It turns out my pregnancy is ectopic - due to my blood work and results from the pathologist. This was surprising, but it was never ruled out.
Monday afternoon after getting bloodwork, I get a phone call from my doctor telling me she wants to treat my pregnancy as an ectopic one. Everything she said made sense and I agreed. The treatment is two injections of a chemotherapy drug. I would go back to the hospital, get the injections and stay for observation. Needless to say, I headed back to the hospital right away. I want to get this over with.
When we get there, we have issues checking in and finding my doctors orders and once we finally get to where we need to bed - they can't make the shot at the hospital i'm at because their "hood" is getting maintenanced in their pharmacy so it would be at least 10PM before the injection even got to the hospital (its about 6pm while this going on). The nurses say I can wait, or come back in the morning. My doctor calls back and says she doesn't want me leaving the hospital without getting the injections. We wanted to stay anyways - but THAT made me nervous.
So the injections come - along with like a 15 page report on all the things that could go wrong and the side effects. I skimmed it and threw it at Lawrence and told him not to let me read anymore information. Once I signed my life away, they came in with the injections - hazmat (SP??) suits and all. The injections weren't bad, it was just the whole idea that was scary.
I was a trooper for the first 12 hours. I was SO ready to leave the hospital that I'm pretty sure I convinced myself I felt fine. I kinda did at the time. However, the next morning I woke up I was not so fine. Horrible abdominal pain, cramping, constipation, trapped gas, sharp gas pains. LOVELY THINGS to be happening! They let me know that if i had stabbing or sharp pains to go to the ER because that could mean the ectopic pregnancy ruptured and I could die from that. So every pain I felt I really thought I was going to die in 5 hours.
Thank God, I didn't die. My pain lasted about 4 days (most peoples lasts weeks WTF - see I told ya'll i'm a tough cookie!) and now most of my pain is gone. My abdomen is sore, i feel bloated and still exhausted. But after the past week I will take these symptoms with a happy smile! I had bloodwork taken on Friday, will go again on Monday to make sure my levels are lowering as they should. If not, I will get another lovely toxic round of injections.
I'm so nervous about everything. I haven't had time to properly grieve our loss and I know that's coming and now i'm scared for that! I do want kids, however, I don't know if I can go through this again. If anyone asks me when we plan on having kids or when I want to get pregnant next I will probably go certifiable insane - thats you're warning :)
I'm slowly starting to at least feel like myself - I think.
I still can't believe this has happened to us and I'm sad. I'm also angry. But I hope each day gets a little easier, as it has so far. AND MY MOTHERF-ING HORMONES BETTER GO DOWN! Haha :) Please just something medically that will go my way!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Friday, January 6, 2012
Baby Martinez
So some of you may be wondering what the heck has been going on with me?! Maybe it’s my facebook statuses, maybe you work with me, or maybe (more than likely) I’m one of your drinking buddies and I have been very MIA lately. At first, I wasn’t going to do this – I was going to keep everything private. However, the more I thought about it, I feel like situations like this need to be talked about. Life is not always a perfect fairy tale the way you want it to turn out.
A few months ago Lawrence got a great job offer for his career working in College Station Monday – Saturday. I got a job at a waxing center (yes, we do Brazilians) that I absolutely loved. We had a great schedule worked out! On the nights when Lawrence wasn’t here I was either out getting drunk, hanging out with girlfriends or having quiet movie nights at home, just depending on my mood. Then when Lawrence was here, we either had romantic nights together, or went out to bars together (notice a pattern? Haha). As much as I didn’t want him working out of town, I felt we were really making the best of the situation and I felt very content with where our lives were.
