And

Did you know that I am still not done miscarrying? Stupid hCG won’t go down. Ultrasound and another blood draw the day before we move. Awesome! Oh, and the lady scheduling the ultrasound blithely asked me how many weeks I was. “Uh, that’s all done,” I had to say in the waiting room, waving my arm casually. Fun times at the OB’s today.

The research corporation I work for was just bought. This means massive amounts of urgent paperwork on servers that refuse my password. And as for the actual work part someone discovered this big error and I had to spend all evening fixing it when I had The Dining Room Sorting scheduled, meaning I have to do that–when, exactly? It’s certainly a good thing I’ve taught the class I have now five times because I certainly am not interested in fitting in time for it right now. There are just not enough hours in the day.

Do you know what I am up to? Putting everything in my jam-packed house into three categories: ship to Sweden, take to beach house, get rid of. I’d say just about half is stuff I want out of the house Anyone who comes to the house is harassed to take tables and knick knacks and books with them when they leave. It’s really a nightmare, all this. Sometimes I can’t believe how many thousands of dollars we are paying to continue owning the same crap, too. And I can’t sleep anymore. Midnight to one AM are some of my most productive hours. This is crazy; I feel just this side of a panic attack at all times. I will really need to be at the beach by the time this is all wrapped up, just to decompress, to have nothing to do.

Plus I still have my two jobs, have to get all our medical records, am running around doing a million errands, applying for a teaching job at the beach, had a flat tire, have to go out of town to fulfill prior charity commitment this weekend, get the house ready to put on the market, Husband has to paint everything, I need to do the yard…and…well it’s really just too much. Friends are pitching in, and I am so, so, so grateful, but this is just wildly unpleasant and too, too much, and I hate having to get rid of some of the things, or rushing to go through them, and I am still putting off the baby stuff and…two weeks left, one and a half till the stuff goes to storage, and I can’t even figure out when to schedule the packing what with work and the dentist and the OB and…

Beds won’t let me sleep at night

Omigod MOVING. Moving INTERNATIONALLY. OMIGOD.

So I am suffering many bed-related problems. Do we store/ship the crib with the rest of the stuff? Little Girl still sleeps in it, but she is two-and-a-half, so for how long? Plus she spends half the night in bed with one of us anyway. She’s pretty adaptable so if we had her in the portable crib or just put her in a twin with guard rails at the beach she’d probably do okay (however the prospect of a toddler wandering the house at night really freaks me out). If we don’t store/ship it, we have to get rid of it, as we’re certainly not going to air freight it later, and which I don’t want to do, being, as with all of Little Girl’s things, overly attached. But if I’m never having another kid*, why take it to Sweden? If only I could predict the future.

And our bed. So I sold ours with this theory that it would be cheaper if it weren’t included in the shipment, and thinking we could just get another in Sweden. Turns out the cost (something that’s just unbelievable, by the way) differs almost not at all, and the size bed I want–king–isn’t actually available there. (The only place I can share a bed with my husband and not get bothered by him is the beach house, and I finally figured out this is due to the bed’s being king-sized, so that’s what we’ll need and why I sold the queen.) The biggest they have is a queen, for practical purposes. So now I am faced with the prospect of buying a king here and shipping it with the rest of the stuff, creating the possibility that I’m the kind of idiot who ships shit from IKEA to Sweden. Gah.

* I do want to try someday, but this recent miscarriage makes me dubious about results.

Trying hard to travel light

One good thing about this rapid move situation is that I haven’t had much time to dwell on all the miscarriage-related unpleasantness of the past week and a half. Of course, several people in real life, and perhaps you, too, think this is probably not such a good thing in the long run, but I have to say there’s nothing like selling most of your household belongings on Craigslist to keep you hopping.

