I Didn't Want to Need This

I hadn't done anything to deactivate this blog or anything, but I thought I had outgrown it in my process.  I had been able to conceive quickly in my second marriage, and I have a healthy now-toddler.

But then after getting pregnant unexpectedly in May, we lost the baby at 10 1/2 weeks.  And I almost died.  (Literally, not hyperbole here.)  Apparently, I was a once-in-a-career case.  I could have lived better without that recognition.  Long story (which will probably come out in another post) short, the type of miscarriage was misdiagnosed, and the true cause wasn't figured out until I was bleeding out on the table during my D&C.  In the end, I lost my right tube and ovary and went to ICU overnight, and we learned that I had endometriosis.  Which, for the record, spellcheck doesn't even recognize as a work.  That says something to my cynical little heart.

Today would have been my due date.  January 6 or 7, depending on whether you focus on counting weeks since LMP, like my husband was, or the date guess from the first sonogram, like I was.  That's why I'm posting at night like this, to be right on the border between the two.

I've got so many feelings that I can't even identify all of them.  And I'm a therapist, so that takes a lot!  I had been managing ok (as compared to what I expect from tomorrow, at least, since I was focused more on tomorrow as the due date) and bracing myself for tomorrow.  And then I ran into my best friend from work, who had a miscarriage at the same time I did.  And I lost it.  Sobbing into her shoulder.  Which makes sense, I know.  But it broke the seal on all the feels.  The rest of the day, I've been pinging back and forth between falling apart and holding myself back from falling apart.

One of the main feelings that is predominating (aside from pain so deep that I can't really describe it from there right now) is a deep and burning anger at the medical professionals that I've dealt with over the years.  I've been a patient for excessive PMS pain since my freshman year of college.  I spent all of my time from when lesser meds didn't work (spectacularly) until I was ready to start TTC with my ex on the strongest Pill that is even still made.  I loved the doctor that prescribed a strong NSAID so that I had something to take when I wasn't taking the Pill anymore.  But why just give me more and stronger meds without ever bringing up the possibility of endo?  I had about a year, all told, of various infertility testing and monitoring.  But why didn't anyone bring up the possibility of endo?  When doctors didn't bring it up, or dismissed it if I did, that sent the message that I should just suck it up and manage with the meds because periods hurt and that's just what happens.  And that almost killed me later.

I don't know how often I will be posting.  I tried to do another blog before and when I was pregnant with my son, and one of the main things I learned was that I had neither the time nor the energy for blogging.  But I think I need this.  I need to reconnect with the ALI community.  I need to find other people like me.  I was scanning FB tonight looking for people on chat to be able to talk to and relate to, and most of the people who were on at the time didn't have the experience to relate.  And I'm glad they don't.  I hate that my work best friend can relate.  I hate it for other people who have told me they can.  I don't want anyone else to be able to relate.  But since there are people who have already had their losses and are still in their struggles, I need to find them and connect with them again.