Pernicious Personal Shoppers and Periods

So what if I did have to consult a thesaurus to properly insult him, the guy was evil.

The only thing that marred the holidays was a lousy personal shopping experience at Neimans. My mother-in-law sent me there to pick out my Christmas present. When I told the fellow which outfits I wanted her to get, and which I would buy, he called her up (on the sly) and suggested she pay for them all! Of course she’ll offer to pay when pressed. Why would he put her in that awkward position? Especially when I specifically told him what I wanted to purchase myself. When I mentioned it to her she was indifferent, but still I fear I look like a selfish troll. I had planned to hold a grudge against Neimans, but when I went back the next day to return some of the items my hubby didn’t like, I found a Chole bag at half price. So we are back to being BFF.

Now that the holidays are over I’m just looking for reasons to wear my new outfits and waiting for my period. I wasn’t sure how long it’d take until I found this awesome site for all things miscarriage. Check it:

http://pregnancyloss.info/

They lie. Miscarriages can hurt like a Mo Fo.

When we first found out we lost the heartbeat, my doctor told me I should experience “some cramping and bleeding.”  And to only worry if the bleeding was severe enough to require more than a pad and hour.  Considering how common it is to miscarry, I was expecting just another female right of passage. I learned my lessons well from Margaret. I know to belt on that sanitary napkin and even if I don’t believe in God, I knew that us girls are all in it together. Or I did. Until I found out you biatches didn’t tell me that a miscarriage is more like living through Eraserhead then a Judy Blum novel!  

Here is how it played out. I was all set for a D&C on Christmas eve. Then, the Saturday before, I started bleeding and passing black blobs. My cramps were worse than normal, but bearable. At 2:00 a.m. Monday morning I woke up with even worse cramps. And they were steadily getting worse. I took two ibuprofen and waited for them to kick in. They never did. I took a bath in lieu of a heating pad. It looked like I was swimming with Jaws and wasn’t helping anyway. I couldn’t get comfortable sitting or laying down, so I just started pacing. I took another ibuprofen and wished I could down the whole bottle. Still the cramps were getting worse. I took my vibrator and for once actually used it as a personal massager. ¹ Nothing helped.   I got up again and kept pacing.  This went on for hours.  Until I finally had the urge to push, went into the bathroom, and at 5:00 a.m. I heard a weird plop fall into the toilet. Instantly I felt better. I couldn’t resist poking it. I was huge-bigger than a mouse–and kinda felt like one too. You could see something that sort of looked like bones but mostly it was just a wierd dark red blob. Why the hell was it so big!??! There was no heartbeat at 9 weeks, it passed at 12, shouldn’t it have been the size of my fingernail? And how will this compare to labor pains? I’ve since googled “labor pains and miscarriage” and those folks are much more forthright about how much this fricking hurts. I hope you don’t have to go through this, but you should know that if you do 1) you aren’t alone; 2) sooner or later something will come out; and 3) when it does you’ll feel like a million bucks. So now, only three months after getting pregnant, my uterus is finally empty and my nails are back to broken stubs. Just as soon as my boobs shrink back to normal, I hope to feel less like a cow and more like a trophy again.  I bet Botox is a bad idea right before we start trying again, hu?  

1. From my husband’s perspective: He woke from his slumber to find himself next to Linda Blair in the Exorcist.  Apparently I was curled in a fetal position, jamming the vibrator into my abdomen, moaning and writhing in pain.  Thankfully for him there was no pea soup involved to soil the sheets.

The Misoprostol Didn’t Work

I was wrong.  The little brownish blobs were not baby bits.  According to the ultrasound tech, I still have “evidence of conception” hanging out in the ol’ uterus.  So I need a D&C after all.  On Christmas Eve no less.  I wonder if this is why I’ve been feeling down.  Maybe my hormones are still out of whack.  If I wasn’t already feeling bummed,  to make matters worse the doctor said that after the D&C we aren’t supposed to have sex for at least 2 weeks.  I think it is because of all the stretching and so forth. 

What I can look forward to specifically is as follows: 

Dilation (the first step): While grasping the cervix with a clamp, the doctor will pass a thin, flexible piece of metal called a sound to determine the depth and angle of the uterus. These measurements allow the doctor to know how far into the uterus the curette can be safely inserted. The usual method of dilation is to insert a thin, smooth metal rod gently along the vaginal canal and up into the tiny cervical opening. The rod is left in place for a moment, then withdrawn and replaced by a slightly larger rod. This process is repeated until the cervix has expanded to about the width of a finger. This method takes about 10 minutes. If you are under local anesthesia, you may experience crampy discomfort caused by stretching of the cervical muscles to accommodate the rods. . . .

