So how long does it take for the hurting to stop?

I hurt inside and out today. I'm still cramping from the D&C yesterday, although the bleeding has stopped. But every once in a while I'll flashback to something that happened in the last few days, from the original spotting through showing the nurse the blood in the toilet.

I think I need to be able to get this out, and there's no better way than to actually tell it. Right now there are very few people who were even aware I was pregnant to begin with, no more than ten people total, and that may even include some of the doctors involved.

Saturday morning, Joe and I were going to a dance event in philly. A walking tour of philly, stopping to dance for an hour, then stopping to drink for an hour, effectively all day long (I wasn't drinking obviously).

When we stopped by the Chesapeake House on the way up there, I noticed I was getting a little brown spotting. I hadn't gotten spotting the whole pregnancy, but I know it's normal, and brown or pink spotting was usually okay. So I told Joe (who had gone to Starbucks to get me a hot chocolate), and we continued up to philly.

When we got up there, we went to lunch, and I went in to use the restroom... And the spotting had turned pink.

That night we were going to a halloween party where Karen was. Karen is a midwife, and one of the few people who knew about the pregnancy. I figured we could wait until that evening to ask her anything.

That afternoon I started feeling iffy. Every time I walked into a restroom, I was getting more blood, even though it was brown with pink. I even had Joe get us a cab to go to one of the places. I just kept getting a bad feeling. Joe started getting cranky on me because of how long the cab was going to take, until I started crying at him.

Jim Lewis irritated the crap out of me because he started asking why I was using my tripod stool, questions like "so is that becoming standard issue?" I will give him credit for saying that he was sure the team would spring for a cab if I really didn't feel well.

I suppose what should have let me have an idea of what was going on was that I started doing "purposeless" knitting again, for the first time in months. The entire time I'd been pregnant, I hadn't really had the energy to work on my knitting.

By the time we got to the last stop, I was feeling pretty poor, and went across to the B&N to use the restroom. The blood I was getting by then was bright red. I stopped into the Starbucks to get a hot cocoa so I could try to relax, but I just couldn't get my mind off it. Instead of staying with the guys at the dance, Joe and I left early to go to the halloween party, because I desperately wanted to talk to Karen. When we got there, Karen and I went into a separate room, and I told her what had happened. She said that no matter what was happening, it would either happen or it wouldn't, but it would do no harm to wait until Monday to speak with my doctor. If it was a miscarriage it would happen whether I spoke to my doctor or not, or whether I left the party or not, so I might as well stay. So I stayed at the party, figuring on at least getting some comfort from hanging out with people.

Irony is that I was dressed as a pregnant catholic schoolgirl.

That night I almost froze (it seems the whole pregnancy I was subject to being cold all the time). Joe kindly got me a hot water bottle for the evening, and I tried to keep my feet warm. I woke up three or four times in the night. I actually wore a pad to bed, since it seemed to be more than toilet paper could handle.

The pad was dry in the morning, but the tissue was bright red. With clots.

I went back to the party house, where we had breakfast. Karen knew something was wrong, because she called me into her room on somewhat false pretenses of dealing with bunny cages. I told her about the blood clots, and she pointed out that being prone overnight can contribute to blood clots, but she again said that waiting until Monday morning wasn't going to change anything. Karen was a great help, I'll freely say. She at least got me feeling somewhat less apprehensive. I think talking to her also made me decide I wasn't going to say anything to my parents (I was originally going to tell them about the pregnancy that night).

When we left, I was still feeling nervous, but the bleeding had let up a bit.

We went out to dinner with my parents that night. My mother wasn't paying attention when the waitress called us over at one point, but I gave her a bit of a push in the right direction. She stopped, looked at me, and elbowed me in the gut.

I don't think she will ever realize just how much she did so metaphorically as well as physically.

Throughout dinner, Joe and I kept leaning on each other. Told my parents it was because we'd been at the party the night before and gotten almost no sleep. Daddy told me to go to bed when we got home. I had told him I had a meeting in the morning at 9, so I needed to leave by 8:30.

I think he realized something was wrong, but couldn't figure out what it was. My mother kept babbling on like nothing was out of the ordinary.

Before bed, I went to use the bathroom again, and it was so much worse. The clots were running heavier. I went through all the paperwork the doctor had given me, and I agonized with Joe as to whether or not I should call her that night. Finally, I decided that I needed to listen to Karen, and no matter what was happening, nothing would change that before morning. I had used the restroom one last time and gotten almost nothing, so I decided it would all be better after getting sleep, and I didn't need to wake my parents up in the middle of the night, having to explain everything to them.

Next morning, I woke up at 6, and promptly called the doctor's office. I got the answering service and the on-call doc gave me a call back. He said it wasn't going to change anything to wait until the doctor's office opened (at 10, although he thought they opened at 8:30 and I thought 9. Turns out 9 is every day but Monday). Joe told my parents that my meeting had been canceled, and I called my office and left a message for my boss saying I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be in. I asked Joe if he'd be going with me, and he said of course.

My parents just kept talking... I don't even remember what they said. At 9, I called the doc's office and was told she wasn't open yet. So I unfortunately had to put up with my mother continuing to babble. I honestly don't remember what she even said (I do recall something when I picked the cat up by her tail, but the cat likes being picked up by her tail). By 10am, they'd finally left for home, and I called the doctor's office again. I told the woman what was going on and she said they'd slot me in immediately. We took showers and ran over there, with me having no time to eat anything at all, since I ran out of string cheese. It turned out later that it was a blessing that all I'd had before getting to the office was my bottle of morning wake-up juice.

