The whole story.
Feb. 2nd, 2008 04:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaThe short version: My bleeding got worse, and my midwife had me come to the hospital whether or not they had room for me. I had to wait a very long time. In the interim, the bleeding got downright dramatic. I had the D&C, and by a couple of hours later I felt surprisingly okay: tired, crampy, and weak, but okay. I waited even longer for the hospital to finish things up and then came home. Michael, Emily, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wcg are heroes.
Michael and I watched Heroes and waited to hear back from the midwife for what seemed like a very long time. During the last episode, I bled as much as during the rest of the afternoon combined. I also seemed to be passing some large clots or something, in the bathroom. So that was enough to settle any doubts I had about calling Kathy back.
When I spoke to her again, it became clear that we had been somehow talking at cross purposes earlier. The moment I said "heavy bleeding" she told me to come directly to the hospital L&D floor. "They'll have to find a place for you," she said firmly. "This is no longer an elective procedure. Your body is ready for this to happen. Don't be afraid."
We raced to the hospital. I was pretty much on the edge of hysterics. The ward admitting clerk - the person responsible for starting my paperwork - gave me a quizzical look.
"Are you here for...?" I sensed that she was looking at my belly.
"I'm here for a D&C."
"Oh! So you already had your baby."
"No!" I bent double with the pain of it, and cried. Through my sobs I explained that I was miscarrying.
We waited in chairs until they could clear a bed in triage. Waited in a hospital gown in bed in triage. When I realized that on the other side of the curtain I could hear the heartbeat of someone else's baby on a monitor, I pulled out my iPod and listened to Meg Barnhouse assure me that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well. A nurse without a particle of bedside manner came in and competently started an IV. Kathy came in and talked to me gently, and took some medical history because my records were apparently still "in transit." We waited a long time for shift change, and then longer for my new nurse to find and prepare a room for me.
We moved to a private hospital room and waited. I tried to read Pride and Prejudice. We waited for the OB to be out of a delivery. My new nurse, whose name was Kadi and who turned out to be one of the most amazing women on the planet, came in and took more of my medical history. Then the chief resident came in and did it again. She looked to be about twelve years old, but was very nice. She explained that I needed a chest X-ray, because if I do have trophoblastic disease then follow-up chest X-rays are part of the protocol, and they would need something to compare them to. We waited almost an hour for the chest X-ray because of computer issues and God knows what else.
Kadi came in and promised that finally a transport person was really coming to take me down for my chest X-ray. She helped me to the bathroom, where I discovered that my bleeding had stepped up considerably. The pad I'd been wearing for about an hour was completely and utterly soaked through, and there was blood on the bed and on my gown. Kadi soothed me, brought me clean things, and wet a towel with warm water so I could clean myself up. She gave me one of the ultra-huge, diaper-like, maternity pads and told me she'd let the doctor know my bleeding had increased. Then she settled me in a wheelchair. "I'm going to run around the other side," she said. "I'll meet you at the elevator with some heated blankets for your trip downstairs." (Most amazing woman on the planet.)
I was shivering and crying as the transport guy wheeled me past the nurses' station. The blood had really freaked me out. (Little did I know...) Kathy came out to talk to me, and so did a short, heavyset black woman with endlessly kind eyes and a soothing and competent demeanor, who turned out to be the OB, Dr. Perkins. They soothed and fussed over me and debated whether I should have the X-ray on a portable screen in L&D. "I think I'll be okay," I said. "I just want to get this over with."
Down to X-ray. As I stood in front of the panel, the tech asked brightly, "So, are you pregnant now? Or did you already have your baby?"
"I'm miscarrying," I said. This time I was exhausted enough that I didn't sob. I just waited while they took two chest X-rays and attempted to engage me in ill-advised small talk.
While I was waiting for transport back upstairs I felt a trickle of blood. I lifted my lap blanket and checked under my gown, and there was a pool of blood between my legs. Not, like, splotches of blood on my thighs: a puddle. It was perhaps fifteen minutes, at most, after I had been changed into clean things and given the ultra-huge pad.