Hysteroscopy and curettage (the second step): After dilation, your doctor holds the vagina open again with the speculum. The doctor may also reach into the cervix with a tiny spoon to obtain a specimen of the cervical lining. At this point, the hysteroscope is usually inserted into the uterus so that the doctor may look at the inside of the uterus. . . . 

The doctor will now place a slightly longer and larger curette through the dilated cervix and up into the uterus. This is a metal loop on the end of a long, thin handle. With steady, gentle strokes, the doctor will scrape or suction the uterine wall. This tissue is sent to the lab for analysis. When the curettage is completed, the instruments are removed.

If under local anesthesia, you will probably experience a tugging sensation deep in your abdomen as the curetting is performed. If this is too painful, you should tell the doctor, who may then order pain medicine.

The entire procedure, including curettage takes about 20 minutes. At the end, you may have cramps. This may last about 30 minutes.

(http://www.emedicinehealth.com/dilation_and_curettage_dandc/page4_em.htm)

Starbucks Baby

I was feeling pretty low this morning having celebrated my 34th birthday this weekend.  I had a very nice party but this year I wasn’t really feeling it.  It didn’t help that my husband had to work most of the weekend and had to catch a flight again first thing this morning.  Plus no sex because I am still spotting a bit, and won’t know until tomorrow whether or not I need a D&C.  (And honestly he hasn’t tried and neither have I because I feel like a bloated cow.)  So all weekend I’ve felt a bit off,  lonesome and down.  Most of my dear friends live out-of-state and so when previously I’d rely on them to cheer me up, now all I have is myself.  And apparently Starbucks.  I have often known of its restorative properties when I haven’t been able to shake the Sandman.  And now that I can indulge in caffeine again I’ve been taking full advantage of it–and sadly consuming little else.  I thought this may become a problem until this morning when the Starbucks’ folks finally, after 4 years of ordering the same damn thing, remembered my order.  And for some reason that completely burned off my doldrums. ¹   I have to remember this when I am not in the mood to be particularly friendly; a little happiness can transform a person’s entire day.

1. Sad I know, but I’ll take a Chai Latte before Prozac any day.

So it goes

This weekend was pretty sucky.  I took the second dose of Misoprostol and this time I think it worked.  I took ibuprofen at the same time, and this time I didn’t have any serious cramping or chills.  It felt like normal period cramps and I slept fine.  Although everything came out dark and clumpy.  I was expecting a torrent of red blood along with a few little blobs.  So now I’m worried my uterus has thrown in the towel and starved the poor thing to death.  God I hope not.  I wonder if I should see a fertility specialist while there is still time for me to bag a babe before the dreaded 35?  When I talked to hubby he suggested I wait and ask the obgyn at my next appointment–when she’ll make sure it all came out.  I guess that’ll have to do for now, but I still need a task to distract me.  Previously I was working toward that trial, but it just settled.  So now I’m trying to focus on shopping for X-mas gifts instead of trolling miscarriage/fertility blogs.  I may have a sluggish uterus but I can still bring back our economy damn it!

Work damn you Misoprostol

Last night I took Misoprostol at 10:30 p.m.  About a half hour later I suffered severe cramping, chills and insomnia.  I was actually glad for the insomnia because around 4:00 a.m. I began having a terrible case of the poopies.  So much so that I literally had to run to the toilet.  Yet, now it’s been 13 hours since my first dose and I still haven’t passed anything.  Nary a spot of blood.  I suppose I should be happy for small favors since I have a busy day at work preparing for a trial on Tuesday.  I’m going to take another dose tonight of 800 mg and hopefully that’ll do the trick.  

As sad as this is, I’ve been so focused on avoiding the need for a D&C that I haven’t had much time to think about what it means to not be preggers anymore.  Although now that I think of it, I’m kinda glad to be able to mainline caffeine again.  (A must this morning.)  And this weekend I plan to take a super hot bath.  (Although I did read that you aren’t supposed to do that on Misoprostol.  Since my doc didn’t say it, I’ll play it by ear.)  I also wonder if my nails are going to break all the sudden when the hormones wear off because they’ve never looked so good.  

All in all, I think I’ll be able to take all of this in stride.  I wasn’t so sure yesterday when I learned my BFF is preggers.  I listened patiently and helped her celebrate before I told her I lost ours.  It was kinda sucky but she’s so great and upbeat that she cheered me up.  She really helped me think of this as only a delay in our eventual pregnancy plans and to remember that this alone doesn’t mean that we will never be able to conceive.  Plus, like my hubby is fond of saying, the fun is in the trying, right?

