Heartbroken

I finally had some cold medication and some antihistamines two nights ago. I slept about twelve hours.

Yesterday, my husband worked from home and I spent the majority of the day in bed. He went grocery shopping in the late afternoon and made me eat dinner. I'm so grateful that he was able to take care of us, because I'm not even able to take care of myself right now.

I had trouble  writing my daily haiku, not publishing until the evening, and when I did, it made us both cry anew:

At sunset I'll kiss
you goodbye- sweet child, I'll hold
you in my deep thoughts.

I was growing worried because I was still having a lot of abdominal pain, but not a lot of bleeding. I was quite lightheaded too. As I mentioned in a previous post, my mother had an ectopic pregnancy (before I was born) and almost died. I tried to follow the nurse's advice about staying hydrated, but it was difficult as I was very exhausted and nauseous.

When my husband and I tried to watch trashy reality shows last night to distract ourselves, we were struck by how vacuous and pointless everything seems to be. Where do we go from here?

I had a restless sleep and awoke early today to go to the lab again to have another round of blood tests. This morning I was having my psychotropic drug level tested, kidney function (standard with psychotropic drug tests) measured, and the same hCG, progesterone, and TSH tests.

My husband took me to Life Labs. I felt like bursting into tears when the lab technician asked if I'd be returning every two weeks to have my medication level tested (that's what the standing order said). I won't be, because I'm no longer pregnant.

I feel (and look) like I've been through the wringer.

I was in and out of the lab in 25 minutes, as we showed up at 8:00 a.m. and the majority of the Centrum Silver crowd had not showed up yet. Or maybe it was because people didn't want to get a blood test done on a sunny Friday.

Who wants their blood work done on a day like this?

My husband and I returned home in almost complete silence.

He worked from home while I stared blankly into the distance, tried to distract myself with inane television shows, and attempted to write. Any level of focus was difficult though and I was close to tears many times though not as hysterical as the two days before.

I keep on saying "I can't believe it," as if that will alter the fact that I'm no longer pregnant, hopeful, optimistic, a prospective mother, whole. I feel broken. Shattered. Numb. Nothing seems to have any meaning anymore.

I started bleeding more in the late morning, the cramps worsened. By the afternoon the cramps were very steady and painful and I was bleeding even more.

I checked for my blood test results online around 1:00 p.m. and they were not up. I sat ensconced on the love seat, heat packs over my tortured abdomen, bloated and filled with acute cramps.

I had emailed my nurse coordinator at the Victoria Fertility Centre in the morning about having the lab test done and I waited for her to call to discuss the latest results. Unfortunately, the results did not appear in full until 6:00 p.m. when the office was closed. I called the after hours number to ask when I should have my next test done.

My hCG had dropped yet again from 82 to 28. Pregnancy tests detect a level of about 25 and I have to fall below 5 before I can stop taking these blood tests (and so they know that nothing remains that could cause problems/requires surgery). The progesterone had gone from 19.1 to 2.5. This indicates that I am suffering from a miscarriage, as do my physical symptoms.

The nurse advised that the new levels seemed as they should be for what I was experiencing and that I should repeat the lab test on Monday.

I have told people that I can't and don't want to talk, but some people can't seem to accept this. I just feel like I can't talk to anyone right now, except for my medical team and my husband who is going through this horrific and new experience with me. We never envisioned that our newfound happiness and peace would only last three days. Right now, we just need to to grieve alone.

I usually try to write haiku that are light, funny, or pretty, but all I can think of now is what I've lost. I leave you with today's haiku from my Haiku a Day blog:

Let me linger hours

longer, dreams obscure my pain-

sleep reunites us.