He asked me if I had been given any information about the procedure. I had been given a lot of information about what had happened, but I didn't know the technical jargon. The name of the procedure, what its called to have your tube removed etc etc...so he informed me that I had received an emergency laparotomy and a salpingectomy, where the surgeon had no choice but to remove the right tube. All of the tissue had been removed, all be it large amount of tissue and he was confident that with the drop in my HCG levels there would be no further complications.
Tissue? A surprisingly large amount of tissue? I sometimes wonder if the tissue looked like this?
I remember my response was "my family has a history of big babies" and he just looked at me and smiled. He hoped to see me again, next time with a baby in my uterus. I wonder if medically a baby is only referred to as a baby if it is viable. At seven weeks and two days my embryo had 10 fingers ten toes and a pumping heart. There wasn't anything wrong with the embryo, it was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I put pressure on myself to treat this entire incident like I have stacked it on a flight of stairs. Stand up, brush myself off, make sure I'm physically okay, thank everyone around me who helped me (rather than standing there pissing themselves laughing) and go home and wait for the bruises. Its not like that though. Apart from the fact what happened to me would not win a prize on funniest home videos, it hurts like hell that what could have been didn't happen.
Ive read that when women experience an ectopic pregnancy some mourn for the baby and others do not refer to it or think of it as a baby at all. Im somewhere in between. Having a beautiful 4 yr old boy helps I think. It would be much harder if the ectopic had been my first pregnancy. I have days where I think about all the different combinations mine and my husbands chromosomes could create and what our baby would have looked like. Then I have other days where I just feel lucky to be alive and have the ability to hop back on the horse and try again. Its bazaar.
Which led me to the question, what is grief anyway?
Jana Rubenstein, M.Ed., LPC says, " Grief is the label for the set of emotional, cognitive, behavioural and physical reactions that are seen following the death of a loved one. Normal grief responses may include denial, emotional numbing, anger, rage, rushes of anxiety (pangs), sadness, fear, confusion, difficulty sleeping, regression in children, stomach upset, loss of appetite, "hysterical materialisation" and many other potential symptoms. These symptoms are similar to those often seen in the acute post-traumatic period.
Yep....that sound like me.Yesterday was tough. My husband was cooking up a ginger beer home brew and I was sitting in the shed watching him prep for bottling when I saw all of our baby gear. Pram, high chair, jolly jumper, bassinet, cot, baby bath ahhhhh..I don't avoid it.I know its there, and it hasn't bothered me before. Its not new, it all belonged to my son but for some reason it touched a nerve and the tears began to fall. I felt pathetic. Just when I think I'm dealing with it all I lose it. Ill be going great for a week then "Boom" back to the crying board. Ive been told this is what grief does. I don't understand though, why am I grieving something that was hardly a blip on the existence radar? Solution? I took a pair of garden shears and hacked at my garden. I thought maybe I am grieving the loss of my fallopian tube and grieving the loss of my overall fertility.I took a few slices off my arms and legs with the pesty bougainvillea but I felt better afterwards. I think I needed a bit of grounding and gardening is fantastic for the soul. I surrounded myself in green, the colour of the heart chakra which coincidentally is the chakra directly effected by grief.
I will not let this loss consume me however it has changed me and I'm determined to make this change for the better.
Today is another day.
Think pink
Janey
No comments:
Post a Comment