If there's one serious lesson I've learned from Infertility, it's that life isn't fair. I know...I know...this was drilled into my skull (not literally, don't worry) by my parents through my whole childhood and it should not be a shock. Infertility, though, made me face the truth of it in a way that has been different than anything before. I don't know about everyone but I know that I have a tendency towards a sort of bargaining with the universe as well as a way of providing comfort to myself by thinking about things in terms of "fairness".
Like,
- "If I do this, that will happen, because I'll deserve it."
- "It's my turn for something good to happen."
- "2012 sucked, so 2013 is bound to be better"
- "I did everything right this time, so the outcome will be different this time."
Anyhow. I just think we are naturally inclined to want to see some rhyme and reason in the world. It makes us feel safe. The problem is, though, that there isn't really rhyme and reason and life isn't always fair.
I want to tackle the fears I have in this pregnancy with all kinds of reassuring thoughts like, "I deserve an easy pregnancy" or "there's no way I would miscarry after it took almost 4 years to get pregnant" etc, but it's just not true.
I had a pretty bad scare the other night. We were sleeping over at the home of friends and after dinner I went to the bathroom and had a gush of bright red blood along with some cramping. Ian called the 24-hour line of the clinic while I frantically googled on my cell phone, and for once The Internet was a slight comfort to me. Luckily I knew I had a hematoma from my previous ultrasound and it seemed like, while far from normal in general, this is a relatively common occurrence for women who are diagnosed with hematomas and can have a totally fine outcome. I was actually calmer about this than I had been about the tiny dots of brown spotting from the week before, I guess just because a body can only have so much fear and because I at least had a little knowledge this time.
Anyhow, the on-call doctor called me back and asked a lot of questions about quantity of blood and severity of cramps and concluded that I needn't go to the emergency room. She told me to pay attention to increasing blood flow, strong cramps, fever or chills, but that we did know of a source of blood and likely everything was OK. She also, comfortingly (not), pointed out that if this was something worse there was nothing that could be done about it. She guessed that Dr. Tran would not want to see me before the ultrasound scheduled for next Wednesday, but that she would email him right away and let him know what was happening.
The bleeding pretty much stopped - it was the one gush and then some remnants from the one gush when I used the bathroom the next few times that night and first thing in the morning. Nothing came out in the night while I slept and the cramps subsided. I actually slept pretty well in my friends' closet!
The next morning, once we were home, the same on-call doctor called me back to check-in and seemed quite pleased with what I told her. She also let me know that Dr. Tran did want to see me and I had an apptment for Tuesday (yesterday) at 2pm.
Dr. Tran seemed even more nervous than Ian and I, but all was well. Our little embryo has grown from 5mm to over 9mm in less than a week and had a heart rate of 119 which Dr. Tran assured us was all well within the range of normal. Ian was able to see the heart beating right away - I was at a funny angle and too nervous to really be able to see anything well. I'm so glad he was able to be there with me. We have another picture, but I won't post it unless someone really cares to see. It just looks like a slightly bigger speck blob thing. Still there, though, and still alive.
I may bleed again. Dr. Tran said to call him if I do, that I get special treatment and he will want to see me. He also says all is well and we are in the same boat we were in last week and in fact that we are better than last week because bonus ultrasound = knowledge that the embryo is growing appropriately and still looking good. So, I'll take it! I go back next Wednesday, as was originally scheduled, and assuming everything is still on track I'll graduate to my regular OB then.
So, day by day by day we are trucking along inching towards a healthy positive outcome. Sure, it would be awesome if I didn't have to have the kind of pregnancy that involved bleeding from the vagina, but hey, life isn't fair.