When I got there, I sat down for a few minutes, and then they asked me to go pee in a cup for them. The pee had a trace of blood in it, but then I looked in the toilet and my heart just sank. There was a pool of blood in the bottom, with a bunch of clots. I started crying, and asked the nurse to come in and look. She said she'd be able to describe it to the doctor, and told me she'd get me a room as soon as humanly possible. When I went in there, she set up a blue pad under me to catch what was there. A few minutes later, the doctor came in, asked me about how the weekend had progressed, and I told her about when I spotted, and she took out the transvaginal ultrasound.

When I saw the screen, my heart sank even lower. I couldn't even see as much as I had seen on the first ultrasound, the one that she hadn't been sure she could see anything on. She agreed with what I thought I saw. Somehow in all of this I got blood on my sock, I don't know how. I showed her the pictures I'd gotten from the Fairfax Radiology place, and how they'd gotten a heartbeat, but she said there was really no way of telling what had happened. Because she acknowledged she had a lousy ultrasound machine, she wanted to send me for a second ultrasound to be sure, and then figure out based on that if they needed to do a D&C or not. Usually they make you drink lots of water before an ultrasound, but because she wasn't sure if she'd have to D&C, she wanted one done without the extra water, in case of surgery. The nurse told me where we had to go. If Joe hadn't been listening to everything, I don't know that I really would have remembered it all. We had to go to the building next door. They took all of my information, then we had to go back to the waiting room. By now I was getting hungry and so was Joe, but Joe wasn't going to leave me up there, and I couldn't have anything.

The food network channel was on the TV at the time, too. Go figure.

We went back with the tech to the room, and she had me sit on the bed and did the first set, and then she asked me to go pee as much as I could and she'd do the other half. I told her point blank that while I understood she's not supposed to say anything until the doctor sees the results, there was really nothing she could say that would be a surprise at that point. She asked/stated I was prepared for it, and I said I knew the worst was probably coming at that point, and that the doctor wanted to see if a D&C would be necessary at that point or not. She didn't give much away, but enough. When the doctor came in, he said that he couldn't find anything baby related, just the gestational sac (which meant that my OB would have to remove that, lest I hemmorhage while waiting for the remainder to come out on its own).

They had us return to the waiting room while they got me scheduled in next door, and I cried on Joe's shoulder for a while. I have to admit, he made me feel better when he said, "And you thought I wasn't going to come today... There's no way I wouldn't be here for you."

We went back across the street, and while I was waiting in the waiting room at reception for same day surgery, Joe went to find himself something to snack on (he hadn't eaten either). The receptionist asked if I'd eaten anything all day, and was relieved to see I hadn't eaten anything since the night before, nor drank anything since about 9:30 that morning, meaning it would be at least six hours since I'd had a drink, and longer since I'd eaten. She sent us down the hall to the same day waiting area.

The nurse came out to get me, and we went into the pre-op area. She had me use the restroom, and if I hadn't already had my hopes dashed, that did it. There was something about an inch long in the toilet.

They had me change into a gown and remove everything. The underwear they gave me was a ludicrous little disposable thing, with a pad that looked like it was out of the belted days. But I got a pair of little slipper socks out of the whole thing. Thank goodness for small favors, I suppose. Joe took all of my clothes and my jewelry. They had nurses and techs come in one by one to ask me questions and explain everything. They only gave me TIVA anesthesia (very light), since they weren't going to be doing much, but it would be enough to knock me out. One of the nurses was a great comfort, since she had also had a miscarriage at 25 weeks when she was younger, and was now a grandmother. The nurse who hooked me up to the IV line was very gentle. The grandmother nurse finally took me over to pee one last time, and the doctor came by to say how long it was all going to take.

Funny thing was, the anesthetic nurse said she was giving me a relaxant before they took me in for the real stuff. It made me dizzy before we actually got in there, and honestly I don't remember anything after that until getting into the recovery room. It was like everything went fuzzy, and then they said I was all done. Joe came in a few minutes later (I remember actually napping a bit before he came back), and then we were in there for a little while as I snoozed for a bit. They eventually came in with a wheelchair and told me I could change and they'd wheel me out front for Joe to pick me up.

Joe treated me like gold that night, getting me Chipotle, bringing me a tub of Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia...

I guess it all just feels so strange. Like it was real and then it wasn't.

I just want to know when the pain will stop. Because it still hurts.

He put in Finding Neverland... And the end was almost cathartic. When Mrs Jones dies, and James tells Peter that he can visit her any time he likes in Neverland, he just has to close his eyes, I just started crying... And couldn't stop. But I'm so grateful to him, it just helped so much to get it out.

I keep getting flashbacks to the last 72 hours and bursting out into tears, though.

I know it just happened... But how long does it take for it to stop?

I'm still cramping a bit and periodically taking Advil. But Joe at least had the good sense to serve me everything from bed today.

I never thought I'd be what I always thought of as "one of the statistics". It wasn't going to happen to me.

But it did.

And it's something that is going to haunt me for a long time... How long I have no idea. I have no idea how I'll deal with seeing my niece this weekend, or with Christmas, or anything else right now.

I just wish the last 72 hours had just never happened.