Right around this time, one of my best friends of LIIIFE had babies. Pretty darn cute babies at that! I have always wanted a large family and lots of kids running around so I was SO delighted to have some little chitlens (children) around. That’s what I thought at least. When it came down to the DUTIES of taking care of babies – I sucked. And I freaked out. The wobbly little heads, burping, the cry that doesn’t tell you what they want, are they hot? Are they cold? Are they hungry? Are they sick? How do you change a diaper? How do you put CLOTHES on a wobbly little thing? What is this spewing out of their mouth? Spit up? Acid reflux (poor thing)? They cry every 2-3 HOURS?! Sleepless nights?? The reality of children really set in. Don’t get me wrong - I love these little angels so much and they are so adorable but due to being an only child and not being raised around babies I had no idea what to expect.
(BFFFF don’t hate me right now.)
A few weeks after the precious little ones were born, I warned Lawrence – I let him know I was veeeery unsure if I wanted to have kids. I love being an Aunt but to have that responsibility?! Jigga what?! It pretty much scared the shit out of me. He was pretty surprised, but could see where I was coming from and assured me to take my time, we are in no hurry and said all the perfect things he normally does (he’s the best)! I recently had lost almost 55 lbs, was rocking some new sexy high heels, buying new clothes and pretty much feeling almost like a Victoria’s Secret model. I realized I’d rather dodge spitting up drunks, guiding roofied drunken people to cabs, examining strange mysterious bruises located all over my body, odd bits and pieces being found in my purse daily from the night before and waking up to exhausted days because I’m still hung over and taste jagerbombs when I burp (just sayin…)!
So it continued… I had such a fucking great schedule. Monday night was $2 drinks if you brought your cup at Pour House Pub, Tuesday was date night with Katie and Janice and hopefully the angels and their mama. Wednesdays consisted of usually a movie night or quiet night at home, Thursday was $5 wrist bands and $1 drinks at Pour House Pub and Friday nights usually involved a stop at my favorite local bar Woodies (RIP). My weekends were reserved for my handsome husband so we could dote on each other.
Then… it happened.
December 23, 2011
I have NO IDEA what makes a person do the things they do. Tuesday was my date night with Katie and Janice. The angels (babies and momma) couldn’t make it, so we were left to fend for ourselves. Katie began to remove nail polish and the smell was GHASTLY. I thought she was using gasoline or some illegal shit to get that glitter nail polish off. I almost left the room, but toughed it out like a true nail polish addict. We hung out a little longer and I headed home. When I got home, I walked through our bathroom and saw a pregnancy test (about a year old) and thought it was a GREAT idea to take it right there and then. At 1AM. By myself. Awesome, right? So I peed on the stick and waited. POSITIVE/NEGATIVE. Are you fucking kidding me right now? How is a test positive/negative you may wonder? It is when the line that is supposed to be crossed for positive, is only half crossed. Therefore, it’s a positive/negative. I flipped out. I have taken many pregnancy tests in my time (hey, we’ve been married 5 years!) and they have all been flat out NEGATIVE. So, I called Lawrence, no answer, texted him to call me asap, then texted my mom to call me asap when she wakes up, nothing bad, I’m not in jail, just call me asap its important. I text my beautiful friend with the babies and sent her the evidence (picture of test results). Her response “girl that looks kinda positive” HAHA I love her! Texted Katie but I think that biatch fell asleep (the night was a blur). I eventually wake Lawrence up and we talked/texted for about 3 hours. Needless to say, no sleeping was done in Martinez household in Houston!
My mom calls me in the morning and I tell her I need at least 4 different pregnancy tests. She is very excited and brings them over immediately. I pee on all the sticks. Digital, crosses, lines etc. They all say positive. I’m happy, scared, not happy, overwhelmed, freaking out, I’m practically an alcoholic, I’ve been smoking a pack of cigarettes about every 3 days (I’m just being real here) but the overall emotion – SHOCK. I am just shocked. So while I’m crying saying “I’m pregnant???” my mom is jumping up and down saying “you’re pregnant!!!” Ha ha ha. Once the shock starts to wear off, I start getting excited. It’s funny how that works – I really thought I didn’t want babies. But when you see that positive and you realize you have a life growing inside of you, a life that you don’t even KNOW yet, but you want to protect it from everything possible, it changes everything. Obviously I immediately stopped drinking/smoking, started taking vitamins, and was very careful about what I ate. The next step – telling almost everyone I knew. I couldn’t keep it inside. I called all my aunts and cousins (from Wyoming to Australia and everywhere in between NO JOKE) and of course my best friends knew. A few of my drinking buddies found out because… well… they’d probably check me into a mental institute if I turned down a drink with any other excuse other than “I’m pregnant”. Lawrence’s immediate family knew. I wanted to tell everyone!
