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.

Seminar

Today I'm going to Carol's "Compassionate Caregiving When a Baby Dies" seminar. I'm on the "Parent Panel". I was trying to think of a way to prepare for it. Should I make some sort of list of things that worked or didn't when Isabella and Sean died? Should I just talk about those days and surrounding days or should I mention how depressed I was that I stopped working for 2 months and almost quit my job completely? How I've been on all kinds of medication for depression and anxiety? How I've been seeing a therapist weekly for over 7 months now? I guess that's the thing about loosing a baby. It's not like it's only that day or following week that is a total bummer, but how it makes living life a bummer. How different would this summer have been if I didn't lose Sean? His due date would have been Wednesday, November 12th, but I would have had him already. Because of my blood clotting issues, I would have had to stop taking my blood thinner injections and be induced. He would be with me now. I would be on permanent maternity leave. I would actually feel like a mother. I would be a mother.

I still feel like an impostor. Even going to this seminar, I feel like a fake almost. I don't know if easier is the right word, but for women who actually looked pregnant and lost their baby at least people knew. I feel like part of my isolation is that no one knew. That's the Catch-22 of when do you tell because if you tell and you have a miscarriage (like me) then everyone knows you lost your baby, and does that make them care? I don't know. But if you don't tell and you're sad or sensitive about being around babies and people wonder why, do you then have to tell then? On some levels it's nice that people don't know, because they aren't pretending to care or trying to say the "right" thing. Or eating their foot and saying exactly what you don't want to hear. But then I also want to shake people and make them realize that something so innocent as asking if my husband and I are planning on having kids can feel like a kick to the gut. How do you answer that without "showing your hand"? Or at least without biting their head off?

That's the thing about this... it's not easy at all.

Missing Sasha

Today is the 3 year anniversary of Sasha's death. I still miss her so much. I won't apologize to you non-cat-people, or folks that think a pet is just a pet, she was a part of our family. She was the best cat ever, even the things she did to get in trouble were adorable because she was so smart, she could open cabinets and get into anything she set her mind to. (Which is why we have latches on lots of things in the kitchen.) I swear she would check the bedroom doors to see if she could push them open to snuggle on the bed all day.

I got Sasha and Katie in Drummondville, QC at a pet store. I know that a lot of folks are against pet store animals because of puppy mills and all that, but I just went in to see if they had any cute critters, just to look. I wasn't planning on taking 2 adorable kittens home. But there they were, Sasha was the most adorable little fuzzy calico bundle, she really caught my eye. I got to hold her and she mewed in my lap in a cute little kitten voice. Katie was a fuzzy little bundle too, wearing her tuxedo, and so adorable, but Sasha sealed the deal. At the store there were 3 kittens, Sasha, Katie and their brother. He was already spoken for (I wonder if he wasn't if I would have taken him too!!), he looked just like Katie, so much so they had to check to make sure she was the girl when I decided to get them. It was April 13, 2002.

Sasha is so pooped out, but Katie is taking a moment to clean her tummy.

Katie stuffed Sasha in the couch cushions...

So precious when they snuggled together...

I was dating a guy who lived in Drummondville (our relationship was on the way out so this provided a distraction) we took them back to his apartment and set them up with a litter box and food, we played and played and then they napped and napped. I took them home later that weekend, snuck them across the border. I always joked that Sasha and Katie were "illegal aliens". The boyfriend and I broke up, and then I started dating my future husband. I knew he was a keeper by how my kitties took to him. It's lucky for him that he's a cat person.

Katie sidled in to snuggle up with Sasha.

My husband (boyfriend at the time) was getting his masters part time through a distance learning program while working so he would watch his classes online or on videos FedEx'd to him. Sasha would love to sit with him while he worked. When we bought our house she would watch the videos with him and then sit with him at his computer while he did homework and if he got up to get a snack or drink she would follow him down to the kitchen and then back up to the office. It was like she got her masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering too.

Every night they would be locked in the (furnished) basement and every morning my husband would let them out. Katie would immediately run up to snuggle with me in bed and Sasha would hang out with my husband for a bit and then come up to see me. She stretched up on his leg, rubbed against her favorite corner and then that was it. She dropped to the floor, kicked a few times, went limp and was gone. My husband yelled to me and I ran down to see her on the floor, I ran to get my phone and call the vet, we rushed her to the animal hospital, but it was too late, there was nothing they could do. We took her home and buried her outside Katie's window later that day. November 4, 2005.

