I went for a routine 8 week ultrasound this morning confident that 6 solid weeks of nausea, bloating, constipation, fatigue and crankiness had to mean something positive. It didn't. The heart beat that was there 2 weeks ago was nowhere to be found. I am going to surgery tomorrow.
The world is pretty messed up place to me at the moment. I'm seriously questioning a God that puts a woman through 2 pregnancy losses in one year. The sadistic cruelty of that second pregnancy being seemingly normal one moment and then non viable the next.
How do you make sense of the world in times like these? I'm not really trying. I first got the news whilst lying down in the darkened ultrasound room. It was broken to me by a young radiographer who possibly never had to go through what she was now telling me. It's hard to express your true emotions when you're in a pretty compromising position. Politely nodding whilst speechless at the news was all I could manage.
I got myself dressed and waited in the Quiet Room as my report was being typed and the radiologist was getting things ready to meet me. I'd never noticed the room on all the previous occasions I'd been to the clinic. He was going to be a while. I was allowed to go for a walk to get some air. The room would be mine when I returned.
Outside, life continued. The sun was still shining, the traffic still constant, the traffic lights still favouring cars not pedestrians. I had promised myself a chocolate caramel slice after the ultrasound. Back when I was cautiously confident that I was just walking my full bladder and bloated stomach to a routine scan where I would see my baby's hear beating on a flat screen television. I got that caramel slice, I ordered it in my most normal everyday voice. Not a quaver, not an awkward swallow. I also ordered my first medium skinny mocha in 5 weeks.
The time for tearful speech was back in the Quiet Room when I made all the phone calls I had to make. Sent the emails and messages I had to send. The love and support I received in those interactions made me realize that the cynics who curse society's dependence on the electronic media have got it very wrong.
The radiologist arrived and we met in the Quiet Room. If there's anything good about mascara and eyeliner running halfway down your face under your glasses, it is that it breaks down patient doctor barriers. The conversation was not as hard as I thought it would be. The arrangements were made, people were phoned. I got back to my office, organized what I had to and drove home.
And here I am. I'm going to hospital tomorrow and will probably be out of action for a week or so after. It is time that I will choose to spend wisely. I will not be dwelling on what God is trying to tell me. Nor will I be questioning my role as a woman in modern Australia - the perennial buyer of chic gifts for other people's children versus the indulgent mother (eventually) of our own much wanted child. I will try hard to ignore my feelings about the fertility of the world in general. I will not try to justify, to understand, to rationalize. The true answers will probably be beyond me for the rest of my life.
Instead, I will look after myself. Heal and recover. Do things that make me happy. Spend real time with Mr SSG. Be kind to myself. I will be back on the blog when the time is right.
Take care and God bless.
