Life's rich tapestry
"I suppose it's all part of the pattern of life's rich tapestry", I said to Mum, yesterday.
"Yes, but sometimes there's just TOO MUCH PATTERN", she said. "I wish the design was more minimalist."
She's right. Her hip replacement is next Tuesday. My mother in law had gynae surgery yesterday, and is still in hospital. One of our nephews was in hospital last Friday with suspected meningitis (but it wasn't, fortunately).
And my baby's dead.
I have been secretly suspecting this for a while, which is why I haven't blogged. The vaginal discharge I mentioned before didn't go away; it just gently, gradually became browner, then pinker. Still not much of it, still lots of benign possible causes. But the nausea went, too, and my breasts felt less - busy, I suppose you could say, more like they normally do. And, about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I stopped finding coffee repulsive. I didn't start downing gallons of it, or anything, but one cup of weakish decaff a day became a pleasure again. And with my previous pregnancies, coffee was vile poison to my tastebuds the whole way through.
So, I wasn't sure, but I wondered. And then I had the routine midwife appointment yesterday, and she wasn't sure either, but sent me for a scan at the Early Pregnancy Unit at the local hospital today. And I had a scan, and there was a 3" gestational sac with a little lifeless blob in it. Not even any arms or legs, poor little blob. Not even a head, come to think of it, not as such. They reckon it died at about 6 weeks. They were all very kind, pressing cups of tea and glasses of water and boxes of tissues on me while I sat and cried.
And so I have the choice of a D and C or a natural miscarriage. Because of Mum's op and it being half term next week, I don't think I can really let nature take its course, although that would be my natural preference: I can't afford the risk of wretchedly exsanguinating all over the bathroom floor while in sole charge of the children. It just wouldn't be fair on them. Apparently the chance of serious haemorrhage is only about 2%.... but if I have a D and C, the most likely complication is uterine perforation, with a risk, they tell me, of 3 in 1000. (but hey, even then a small hole is generally self limiting!) If you are going to have a dead baby sucked out of your uterus, mine is a great one to have, because it's a relatively big gestational sac and a relatively small embryo, so should be fairly easy to remove. And I think it's doing its best to slough itself off anyway, poor little thing. So, unless nature takes its course before tomorrow lunchtime, I'm off to hospital for the first general anaesthetic of my life.
Ick.
"Yes, but sometimes there's just TOO MUCH PATTERN", she said. "I wish the design was more minimalist."
She's right. Her hip replacement is next Tuesday. My mother in law had gynae surgery yesterday, and is still in hospital. One of our nephews was in hospital last Friday with suspected meningitis (but it wasn't, fortunately).
And my baby's dead.
I have been secretly suspecting this for a while, which is why I haven't blogged. The vaginal discharge I mentioned before didn't go away; it just gently, gradually became browner, then pinker. Still not much of it, still lots of benign possible causes. But the nausea went, too, and my breasts felt less - busy, I suppose you could say, more like they normally do. And, about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I stopped finding coffee repulsive. I didn't start downing gallons of it, or anything, but one cup of weakish decaff a day became a pleasure again. And with my previous pregnancies, coffee was vile poison to my tastebuds the whole way through.
So, I wasn't sure, but I wondered. And then I had the routine midwife appointment yesterday, and she wasn't sure either, but sent me for a scan at the Early Pregnancy Unit at the local hospital today. And I had a scan, and there was a 3" gestational sac with a little lifeless blob in it. Not even any arms or legs, poor little blob. Not even a head, come to think of it, not as such. They reckon it died at about 6 weeks. They were all very kind, pressing cups of tea and glasses of water and boxes of tissues on me while I sat and cried.
And so I have the choice of a D and C or a natural miscarriage. Because of Mum's op and it being half term next week, I don't think I can really let nature take its course, although that would be my natural preference: I can't afford the risk of wretchedly exsanguinating all over the bathroom floor while in sole charge of the children. It just wouldn't be fair on them. Apparently the chance of serious haemorrhage is only about 2%.... but if I have a D and C, the most likely complication is uterine perforation, with a risk, they tell me, of 3 in 1000. (but hey, even then a small hole is generally self limiting!) If you are going to have a dead baby sucked out of your uterus, mine is a great one to have, because it's a relatively big gestational sac and a relatively small embryo, so should be fairly easy to remove. And I think it's doing its best to slough itself off anyway, poor little thing. So, unless nature takes its course before tomorrow lunchtime, I'm off to hospital for the first general anaesthetic of my life.
Ick.
posted by Alison at
6:42 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home