I'm not broke but you can see the cracks....

Disclaimer: This isn't a very happy entry, but it's necessary. If you want happy, you'll have to go somewhere else for a little while.


This subject is something that I need to get out of my head. I need to spill my guts on this topic because the longer I keep it inside, the more it corrodes me inside.

I’ve alluded to the subject of infertility before on this blog. I did have a bout (if you can say that) with infertility. In my case, there was a “fixable” solution. However, that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with and it’s not the whole story.

It didn’t make all the poking and prodding any easier.
It didn’t make the blood tests EVERY WEEK any easier.
It didn’t make watching the ENTIRE world procreate any easier.
It didn’t make any of the pain go away.

Physically, I am okay. The doctors and specialists have done their part. They found my brain tumor. They reduced it through medication. They make me have an MRI every two years to prove that. I will take medication for the rest of my life. One pill, twice a week. Eight pills a month. Pills that are so rare that I have to spell it every time I go to my regular doctor and the nurse gives me a look like I am making it up. I never get tired of saying, “D-o-s-t-i-n-e-x. It’s for a pituitary tumor.” The pharmacy I go to didn’t even carry it until I came along.

Emotionally, I have been pretty much a wreck when it comes to the subject of pregnancy and related issues. Just when I think that these scars are healing, something comes along and rips the scabs right off.

See, we did get pregnant again – like two months after we decided to. Within a month of seeing that positive test (three days before Christmas); I was knocked out cold while they removed what would have been our second child. Had the “cell mass” (doctor’s terms) moved down a little further, I would have had a normal pregnancy. It didn’t. It lodged in my tube and we had an ectopic pregnancy. And I knew it. I knew the whole time something was wrong. I knew the whole time that I was a walking time bomb. I mean, how do you prepare yourself for that kind of pain? You feel so powerless when your instincts are telling you something is wrong and you can’t do anything about it. You have to basically hand your body over to someone else and then watch them destroy part of it. The same doctor who brought me so much good news two years ago had turned into the grim reaper. I had to consent to them removing the “cell mass” that would have been our second child. The baby would have never made it to term. My tube would have ruptured and there was a possibility that I would have bled to death. So, after the surgery where they removed what they could, they injected me with a chemotherapy drug that would halt the growth of my cell mass and expel what was left. My cell mass = our second child. For the next two months, my cell mass disintegrated and expelled itself from my body. I had to see and feel that for two months straight. No amount of painkillers could ever take away that pain. Believe me, I tried. Everything physical ended on Groundhog Day. I got the phone call as I pulled into the grocery store parking lot. My HCG levels were finally zero. There was no trace of tissue left in my body. What they should have said was there was no trace of baby left in my body. They didn’t have to. I knew what they meant.

And during that whole time, I had to celebrate Christmas, be there for my son, for my husband, go to work, and live life. All with a smile on my face – hiding all the pain that was inside. There was no time to curl up into a corner and feel sorry for myself. But that’s what I really wanted to do. I didn’t want to welcome the New Year; I wanted to hide from it. I pretended to be happy when my sister-in-law announced the pregnancy of her second child while my second child was still disintegrating. Only to crumble into my husband’s arms afterward. I stumbled through my son’s second birthday party. I stumbled through life. No one wants to hear about something so sad. No one wants to listen to you as you drone on again about how empty you feel, how incomplete you feel, how defective you feel. The only way someone could understand that type of pain is to go through it. Even then, there is so much guilt and shame attached to losing a baby – who would want to talk about it?

But I need to talk about it.

I have been avoiding this issue for over nine months now. It’s time for me to give birth to the pain and the sadness that I have held onto for so long. We lost a baby. It wasn’t just a cell mass, or a health problem. To us, it was a baby.

And it’s time to move on.