Hoffmans

One of the hardest things about not telling many people about our loss has been the baby and pregnancy references from other people. Most of these are well-intentioned — friends asking when we’re going to have kids or parents asking if we have any big news to share. They sting, but I can usually force a smile and get through it.

This Christmas, though, D’s grandma got us a very “special” gift and I’m having a hard time getting over it.

A little background to set the stage: Grandma Hoffman is crazy. And I don’t mean in a sweet old lady who forgets things kind of way. I mean in a truly lost her mind sort of way. On top of it, she is just plain mean. Even her own kids can’t stand her, and everyone tiptoes around her so as not to upset her. Not that they necessarily care about her feelings, but no one wants to hear her nonsensical tirades when something sets her off. No one will tell her which grandkids are living with their significant others, or that our brother-in-law is gay. This woman believes with all her heart that homosexuality evolved as a result of women’s lib — and I quote, “Women stopped letting men open doors for them, so men started kissing each other.”

You can’t make this kind of crazy up. But I digress…

Anyway, we often get strange things from her for Christmas, and I’ve learned to take most things with a grain of salt. This year, though, she took the concept of strange gifts to a whole new level. She got D furry handcuffs. Yes, you read that right. Furry handcuffs. Like the kind you would find in a sex store. And they came with a note. Something about how she is 87 years old and wants a male great grandchild to carry on the family name before she dies and that D can use these to tie me up and make it happen. She obviously doesn’t know what we’ve been through, and if she wasn’t so crazy I would have had some words for her. But there’s absolutely no reasoning with her, she is simply that crazy.

I’ll admit, in the 9 years D and I have been together, I’ve always just sort of laughed at crazy Grandma Hoffman. I never let her upset me the way she did to D and his sister. But this “gift” hit a nerve. I’ll probably go to hell for saying this, but I kind of hope this is her last Christmas.

health & body, loss, musings, songs, quotes & poems

To become whole, first let yourself be broken.

Keeping up with the Hoffmans

I ran across the above quote today and have decided that it perfectly fits where my life is right now. I am trying so badly to accept what I have been through, and remember that everything happens for a reason. In a way, I feel like I’ll love my eventual baby that much more because of the hell I will have gone through to get him/her.

Friday night was another chapter in my journey through hell, when I ended up in the emergency room due to excessive bleeding.

Yes, after everything I had been through to make the bleeding stop, it started up again Friday night, and with such a sudden intensity that my doctor told me to come straight in to the emergency room. I’ve never seen so much blood in my life, and it was incredibly scary. My doctor said they would check to see if I was still retaining tissue, and that I should prepare myself for the possibility that I may need a second D&C. I cried. And perhaps the worst part was that D wasn’t home when I was going through all this. He was at a concert about 45 minutes away, and since he had gotten a ride with a friend, he had no way to get back early unless he caught a cab, which I’m sure would have cost a couple hundred dollars from that distance. I told him to sit tight and that I would drive myself to the ER, and if it did come down to me needing another surgery, then he should get a cab; otherwise, I told him to get home as soon as he could and I would keep him posted.

By the time I got to the hospital, things were getting progressively worse. I’ll spare the gory details, but let’s just say I was passing solid material in addition to blood. I try not to think too hard about what exactly that may have been, but I think it’s safe to assume it’s what the D&C left behind. They got me into ultrasound and determined that I still had enough tissue left behind to be “borderline” in requiring another D&C, so I had to wait while they brought in another doctor for her opinion. Eventually, they decided to take the more conservative approach and gave me an injection of Methergine (the same medication I had taken in pill form just a week earlier) and hope that this would be a final dose that would effectively cause my uterus to contract and expel anything remaining. If the Methergine didn’t do its job, they’d next look into Misoprostol, which is a suppository that’s sometimes given instead of a surgical D&C to cause the body to miscarry when it’s not doing so naturally. Instead of. Not usually in addition to. Apparently I’m just one of the lucky ones.

The good news is, I eventually did stop bleeding, and I didn’t need another D&C or the Misoprostol. At least not yet. Then again, I stopped bleeding once before. I’m terrified that this isn’t the end. I also have a million questions and don’t feel like I’m getting any answers besides “these things sometimes happen.” Meanwhile, all I want to do is try again, but my body is not letting me move forward.