My Missed Miscarriage

I just arrived back to work after the doctor’s appointment and now it’s confirmed.  We lost the baby at 10 weeks.  Maybe I should say “zygote” instead of “baby” to reflect my zealous pro-choice stance?  Whatever you call it, the heartbeat stopped.  I think I could see its little arms and legs.  Sometimes the miracles of modern medicine are too much to bear.  I wonder when its tiny little heart gave out?  Apparently I had what they call a “missed miscarriage” because I haven’t had any bleeding yet.  So now I have to take meds to induce cramping and evict the little fella.  I’m disappointed to say the least¹, but one of the benefits of being a pessimist is that I was always expecting the worst.  Not so for my hubby.  He was horribly surprised.  Poor guy.  Maybe I was able to come to terms with it before him when my nausea and breast tenderness were gradually decreasing?  Maybe despite his bravado and firm appreciation for hedonism, he wanted this little guy much more than it seemed?  I don’t know, but he sounded so sad when I had to tell him over the phone that it nearly broke my heart.  Now I feel awful for giving him grief about that stupid comment.  But I suppose that I was entitled to my time to grieve too.  Sigh.  I know that tons of people go through this but I’d bet only a small minority of them have to go through it with bad hair.²  I am probably just looking for sob fodder, but in my googling I stumbled onto these photographs of still births: 

http://www.toddhochberg.com/seeexhibitslides.html

For some reason I find them so very beautiful and touching right now.

1. By “disappointed” I mean I started blubbering at the doctor’s office after all. Not too surprising when the waiting room is filled with joyous couples crooning over their ultrasound photos. While there I sat, a human casket of death and aging ovaries, waiting an hour for the stupid doctor to see me. Only to have her neglect to look at my file, (and apparently my bloodshot eyes), effusively ask how I’m feeling and opine that it’s normal for my symptoms to lesson. That is, until I reminded her to look at the ultrasound and informed her that I lost the heartbeat. It’s amazing how a little disdain can diffuse sorrow immediately.

2. Just jokes.  In times like these I find offensive humor most appropriate.  Yet another reason to feel sorry for my husband.

A Series of Unfortunate Events

If that Adam Sandler movie wasn’t so sucky I would very much like to fast forward this point in my life.  Everyday I fantaze about waiting it out in a hole, but I fear that when I crawl out I will be even more depressed and in serious need a mani.  It all started when my husband had the bright idea for me to cut my hair.  I eagerly agreed (even though I had spent the past two years growing it out) because I was in need of a change.  This probably would have been fine had I not chosen to use my husband’s hairstylist which he insisted was top notch.  I reasoned that this was best because if the biatch botched my hair at least my husband could not leave me out of pity for causing the mishap.  Of course she botched it and now I look like a boy.  A young boy, thank god, but still I preferred the female look.  So, while he and I bore this cross, patiently waiting for the day I could yet again resemble a girl, we discovered that the transformation hadn’t affected my reproductive organs.  And discovered I was pregnant.  We vacillated between disbelief and guarded happiness.  Disbelief because this wasn’t planned.  Guarded because we are all too aware of the risks of miscarriage after witnessing the struggles by our friends and family.  So I waited as patiently as possible for our first doctor’s appointment to confirm the pregnancy.  All the while feeling lousy, looking worse, and regretting my inability to drink my sorrows away.  Last week we finally had our first doctor’s appointment.  I think we both mainly sought confirmation whether or not I was in fact pregnant because we really couldn’t believe it had happened so easily.  Of course, nothing is easy.  The doctor confirmed I was pregnant, but that the little zygote was measuring only 6 weeks 3 days, when I should be measuring 8 weeks.  According to the doctor I could be experiencing a miscarriage or we were wrong about the date of my last period.  Since we were planning to spend Thanksgiving in Paris, the Doc gave me all sorts of advice if I found myself bleeding uncontrollably in gay Paris.  We left the office gripping an ultrasound picture and silently digesting the news.  I am not really sure how my husband feels about this turn of events because he claims that he will be content whether we have a child or not.  At the same time he’s all too excited about the prospect of having a son.  I’m not really sure how I feel either, but I can tell you what I don’t appreciate, his flip comment to me that I am old and killed our baby.  That’s right, can you belief how insensitive?  He claimed it was because I called him a psychopath when I was only trying to tease him about eating toilet paper after first cleaning the toilet and floor in his youth.  (He’s now what he prefers to call “tidy” and I found the contradiction understandably amusing.)  Regardless of what I inadvertently said, I hardly think the punishment fit the crime.  I was near to hysterical about this comment before we left for Paris.  I didn’t want to go at all and just wanted to crawl into that hole until I either lost the baby, had the baby, or my hair grew out.  Eventually I gave in, but was still upset with him until I was so exhausted with jet lag, crying and pregnancy that I didn’t have the energy to fight anymore.  At which time I was favored with an eye infection.  And a cold.  My pregnancy symptoms have ceased, so I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the baby but I haven’t had any bleeding yet.  My follow-up doctor’s appointment is in two hours at which time I should know for sure.  I hope I don’t cry and I worry that I’ll have to have a D&C if I don’t miscarry naturally.  Sigh.  Being a woman is a biatch.  Especially when you look like a little boy.

