Threat, Delivered.

First, please forgive any errors I make here in spelling, grammar, punctuation, or just sense. If you know me, you know this MUST be the result of impairment of some sort on my part. Despite the new pic[Note: the photo referenced is a close-up of a peach Xanax tablet, .5mg] I am not presently, and do not anticipate ever becoming addicted to the precious substance shown here. It's just an homage. I'll explain below.
Sunday night, after two weeks of worry and fretting over my every breath and step, I started bleeding for real. I didn't have to rush to the hospital this time, or even call the doc, to know what had happened. I simply lay in my husband's arms in our bed and cried. Somehow, I slept, and when morning came we got our boys to school and ourselves to the ultrasound appointment we'd made two weeks prior. The one that was supposed to provide our first glimpse of the teeny little blip that is an embryonic heartbeat. The same heartbeat we'd seen already on two separate earlier occasions because of previous episodes of bleeding. The one we knew would not be there on Monday. And indeed, it was not. No blip. No blink. No flicker. Just.... stillness.

Apparently, ultrasound techs are running about 30/70 when it comes to having souls at Woman's in Baton Rouge, but at least this one's total deadpan demeanor and complete lack of even the basest of human reaction didn't come as a surprise to us. We'd seen it before. It did piss me off quite a bit, however, that I had to make my own fucking diagnosis.

Uh, hello? HEY! We didn't come here expecting a heartbeat. I don't SEE a heartbeat. While we understand and accept that you, Ms. Tech, aren't able to make any actual diagnosis, it would be quite helpful, since you do this every freaking day of your LIFE, if you would do us the kindness of telling us what you see. Actually, it went a little more like this:

ME to my husband: There's no flicker. I don't see a heartbeat.
ME to tech: That's the fetal pole, right? And the yolk sack to the left?
Tech: Yes.
ME: And there's not a heartbeat visible, is there?
Tech: [Said nothing. Didn't even blink. No eye contact with either of us. No apparent interest in anything on the screen six inches from her face. Just stared emptily through the fucking monitor.]
ME: Um, hello? I asked if you see anything? On the screen? I don't see a heartbeat. We don't expect one, but can you confirm please?
Tech: (apparently awakening from some transcendent state) Hm? Oh. I'm going to measure the fetal pole. (proceeds thusly)
ME: (after several beats and no info from Tech) Ok, so what measurement did you get?
Tech: I get 6weeks 6 days.
ME: (Now thoroughly OVER this bitch and her fucking disengagement) So, then we have a dead baby, because I'm 7 wks 4 days, and we've seen embryonic cardiac activity on the previous two sonograms, right? You still haven't said whether or not you see cardiac activity! Do you or not? It's not a hard question. We should KNOW.
Tech: (removing invasive probe, casting eyes downward, but still affecting no emotion or change in demeanor whatsoever, not even a lowering of the volume or change in the tone of her voice) No, I don't see anything. (Now getting up from her seat in one fluid motion, somehow managing to turn her back to us without ever making so much a nanosecond's worth of eye contact.) I'm going to call your doctor right now.

So, at least then we had a bit of privacy to cry together. My dearest was his usual Knight in Shining Armor self, and just got a bit teary while he wrapped his arms around me, kept me from falling off the damned table from the shake of my sobs, and stood with me, rock solid, my own personal Everest. He carefully, slowly, as if he were moving amongst wild beasts (and let's be honest here, what better metaphor is there in the world for a grieving mother?), he handed me my clothes, put my shoes onto my feet for me (again to keep me from toppling off the table, and now I think of it, those fuckwads are SO lucky he was there, lest I sue the shit out of them for having the damned tables too high in the first fucking place!), kissed away my tears until I worried he might drown in them.... and then whipped around, never letting me go, when the dumb callous fucking bitch knocked on the door and said "Ready?" in a voice so perky Martha Stewart would have been wowed, and bellowed a "NO" so fierce I'm certain it penetrated every wall and caused momentary disruptions of the screens of every sonograph that was running at that moment within at least a two-mile-radius of us.