"Um," I said to the X-ray tech, who was sitting at her desk doing some paperwork. "I'm bleeding a whole lot, and I think I need to get back up to my doctor as soon as possible."
"I called transport, hon," she said without getting up. "They'll be here quickly." Then a friend of hers wandered in and they got into a conversation about where they were parked.
I sat and tried to take slow deep breaths. From time to time I peeked under the lap blanket and watched the bright red stain spread across my gown. It might have just been another five minutes waiting for the transport guy, but it seemed much longer.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked as he wheeled me out the door.
"No, I'm bleeding a lot," I said. "I need to get up to my doctor right now."
"Okay." He started to run. At the elevators, he told the other staff member on board that he needed to cancel out her floor because I couldn't wait. And he assured me calmly, "As soon as we step onto the floor, I'm going to get you a nurse."
As soon as we rolled through the L&D doors I saw Kadi. "Kadi, help! There's so much blood!"
She whisked me back to the room. "It's going to be okay," she said gently. "I'll let the doctor know that you're bleeding more." She prepped the bed for me to get back in, lifted up my lap blanket, and looked. "Oh. I'm going to go get the doctor right now." Blood poured down my knees. I was sobbing and shivering uncontrollably. She took my blood pressure and it was 140 over something - a good 40 points higher than it had been earlier. "But your pulse is really strong," she assured me.
Things moved quickly. Instead of putting me back in bed, Kadi rolled me down the hall to the OR: glaringly bright and freezing cold. The anesthesiologist came and greeted me, asked me some questions (which I'd already been asked several times) about my prior experiences with anesthesia. I answered him, I guess. I had moved into a strange wild place where I had absolutely no veneer of rationality or control anymore. They helped me stand up and blood fell everywhere. It made a noise when it hit the ground. Cups of blood. I screamed, begged for it to all just be over, sobbed. Could barely respond to directions. Somehow they got me on the table.
At some point, I remember making eye contact with the anesthesiologist and telling him, "I don't want to experience or remember any of this."
Then Kathy was there, holding my hand and trying to help me calm down. Dr. Perkins came in and suddenly a lot of people were there. I was shaking with cold - nearly naked and soaking wet in a chilly room. And terrified. Kathy and, I think, Kadi went out and found some warmed blankets and piled them over the top half of me - even wrapped tightly around my head. I started to be able to slow my breathing down.
The first thing I noticed when I came a little back into myself was that Dr. Perkins was supervising a team effort to wash me. They scrubbed the blood away from my legs and belly and even the soles of my feet. That was my first indication that I might not be as close to bleeding to death as I thought I was. They sponged me off, changed my gown, asked me about how I thought stirrups would be with my hip, wheeled away the standard ones and came back with these marvelous soft things that supported my whole lower legs to the knee and didn't require me to be able to hold myself in position. Kathy kept holding my hand.
The anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on my face. and then I felt the down-the-rabbit-hole sensation of a quick-acting sedative. "Okay, here I go," I murmured to Kathy.
And then I was in my room, and Michael was holding my hand, and Kathy was on the other side of me explaining things. I was still pretty woozy. I'm pretty sure I asked each of my questions multiple times: Was I okay? (Yes.) Did they get it all? (Yes.) Did they have to do a hysterectomy? (No.) Did they know what it was? (No.) Michael spooned ice chips onto my tongue. I delegated him to be the one responsible for understanding my discharge instructions, told him to go down to the cafeteria when it opened for the night shift at midnight, and went to sleep.
I woke up a while later. Kadi was hanging a bag of Pitocin on the IV to help my uterus contract. She told me that I could go home once I ate, walked, and peed, and after I'd finished the Pitocin. Knowing what I needed to know (because she was the most amazing woman on the planet) she made sure to check every time she came in and reassure me that I was barely bleeding at all. I slept a little more.
After a bit I nibbled on graham crackers, sipped some water, and finally got up and made my shaky way to the bathroom. Michael filled me in on what was going on: Emily started to feel sick and had to go home, sowcg had come to sleep on our couch and listen for Alex. My sister and his parents had checked in, and he had left messages for my parents who are on vacation in Hawaii. Everything was okay.