Therapy for Two

After a couple months of some serious quarrels, beginning with the aforementioned photo shoot, my hubby and I recently decided to indulge in couple’s therapy.  I hate participating in something so cliché but I grudgingly agreed supposing that it couldn’t hurt anything.  

It’s going fine, but I am not sure we are doing it right.  I mean, aren’t you supposed have a big argument in front of the therapist to allow her to see for herself all the ways you are sucky at communicating/resolving your differences?  Instead of demonstrating our neuroses in real time, both of us show up and display all the little gems we learned in comms 100.  We couldn’t be more complimentary to one another and each of us assumes responsibility for things we normally wouldn’t dare fess up to.  It’s almost as if we are each trying to prove to her that everything wrong in the relationship is the other guy’s fault because look how well balanced I am!  I guess it is helping though.  If for no other reason than we haven’t thrown as many hissy fits out of fear that we’ll have to fess up to them later in therapy.  I am embarrassed to say that I am the one who had the most recent tantrum.  I think it started because I was upset that the corrected my pronunciation of the word “Bruschetta.”  Our therapist is going to have a field day with that one.

Snapped

I’ve been MIA for a bit because the heifer found my blog.  Rather than listen to protracted lectures on proofreading, I suspended blogging temporarily.¹  Grammar be damned, today I need to vent.  Regardless of the likelihood that this blog may very well cause the demise of my husband.  Here I am, getting ahead of myself. 

First, when my husband read my blog, he also read the bit about the present I was making for him.  Since the cat was out of the bag, I showed him the proofs and asked him to pick out his favorite shots.  Here, I thought using my photos to create a calendar would be an adorable gift idea for the guy who has everything.  Thankfully my hubby cleared that up before you make the same mistake. 

I have since learned that photographs of me are a gift to me, not him.  I honestly never thought of that, but I’m willing to try almost anything.  Tonight, after a couple glasses of wine, I plan to dim the lights, grab my vibrator and few of the racier pics, and make a go of it.  I’ll let you know how it works out.  

Next, my meal ticket wasn’t pleased with the composition of the pictures because I took off my top in a couple shots.²  Despite two or three pictures where my nip accidentally showed, all of my pink parts and butt crack were covered.  Think Brooke Shields in her Calvins.  Knowing his penchant for prudity, I specifically hired a female photographer and planned the poses to look pretty, not sensual.  Attractive, but innocent looking in a 1950s way.  You know, like, “Oh no, my skirt is snagged on a tree branch” or “Oops, you caught me changing, I’d better hide behind this clothesline to cover my bazongas.”  To put it another way, I brought my 65 year old mother on the shoot.  There was no crawling across a bed, sporting a thong and O-face. 

Despite these efforts, my pictures were still too sexy for my husband’s delicate constitution.  Which is why I fear the information I’m about to disclose will kill him.  I told my photographer she could use some pictures of me to advertise her services.  Ha!  If he doesn’t out and out die, with any luck he will leave me–with a nice divorce settlement.  I’m not too worried.  Sure, I’ll miss out on next semester’s lecture series, ”Why clothing should not be removed from a chair via a pinching motion.”  But with the help of my photographer’s advertising campaign, I’m sure I should be able to find a new meal ticket before too long.  This time, I’m going to keep an eye out for one that is mute.   

1. Or rather, having been kept awake nights listening to complaints about my blog, that wouldn’t cease until I gushed about how much I loved my hubby.  The funny thing is, he wondered why I stopped blogging when I found I could only type the words “I love my husband.”  Apparently his PhD program skipped over the part about negative reinforcement.  Although interestingly he does seem to have perfected its use.

2. In the past, Hubby has noted he did not like the idea of topless photographs. Unfortunately I took these pictures before I learned our definitions of the word “topless” differ. Folks in his generation apparently consider “topless” to be any photograph where the subject is not wearing a top. I consider “topless” to be any photograph where you see an exposed nipple. Given that his generation also thought shoulder pads were a good idea, we generally don’t see eye to eye.