My Life: November 2009

Okay, so things have been a bit crazy lately and I slacked off in posting stuff. So here I am trying to play catch up. The hard part is trying to figure out where to begin. I guess I'll start with the biggest news. A week before Halloween, I had been suspecting I may be pregnant. So the Saturday before Halloween I took 3 home pregnancy tests, they all said I was pregnant. Very emotional for me for several reasons. One, this is something I always wanted, to have a baby. Two, Nate and I had been having some marital problems and had been separated for about a month. We we working on working it all out. He had been put on some new medication that really seemed to be working, he was in counseling for himself and we started going to marriage counseling. But with us still being separated and not yet knowing which direction things were going to go, the situation I now found myself in was very scary, but at the same time so exciting! I knew I needed to tell Nate about it, but I was really scared about how he would react to the news. I went to the store and bought some stuff to help me tell him, and hopefully it would help make the telling him part easier. I went over to where Nate was staying and told him I had something to give him. I have him a grocery sack. He opened it and said "wow! I love these, I haven't had them for a long time. Sugar babies and baby ruths. Thanks. Wait a minute, does this mean what I think it does?" The look on my face gave him that answer. He gave me a hug and he was actually REALLY excited. So not the reaction I was expecting. But I am so glad he did react that way. It really helped ease my mind. We now had a lot to talk about and think about. The biggest question was, what are we going to do about our situation now. Well, what it all came down to is that the realization of the pregnancy and the fact that we had been having problems in our marriage, we really needed to buckle down and figure stuff out. The thought of having a baby, made us both realize that we were both being very stupid and stubborn and selfish about a lot of stuff. We decided to both move back to our Condo together and to begin the healing and working things out. Now this doesn't mean that I completely forgave Nate or he me. There is a lot of crap that we are both having to work through, and gaining all that trust back for both of us is going to take some time and hard work. But I think the sense that we just got knocked into us was a godsend. Nate was so excited he told practically everyone who was working at the theatre that night for his play. I was a little nervous about letting that many people now about it so soon. I was only barely 4 weeks. Well, a couple days later, I started bleeding. I was a little worried, but I also knew that it was quite common to bleed some especially at the beginning. But I was started to get really worried when the bleeding started to get a little heavier. I took it easy for a week, hoping the bleeding would stop. It didn't. It never got really heavy, but enough to make me worry. I was also scared about what pain I may have if I was indeed miscarrying. I have heard from some family who have miscarried that it is really painful. I had a little bit of cramping, but nothing bad by any means. The bleeding began on Tuesday night. Wednesday afternoon the doctor had me come in and do a blood test for my HCG levels. Then go back in 48 hours later and repeat the test, they either wanted them to at least double (what a healthy pregnancy would do) or drop, which would indicate that I was indeed miscarrying. The first test my level was a 31, 48 hours later, they dropped to 21. That was hard to hear, but what I had actually been expecting because I didn't feel pregnant anymore, all the other symptoms I had had that made me suspect pregnancy in the first place were now gone. I was devastated. Nate seemed to be taking the news a little better than me. I think he had been preparing himself for that reality when I told him I had started bleeding. I had still been trying to hold onto the hope that everything was okay. I had to go back in to repeat the blood test a week later, just to make sure that my body was returning to what they consider "non-pregnancy" levels, which is below 10. They didn't. They shot back up to a 38. Not what a healthy pregnancy would do and definitely not what it should do in a miscarriage either. I had to go in immediately for an ultrasound to see if they could see anything there that may be causing the jump. They couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. So the doctor said it's possible that it is a tubal pregnancy, which in that case, is definitely not healthy or viable. It could also be that I did indeed miscarry but for whatever reason, my body is unable to completely get rid of the cells that had been growing. I had a couple options, one, wait a couple days and then repeat the blood test to see if the levels dropped back down again. Two, get an injection of a chemo drug to kill the cells that are trying to grow that my body is not able to completely get rid of. Or, if none of that worked, surgery. We decided to wait a couple days, redo the blood test and go from there. So on Monday, I went in and was poked yet again and the vampires took more blood. This time they did a STAT on it so we had the results that afternoon. Not good. My level had now risen to 58. So now the option was the medication. They gave me a shot of a chemo drug to help kill the cells growing that shouldn't be growing anymore. I haven't been able to keep hardly any food down for the past 2 days. Oh and you add on top of this all that I got the flu and a really bad sinus cold last week. I go back in on Friday to do the blood test again. If the levels did not go down, we repeat the shot, if that round doesn't work then they will do a d&c. If that doesn't work than they will have to do a laproscopy and clean out everything and look at my tubes and stuff to see what is going on. I really hope this first round of the shot works and that everything turns back to being normal. I don't really want to do the shot again. Boy, I have a lot of respect for those who have had cancer and who have had to go through bigger doses of the drug than I had to do for this. I was miserable with just one little dose. So that is kind of where we are at right now. Just waiting a couple more days to see if it is over and my body is going back to normal, or if I get to repeat it all or more. Our families have been really great, and we've got some great friends who have offered to help with what ever they can. Thanks guys, we really do appreciate it. One of the things I have been having a hard time with is how to respond to people when they say they are sorry when they hear the news and ask if there is anything they can do to help. I appreciate the thoughts, words and concerns. I really do. I just don't know how to respond back to it. Especially if they are offering help. I hate asking for help, but also when I know what situation we are in right now, both financially and emotionally, I really do appreciate the offers. I just don't know how to respond to them. So if I look at you weird or don't say much in response, it is just I'm a bit confused and am not sure how to. It is definitely not anything personal. On a happier note, we had a very fun Halloween. Our costumes were fun and the improv show that night was amazing! Only about 10 seats were not filled, so that was awesome! We had also bought a Halloween costume for Cosmo and was able to get it on him just long enough to take a couple pictures. I will leave you with some of the pics from Halloween.