>^..^<

Sasha Marie

March 2, 2002 - November 4, 2005

Reproductive Update

Yesterday I started taking the progesterone suppositories again. Yuck. I feel like I'm going to wet myself continuously. I swear I won't complain about them again if it ends up working.

My husband's presentation was today, so he's on his way home (actually in the air right now). Now that it's done it's likely he won't have any more travel for work for a while. So if this month is a wash then maybe we'll have better luck next month with him home more than a few days here and there.

I need to call my OBGYN and find out when/if I need to have a blood HCG test done and if it's negative if I have to do the provera again or what. Has anyone had experience taking progesterone suppositories and what they did if they didn't get pregnant?

A New Day

I feel good today. Like a weight has been lifted. My outlook has changed somehow, I can't quite put my finger on it or describe it, but it's there. Even though I stayed up way too late last night and I feel tired, I also feel energized (caffeine from free coffee?).

I feel hopeful, where once hope was lost.

A True Engineer

I'm confused. Another therapy session today. He's been reading my blogs and thinks that I've come a long way (at least that's what I think he thinks, I am confused after all).

It's hard comprehending two conflicting feelings. That it hurts so much and all I want to do is wallow in it, but that I'm tired of it hurting and wanting to expel it from myself like a diseased organ or so much bile in the back of my throat. I am so black and white, so one extreme or the other. My way or the highway. Maybe that's why I'm so lonely, everyone has taken the MassPike. I don't want to give up, I don't want to give in, but I feel like it accomplishes nothing. Actually it accomplishes me being sad and being hung up and feeling like a failure. It doesn't teach anyone anything other than that Shannon is annoying. Shannon is sad all the time. Shannon will get upset no matter what you do. Shannon is stubborn and opinionated. Shannon is impossible.

---

I feel like my life has been a procedure, a check list. Like the ones I've written for work. Do things in a certain order and everything works out fine. I feel like I've been doing that.

"How to Have a Happy Life" (According to Shannon - Version 1.0):

High school

College (get a degree in electrical engineering)

Get a job (as an electrical engineer)

Find a guy (a forever guy - a "Mr. Right", I've had my share of "Mr. Right Now")

Get house/get married

Have kids

Live happily ever after

Now I'm stumbling all over the "have kids" part but there's no troubleshooting section, just rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. And if I don't do that step, how will I ever get to "happily ever after"?

I need a version 2.0.

Mmmm... Free Coffee

Over the summer our company installed coffee machines all over the building. They're the type where you insert a packet and it "brews" you a single cup of coffee. It's Flavia if you're familiar with it. The kicker is that we got all this free coffee instead of more vacation time, because people are such lame workaholics here that they never take vacation and it piles up. So everyone must not like to take vacation. So why not give people free coffee instead of time off? Sounds great, huh? I've never been much for drinking coffee so I didn't really care for it, I'd rather have more time off. (Actually I'd just rather not be working, but we already know that.) But recently I've started to drink it. I got hard core and brought in my own mug from home so I can walk around with it and sip from it while talking to people. I feel so grown up. I make a cappuccino several times a day, mostly decaf, but with a regular in there occasionally. It's yummy. What the heck, right? It's free. It keeps me warm in the cold office and with my nasty cold it's keeping me from coughing too much.

I feel like I might as well get my money's worth, right?

Uphill Battle

My husband is still travelling for work. It's a couple days here and a week and a half there. Soon it will be over, only 2 more weeks on this project. I had been enjoying our time apart, I could stay up late and sleep in, I could watch TV or movies and eat whatever I wanted or do nothing at all. But now it's dark out early, it's gotten cold and I came down with a cold last week. I miss having him to snuggle up to at night. I'm getting tired of doing everything around the house.

I started reading stuff for my new job at work. I hope it will be interesting. I don't especially care, but I hope it will be interesting to pass the time quickly until I get pregnant and just might get to take a baby home. I'm tired of pretending to be an engineer.

