Loss Number Three
Dec. 23rd, 2018 06:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
howeverbriefWhere do I begin, the beginning? Where did this begin? It seems like this has been failing to start for so long that I'm shocked it's over already, but I'm also already getting ahead of myself.
We'll start where we left off last time, with numbers:
Last Sunday: Another test in morning, first faint positive.
Tuesday: Another test in evening, second faint positive.
Wednesday: A call to the doctor; a blood test; slight spotting.
Thursday: A doctor's appointment; an ultrasound showing fluid and thickened lining but nothing else; slight spotting.
Friday: Word that blood test was screwed up by lab, but HCG reading of 33; increased spotting over course of day; another test in evening, third faint positive; still, passage of tissue and clots in evening.
Saturday: A trip to the emergency room for five hours; another blood test, with a HCG reading of 11; a third diagnosis of miscarriage, one year and a week since the first; another rhoGAM shot.
I've been searching for this one for what feels like an eternity. To be gone so soon after finally confirming it is a shock to the system. Mike said it just never felt right, like something was wrong from the beginning. He is probably right. I sit here awake with my stomach and organs trembling, rolling over and over themselves in some sort of attempt to clear my system of this potential. Whatever it was. Whatever it could have been. Whatever it will never be now.
I thought maybe if I didn't speak to it, it might be okay. If I didn't acknowledge it, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad. Surely something had to work. Some part of me hoped that by not repeating what I've clung to in the past, it would somehow save things, like running in the opposite direction would stave off this deja vu of a loss. It would have to be different this time, right?
Of course it would, but not in that way. Each loss is different. I knew what to look for and waited for the signs, but they were different, recognizable but distinct enough to cause confusion and leave us clinging to a small smattering of hope. That optimism that only dies in the wake of the reality of a loss even faster than the others. Barely known before it's waving goodbye.
I keep trying to fit this into a narrative, to justify what's happened and make sense of it, I suppose, but there are no words that can convey the depths of my sorrow. There's no finality to any of this, only a deluge of unanswerable questions: What did I do wrong this time? Is this just what happens to us now? Is anything different ever going to happen? How do you contextualize that? How do you square yourself with the fact that this only happens to a small percentage of people, and you're now among them? Where do we go from here? Do we even bother trying again?
I couldn't even bring myself to memorialize the last one in paint, and now there are three. I wish I would have had longer. I wish the tremors in my belly were signs of life. I wish it weren't two days before Christmas. I wish I could just crawl into a hole and be done for a while.
I don't really know what else to say.
We'll start where we left off last time, with numbers:
Last Sunday: Another test in morning, first faint positive.
Tuesday: Another test in evening, second faint positive.
Wednesday: A call to the doctor; a blood test; slight spotting.
Thursday: A doctor's appointment; an ultrasound showing fluid and thickened lining but nothing else; slight spotting.
Friday: Word that blood test was screwed up by lab, but HCG reading of 33; increased spotting over course of day; another test in evening, third faint positive; still, passage of tissue and clots in evening.
Saturday: A trip to the emergency room for five hours; another blood test, with a HCG reading of 11; a third diagnosis of miscarriage, one year and a week since the first; another rhoGAM shot.
I've been searching for this one for what feels like an eternity. To be gone so soon after finally confirming it is a shock to the system. Mike said it just never felt right, like something was wrong from the beginning. He is probably right. I sit here awake with my stomach and organs trembling, rolling over and over themselves in some sort of attempt to clear my system of this potential. Whatever it was. Whatever it could have been. Whatever it will never be now.
I thought maybe if I didn't speak to it, it might be okay. If I didn't acknowledge it, maybe it wouldn't hurt so bad. Surely something had to work. Some part of me hoped that by not repeating what I've clung to in the past, it would somehow save things, like running in the opposite direction would stave off this deja vu of a loss. It would have to be different this time, right?
Of course it would, but not in that way. Each loss is different. I knew what to look for and waited for the signs, but they were different, recognizable but distinct enough to cause confusion and leave us clinging to a small smattering of hope. That optimism that only dies in the wake of the reality of a loss even faster than the others. Barely known before it's waving goodbye.
I keep trying to fit this into a narrative, to justify what's happened and make sense of it, I suppose, but there are no words that can convey the depths of my sorrow. There's no finality to any of this, only a deluge of unanswerable questions: What did I do wrong this time? Is this just what happens to us now? Is anything different ever going to happen? How do you contextualize that? How do you square yourself with the fact that this only happens to a small percentage of people, and you're now among them? Where do we go from here? Do we even bother trying again?
I couldn't even bring myself to memorialize the last one in paint, and now there are three. I wish I would have had longer. I wish the tremors in my belly were signs of life. I wish it weren't two days before Christmas. I wish I could just crawl into a hole and be done for a while.
I don't really know what else to say.