I felt surprisingly okay too. I had taken some ibuprofen for the remaining low-level cramping, and it made the pain vanish. I felt increasingly alert. I guess that because I was under for such a short time I just didn't have many anesthesia aftereffects. I was ready to go.
A complication arose: Rhogam. Because my blood is Rh- and Michael's is Rh+, there's a risk that I can be exposed to Rh+ fetal blood and make antibodies against it, which would pose a danger to any future Rh+ babies I carry. So, for example, when Alex was born I had to get a shot of Rhogam, which prevented me from making antibodies to Rh factor. Even though no one was sure that there had ever even been any fetal parts that developed, it seemed that I needed to have Rhogam after my miscarriage... a complicated process which involved a lot of negotiation with the blood bank. It took more than an hour to arrange. Finally Kadi came back in and administered the burningly painful shot, and we were free to go. It was about 3:15am.
We drove home and imposed onwcg one more time: would he walk my prescriptions to the pharmacy and bring them back? Michael had gotten even less sleep than I had, and he knew he was going to have to get up with Alex in a few hours. So Bill handled the prescriptions, which took a long time, and Michael fed me one of them before he let me sleep - methergine to prevent bleeding, which I was supposed to take every four hours.
I was exhausted, but also relieved. I was so profoundly glad that it was over.
wcg are heroes.Michael and I watched Heroes and waited to hear back from the midwife for what seemed like a very long time. During the last episode, I bled as much as during the rest of the afternoon combined. I also seemed to be passing some large clots or something, in the bathroom. So that was enough to settle any doubts I had about calling Kathy back.
When I spoke to her again, it became clear that we had been somehow talking at cross purposes earlier. The moment I said "heavy bleeding" she told me to come directly to the hospital L&D floor. "They'll have to find a place for you," she said firmly. "This is no longer an elective procedure. Your body is ready for this to happen. Don't be afraid."
We raced to the hospital. I was pretty much on the edge of hysterics. The ward admitting clerk - the person responsible for starting my paperwork - gave me a quizzical look.
"Are you here for...?" I sensed that she was looking at my belly.
"I'm here for a D&C."
"Oh! So you already had your baby."
"No!" I bent double with the pain of it, and cried. Through my sobs I explained that I was miscarrying.
We waited in chairs until they could clear a bed in triage. Waited in a hospital gown in bed in triage. When I realized that on the other side of the curtain I could hear the heartbeat of someone else's baby on a monitor, I pulled out my iPod and listened to Meg Barnhouse assure me that all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well. A nurse without a particle of bedside manner came in and competently started an IV. Kathy came in and talked to me gently, and took some medical history because my records were apparently still "in transit." We waited a long time for shift change, and then longer for my new nurse to find and prepare a room for me.
We moved to a private hospital room and waited. I tried to read Pride and Prejudice. We waited for the OB to be out of a delivery. My new nurse, whose name was Kadi and who turned out to be one of the most amazing women on the planet, came in and took more of my medical history. Then the chief resident came in and did it again. She looked to be about twelve years old, but was very nice. She explained that I needed a chest X-ray, because if I do have trophoblastic disease then follow-up chest X-rays are part of the protocol, and they would need something to compare them to. We waited almost an hour for the chest X-ray because of computer issues and God knows what else.
Kadi came in and promised that finally a transport person was really coming to take me down for my chest X-ray. She helped me to the bathroom, where I discovered that my bleeding had stepped up considerably. The pad I'd been wearing for about an hour was completely and utterly soaked through, and there was blood on the bed and on my gown. Kadi soothed me, brought me clean things, and wet a towel with warm water so I could clean myself up. She gave me one of the ultra-huge, diaper-like, maternity pads and told me she'd let the doctor know my bleeding had increased. Then she settled me in a wheelchair. "I'm going to run around the other side," she said. "I'll meet you at the elevator with some heated blankets for your trip downstairs." (Most amazing woman on the planet.)