I went and had a blood test done at one of those “Any Lab Tests Now” places (I wonder if that’s who Maury uses?) and had to wait the WHOLE Christmas weekend to figure out exactly how far along I was. When the result came back it said 4 weeks which didn’t seem completely accurate but who really knows. I had been having some cramping/spotting which was concerning me. A family friend who is very knowledgeable in the medical field advised I get in touch with a good ob/gyn, which is what I did. I saw my ob/gyn and she informed me that my symptoms were very common in the first trimester, to relax and take it easy. She also took bloodwork to compare my hcg levels (that pregnancy hormone) and my progesterone (the hormone in which helps the uterus support the pregnancy or some nerdy shit like that). This was on a Wednesday. On Thursday, my doctor’s nurse called me and said my hormones were not rising like they should and my progesterone was a 5.68. A “normal” progesterone level is between 5-20 (I think) – and that is considered a pretty safe pregnancy, but anything below a 5 is an abnormal and not viable pregnancy. She wanted to recheck my blood tomorrow to make sure my levels were rising but perhaps just a little slow. Friday I went back for bloodwork in which due to it being New Years weekend, I have to wait until TUESDAY to get the results. PURE TORTURE.
The weekend was rough. My spotting was worse, I started passing traces of tissue in my urine, I had some cramping but I just didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t. I felt okay, I was just very worried. I had a bad feeling that I couldn’t let go of. I was trying to be positive and pray, but something didn’t feel right. I’m a worry wart so that’s really nothing different or no surprise there that I would worry all weekend! However, it’s not super awesome to bring in the New Year feeling this way while everyone is writing vomit worthy messages about new beginnings and beer pong.
Tuesday comes… and my doctor calls me at 4:15pm. Yep, I had to wait all FUCKING day. The news is not good. My hormones have not risen and my progesterone was 3.4. Not a viable pregnancy. The hurt my heart felt is indescribable. I wanted to throw up. I cannot even begin to think of words to describe this. She let me know I needed to go for an ultrasound and then schedule a d&c based on the ultrasound results. My mom is a lifesaver and scheduled everything for me because there was no way I could even breathe much less speak. This was one of the worst days I have ever had. I still feel so extremely sad, a heaviness I didn’t know existed. I am bitter, I get angry at pregnant women. I get angry at crackheads that have healthy babies. I am angry at young families with kids. I’m a pretty horrific person to be around right now. Why me?
So I go for my ultrasound. It’s what you typically think of an ultrasound, but I also had to get a vaginal one. OH MOTHERFUCKING JOY. The technician greeted me with “CONGRATULATIONS! How far along are you? Are you excited?” Obviously the bitch didn’t read my chart. I could tell with the ultrasound there was no heartbeat. I couldn’t see much and pretty much didn’t want to. They were also checking my ovaries or something to make sure it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy. After the ultrasound, my mom and I left the doctor’s office and started playing the waiting game again. My doctor called me and let me know there is a mass on one of my ovaries; although she does not believe my pregnancy is ectopic. However, because this can be a dangerous condition she wants to make sure. I’m schedule for a d&c tomorrow at 1pm which will see if there is any “conception” tissue in my uterus and I suppose if not I will be treated for the ectopic-ness that is on my ovary.
Google is not your friend.
