May 28th, 2012
I struggled with documenting what Mimie wrote in her private journal between privacy and the need to know, but I felt deep down that people should know her struggles, espeically women. Women should know that they aren't alone with their difficulties trying to concieve and that a lot of women, and couples, go through this. I can write from memory, but Mimie would want people to know what happens from a woman's heart. Excerpts from her journal are unchanged and are true to her feelings.
Through the rest of this series, I will document Mimie's thoughts, with care, love and understandning....
-cpf
“Mimie” I said, “My parents had four kids, your parents have four kids. My uncle has four kids. Two of your sisters have two kids apiece. Your other sister has one. Mimie, your not defective. I’m not defective. Let’s just enjoy the moment. Life happens, give it time to evolve.”
That morning, it was business as usual for me. Up at six, feed the dogs, get dressed, and go to work like clockwork. Today was different, though, because I felt joy knowing that Mimie was sleeping in bed with the baby. I could only hope she had good dreams with thoughts of her unborn child bringing her joy, peace, and love.
Later in my work day, I would receive a phone call from her.
"Hey," she said on the other end of the phone. I haven't heard the tone in her voice with an inflection in a long time. "Do you have next Tuesday off?"
"Yes," I told her.
"Okay, I am making a doctor's appointment for an ultrasound, and I figured you'd want to go." She was so happy.
"Definitely, I do."
"I thought so. It's booked for 9:30 in the morning." She said. God, Mimie was thrilled.
It was a long week. You never realize how long a week could be dragged out. Too bad vacations weren't like this. Unfortunately, we weren't on vacation, and the coming weeks would be as long. The coming weeks would be a constant struggle for our emotions to keep an open mind.
We didn't know it yet, but we should have expected it.
Nothing had been easy until this point in our quest to have kids. To make matters worse, we both knew deep down we hadn't healed our emotions completely after we buried our girls. It felt good to have something else to focus on; however, when you haven't made peace with your past, your past is still looming, setting yourself up to make your future failures seem even worse.
You don't expect something else to happen when you pay your dues. Another problem to stack on our totem pole of issues is that you assume when you spend an ultimate price like death, karma will pay you back with good.
The day of her ultrasound arrived. And honestly, we never thought there would be any problems in the beginning stage. We just didn't. Once the seed is planted, there is nothing to worry about, right?
"Okay, Mimie, just lie still", the ultrasound technician said. Mimie was lying on her back.
The room was lit with low lighting, giving it a tranquil atmosphere. The ultrasound technician was to Mimie's right. I was sitting on a low stool to her left. I tried to see the screen but couldn't from my vantage point. The first time we went into a sonogram, I went into the room ignorant. This time, I was well-educated on how they worked. I vowed I would never be left in the dark again when we lost the babies.
I was nervous and would fidget in my stool. I'd swivel the stool at 90 degrees left and right and do proper rotation. Mimie was staring at me, and we would have small talk. She was so happy. The technician was staring at the monitor. She had a smile on her face, and she would join in on our small talk. I'm not a poker player, but I have learned to watch the faces of everyone who has taken care of us in the past.
They give themselves away every time, and our technician was about to show me her hand.
I watched the technician's smile slowly disappear. She was just nodding as we spoke about our future hopes and recent loss. Every other time we had a past ultra sound with our twins, the technicians would be fully involved with us. Even turning the screen into our view so we could see the development of our fetus. Her communication fell silent, and she never turned the screen.
After she had completed her sonogram, she collected the pictures, which she took with the machine. She smiled and told Mimie to get dressed; she'd be back.
"I have to go upstairs," she told us.
"Oh shit, Mimie, this ain't good," I tell her with a grim face.
"What do you mean not good." her face went stone.
"I was watching her." I said, "She was smiling, and then the smile disappeared. Something is wrong. Those other techs showed us the sac and development every other time. Even let us listen to the heartbeat. She didn't do any of that." My tone getting frantic. "She just left. She has to go upstairs? What the fuck does that mean?"
Mimie began to worry. I didn't want to tell her, but my emotions were running high too. There was something wrong. I knew it. Luck was going to elude us again. I expected to hear it from the horse's mouth when she returned. I was dreading it. Mimie sat there. I was making sense of what I was saying. I didn't know how we would react when she returned with the news. I wiped the ultrasound gel off her belly, helped her get dressed, and we stepped outside.
"Okay," the technician said upon her return. "I want you guys to go upstairs and see another technician," she said.
"Why upstairs?" Mimie inquired.
