Again Part 2...

And then it happened. So fast, I didn’t know what was happening. Pain, bright and sharp, exploded through me. Help me.

I lay on the floor, bent over, calling out, crying in pain. A thought flashed through my mind. “Maybe this isn’t real. Maybe I’m having a physical reaction to the emotional pain of losing the baby. It’s only been 6 days since the D&C. Maybe it’s all in my mind” That was logical, right? I felt hysterical.

But still the pain came in waves.

He was there, trying to help me. “Please, baby, I have to get you to the car. Try to get up.” I could hear him trying to reason with me, trying to get me up. For him, I tried. For him, because I could hear the fear in his voice.

We staggered out the room, and that was as far as I could make it. The blackness rushed in again and when I awoke I was freezing. The tiles beneath my body, the wall against my head, were all like ice.

Shivering made the spasms worse and every time the spasm wracked my body and involuntary cry of pain spilled from my lips.
He ran for a blanket, wrapped me in it. But I was still so cold.
Help arrived. The voices of my dad, my brother, interspersed with my husbands.

“What happened?”
“How do we move her?”
“She’s in too much pain... won’t let anyone touch her”
“... maybe the blanket ...”

Hands were moving me, trying to lift the blanket I was lying in, but that caused another spasm to rock through me.

“... place her on a board or platform ... keep her still”

Finally we made it to the car. As we sped toward the hospital, suddenly things became clear again. My vision returned and I was suddenly and completely aware of my surroundings. Of myself. And I realised that my tongue felt swollen and was sticking out my mouth as far as it would go. I turned frightened eyes toward my husband, and he looked at me not knowing what to do.

“Don’t worry,” he said to me. “We’ll get you to the hospital. They’ll help you.”
But when we got there, none of the doctors could figure out what was wrong. I wasn’t able to stand- I kept passing out- so the abdominal x-ray was inconclusive. Finally, they decided to do a CT scan. When the radiologist came to speak to my mother, I could hear snatches of the conversation.

“... pelvis and torso filled with fluid...”
“... Blood ...”
“... usually ectopic pregnancy ...”

I wasn’t pregnant. I had just lost my baby. My mind was screaming this out, while my body continued with its pain spasms.
None of the pain medication helped. All it did was deaden my body so that I couldn’t cry out, couldn’t brace against the spasm. Until finally, finally, I was taken into surgery. The anaesthetist injected his chemicals into my blood stream, the oxygen mask went on and I was finally free from the pain.

Later, they told me what a narrow miss I had had. They told me about how extremely rare it was for this happen. They told me that my baby had implanted in my tubes and though they had removed the sac, the placenta had kept growing in my tube until it ruptured. I had been bleeding internally, but they repaired it.

That tube is closed off, they told me. And this more than anything else, started my fall into depression. I was damaged. My body had rejected 2 babies, had killed them, and now my ability to try for another was diminished. And what right did I have to even try for another? Would my body then just reject the next one, kill another baby, so that I would go through this again?

People would tell me their stories. They knew exactly what I was going through. They had lost their babies too. And look, they went on to have children. When I would speak of my pain, I would be told that I must stop being negative. That it will happen for me too. But I can’t help but wonder, what if I try again and this time, I lose not only my baby, I lose myself?