I was shivering and crying as the transport guy wheeled me past the nurses' station. The blood had really freaked me out. (Little did I know...) Kathy came out to talk to me, and so did a short, heavyset black woman with endlessly kind eyes and a soothing and competent demeanor, who turned out to be the OB, Dr. Perkins. They soothed and fussed over me and debated whether I should have the X-ray on a portable screen in L&D. "I think I'll be okay," I said. "I just want to get this over with."
Down to X-ray. As I stood in front of the panel, the tech asked brightly, "So, are you pregnant now? Or did you already have your baby?"
"I'm miscarrying," I said. This time I was exhausted enough that I didn't sob. I just waited while they took two chest X-rays and attempted to engage me in ill-advised small talk.
While I was waiting for transport back upstairs I felt a trickle of blood. I lifted my lap blanket and checked under my gown, and there was a pool of blood between my legs. Not, like, splotches of blood on my thighs: a puddle. It was perhaps fifteen minutes, at most, after I had been changed into clean things and given the ultra-huge pad.
"Um," I said to the X-ray tech, who was sitting at her desk doing some paperwork. "I'm bleeding a whole lot, and I think I need to get back up to my doctor as soon as possible."
"I called transport, hon," she said without getting up. "They'll be here quickly." Then a friend of hers wandered in and they got into a conversation about where they were parked.
I sat and tried to take slow deep breaths. From time to time I peeked under the lap blanket and watched the bright red stain spread across my gown. It might have just been another five minutes waiting for the transport guy, but it seemed much longer.
"Are you okay, ma'am?" he asked as he wheeled me out the door.
"No, I'm bleeding a lot," I said. "I need to get up to my doctor right now."
"Okay." He started to run. At the elevators, he told the other staff member on board that he needed to cancel out her floor because I couldn't wait. And he assured me calmly, "As soon as we step onto the floor, I'm going to get you a nurse."
As soon as we rolled through the L&D doors I saw Kadi. "Kadi, help! There's so much blood!"
She whisked me back to the room. "It's going to be okay," she said gently. "I'll let the doctor know that you're bleeding more." She prepped the bed for me to get back in, lifted up my lap blanket, and looked. "Oh. I'm going to go get the doctor right now." Blood poured down my knees. I was sobbing and shivering uncontrollably. She took my blood pressure and it was 140 over something - a good 40 points higher than it had been earlier. "But your pulse is really strong," she assured me.
Things moved quickly. Instead of putting me back in bed, Kadi rolled me down the hall to the OR: glaringly bright and freezing cold. The anesthesiologist came and greeted me, asked me some questions (which I'd already been asked several times) about my prior experiences with anesthesia. I answered him, I guess. I had moved into a strange wild place where I had absolutely no veneer of rationality or control anymore. They helped me stand up and blood fell everywhere. It made a noise when it hit the ground. Cups of blood. I screamed, begged for it to all just be over, sobbed. Could barely respond to directions. Somehow they got me on the table.
At some point, I remember making eye contact with the anesthesiologist and telling him, "I don't want to experience or remember any of this."
Then Kathy was there, holding my hand and trying to help me calm down. Dr. Perkins came in and suddenly a lot of people were there. I was shaking with cold - nearly naked and soaking wet in a chilly room. And terrified. Kathy and, I think, Kadi went out and found some warmed blankets and piled them over the top half of me - even wrapped tightly around my head. I started to be able to slow my breathing down.
The first thing I noticed when I came a little back into myself was that Dr. Perkins was supervising a team effort to wash me. They scrubbed the blood away from my legs and belly and even the soles of my feet. That was my first indication that I might not be as close to bleeding to death as I thought I was. They sponged me off, changed my gown, asked me about how I thought stirrups would be with my hip, wheeled away the standard ones and came back with these marvelous soft things that supported my whole lower legs to the knee and didn't require me to be able to hold myself in position. Kathy kept holding my hand.
The anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on my face. and then I felt the down-the-rabbit-hole sensation of a quick-acting sedative. "Okay, here I go," I murmured to Kathy.
