hospital visits

I had another baby, but I didn't know it. What kind of mother is unaware of a second tiny life, when she's so attuned to the first two babies she's lost? Me, I guess. And in my defense, this year has been the most awful emotional roller coaster I've ever been on. Numbing to sensation, to more loss.

Thursday before last, I thought I had food poisoning. The pain swelled and developed beyond food poisoning, beyond the flu, beyond even what I can bear. It turned into that praying sort of pain, where the only thing that's thinkable is to recite the Lord's prayer, over and over with each wave, crying and hoping that the sensation will recede soon. The following Saturday I went back into the clinic, and they were convinced that this was no food poisoning. Another pelvic exam, abdominal exam, and two blood draws later we were back to waiting, but under strict instruction to go to the emergency room if the pain got worse (dear lord, how could it?) or if I had a fever or if I started throwing up. I spent the night fitfully dreaming and waking, thinking about going to the ER but trying to wait for my husband to get off work, trying to make it through.
Sunday morning the pain worsened and the nausea returned and to the ER I went. The nurse there was unconvinced that there was anything they could do.

She looked at me and said "What do you want us to do?"
I replied "My primary care physician told me to come to you if things got worse. I want to know what's wrong with me."

She hemmed and hawed and basically gave me the impression that I was wasting their time, and that I should have stayed home. They redrew the blood tests. The doctor ignored my careful notes and memory, pressing hard and bringing me to tears through his abdominal exam. They did not order a pelvic exam or any imaging. They gave me pain killers and sent me home.
They told me to come back if things got worse.
I'd already gone to them when things got worse, and they did nothing.

I spent the rest of Sunday popping pills, thinking I was a cloud and crying over my distended, painful stomach.

On Monday morning, I called an OB/GYN surgeon that one of my professors had recommended, and they fit me in within an hour. I didn't take any pain medicine so that they would have an accurate exam. My mom drove me to my appointment, so that my poor working husband could sleep.  The surgeon did a pelvic exam and a quick vaginal ultrasound, and found blood in my abdomen. She thought it was an ectopic pregnancy, and was ordering in the methotrexate (an anti-cancer drug that is used to dissolve ectopic babies) protocol, but sent me to a different imaging specialist in north east p-town to confirm and visualize this second, unknown baby.  I took the 1000 mg of vicodin as I left her office, under her adorable and comforting supervision. Time slowed down and blurred as I saw the flowers bloom and cried over directions and worried about parking. Mom prayed and made it over 3 lanes to get off highway 405 at the right exit. I shuffled inside the imaging place and began to fill out more paperwork.

I saw the clouds edged in silver lightening, and then the imaging receptionist called me to come to the back. Missing my clothes, but clad in a cozy armor of gowns, I had another pelvic ultrasound and another vaginal ultrasound. The pressure made me cry. My mom held my hand , ducking under my supportive and validating technician. When I said "It hurts!" she didn't say ok. she didn't ignore me. She just said a simple "yes" and backed off. Even through the pain, I appreciated her validation so much. She showed me, on the screen, where my stomach was full of blood, and my scarred and distended ovarian tube.

The ultrasound tech called my surgeon back, and my surgeon asked me to return to her office instead of getting the blood work she has also asked me to get on my around-town mission for facts.

The parking garage was two blocks from her office, but my mom helped me walk there. I was so tired, and it hurt, and so spacey from the pain medicine. I was sitting in the waiting room on an overstuffed red chair with no arms. My surgeon came out to get me, and mom and I walked back to her office. I sat again, this time on an office chair made of supporting bungie ropes. The day started to blur together, as she had me sign surgical consent forms and told me which hospital to go to. Her office was disorganized, but her tan corduroy skirt was immaculate. She talked so quickly to put me at ease, but said she might have to take the whole tube out. She talked me through the whole surgery, and then sent me on my way.

Now, back in mom's Ford Escape, sitting on the third floor of the parking garage, we began to call family as I gave my mom directions to the hospital, the hospital that had discharged me the day before with my belly full of blood and pain, the hospital that my husband works at. We walked in the main entrance, and finally got a wheel chair so that I could sit. My head was spinning and so far away. Back to surgical admitting, where they put a green, GPS bracelet on my left wrist so that my family would know where I was the whole time, and then quickly back to pre-op.

My nurse was from Arkansas, and she told me to "Bless [my] heart" which made me smile. They numbed my hand and put in an IV. They drew my blood. They asked me questions, and when they got to the pain scale, she frowned and gave me morphine. And more morphine. And more morphine. On 8 ml of morphine, still talking, still remembering, they shrugged and told me I was tough. My dad went to my apartment and woke up my husband, who sat with me and told me it was going to be ok.

My Arkansas nurse turned her head, and ignored the 1-person-at-a-time rule for pre-op. I had five people clustered around my bed, plus the ever rotating circle of hospital faces- the priest, the nurses, the anesthesiologist, the doctor, the operating room nurse. It was a tiny party of hope. Half an hour before things really got started, my family one by one kissed my forehead and went to wait. I told my husband that I loved him more than anything, and that if things got complicated they should burn me and bury my ashes by the rosebushes. He held my hand until they put something from a little brown bottle into my IV, and I went dark as they began to wheel me down the hall.

I woke up with a little warning bell, and a small friendly nurse whose face is blurred told me "keep breathing."
I kept breathing.
Over the next duration of time she told me that until I realized, when the bells were going off, that I should keep breathing. Some time after that, they admitted me to post-op short stay. 
I lost my little GPS bracelet.

They slid me from my transport bed into my staying bed, and it hurt. My husband watched over me, and my nurse was so attentive with her long dark hair and her worried eyes. The first time I tried to go to the bathroom it hurt so bad that I couldn't stop crying and shaking. We stopped trying to get up for a few hours after that. Morphine, vicodin, dilautin, percocet, barely controlling. more medicine. Finally able to get up to use a commode, tears of relief.

Morning shift change, the next nurse saw that my surgeon had planned on me going home same day, and wasn't sure why I was still there. She pushed and pushed for me to do more until she ended up catching me as I cried because I couldn't walk any further. Sympathy then, and more drugs. I threw up breakfast, and more sympathy. Calls to my doctor kept me in short stay until after dinner, when I had kept down two meals, and ordered me stronger pain medications.
My parents helped get me settled in on the couch, under my husband's ever viligant assistant nurse training, and then they did the dishes and went home. My husband helped move me from place to place, and his parents flew in from Germany. A week long blur of visits and food and flowers and more medications. Relief that now, the only pain is incision pain. Relief that this ordeal is over. Relief that I've finally stopped bleeding.

Now, sitting by myself at my desk, which I walked to with no assistance, now my mind is clear enough to think

Why didn't I know about this second baby, who lived inside of me for ten weeks?