I googled way too much about ectopic pregnancy. WAY. TOO. MUCH. I feel doomed. I know, I know, I don’t even know what’s going on yet, but I just feel as though everything up until now has not been the news I wanted to hear. I’m afraid we will never have kids and I will never get to experience that joy. I’m scared how it will affect our marriage – Lawrence deserves to have kids and a family. He would really be such a great father. I can’t see my life without him and to not create a family with him would be heartbreaking. As you can see, I jump ahead of myself.
I’m so scared. I feel like such a failure. I never in a million years thought this would happen to me. Retail therapy isn’t even helping. I feel like I have a broken heart that will never be repaired. Damaged goods. I blame myself daily – I should have been taking better care of myself. What am I? An alcoholic????
So now its 2:28AM and I will be having my D&C at 1pm today. I’m nervous of the results. I can’t take another set of not so great news. I feel like I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up.
To extend the nightmare – everyone we told, we have to back track now and let them know. Some people found out that I didn’t even know knew were asking me about it – that day I found out the “bad news”. It’s just horrible. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat (not even chocolate!). I never thought this would be my life. So if you made it this far – thank you for your support. I haven’t wanted to share what was going on for obvious reasons, but I was bottling it up all inside, and that can’t be healthy. I also wanted to share because I feel like people don’t share these struggles openly too often. Understandly – it’s beyond hard to talk about and I have a level of guilt, failure and that I wasn’t good enough. But I know this is a grieving process and it will just take time. So… we will see what happens tomorrow (technically later on today).
A few months ago Lawrence got a great job offer for his career working in College Station Monday – Saturday. I got a job at a waxing center (yes, we do Brazilians) that I absolutely loved. We had a great schedule worked out! On the nights when Lawrence wasn’t here I was either out getting drunk, hanging out with girlfriends or having quiet movie nights at home, just depending on my mood. Then when Lawrence was here, we either had romantic nights together, or went out to bars together (notice a pattern? Haha). As much as I didn’t want him working out of town, I felt we were really making the best of the situation and I felt very content with where our lives were.
Right around this time, one of my best friends of LIIIFE had babies. Pretty darn cute babies at that! I have always wanted a large family and lots of kids running around so I was SO delighted to have some little chitlens (children) around. That’s what I thought at least. When it came down to the DUTIES of taking care of babies – I sucked. And I freaked out. The wobbly little heads, burping, the cry that doesn’t tell you what they want, are they hot? Are they cold? Are they hungry? Are they sick? How do you change a diaper? How do you put CLOTHES on a wobbly little thing? What is this spewing out of their mouth? Spit up? Acid reflux (poor thing)? They cry every 2-3 HOURS?! Sleepless nights?? The reality of children really set in. Don’t get me wrong - I love these little angels so much and they are so adorable but due to being an only child and not being raised around babies I had no idea what to expect.
(BFFFF don’t hate me right now.)
A few weeks after the precious little ones were born, I warned Lawrence – I let him know I was veeeery unsure if I wanted to have kids. I love being an Aunt but to have that responsibility?! Jigga what?! It pretty much scared the shit out of me. He was pretty surprised, but could see where I was coming from and assured me to take my time, we are in no hurry and said all the perfect things he normally does (he’s the best)! I recently had lost almost 55 lbs, was rocking some new sexy high heels, buying new clothes and pretty much feeling almost like a Victoria’s Secret model. I realized I’d rather dodge spitting up drunks, guiding roofied drunken people to cabs, examining strange mysterious bruises located all over my body, odd bits and pieces being found in my purse daily from the night before and waking up to exhausted days because I’m still hung over and taste jagerbombs when I burp (just sayin…)!
So it continued… I had such a fucking great schedule. Monday night was $2 drinks if you brought your cup at Pour House Pub, Tuesday was date night with Katie and Janice and hopefully the angels and their mama. Wednesdays consisted of usually a movie night or quiet night at home, Thursday was $5 wrist bands and $1 drinks at Pour House Pub and Friday nights usually involved a stop at my favorite local bar Woodies (RIP). My weekends were reserved for my handsome husband so we could dote on each other.
