Numb

Friday night through Sunday morning, I bled more heavily than I've ever bled in my life (and I've had about a dozen surgeries in my life).The pain was so intense, that even with leftover anti inflammatory and pain killers from my last surgery and a heating pad and several heat packs, I had a lot of difficulty surviving the painful cramps and spasms. During Sunday, the bleeding lessened and I tried to get up and watch TV with my husband, but I felt dizzy and out of it and kept falling asleep sitting up.

I had difficulty getting up Monday morning to go to Life Labs for another round of blood tests. My husband took me, as I was still feeling really weak and out of it. Around 8:00 a.m. seems like a magical time when one barely has to wait at all and I was in and out of the now too familiar lab in about fifteen to twenty minutes.

I'm getting sick of this view.

Oh, is this the first day of summer? Swaddled in cashmere, I couldn't care less.

I returned home and went to bed and slept until 3:00 p.m. easily. I could have slept more, but I forced myself to sit up, so I'd hopefully be able to sleep tonight. Plus, I still hadn't posted my haiku and I wanted to write another post for this blog, since I hadn't posted one since Friday.

Food tastes weird and unappealing, I'm having trouble drinking fluids like I normally would, and I have no interest at all in self care or anything at all. I still have the last remnants of the cold I came down with a week ago when I was filled with hope, being pregnant naturally for the first time in my life. Now a week later, I feel numb. I have a strong urge to flee, but no energy or drive to think of where to go or to survive a journey there. Besides, no matter where I go, I'll still be there and it's myself that I can't stand.

I've become a mute. I don't want to talk to anyone. And no one knows what to say either. Anything that anyone says offends me and being a recovering lawyer, I can twist their words into a razor sharp scythe that I can then use to wound them.

My mother, who only wants to encourage me by calling me and talking about my miscarriage, only makes me feel more hopeless. I never knew that she had had two miscarriages leading up to finally giving birth to me, but this fact only made me feel more despondent. I've only ever been able to get pregnant once and I'm eight years older than she was when she was going through that difficult journey. The chance that I'll ever get pregnant again naturally is almost zero and then if there's the possibility that I could have yet another miscarriage, why would I ever attempt this when I feel like I've barely survived this latest tragedy in my life? And if I ask for the doctor's help in getting pregnant again and put all that time, effort, hormonal agony, and money into that and then I lose that baby, how will I ever continue to live?

Even my husband, who is going through a hell of his own, can't completely understand what I'm going through, because he's only dealing with the emotional and mental fallout of the miscarriage and doesn't feel abdominal cramps, the gush of blood, and the physical weakness I'm feeling, mixed with the intensified emotional hormone fueled surges of rage mixed with complete and utter despondency, hopelessness, and defeat. If it weren't for him shopping, bringing me things to eat and drink, and taking me to the lab, I'd be huddled alone under a pile of cashmere decomposing.

The cat is bewildered by me taking to bed even more than usual, but being a cat, isn't completely against it. He slept with me all day and is now sitting beside me on the couch as I work on my blogs.

The Victoria Fertility Centre called me in the late afternoon to discuss my latest blood test results. My hCG is down to 8 (from 28 on Friday) (it must be below 5 for me to stop having tests done). I must repeat the lab test in one week. They are sending me a new requisition as my current one expires in three days. When I feel "up to it," I'm supposed to call and book an appointment with Dr. Hudson to discuss what I want to do next. But no treatments can be done until my hCG is below 5 (which is will likely be very soon). My progesterone is at 1.0 (it was at 2.5 on Friday). My TSH is at 1.84 from 1.34 on Friday.

I can't even picture ever going back to the fertility clinic again or having anything done to me ever again. I would never survive another trauma like this. I feel like I'm barely alive as it is. And while I'm sure my body, which has withstood a lot of trauma and surgeries and my brain which has suffered from a full gamut of emotional states, might be able to survive another miscarriage, my heart would reshatter along the fault lines from this latest horror and like tempered glass, would not be able to be reused and my life would just end.

But what kind of a life is this when I can't ever look forward to having a child of my own, while I watch everyone else around me effortlessly (and often accidentally) having children of their own (and not appreciating how lucky they truly are). The only thing that seems appealing at this point is death. Unfortunately, I didn't lose enough blood and I'm stuck on this hellish planet contemplating why I'm even here and how much longer I'll have to suffer for. I don't know how I'll ever gaze upon my little niece's face again or that of any other child, when even seeing children or hearing them, fills my eyes with tears and my heart with black despair.

In the mean time, I'll just sit here alone, staring off into space, my mind struggling, and my body still, numb, in a world that I've suddenly discovered is actually flat. I am in complete conflict. I want a child (or ideally two) more than anything in the world, but I'm terrified that I'll never be able to have one (or two) or what the cost will be (financially, emotionally, physically, time wise) to get there if it is even possible. At this point, it seems like a choice that no one should have to make and one that I am too exhausted and beleaguered to make.