A Painful Week

Publishing this weekly blog newsletter helps our family reach many goals, one of these is to keep a consistent family history record. Because of this, I feel the need to record the painful and hard along with the fun and eventful.

This week was a painful one emotionally and physically as we experienced our first miscarriage. I was in a lot of pain over the weekend. Monday I contacted the doctor who wanted to see me right away. In the same afternoon I found out I was pregnant and that I couldn't keep the baby. The pregnancy was an ectopic or tubal pregnancy, meaning the baby was growing in my tube instead of my uterus. This is a serious condition because the tube will quickly rupture if it is not caught in time. My choices were invasive surgery and likely losing my fallopian tube or an injection of a low dose of a chemo drug, and the rare chance of losing my hair. I have to say it wasn't the funnest decision we've ever had to make. Because I have had 5 c-sections the surgery was an even higher risk for me, so we opted for the drug route. Steve was scheduled to leave out of town an hour before the procedure, and I thought I'd be brave and have him go anyway. My wise mother encouraged me to have him cancel his trip, and he let me know he would have anyway. I was so grateful to have him with me through the ordeal, and he was able to work from home the next two days to care for me. The procedure itself was pretty simple (two massive shots of a neon yellow liquid) but the experience was crushing. It is not very comforting to weep into a pillow that is covered with doctor's office crunchy tissue paper, but the nurses were sweet, the doctor caring and Steve held my hand through it all. With ultra sounds and doctors appointments it took the bulk of the day Tuesday and my mother graciously cared for the kids at our home. Wednesday was the worst of it, with nausea and cramping and generally feeling lousy from the drug injection. It also made my brain fuzzy and I couldn't sleep. As I lay wide awake in the early morning hours on Wednesday I thought of all the sweet children I know that have had to or are currently going through the chemo process. I wanted to hug Jacob and Serenity and Tyler to me and kiss them for being so brave. A huge thanks to my sister Bree and sister-in-law Becca and my Mom for caring for my children while I recovered. Wednesday I was at 100% yuck, Thursday 50%, but today, Friday, I'm feeling mostly myself again - about 10% left to full recovery. Tonight my gold wedding ring turned my finger green. Is that bad? We will have to wait awhile to try again because of the chemical in my system.

Thank you everyone for your kindness and prayers. I am so grateful we caught the problem early and that we have the medical technology to solve the problem (women have died from ectopic pregnancy's in the past.) We would love to have another baby and trust in the Lord's timing for our family.