When I was ready, when I could breathe without hitching, I made sure it was ok with him that we not wait for "nature to take its course." I wanted to get about the business of closure as expeditiously as possible, and there was no way to know when, or IF, my body would finally figure out it was no longer pregnant with a live embryo, thus triggering the process of expulsion. I wanted a D&C, the sooner the better, but if he wasn't in agreement, I needed us to figure it out before we left. He agreed and trusted whatever I deemed to be the best for my own psyche and physiology.

So, I donned my "movie-star sunglasses," (my elder son calls them that. Think Audrey Hepburn.), knowing from experience that the absolute LAST thing in the world any pregnant woman wants to see is a woman who has just discovered she is not pregnant even though she should be, taking comfort somehow in my ability to at least do that much to control the world around me, to at least make that effort, ineffective as it may or may not have been, to shield all those ripe, smiling women from the ugliness of our grief... and my darling stayed ever at my side, tightly bound to me, shielding my body and my mind and my soul from any and all outside interference.

We exited the ultrasound area, walked the twenty feet or so to the elevators, and ascended to the next floor, where the receptionist asked our name, and without even having to inquire as to which doctor I was there to see, immediately directed us back to the correct office. I waited all of five minutes, still all Hollywood in my dark glasses and tearstreaked face, before being ushered into an exam room. For once, no one told me to remove even a stitch of clothing. And we didn't wait long to see the doctor. But pretty much, that's ALL they got right.

Doc started to go through our "options," as though such a thing were even fucking possible, much less necessary (for us), and I cut him short and said yes, get me on the schedule for the D&C ASAP, and no, I don't want to wait a goddamned week to "confirm the results of the ultrasound!" What, are there THAT many people in the world who are totally unable to accept reality? Can people not see that conspicuous absence that signals. No. Pulse.

I don't know what kind of sad, out-of-touch-and-living-on-empty-dreams folks generally make the rounds at that office, but as far as I and We and everyone I know sees it, NO PULSE=DEAD. End of story. Nothing to confirm. Just dead. And Dead deserves a bit of fucking respect, like moving the fuck on with it and letting Dead just be Dead.... not in some weird "missed abortion" limbo that could continue for weeks or months. FUCK!

We got to go then to the nurses' station, where we sat in a mercifully hidden little alcove (ok, they got THAT part right too) and filled out the reams of paperwork for the surgery and anesthesia and so forth to come. I tried my best, and was mostly pretty successful, at neither screaming nor sobbing, but at one point, I couldn't figure out what to write in the blank that followed the word "Name."

I forced myself to pause. I let the tears flow for a moment, then cocked my head toward the closest nurse, and in my calmest, most coherent voice, knowing full well I'd certainly require chemical assistance in order to navigate the unfamiliar waters ahead of me, tried to ask for a prescription for Lexapro or something like it, but I only got as far as, "Um, would it be possible, can I please, may I have a prescription for something to..." and the nurse, God bless her and all of her family and her parents for having her [and holy crap, I just realized that her name is Tracy, and that the nurses who attended the births of BOTH our sons, both of whom were wonderful and fabulous in their own unique ways were ALSO named Tracy, not that it matters in the least, except that it does because it matters to me right now this second as I write this] didn't wait for me to struggle any longer, didn't force so much as another heartbeat from me, before suggesting, "Xanax?"

I was in shock, I suppose, only mildly so, but even then I was somewhat taken aback. I stammered a reply, "Uh, oh, um, ok. Xanax would actually be most adequate." Seriously, I really said that. I was taken over by a grieving Mary Poppins for that brief moment I guess. Weird shit.

Let's see.. then came the fog. Godsent, blessedly thick, cool fog. Fog dense enough to permit me to sleep at any and every moment I thought I might like to do so for the next three days. Fog that was light enough for me to breathe effortlessly, despite the fact that Gravity had siezed hold of me with a vengeance so strong my limbs seemed made of lead and I felt sure it would wrend my very soul right out of my body.