Divorcees have been particularly good business; they’re furnishing their homes anew on the cheap and like to come in, point at whatever they like, and then we bargain. Stuff I hadn’t planned on selling has walked out the door that way, and I’ve really learned a lot about myself. Like the marital bed where my child (children?) were conceived? You can have that for $150, but you can’t take my coat rack at any price! Well, any price below $50. I have been particularly motivated to sell, sell, sell after getting the quote from the international moving company (we’re going to have them store stuff until we actually go to Sweden, though). It was, well, stunning, and since we are moving to the land of IKEA, it seems dumb to bring a bunch of furniture. My new rule is if it’s not something nice I inherited or had upholstered specifically for me, it can’t go. Decorations and art are proving more troublesome.

As are all the many, many boxes and bins and stacks of baby crap. Clothes, toys, equipment. I totally recognize I am not really in the appropriate mental space to divest myself of these items, to which I am unaccountably attached, but it just doesn’t make any kind of sense to pay 50 bucks to ship a 5-dollar used bouncy seat abroad when I may never have any other children just because I have fond memories of Little Girl sleeping in it. And there’s a 50% less chance any baby clothes will be useful (given the whole pink thing). Knowing this doesn’t make things any easier.

So

First my body wouldn’t miscarry, and then it wouldn’t stop.

Evidently, after the D & E, my uterus neglected to contract properly to get rid of the blood, which ended up pooling up and forming a bunch of blood clots (blood-clotting disorder, anyone?). Thinking my uterus was all cleared out, when I started having abdominal pain on Sunday I figured it was just gas pains and it would go away. But it kept getting worse. And the “attacks” kept coming closer together. By Tuesday they were lasting about thirty seconds every two minutes, the pain was making me nauseous, I couldn’t accomplish anything (you may recall we are in the middle of moving), and I just couldn’t take it anymore. You know the pain had to be bad for me to go to the ER (as per OB office’s instructions) given what a cheapskate I am and how bad our insurance is. I’d never known such pain. And what was it? Had an ovary burst? Did I have a bowel obstruction? What the hell was going on?

Yeah, so those were labor contractions. Never having been in labor, I had no idea. Holy fucking shit does labor hurt, by the way. I think the doctors at the ER thought I was kind of an idiot for not catching on, but the OB insisted I wouldn’t have any pain from the procedure, so I just…I don’t know what I thought. I really thought I was just going to be diagnosed with some embarrassing pooping problem but it hurt so much I had to do something.

Anyway, two insanely painful pelvics, an ultrasound (also painful), and lots of bloodwork later, I was given the choices to have another D & E (not unless it was free, I said, and the OB agreed there was no guarantee it would solve things) or stay overnight in the hospital with Cytotec and pain meds. I said neither, as by this time (hours and hours and hours in the ER) I’d been passing a bunch of clots and the contractions were slowing down (and the hospital pain meds weren’t touching the pain, anyway). I wanted to go home. And late at night they actually let me. Since sometime in the night I haven’t passed a clot or had a contraction, so I may actually be done miscarrying. Which would be really nice.

Mobility

The night before my D & E the real estate agent came over as we’d already planned some time prior. With the pregnancy out of the equation it was easier for us to agree with her that it made the most sense to put the house on the market ASAP given the particulars of our situation and the local market. And in the days since we’ve also finally decided on where we are moving. To the beach house. On April 23rd. For six or so months. And then Sweden.

I’m going to go ahead and agree with you that this is all very sudden and making such decisions while also dealing with the miscarriage is less than ideal. On the bright side it’s something else to think about.

We won’t be living in this house while it’s on the market as the agent believed it will “show better empty.” I am pretty sure this is code for “you guys own weird stuff.” Plus we have all the pets and the master bedroom is the playroom and the market is so tight you have to make a real effort and, well, the beach house is rent-free, anyway. She also wants us to paint, like, every single room. Husband’s been a madman getting stuff done (and as I am very much still recovering, Little Girl has been watching about four movies a day, in between visits from my friends).

Until June, Husband will be mostly in Europe for work, actually, so Little Girl and I are sort of moving there alone. When his work calms down, he intends to request to telecommute from the beach house full-time (it’s more than four hours from our current city). If they say no, I have already arranged with my research job to telecommute full-time and we can get benefits that way. We’ll continue in that vein until our house sells and we have made the final arrangements for the international move.