Then… it happened.
December 23, 2011
I have NO IDEA what makes a person do the things they do. Tuesday was my date night with Katie and Janice. The angels (babies and momma) couldn’t make it, so we were left to fend for ourselves. Katie began to remove nail polish and the smell was GHASTLY. I thought she was using gasoline or some illegal shit to get that glitter nail polish off. I almost left the room, but toughed it out like a true nail polish addict. We hung out a little longer and I headed home. When I got home, I walked through our bathroom and saw a pregnancy test (about a year old) and thought it was a GREAT idea to take it right there and then. At 1AM. By myself. Awesome, right? So I peed on the stick and waited. POSITIVE/NEGATIVE. Are you fucking kidding me right now? How is a test positive/negative you may wonder? It is when the line that is supposed to be crossed for positive, is only half crossed. Therefore, it’s a positive/negative. I flipped out. I have taken many pregnancy tests in my time (hey, we’ve been married 5 years!) and they have all been flat out NEGATIVE. So, I called Lawrence, no answer, texted him to call me asap, then texted my mom to call me asap when she wakes up, nothing bad, I’m not in jail, just call me asap its important. I text my beautiful friend with the babies and sent her the evidence (picture of test results). Her response “girl that looks kinda positive” HAHA I love her! Texted Katie but I think that biatch fell asleep (the night was a blur). I eventually wake Lawrence up and we talked/texted for about 3 hours. Needless to say, no sleeping was done in Martinez household in Houston!
My mom calls me in the morning and I tell her I need at least 4 different pregnancy tests. She is very excited and brings them over immediately. I pee on all the sticks. Digital, crosses, lines etc. They all say positive. I’m happy, scared, not happy, overwhelmed, freaking out, I’m practically an alcoholic, I’ve been smoking a pack of cigarettes about every 3 days (I’m just being real here) but the overall emotion – SHOCK. I am just shocked. So while I’m crying saying “I’m pregnant???” my mom is jumping up and down saying “you’re pregnant!!!” Ha ha ha. Once the shock starts to wear off, I start getting excited. It’s funny how that works – I really thought I didn’t want babies. But when you see that positive and you realize you have a life growing inside of you, a life that you don’t even KNOW yet, but you want to protect it from everything possible, it changes everything. Obviously I immediately stopped drinking/smoking, started taking vitamins, and was very careful about what I ate. The next step – telling almost everyone I knew. I couldn’t keep it inside. I called all my aunts and cousins (from Wyoming to Australia and everywhere in between NO JOKE) and of course my best friends knew. A few of my drinking buddies found out because… well… they’d probably check me into a mental institute if I turned down a drink with any other excuse other than “I’m pregnant”. Lawrence’s immediate family knew. I wanted to tell everyone!
I went and had a blood test done at one of those “Any Lab Tests Now” places (I wonder if that’s who Maury uses?) and had to wait the WHOLE Christmas weekend to figure out exactly how far along I was. When the result came back it said 4 weeks which didn’t seem completely accurate but who really knows. I had been having some cramping/spotting which was concerning me. A family friend who is very knowledgeable in the medical field advised I get in touch with a good ob/gyn, which is what I did. I saw my ob/gyn and she informed me that my symptoms were very common in the first trimester, to relax and take it easy. She also took bloodwork to compare my hcg levels (that pregnancy hormone) and my progesterone (the hormone in which helps the uterus support the pregnancy or some nerdy shit like that). This was on a Wednesday. On Thursday, my doctor’s nurse called me and said my hormones were not rising like they should and my progesterone was a 5.68. A “normal” progesterone level is between 5-20 (I think) – and that is considered a pretty safe pregnancy, but anything below a 5 is an abnormal and not viable pregnancy. She wanted to recheck my blood tomorrow to make sure my levels were rising but perhaps just a little slow. Friday I went back for bloodwork in which due to it being New Years weekend, I have to wait until TUESDAY to get the results. PURE TORTURE.