Six weeks ago today, we got the heartbreaking news that changed our lives. Since then, I have been broken. When will I be whole again?

health & body, loss, musings, TTC after loss

Patience, grasshoper.

Keeping up with the Hoffmans

If I had to pick one word to describe myself, let’s just say “patient” wouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind.

In addition to being the most heartbreaking and emotionally draining thing we’ve ever been through, this whole process has been a huge test of patience for me. You see, when I get it in my head that I want something, now isn’t soon enough. So when we decided we were ready to try for a baby, waiting to get a positive pregnancy test seemed to take forever. Once we finally saw those two magical lines, waiting for that first 8 week appointment and ultrasound took an eternity. And when we got that bad news, I waited one week to miscarry on my own before getting a D&C just to get it over with.

That surgery should have represented the beginning of the healing process for us. We would still have to wait approximately one month for my period to return, but after that we could begin trying again. As devastated as I was over the loss of our baby, I knew I wanted to be a mother, and the prospect of trying again was the only thing that kept me sane some days. If I could just get through this month of waiting, things would surely start to look up.

But things didn’t go as smoothly as they should have. Instead having some mild bleeding post-surgery that disappeared after a few days, the bleeding didn’t go away… in fact, it began to get heavier. When two weeks went by and the bleeding wasn’t ceasing, I called the doctor, and found out that sometimes they don’t get everything with the D&C, and I was likely bleeding because my body was trying to expel what was left behind. I waited for another week to see if my body would take care of it on its own before going into the doctor’s office, where they performed a procedure to attempt to manually suction out the contents of my uterus. One of the most painful things I’ve ever experienced in my life. She then sent me home with a prescription for Methergine, which would make my uterus contract and expel anything that was left. That was one week ago, and besides some very mild occasional spotting, the bleeding seems to be finally done… 32 days later.

Thirty-two days. By now I should have already gone through one cycle of waiting and we should be on our way to trying again. But I’m still getting a very faint positive pregnancy test, which means the pregnancy hormones have yet to completely leave my system. I have to wait for my hormones to drop before I can ovulate, after which point I have to wait approximately two weeks for my period to arrive. We can’t start trying again until after I get my period, and even then, I will have to wait about two more weeks to ovulate, and then wait two more weeks after that until I can take a pregnancy test. If it’s negative, the waiting game just got extended by another month. When will this end? When will we get our baby?

In a previous post I was optimistic about the future, and even thought there could be a good omen in the possibility of having a September baby, as we have so many September birthdays in our family. I had visions of surprising my parents with the happy news that there would be another September birthday to look forward to.

But with the setbacks we’ve experienced, September has most likely slipped away. So now I’m looking forward to October. It doesn’t hold the same magic to me as the month of September does, and it’s that much farther away from our original June due date, but I’ll take it. I really am trying very hard to be patient. I truly believe everything happens for a reason and I keep reminding myself that we’ll get our baby when we’re supposed to, whether that’s October, November… or beyond. But it’s hard. It’s hard not to look at the calendar and see where we should be, and then realize that we’re back to square one. No, we’re behind square one, since we’re still waiting to begin.

Did I mention I’m impatient?

celebs & pop culture, loss, musings

Shut up, Kourtney Kardashian.

Keeping up with the Hoffmans

Yes, I know the title of my blog is a play on the reality show about the Kardashians, but that doesn’t mean I actually like any of them. I think they’re all obnoxious, self-centered and whiny. But a quote I read yesterday from Kourtney just sealed the deal. Apparently, Kourtney is nine weeks pregnant with baby number two by that d-bag Scott. And she thought nine weeks was a great time to announce it to the world. But what about waiting until the second trimester to announce like most people do? In her words:

“You’re supposed to wait until 12 weeks to tell people, but I feel confident.”

Oh I see… so confidence would have kept my baby alive? Good to know for next time. Maybe I’m over-sensitive these days, but comments like this just seem like a slap to the face for people who have suffered a loss.

Now, I wouldn’t wish the pain I’ve been through on my worst enemy, so I truly hope she has a healthy pregnancy and baby. But could you even imagine how that fame-seeking family would exploit a miscarriage? Disgusting.

(Image via eonline.com)