Regrets

I think I did pretty well at the seminar, not great, but ok. Of course after I wished I had said more, like how last year after Isabella died and my husband and I sent an email to a select group at work to let them know, people we had specifically told that I was pregnant which included my manager at the time, and my manager took it upon himself to forward that email to the whole department, which some of them forwarded to other people at work. Imagine my surprise/embarrassment that I was getting emails sent to my personal email address from people who didn't even know I was pregnant before they received the forwarded email. I really hate when people forward your personal private email to other people. I still can't imagine what he was thinking when he thought he had the right to do that. So this year, after I flipped out and stopped going to work, I called my manager and told him why. I told him about my miscarriage in April and how I hated my job and there was a whole host of other things going on that I was drowning in. I told him how my old manager forwarded my email last year and how upset that made me, so he said that he wouldn't tell anyone about my situation, which I thought was nice. At least while I was away from work I felt like people weren't talking about me losing another baby, but just wondering what illness I might have come down with for why I was out so long.

Getting back to the seminar, it was hard for me because my experience was so different from the other parents on the panel. I didn't spend any time in a hospital, no overnights, no maternity wards. My biggest complaints were for how everyday people treated me, especially my husband's family. I also feel like my mom knew how much they upset me so she went out of her way to treat me differently (better?) but I wonder if she really felt like that's how I should be treated or if she just wanted to one-up them. Obviously there's nothing anyone in the medical field can do about your family, friends or co-workers to somehow make them more understanding, more empathetic, more caring. (I just had an idea, wouldn't it be great if my therapist would write a letter or even an email to my husband's family to tell them how hard it's been for me and how their treatment of me has actually stalled my grieving/healing process. I doubt it would do any good, I think I've beaten the dead horse enough.)

For the little bit that I did have to deal with the medical field, there were definitely things that I wish could have been done differently. Like when I had my ultrasound for Sean, when we found out there was no heart beat. Why is it the tech can't say anything? When everything is great, they're all smiles and oh look at this etc etc. But when something is wrong, they say absolutely nothing. I think that is worse than if they said there was a problem and they would get someone to discuss it with me. When I said yesterday at the seminar that the tech had left the vaginal ultrasound probe inside me while she went to find a non-existent doctor to discuss my case with me, everyone made noises of disbelief. Yeah, I was in disbelief when it happened. But she couldn't find a doctor so I was sent to my doctor's office in the next building. I got to the desk and the receptionist had no idea why I was there. She joked saying "weren't you here earlier?" So I had to wait in the waiting room with all the pregnant women sitting and talking happily about their pregnancies. When I got to go back to my doctor's private office he didn't have to say a word, I already knew. During the ultrasound there were 3 indications, I could tell there was no heartbeat just by looking at the baby, I could see when she put the Doppler cursor on the baby that there was no heartbeat to be detected and she clicked it off very quickly, and when she put the screen to show blood flow (the red and blue splotches) I could see blood flow all around in my uterus, but not on the baby. The medical field, or at least this ultrasound tech, must think that "lay-people" are really dumb not to figure anything out on their own. In my doctor's office while the tears streamed down my face we discussed my options. I decided to have a D&C. I couldn't have it for 3 days because I was on my blood thinner injections and I would have to stop taking them for a couple days before the surgery. So we went to leave, numb, eyes red, and broken hearted when my doctor stopped me just before I got to the waiting room door. He needed me to sign a form for the surgery (why oh why couldn't I have done that the day of the D&C, I don't know) so instead of inviting me back to his office to wait for the form, or putting us in a spare exam room, we were sent back to the waiting room to listen to the pregnant women discussing baby showers. After what seemed like forever but was probably only 5 or 10 minutes I told my husband I was leaving. We went back to the car drove home and I crawled in to bed, defeated. I had to go back the next day to sign the form because they had to witness me signing it, so even though the last place I wanted to be was in that office, I had to go back. At least that time they took me right in and I didn't have to wait in the waiting room. Not an hour after I got home the bleeding began. All the tissue passed that evening. I went in the next day for another ultrasound with the same crappy tech to see if everything had come out. It had. (In the future I am going to refuse to drink the 32 oz of water before those ultrasounds. You can't see anything with the trans abdominal probe because I have a "retroverted uterus", so might as well just go for the full monty from the start.) Then I was told to wait in the radiology waiting room after the ultrasound. At least there weren't any pregnant women around. After 30-45 minutes my doctor called me and I had to take the call at the receptionist's desk. I felt that was pretty ridiculous since I have a cell phone (the only number listed in my chart) so he could have just called me on that and I could have been in the privacy of my car or house when I talked to him. But no, I had to waste a bunch of time waiting for him to call so I could talk with a receptionist sitting there listening. I also could have been on my way home to pick up the tissue (my dead baby) that came out and I put in a ziplock bag in my fridge (gross I know, but I wanted to have at least a remote chance that they could do some tests to find out what went wrong). So I got off the phone and we rushed home to pick it up and drive back before his office closed. How messed up is it when you have to walk into your doctor's office with a ziplock bag with bloody paper towels inside. I wrapped the bag with another paper towel because in my haste I couldn't think of anything else to put it in to conceal it for the walk from my car to the office. My doctor had told me on the phone at the radiology department that he would have my D&C cancelled. So then the next morning, when I would have been getting checked in for that, I was home resting, taking a "me" day. The outpatient center called wondering why I wasn't there. So many simple things could have been done, if someone had just made a phone call, thought about our feelings, or just been considerate.

I got there a little early yesterday, I had to drive an hour to get there after all so I wanted to make sure I didn't get stuck behind a big truck and was late. I got to hear some of the talk directed at the caregivers, nurses, chaplains, etc who attended the seminar. One of the things that really struck me was when Cathi said "you could sleep at night because you know you gave the best care possible." It made me think about all the sleepless nights I've had because I didn't get the best care possible.

The tears were already welling up.