Drained
3:27 p.m. - 2003-09-13
Saturday.
There's so much to say, yet I'm having difficulty finding the words.
My absence in this journal came not from a lack of news, but rather from an inability to post due to my horizontal positioning in a hospital bed.
I awoke Thursday morning to prepare for work. As usual, my first stop was the bathroom to relieve my full bladder and then take a shower. My stomach felt odd...a strange ache had come to reside in it, and as I sat down on the toilet I felt a sharp, stabbing pain.
Then I saw the blood.
Immediately I realized that something was very, very wrong. I called my mother to alert her, then set about trying to find a substitute for the day. After calling everyone on the sub list, I finally contacted another third grade teacher and told her what was going on. She instructed me to leave a message on the school's answering machine and then to go immediately to the doctor.
I did as I was told, then drove to pick up my mother. The stabbing pains in my abdomen were increasing with each passing moment, and I could feel the last reseviors of hope draining from between my legs.
In the doctor's office, I finally broke down and cried. I sobbed for my baby, for myself, and for Alan. While my mother stroked my hair and quietly murmured that she was sorry, I cried tears that had been building up over the past month. A dam broke within my heart, and every pent up emotion that I had been harboring spilled out of me.
When I arrived at the hospital and the nurse told me that there was nothing in my uterus, I cried again. As I used a wet wipe to sop up the bloody mess that used to be my baby, I nearly collapsed in agony. The pain in my abdomen was perhaps the most intense that I have ever experienced, but it paled in comparison to that of my breaking heart.
I was admitted to the hospital around 11 a.m., and was given Demerol to ease my discomfort. The medication numbed the cramping and put me into a deep sleep. It made it easy to escape the cries of the baby in the room next to mine, and it kept me from realizing that I was on the maternity wing of the hospital.
I was finally released this morning, after the doctor diagnosed the miscarriage as normal and told me that I have a cyst on my right ovary and a bad infection in my uterus. I've been assured that I will be able to have a baby in the future. I hope that they're right.
Right before I left the hospital, I walked down to the nursery and looked through the glass at the tiny miracles inside. One of the little girls there had a head full of hair, and she reminded me of the baby pictures that I've seen of myself. I didn't allow the tears to come back, however. Right now I feel as though I've used them all up.
I keep praying that things will get better. I just hope God is listening.