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rivkaThere's not going to be a baby.
There was never a baby.
I woke up this morning and found that I was bleeding. Just a tablespoon or so of old, brownish, sludgy blood. Called the midwife, who was sort of guarded about the possibilities, and then went to the hospital late this morning for an ultrasound.
At that point, I was still kind of keeping hope alive, a little bit, because there hadn't been any more blood.
The ultrasound tech told us absolutely nothing. Just that she would have to show her pictures to the radiologist, who would call my doctor. That made me pretty sure that the news would be bad.
After the ultrasound she left the room for a very long time. When she returned, she told us to go directly to my midwife's office.
They put us right into a private office instead of making us wait in the waiting room with the radiantly pregnant woman already there. We waited a while. Then Kathy came in and told us how sorry she was.
There was never a baby. There was nothing on the ultrasound that even looked like a baby. Just some... masses... and some cysts. It may have been a blighted ovum that's now starting to disintegrate, but it also may have been trophoblastic disease, which is, um, an abnormal growth of cells that triggers pregnancy hormones but is... just a mess. Just a growth of nothing. Most trophoblastic disease isn't malignant, but some forms are. There's a risk that cells from the... growth... will travel through the bloodstream, implant somewhere else, and start to grow.
I'm going to need to have a surgical abortion. It's apparently way too risky to wait for a natural miscarriage, and even too risky to take mifeprestone for a chemical abortion. It will probably be either tomorrow or Monday. Then I'll need to be followed by, I think she said, a perinatologist for several months to make sure that my hormone levels go completely back to normal and there are no signs of additional growth.
There was never a baby. There never was. I can't even begin to describe how horrifying that is. It feels like it's worse than having the baby die, because it's just so... awful.
To be honest, I think I'm still kind of in shock. I cried and cried at the midwife's office, but I don't feel like it's really sunk in.
I came back to work because I didn't want to just sit home and stare at the wall crying. I actually feel like I'm going to be able to get some things done - I have a lot of mindless-but-concentration-requiring busywork on my plate - but mostly, I don't know, I just don't want to be with myself right now.
I don't think this is something I can cope with. So I'm holding off on that as long as possible.
Comments left enabled even though I can't imagine what anyone could possibly say. Anyone suggesting any possible variation on "it's for the best" or "you'll have other children" will be terminated with extreme prejudice.
There was never a baby.
I woke up this morning and found that I was bleeding. Just a tablespoon or so of old, brownish, sludgy blood. Called the midwife, who was sort of guarded about the possibilities, and then went to the hospital late this morning for an ultrasound.
At that point, I was still kind of keeping hope alive, a little bit, because there hadn't been any more blood.
The ultrasound tech told us absolutely nothing. Just that she would have to show her pictures to the radiologist, who would call my doctor. That made me pretty sure that the news would be bad.
After the ultrasound she left the room for a very long time. When she returned, she told us to go directly to my midwife's office.
They put us right into a private office instead of making us wait in the waiting room with the radiantly pregnant woman already there. We waited a while. Then Kathy came in and told us how sorry she was.
There was never a baby. There was nothing on the ultrasound that even looked like a baby. Just some... masses... and some cysts. It may have been a blighted ovum that's now starting to disintegrate, but it also may have been trophoblastic disease, which is, um, an abnormal growth of cells that triggers pregnancy hormones but is... just a mess. Just a growth of nothing. Most trophoblastic disease isn't malignant, but some forms are. There's a risk that cells from the... growth... will travel through the bloodstream, implant somewhere else, and start to grow.
I'm going to need to have a surgical abortion. It's apparently way too risky to wait for a natural miscarriage, and even too risky to take mifeprestone for a chemical abortion. It will probably be either tomorrow or Monday. Then I'll need to be followed by, I think she said, a perinatologist for several months to make sure that my hormone levels go completely back to normal and there are no signs of additional growth.
There was never a baby. There never was. I can't even begin to describe how horrifying that is. It feels like it's worse than having the baby die, because it's just so... awful.
To be honest, I think I'm still kind of in shock. I cried and cried at the midwife's office, but I don't feel like it's really sunk in.
I came back to work because I didn't want to just sit home and stare at the wall crying. I actually feel like I'm going to be able to get some things done - I have a lot of mindless-but-concentration-requiring busywork on my plate - but mostly, I don't know, I just don't want to be with myself right now.
I don't think this is something I can cope with. So I'm holding off on that as long as possible.
Comments left enabled even though I can't imagine what anyone could possibly say. Anyone suggesting any possible variation on "it's for the best" or "you'll have other children" will be terminated with extreme prejudice.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-31 11:29 pm (UTC)That is uniformly, completely, and utterly horrible.
...
There is this concept, in Egyptian cosmology as
The cosmology goes on to have gods who create things, and gods who destroy things, and this is all part of the right balance of the world, and though it is sometimes painful and hurts a lot, it is part of how the universe goes.
Uncreation, though, is not a province of the gods. It is a province of the hideous grasping evil of the void; that which every one of the gods is responsible for protecting the universe against.
I think the Egyptians had it right: This kind of uncreation, the kind that took away your baby, this has no place in a right universe. Even in a universe which encompasses birth and death and creation and destruction, this does not belong.