Sometimes these plans sound exciting. The beach! Sweden! More often I am somewhere between morose and apprehensive about leaving my friends, about Little Girl’s having to leave her buddies and her beloved babysitter, about being away from Husband so much of the time, about having to quit my teaching job, about maybe having to support us all with a really boring job. I worry my psyche will conflate these coincidental occurrences of miscarriage and move and I’ll unconsciously think of myself as having run away from it–or if I’m unhappy with the move(s), blaming them on the loss. These plans were, of course, in the works all along, but it’s an unavoidable truth that we never would or could have chosen the beach option and moving up the Sweden move if we hadn’t lost the pregnancy and didn’t need as much stability. So here we go.

Now the after

Back from the hospital, up from my really kind of glorious, faintly-medicated nap, since I barely slept last night. The whole thing was sad and unpleasant in a low-key kind of way, but it wasn’t totally without merit to get to spend hours reading beside Husband on a rainy day while Little Girl got spoiled silly by my mom at home. The multiple attempts to get a line in me I could have predicted; I knew I cry coming out of anesthesia even with no special reason so I was totally prepared for sobbing under the care of efficiently compassionate blurry women in recovery; it doesn’t even really hurt, physically, and almost no blood so far.

The worst part, besides the fact that my main OB nurse was insanely pregnant (she sort of kept trying to angle her clipboard in front of her belly to hide it quite unsuccessfully), was actually in admissions, when the billing lady, with an odd mixture of insouciance and confrontation in her voice, announced, “and the cost of this procedure is $10,000 [big pause; you should have seen our faces]…your insurance plan [blah blah blah] so we need you to pay $3,000 today we will send you a bill for more if necessary. Would you like a payment plan?”

Since I haven’t even paid the OB, maternal-fetal specialist, or bloodwork bills, it looks like care for this first-trimester failed pregnancy will end up costing us thousands more than my entire pregnancy with Little Girl, even with its twelve ultrasounds, multi-day preeclampsia hospital stay, and c-section. To which I say: fuck you, crappy insurance company, and especially fuck you, Husband’s job, for buying the worst plan ever. If I’d have known it would cost so much I would have at least been able to consider shopping around and going to Planned Parenthood or something, which offers the same service for a few hundred bucks. For that matter, I could have theoretically done it for free at home.

I’m still not done being shocked and pissed about the cost, but I am very glad I got it done. The staff and doctor were all, to a one, wonderful and professional and, best of all, made eye contact. The tear-inducingly sweet OB (the one we saw when we thought Little Girl had died, as it happens) said it was extremely rare–with a less than 2% chance–to miscarry after seeing a heartbeat at 8 weeks. Also, he said the chances were very good it was some kind of middle-of-the-road type of genetic defect, not affecting the heart or other big organs but serious enough for life not to go on. He made efforts to convince me it was unlikely to have been something my body did and I guess I’ll try to go ahead and believe him. He also said the placenta is (oh, it’s gone now: was) apparently just overeager and doing such a great job that I’d likely not have miscarried on my own for another month or so, and said it was a good choice to have the D & E. And I agree.

My mom and husband are taking good care of me (actually they’re off at the store for fancy dinner ingredients that, sadly, do not end up in the form of a pizza, but it’s the thought that counts). A friend dropped off a care package today, and others have asked to come by (of those who know–it’ll take weeks to tell everyone and I don’t look forward to those conversations one bit or, really, seeing my friends who have two kids). I feel grateful and loved and your comments, too, have been a real comfort. Thank you.

Arrangements (updated)

I just wish I knew what happened. Was it just One of Those Things, or did my fucked-up PCOS hormones get it? Or perhaps it was my “intriguing” autoimmune/blood-clotting disorder? Would I really prefer the fetus had something wrong with it to having my own body collude in killing a new life? I feel angry with my body more than sad about losing the baby dream (and the baby reality) at this point. And what’s with my body’s obliviousness to the tiny corpse inside me, anyway? Can it do nothing right? If you’re going to kill my children at least let me know. Is this some sort of joke, repaying me for my misguided optimism this go round since it didn’t take me the years and years to conceive like it did before, tricking me into thinking my body could do things normally?