My Fog, a luminous, life-sustaining plasma shroud, enveloped me on Monday morning as we left the doctor's office, hovered in and around me through Tuesday afternoon, but remained ethereal and penetrable enough for me to do things like speak to and hug and kiss my sons (my mother-in-law was there too, stepping in and taking over the role of mothering them so effortlessly that, had I not been drunk with that Fog, I might have wondered if maybe she'd practiced ahead of time) until the moment I was taken in for surgery.

It lightened its grasp on me enough to let me remember that I'd been given not a single image from Monday's ultrasound, and so had no memento to mark the devastating occasion. No tangible evidence of this irrevocable change in our lives. It lifted a bit, allowing me to think, and ask for an ultrasound to be done on Tuesday, BEFORE the D&C, for the sole purpose of getting that keepsake image to put away in a box, along with the pregnancy tests and other ultrasound photos and various other bits and things we've collected as a direct result of this most recent pregnancy.

I can't say for sure what comprised my Fog, but it was certainly NOT just Xanax, because it didn't just touch me. My children got a whiff of it too, and hovered around me close and comforting, somehow aware that I desperately needed to smell and feel them. I have at least one very Catholic aunt who'd undoubtedly insist it wasn't a fog at all, but the gossamer wings of some heavenly army of guardian angels... frankly, that's a bit hokier an explanation that I can buy. But only just.

I think my Fog is like that old nursery rhyme, "What are little girls made of?" Only instead of sugar and spice and so forth, my Fog is maybe one part Xanax, two parts (me and mine) Divine Marital Love and Devotion, and probably two thousand seven hundred thirty-one parts prayer, give or take. In my mind, that is the only recipe that even comes close to making any sense, and if you know me, you know I can taste just about ANYTHING and then go home and recreate a most passable facsimile. It's one of my gifts.

We got our picture. We had an ultrasound tech who was actually in possession of all the 46 choromosomes requisite to be classified as a member of our own species, evidenced by her willingness to speak with us, treat us with kindness and dignity, and also her brief-enough-to-be-professional-but-sweet-enough-to-still-matter saying that she had been in our circumstances before once too. She even went beyond what we expected, and printed our picture on a standard sheet of white paper, off the laser printer, rather than the thermal one, so as to afford some permanence. To our keepsake, at least.

We had wonderful nurses who served as some of the finest examples of the profession I've ever seen. I have VERY exacting standards too, I'll have you know, being as my mother has been an RN for so long that I'd almost certainly give away too close a clue to her age if I told you. She's no easy act to follow, be certain of that!

On the nurse thing, an odd thing happened. The phlebotomy tech came in to get a hemogram, so she needed two tubes of blood. Just before she came in, the nurse told me that another nurse would be in shortly to insert my IV and get my fluids and meds going. Having that whole self-preservation mechanism thing in full force, what with my own set of 46 chromosomes and all, I respectfully requested that the tech please allow the RN to insert the IV catheter, use that to get the blood, and then be on her way while the RN connected tubes and such. Easy right? One needle, two departments happy. By this point, my nurse had returned with a liter of LR spiked with oxytocin, tubing, and so on, so she was actually present when the nimrod phlebotomy tech said, and this is a direct quote, "Well, the nurses don't GIVE IVs all day long, so lots of them ain't as good at hittin' a vein as we are. Plus, it's just two tubes of blood. It's not the end of the world."

My nurse, reserved and pleasant all the while, slipped up a tad bit right then, and actually rolled her eyes as she exited stage left with a quickness. That rolling of the eyes trick is Nurse for, "What the FUCK did you just SAY!?!?!? I'm getting back-up NOW, sista!"

And back-up she got. The sweet and lovely IV nurse practically threw the door open, and proceeded to chew the ass of the phlebotomy tech, but it was the most amazing ass-chewing I think I've ever seen, because she never grimaced, maintained a totally sincere pleasantness to her voice, and smiled the entire time she was explaining to the Underling that yes, she could get the IV into my voluminous vein (thank you for THAT one too, Mom!) and fill the two tubes, both EDTA for no clotting purple-top and a red-top for whole blood just on the off-chance it might be needed, with a quickness.