And then I was in my room, and Michael was holding my hand, and Kathy was on the other side of me explaining things. I was still pretty woozy. I'm pretty sure I asked each of my questions multiple times: Was I okay? (Yes.) Did they get it all? (Yes.) Did they have to do a hysterectomy? (No.) Did they know what it was? (No.) Michael spooned ice chips onto my tongue. I delegated him to be the one responsible for understanding my discharge instructions, told him to go down to the cafeteria when it opened for the night shift at midnight, and went to sleep.
I woke up a while later. Kadi was hanging a bag of Pitocin on the IV to help my uterus contract. She told me that I could go home once I ate, walked, and peed, and after I'd finished the Pitocin. Knowing what I needed to know (because she was the most amazing woman on the planet) she made sure to check every time she came in and reassure me that I was barely bleeding at all. I slept a little more.
After a bit I nibbled on graham crackers, sipped some water, and finally got up and made my shaky way to the bathroom. Michael filled me in on what was going on: Emily started to feel sick and had to go home, so
wcg had come to sleep on our couch and listen for Alex. My sister and his parents had checked in, and he had left messages for my parents who are on vacation in Hawaii. Everything was okay.I felt surprisingly okay too. I had taken some ibuprofen for the remaining low-level cramping, and it made the pain vanish. I felt increasingly alert. I guess that because I was under for such a short time I just didn't have many anesthesia aftereffects. I was ready to go.
A complication arose: Rhogam. Because my blood is Rh- and Michael's is Rh+, there's a risk that I can be exposed to Rh+ fetal blood and make antibodies against it, which would pose a danger to any future Rh+ babies I carry. So, for example, when Alex was born I had to get a shot of Rhogam, which prevented me from making antibodies to Rh factor. Even though no one was sure that there had ever even been any fetal parts that developed, it seemed that I needed to have Rhogam after my miscarriage... a complicated process which involved a lot of negotiation with the blood bank. It took more than an hour to arrange. Finally Kadi came back in and administered the burningly painful shot, and we were free to go. It was about 3:15am.
We drove home and imposed on
wcg one more time: would he walk my prescriptions to the pharmacy and bring them back? Michael had gotten even less sleep than I had, and he knew he was going to have to get up with Alex in a few hours. So Bill handled the prescriptions, which took a long time, and Michael fed me one of them before he let me sleep - methergine to prevent bleeding, which I was supposed to take every four hours.I was exhausted, but also relieved. I was so profoundly glad that it was over.
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no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:44 pm (UTC)You are amazing, even to be lucid at this point.
I'm so glad they were able to help!
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 09:55 pm (UTC)I also want to kill every person who asked you an inappropriately chirpy question or failed to respond to you quickly, but that's not useful, is it?
no subject
Date: 2008-02-04 02:40 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-02-02 10:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-02-02 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:15 pm (UTC)Thanks for letting us know.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-03 05:51 am (UTC)Drink your tea, read your book, listen to your choice of sounds, and HEAL! Let Michael and Bill and Emily and anyone else I've forgotten tend to you, pamper you, make your recuperation easy. Take everything slowly and gently, and remember there are lots of people who care about you.
Ken
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:18 pm (UTC)Carol
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:18 pm (UTC)I'm also glad it's a weekend and you guys can cocoon and treat yourselves gently. If virtual good wishes could nourish or warm you'd be surrounded by all manner of good things because so many people love you.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:25 pm (UTC)Be well, be rested, and may you have all the comfort you need (and most definitely deserve).
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:26 pm (UTC)When I had my miscarriage and subsequent burst ovarian cyst, I was astonished at how poorly many of the hospital staff responded to my clear (emotional and physical) pain - and how little they LISTENED to me. Like because I was the patient, clearly I knew fuck all about what was happening to my own body. Luckily, there were also angels in amongst the idiots who actually made the situation survivable.
I hope you get to treat yourself really really well as long as you need it. Sleep, relax, distract yourself, do what you need to do to get you through. And know that our offer for any assistance you may need is valid and ongoing - for you and for Michael - since he too has been through hell and back. Love to both of you.
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:38 pm (UTC)*gentle hugs*
no subject
Date: 2008-02-02 10:39 pm (UTC)