Caroline. That's what I named my baby. The little girl I miscarried at ten weeks. At least that's what I call her in my head. I've never said it out loud. I've never even shared it with my husband, even though it was a name he picked. I just can't. It's still too hard. Too hard to say. So I write.
At ten weeks babies are still too little to determine gender but to me she was always a girl. Her life was short but it changed mine forever. She mattered.
At 6wks pregnant I was just getting back from a trip with my Mom and Sister. We had gone to NYC to celebrate my 30th birthday. It was awesome. But after we landed I went to the restroom and realized I was bleeding. A lot. So once I got home I told my husband we needed to get to the ER asap. I was poked and prodded until finally at three in the morning I was released. They told me the baby looked great! That the blood was probably implantation bleeding. They were concerned however that I seemed to have difficulty draining my bladder for my ultrasound. I was told to schedule an appointment with a urologist because they were worried I might have a mass in my bladder.
So I did. I saw a urologist and had a very expensive and VERY unpleasant procedure done to look in my bladder to make sure everything was on the up and up. That tinny hole is meant for exiting only. I can not articulate how painful it is to have something shoved in the out door. Use your imagination. Luckily my bladder checked out to be just fine. What a relief. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty cranky that I went through all that for nothing but hey, better to be on the safe side. Right?
A few weeks later I went in for my first OB appointment at 8wks. During my exam my mid-wife felt a large mass in my abdomen. Either I was farther along than I thought, I was carrying multiples, or something else was amiss. I didn't see how I could be off on the dates. I had just had an ultra sound in the ER that confirmed my timeline. The idea of twins was terrifying but not as scary as the possibility of something being seriously wrong. I was scheduled for an ultrasound later that day.
The ultrasound showed two things. The first was that my "bladder" that the ER tech said I couldn't empty was not my badder at all. In fact, it was a giant cyst on my left ovary. I sure some people will defend the tech and even the radiologist who insisted I had a mass in my bladder but guess what? I'm still PISSED. I know those things look all weird and grainy to me but they are supposed to be professionals. This is THEIR JOB!! Not only did I go through a horrible invasive procedure for nothing but I walked around for two weeks with a giant mass in my ovary! This cyst by the way was growing at a crazy hyper rate due to all of the pregnancy hormones swimming around in my body. It was eight months ago and I still shake with rage when I think about it.
The second and scarier thing this ultrasound showed was that our baby was not looking so hot. Her heart rate was a little lower than they normally like to see and her sack was funny shaped. That's not the words they used, I'm paraphrasing here. We were told to schedule another ultrasound in a week to check on her progress. We were also told to expect the worse. I was devastated. I tried for the next week to be optimistic. And by be optimistic I mean tried not to think about it at all.
We went to our next ultrasound and to everyone's surprise our Little Bean looked better than ever. Her heart rate was strong and she had progressed along nicely in the last seven days. We were relieved, well kinda. Everything had been such a roller coaster I just started to feel numb. first I was pregnant, then I had a mass in my bladder, then I had ginormous cyst, then my baby was going to die, now my baby was fine. I didn't know how to react to anything anymore. Not to mention we still had those pesky cyst to deal with. There were two. One on the left side and one on the right. I don't remember exactly how large they were at that point but they were growing. I was told I would not be able to carry my baby to term with them in there so they would have to come out. Surgery was too risky until after the first trimester so we would have to wait and monitor. I was scheduled for another appointment two weeks later.
When we went back two weeks later we learned that out baby's heart beat was gone. She didn't make it past 10wks. We were devastated. I wasn't numb anymore. I was promptly scheduled for surgery.
We thought it was over.
Flashback to be continued...
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