The phlebotomy tech was surprised at first, I think kind of maybe a little pissed next, but really didn't have time to make all five stages of the on-the-job-grief-process, because before she was done looking pissy/confused, she had two tubes of my blood in her hand, and I a perfectly placed IV catheter in mine. Ok, the scenery sucked, but that itty bit of it was just gorgeous. Funny how that works, there's beautiful moments in even the most horrid circumstances. God is tricky that way, I think. Has a pretty odd sense of humor, but at least He has one!

The rest was pretty lame. Off to anesthesia, down for the count, woke up in pretty much no pain, but they insisted on giving me fentinyl anyway (no complaints here!) and wheeled me back to my room, where my dearest darling doll husband had done the precise naughty things I asked him to do, and in just the right order:
1. He met my gurney at the door that exits into the day surgery unit, approached without asking permission from the confused Central Transport person wheeling my zonked body around, and gingerly and perfectly placed my glasses on my face so I was no longer blind.
2. The moment the nurse left, which she refused to do until she saw me suck, swallow, and not vomit back up a few sips of Coca Cola over ice (you know, one other thing to add to the RIGHT list: Hospital Ice. It's ALWAYS perfect.) AND urinate in the toilet without the aid of David Copperfield, Mr. Cakes produced from his sleeve, no shit, he had a 32oz BK vanilla milkshake, straw already in place, in his sleeve, and brought it to my mouth.

I got probably half of it down before we were molested any further, and at that point, as I have come to realize after numerous times of having black-market-milkshakes delivered to my hospital bed, AMA of course, once they saw I'd gotten that much of it down and that I was entirely too stubborn to even think about letting any of it back up, they just kind of sighed, shook their heads, and didn't bother warning me to go easy. HAH! Score one for ME!

Oh... there was the migraine, which hit about half an hour after the shake. No connection, or none I'm willing to acknowledge at least, but once again, the Mood and Pain Altering Chemical Fairies came out of the freakin' woodwork to provide relief. This time I got a Morphine and Phenergan cocktail, on the upper right quadrant of my tail, in fact. No more headache. No more consciousness either, for an hour or so, but hey, that's why they have all those medical people hanging around in hospitals, right? The headache didn't return, and finally I got to go home.

My discharge (damn, there's that word again, and in association with surgery on female parts, even barely, it just seems so WRONG here) papers insisted I was to stay bedridden for a minimum of 24 hours, and that I was only to get up long enough to relieve myself, and only then with an escort. I, for once, did exactly as I was told. I took not one of the 30 Tylox capsules I got on the same day they gave me the Xanax, because, seriously I had no pain. None. Nada. Zip.

Well, none on the first day. At exactly 24.5 hours after my discharge, I was going stir crazy, so I persuaded my exhausted husband to cart me to the store at the end of the street where my M-I-L lives, where I procured a cart, into which I placed two VERY large ribeye steaks, some cokes, and a pack of pecan spinwheels. Breakfast of champeens, I tell ya! I was then driven back to her place, where I personally broiled the slabs of iron-rich cow to a perfect brown on the outside and RED on the inside, and Mr. Cakes and I set about the work of slurping down every luscious bleeding bit. Aaaaaaahhhhhhh. Oh, Texas Toast too. I forgot that part. Can't have a convenience-store ribeye without convenience-store Texas Toast. And it was gooooooooooooood!

Of course, when I tried to stand up and stow my plate, my legs kind of vetoed the decision, and I found myself inexplicably right back on my butt. No hill, Mr. Cakes grabbed my plate, took it to the sink, and returned with a cool rag for my face. He so totally rocks.

Or at least he did, until we got home, got the kids in bed, and The Night of the Nuclear Meltdown Defcon Five Psycho Wife happened. I can't remember most of what I said, but I do remember the shocking intensity of both the emotions I was feeling and the speed with which they shifted, one to another and then another, a fucking kaleidemoscope, I tell you, and it was NOT PRETTY!