The weekend was rough. My spotting was worse, I started passing traces of tissue in my urine, I had some cramping but I just didn’t know what was normal and what wasn’t. I felt okay, I was just very worried. I had a bad feeling that I couldn’t let go of. I was trying to be positive and pray, but something didn’t feel right. I’m a worry wart so that’s really nothing different or no surprise there that I would worry all weekend! However, it’s not super awesome to bring in the New Year feeling this way while everyone is writing vomit worthy messages about new beginnings and beer pong.
Tuesday comes… and my doctor calls me at 4:15pm. Yep, I had to wait all FUCKING day. The news is not good. My hormones have not risen and my progesterone was 3.4. Not a viable pregnancy. The hurt my heart felt is indescribable. I wanted to throw up. I cannot even begin to think of words to describe this. She let me know I needed to go for an ultrasound and then schedule a d&c based on the ultrasound results. My mom is a lifesaver and scheduled everything for me because there was no way I could even breathe much less speak. This was one of the worst days I have ever had. I still feel so extremely sad, a heaviness I didn’t know existed. I am bitter, I get angry at pregnant women. I get angry at crackheads that have healthy babies. I am angry at young families with kids. I’m a pretty horrific person to be around right now. Why me?
So I go for my ultrasound. It’s what you typically think of an ultrasound, but I also had to get a vaginal one. OH MOTHERFUCKING JOY. The technician greeted me with “CONGRATULATIONS! How far along are you? Are you excited?” Obviously the bitch didn’t read my chart. I could tell with the ultrasound there was no heartbeat. I couldn’t see much and pretty much didn’t want to. They were also checking my ovaries or something to make sure it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy. After the ultrasound, my mom and I left the doctor’s office and started playing the waiting game again. My doctor called me and let me know there is a mass on one of my ovaries; although she does not believe my pregnancy is ectopic. However, because this can be a dangerous condition she wants to make sure. I’m schedule for a d&c tomorrow at 1pm which will see if there is any “conception” tissue in my uterus and I suppose if not I will be treated for the ectopic-ness that is on my ovary.
Google is not your friend.
I googled way too much about ectopic pregnancy. WAY. TOO. MUCH. I feel doomed. I know, I know, I don’t even know what’s going on yet, but I just feel as though everything up until now has not been the news I wanted to hear. I’m afraid we will never have kids and I will never get to experience that joy. I’m scared how it will affect our marriage – Lawrence deserves to have kids and a family. He would really be such a great father. I can’t see my life without him and to not create a family with him would be heartbreaking. As you can see, I jump ahead of myself.
I’m so scared. I feel like such a failure. I never in a million years thought this would happen to me. Retail therapy isn’t even helping. I feel like I have a broken heart that will never be repaired. Damaged goods. I blame myself daily – I should have been taking better care of myself. What am I? An alcoholic????
So now its 2:28AM and I will be having my D&C at 1pm today. I’m nervous of the results. I can’t take another set of not so great news. I feel like I’m in a nightmare and I can’t wake up.
To extend the nightmare – everyone we told, we have to back track now and let them know. Some people found out that I didn’t even know knew were asking me about it – that day I found out the “bad news”. It’s just horrible. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat (not even chocolate!). I never thought this would be my life. So if you made it this far – thank you for your support. I haven’t wanted to share what was going on for obvious reasons, but I was bottling it up all inside, and that can’t be healthy. I also wanted to share because I feel like people don’t share these struggles openly too often. Understandly – it’s beyond hard to talk about and I have a level of guilt, failure and that I wasn’t good enough. But I know this is a grieving process and it will just take time. So… we will see what happens tomorrow (technically later on today).
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