Tomorrow morning I go in for the D & E. Though it strikes me as…disloyal…to allow the flesh of my flesh to be vacuumed out and trashed, it’s not like it would be more loving to flush it away at home. And the OB said that if I stayed home, and miscarried whenever and for however long, that I should be certain to go to the ER if I soak through more than two pads an hour with blood. Um, I don’t want to soak through any pads in an hour. It feels a little, ideologically, like choosing a scheduled c-section over an unassisted homebirth, but basically it comes down to this: no, I don’t actually trust my body to handle it. Oh, and it’s not so fun showing and what is showing is my dead fetus.

If I’m angry, Husband is sad. We both have this idea it was a girl, and he had started working up fantasies about two little gigglers running around the house. Well, I guess I had, too. We don’t plan to try again any time soon, not with the upcoming move to Sweden and one thing and another and my body’s general disagreeableness. Little Giggler #2 may never be.

This afternoon I had to go into the office for some meetings. Normally I telecommute, but before Little Girl I was there physically so people know me. Apparently my boss, whom I told a couple of weeks ago (after the heart had already stopped beating, evidently, unbeknownst to me), had spread out the word already so I had this conversation more than was acceptable:

Co-worker (arms out for a hug): Oh hiiiii! Congratulations! How are you feeling?
Me: Uh…actually…um…

But despite this kind of thing I am feeling less unhinged than I would have expected. When they told me I had miscarried Little Girl (the day before the ultrasound that proved them wrong) I was catatonic, devastated, frozen in grief. For me, at least, it really does help having Little Girl. I can just think of her growling “I a cookie monster!” with Thin Mint crumbs ringing her mouth and can’t help but smile. And be grateful.

How much I appreciate all of your comments and your sharing of experiences I can’t express. It has really helped and I thank you. The closest I’ve come to crying, besides when I told my mom and lying in bed last night thinking of the OB’s saying, while studiously not making eye contact, that “it wasn’t a successful pregnancy,” was seeing the link from Lost and Found.

I’ve prepared as well as I can for the D & E. I spent about fifty bucks on Miscarriage Food, which is surprisingly similar to Period Food, as it turns out. I already filled my pain medication prescription and there is plenty of wine and Kahlua. I plan to request really good drugs at every turn in the hospital and make the most of the thing. I’ll let you know.

Updated: Now, tonight, I’m not angry. Now I’m so, so sad. I wanted that baby, and my baby died. I want my baby back. I don’t want surgery. I don’t want my baby to be dead. I want my baby.

Subpar

Written Tuesday:

What’s your minimum standard for an OB visit? Your child not screaming and crying for an excessive period of time? Not having a loud argument in the hall with your OB and an audience about due dates while this temper tantrum is occurring? Not utterly losing this argument even though the doctor admitted that there was no medical reason not to correct the due date, with her also admitting she wouldn’t change it so as “not to confuse people”?* No unnecessary bloodwork you already had a couple weeks before and which aren’t covered by insurance? Oh, and definitely not failing repeatedly to find the fetus’s heartbeat with a variety of apparata, right? Then by those standards today I had the Worst OB Visit Ever.

I have an ultrasound tomorrow to see what’s what. Little Girl is absolutely not coming. I’m not crazy-worried since, duh, I’m not as far along as they insist, so you can’t always find the heartbeat yet. But the experience certainly didn’t improve the visit any. Or this week.

+++

Written Wednesday:

No heartbeat. Evidently it died two or three weeks ago. I have to decide for a DIY miscarriage or a D & E. If you have any advice about that I’d like to hear it. I’ve never had a miscarriage before. I’m not sure what I am feeling. Other than “not happy.”

Um, guess it doesn’t matter about the due date anymore.