"I just want a second opinion on what I am seeing," she said.
"So you're saying there is a problem then?" I said in a sad tone.
"I am not a liberty to say. Only the doctor can make that call. That is why we are getting a second opinion."
The tech said in the most sterile tone possible.
"But you're essentially telling us there is a problem by having us get a second opinion." I said, "This isn't our first rodeo. You know we just lost twins; we have been in the room before. We know what is going on; there is no need to sugarcoat it. We just want honesty. It's her body and our life."
I understand why she was apprehensive. After all, she isn't a doctor, but she was seeing something wrong, and we needed to know. All we know now is that she is pregnant, but how far along was she?
Once the female egg is fertilized at about the fourth week of development of a woman's pregnancy, the endometrial lining walls thicken, and eventually, the gestational sac forms. Around the fifth to sixth week, the yolk sac will form inside it, and then eventually, the fetal pole will be the first sign of an embryo. Within the embryo, there should be a heartbeat. Thus sustaining life.
"I can lose my job," the technician told me, "I can not say for 100% that the pregnancy is not developing. I can tell you that the sac isn't a circumference. It is more oval, like a chicken egg. But it doesn't mean anything right now. You are so early in the pregnancy, infancy at just five weeks and three days. It could possibly be that you are here too early. Just go get your second opinion. And will try again next week."
I extend my hand to Mimie, sitting on a bench in the hallway just outside the ultrasound room. We walk to the elevator that will bring us to the other doctor's office and give us a second opinion. They confirmed what the first technician suspected. The sac has yet to develop, but they were unsure if this was because we came in very early.
Mimie wrote in her journal:
"[The technician] said we might have been off on our last LMP [Last Menstrual Cycle]. She was done w/the scan and told us to get dressed while she called the doctor upstairs. We wait and finally go upstairs. We are told the on call doctor is at the hospital and we are to wait around. We have our blood drawn and wait. Finally the doc [doctor] comes and goes by the report the tech faxed, no pictures. She said @ [at] this point in time it doesn't look optimistic…there is generally a yolk sac by week 5 and a heartbeat near 7. I had neither. I (we) are devastated. We are told there is a 50/50 chance we are miscarrying."
The walk back to the car was truly devastating. I wrote the word "devestating" to describe our feelings, before I knew Mimie felt the same way (the same word) when she wrote that "we were devestated". It was only when I decided to add her thoughts to the story and reviewed her journal. That's when I saw it.
We didn't really talk, but we were both nervous. In hind sight we were just putting too much on us, too soon. This was going to be the longest week to wait for the another ultra sound. When we got home, Mimie was surprisingly upbeat. Or she was really good at hiding her emotions. I, on the other hand, was very nervous. I was more anxious for Mimie. I didn't want another blow to her feelings. The first thing I did was go on the internet and Google, "Sac not developing." Big mistake. Because it would consume me.
I would go to all the websites with anything to do with Gestational Sac not growing or measuring up. There were a ton of message boards with people posting messages of hope, fate, faith, and inspiration. I would spend all hours of my time reading them. If I found something of interest, I would tell Mimie right away.
"Someone says here on this message board that their doctor told them that their gestational sac wasn't developed and to abort the pregnancy. But the wall poster said they didn't and now have a beautiful baby girl. So see, they don't know shit!" Mimie would humor me and nod her head. "See, Mimie, what the fuck do they know!" My emotions ran away with me.
I don't think she wanted to think about the possibilities of what I found on the internet, yet she documented this in her journal:
"The research Chris has done indicates a blighted ovum (false pregnancy) or maybe 2 sperm fertilized the egg, or the X + Y chromosomes didn't meld and it never divided early on. We don't know. My LMP: 3/3/07, Approx [approximate] conception 3/16-/3/22. How much else can we take?"
We should have known the worst of things to come if it wasn't developed properly.
Mimie and I would go about our week as usual. But I know deep down it was on her mind. We were both working at the time, so we would consume ourselves in work trying to forget about the upcoming appointment, so much on our minds. It was like we were obsessed with having a baby. We needed to focus on everything else.
With the looming appointment days away, I did my best to relieve our stress. We would go out to dinner and catch a movie. It was in our minds, yet we never spoke of it. I was getting so frustrated with the medical message boards on the internet that I stopped reading them all together. There are so many people with different reasons why their gestational sac wasn't developing that it was hard to pinpoint what the hell our problem was.
1,852 words
PART VII JULY 2ND, 2012 AT 3:00PM Est.
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