So, the last 2 months have been very eventful, to say the very least. One week before Thanksgiving I found out I was about 5 weeks pregnant. We went on vacation during the week of Thanksgiving for a family reunion with Kyle's side of the family in the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was a very enjoyable vacation, and the last few days I had before I started feeling sick. Morning sickness hit me around 6 weeks with all my previous pregnancies so I was not surprised when I started feeling queasy just a few days after Thanksgiving. In under a week, that queasy feeling had turned into full blown nausea, puking, and just being sick. Standing up made me sick. Being near food made me vomit. Things started falling apart around the house. Laundry was piling up. Kids were wearing pjs all day and watching way too much TV. Dishes were not getting washed and messes from the kids kept stacking on top each other. We were running out of groceries, while at the same time I couldn't cook. It was chaotic and stressful for our whole family. Kyle was running himself ragged trying to get what he could done before and after work, as well as taking care of me and the kids when he was home. The kids were starting to act up more and more as their world was (messily) turned upside down. And I was laying in bed day after day looking at the chaos around me and feeling horrible about it, but vomiting every time I stood up to do anything.
One day in particular, in fact one week to the day before Christmas day, I started vomiting. I continued long after there was anything in my system. In fact I started to vomit blood and I felt like there was something stuck in my throat and my body was desperately trying to get it out. I spent many hours over the toilet that night, my body refusing to calm down and nothing but blood coming up. It was by lucky chance that our home teacher stopped by our house that night to pick up something from Kyle. He stayed and the 2 of them gave me a blessing. I finally was able to stop vomiting and had a restless sleep that night, still feeling like something was stuck in my throat. The next morning I couldn't swallow. I was weak from the ordeal from the night before and I literally thought there was something stuck in my throat, obstructing my esophagus. I went into the ER that morning. It was determined that my throat had become so irritated from all the vomiting that I had rubbed my esophagus raw and was throwing up blood from the lining of my esophagus, causing it to become so irritated and swollen, it closed shut. They numbed my throat, put me on and IV to treat me for dehydration and gave me zofran for nausea. They set me up to follow up with and OB the following day. I met with the OB the Friday before Christmas. He ordered an ultrasound to pinpoint the exact due date and just making sure everything was ok, given what I had been through.
Christmas Eve was the ultra sound, and we were all excited. We had told the kids about 2 weeks before about the baby. We felt they needed to know why mommy had been so sick. Kyle always loves seeing the ultrasound and hearing the heart beat, so it was decided that the whole family would come to the ultrasound so Kyle could be a part of it.
That's when we found out there was something wrong. The ultrasound showed no heartbeat and the baby was measuring at 8 weeks, whereas I should have been closer to 10. They sent me to the lab for a blood sample to test my HCG level and had me return 2 days later for another blood sample to compare the 2 numbers. The first sample showed my HCG level as being astronomically high. To quote the nurse "it's ONLY ever that high when there are twins, or a chromosone abnormality" well, there was only one baby in the ultrasound, so....the 2nd blood sample showed still an abnormally high count, but the number had dropped. The number is not supposed to drop in a healthy baby. The following week was another ultrasound to confirm what we all knew, my baby had stopped growing.
So this past Monday I went in for surgery to have a D&C, since my body was not miscarrying the baby on my own. At that point the baby had stopped growing 4 weeks previous and my hormone levels were still so high, that I was still sick all the time.
Right now, I'm kind of numb. I feel robbed of my baby. I feel the last several weeks of extreme sickness were for nothing. I miss the baby, even though I never got to know it. I'm not nauseated anymore, but still feel a little "off", I suppose the recovery of the surgery. I want people to know what's going on, and what's been happening to our family, because I want them to understand. But at the same time, I'm not exactly in the mood to talk about it. Some moments I feel fine, then all of a sudden Kizzy will sit on my lap and say, "I'm sad that our baby died." or Karter will be extra adorable and out of habit I'll call him 'baby' and remember, that for a little while, he was going to be a big brother. But there are blessings too. Our house is clean again, I'm only 1 load of laundry behind, and we live in the best ward in the world, where friends are so willing to bring us meals this past week as I'm bouncing back from this whole ordeal.
So, now you all know why I haven't been blogging, or calling, or even leaving the house. But, I'm on the mend (physically, anyway) and I still believe that there is a little spirit waiting to join our family, they will just join us a little later than we thought they would.