My husband (God love him and God be thanked and praised for bringing this wonderful man into my life who can and DOES tolerate me, willingly even!) informed me that the only reason he didn't file divorce papers on the spot was that I did a startling rendition of Meatwad from ATHF as I lurched/rolled out of our bed and in the general direction of the bathroom, muttering some unintelligible shit about my brother, and it was then he knew for CERTAIN that I was NOT THERE, and that what he was seeing wasn't actually coming from my heart, but rather from a big nasty jumbled up concotion of post-partum hormones, Xanax, Morphine, Fentinyl, Grief, Stress, DIStress, Horror... you get the picture.

Actually, I really hope you don't. And I hope you never ever do. Even if I hate you, I hope you never EVER find yourself in that place. It's cold, and dark, and scary, and there are things there that will give you nightmares if you have the misfortune of looking directly at them. Hell, they'll give you nightmares even if you only see them in your periphery, provided you're not pumped full of psychotropic meds and highly addictive pain medications! To my knowledge, there is no word for that place, because "Hell" is just too antiquated and quaint sounding, and everything else seems contrived. "Bad" is overused, but probably as good as it gets. If "Bad" had a geographical location, that's where I spent a good two hours on Tuesday night. Only when you're IN "Bad," an hour here feels like about six there. Gross. Foul. Awful. And thankfully, over now. For good, I hope.

I'm up and living again. I've taken a few doses of Aleve along the way, but mostly just as a prophylaxis. I accept and have total faith in Nature Working The Way It Does for Good Reason. I know this is neither the end of my life, nor the world. It sucks, and it is sad, and when I went to Wal-Mart today, I kind of teetered on the verge of emotional implosion because I couldn't turn my head without seeing a newborn baby or a cart full of baby bits and supplies, and today that MATTERED. But, Mr. Cakes was there, and we got through the stupid shopping, and came home, and I held my sons, and my sons and my husband held me, and we were a whole and content family, the four of us together.

Turns out, my doctor made not one, but NUMEROUS errors and oversights, several of which may well have been the direct cause of the failure of this pregnancy. Won't know for certain on that until we get back the chromosomal analysis from the embryo. Won't know even then how to proceed... suing the shit out of him has crossed my mind, and I know for certain I'd bank BIG if I did, but ultimately that wouldn't fix anything. Maybe it would make him pay ATTENTION to what his patients tell him about their bodies a little more closely in the future. And maybe that would be enough. Or maybe it wouldn't. I don't know.

I'm tired right now, and I"m going to get some sleep, that old friend with whom I'd lost touch for so very long but whom I've recently rediscovered, thanks also to everyone's Favorite Benzodiazapine.... XANAX!!! OH, and before YOU go calling the men in white coats, know this: of the 60 tablets prescribed to me to be taken 1 or 2 at a time "if needed" (no shit, that's exactly how the script reads), I have actually taken exactly 15. No budding drug problems here, so worry not. This is EXACTLY what that shit is for, and I suspect my next entry will be an Ode to Benzos or some such thing. We'll see.

If you've gotten this far, thank you for listening, and for taking the time to see what's happening in my head and in my life. I appreciate your interest more than you know. Please know that, while I am generally quite the extrovert, I am not an attention-seeking extrovert, and my purpose in writing this has been twofold:
1. Getting it OUT, especially NOW while it's fresh enough that the details haven't evaporated.
2. If you knew I was pregnant, and happened to run into me on the street, you'd likely ask about the pregnancy.

I've actually done that before, and was so mortified when my poor friend informed me that she'd miscarried and therefore had no baby at present for me to inquire after, I vomited at her feet. Trust me, it's so far worse than "awkward," you really do NOT want to be there. So, now we all know, and it's ok to ask about whatever, and it's ok for me to reply or not, depending on how I'm getting by that particular day. Agreed? Good.