Carol invited me to a seminar she's coordinating, she asked me to be on the Parent's Panel. That sounds so weird to me. I don't feel like a parent. I don't feel like a mother. I sure don't feel like a mom. I went back and forth in my head about whether or not I should go. I didn't want to because I dread sitting there crying the whole time, not being able to tell my story through my sobs. But I decided I should go because it will give me validation. Validation that Isabella and Sean existed, validation of my grief in losing them, validation I so desperately crave. It will also give me a chance to help educate others on what I thought was done right and what wasn't when my world came tumbling down all over again. Thinking back to last year, I don't really have any complaints. All the medical folks I dealt with were compassionate, I never felt slighted or let down. This April I felt like I slipped through the cracks, the time line of April 8th and the events that transpired still make me so upset. It boggles my mind that an U/S technician seriously thinks they can say "I have to get a doctor to talk to you about your case", and then leave the room and have you not freak out. And then when they send you back to your doctor's office the receptionist has no idea why you're there and why you're already crying. That was just the beginning of the mess that was another worst day of my life. I can't say it was the worst because I've had two babies die while I was pregnant with them. I can't really say that one was worse than the other. I don't even know how to feel about September. I guess I was pregnant again, but was I really? I tried so hard to make Isabella and Sean into people by finding out their genders and naming them as if that would make them more real to others, but really was it just to make them real to me? And if that's the case then what about baby # 3? A baby I was barely pregnant with, a baby I never had a due date for, never even got to wrap my head around before it was gone. Like it was never there. I have pictures of Isabella and Sean, so that makes them more real, but it's all so unreal. I feel so sorry for myself. Boo-hoo, why did this happen to me? I'm tired of it. I'm tired of life sucking. I'm tired of not being happy. I'm tired of thinking that only a baby will make me happy. Because what if I never get one? What if I never get to really be a mother, to be a mom. To be the one a child runs to to show a new treasure and cries for when they fall down. To kiss the boo-boos and tuck them into bed. To read a story to and make chocolate chip cookies for. To teach to swim and ride a bike. I don't want to be baby lost anymore. I don't want to wear it like a badge and rub it in others' faces. I don't want to be offended when people tell me "You'll find out when you have kids..."

What am I trying to say? I feel like an impostor. I feel like I conjured all this out of nothing. That I've been overreacting. That I'm milking this for all it's worth. That it really isn't a big deal and I should just get over it.

So while society or whatever has been drilling this into me why haven't I just given up? Why haven't I just rolled over and taken it? Am I glutton for punishment? Do I just like conflict and adversity? Am I only just going against the grain and making a mountain out of a mole hill?

I think it's because it's such a fight that I keep fighting it. If it was easy and clean then I probably wouldn't bother. If people fell all over themselves and said just the right things when your baby died wouldn't it be easier all around? But they don't so it's not and it's back to me and my principles and the inevitable disappointment that other's behavior doesn't live up to my expectations. I'm tired of all my principles, I'm tired of always trying to prove my point. I'm tired of my uphill battle, but who am I battling? My husband? My husband's family? The world? Maybe I'm just fighting myself.

There's no way to win that battle.

"Just Because"

Today I had an interesting appointment with my therapist. I feel like we're really getting into the meat of my neuroses. He said that he's read a bunch of my journals and that it seems like I have very high expectations for how people should act and that is why I'm disappointed a lot. I can understand that. I feel like I hold myself to a standard. A code of conduct, and I feel like I treat people the way I would like to be treated. So when people do things that I wouldn't do it upsets me. I feel like if I knew someone in my situation I would be more supportive/sensitive etc etc. But can I really say that if I hadn't gone through what I've gone through? Maybe I would be an insensitive slob like so many have been to me. Every life experience changes the person you're becoming. So I guess the reason why I feel the need to "educate" people about my experience/grief is so that maybe when the next person comes along they'll know better.

Fat chance right?

My related issue (one of many) that we discussed is how uptight I am because of my high standards. Maybe I live in a bubble with high ideals and notions of how things would be if everyone was nice and did what they were suppose to do. That is what intrigues me so much about the "concept" of the Catholic church. If everyone lived by those rules there would probably be a lot less yuck in the world. Forget the Catholic church, how about just the Ten Commandments? Or for secular folks - the Golden rule? (Add in there other necessities to be what people would say in olden days was respectable/moral behavior.)

But we (I) live in reality. I have no control over the actions of others. Just how I react to them. Now I just need to learn how to react to less extremes. I know deep down when my husband's family does or says something that hurts (like invalidating me/my grief) that it's really just my perception of what they did or said and that they weren't going out of their way to hurt me and that I get upset not because they did it but because it's easier to point the blame at them and be angry with them because I know there was nothing that could have been done to save Isabella or Sean. So who can I be angry at? Who can I blame for all my hurt?

"Just because" just doesn't do it for me.

Getting There

Work is interesting, I've been enjoying what I've been doing, crunching a lot of numbers and doing math that I haven't done since college. With budget and other considerations going on I've been working on finding a more permanent assignment, and I think I have. I talked to another manager yesterday and before I knew it, he had added me to his organizational chart. So I guess I'm there. I hope I enjoy it.

My husband left for Virginia again this morning. He was home for a long weekend and it was nice to spend time with him. We did some yard work and took some naps.

My cycle has been pretty messed up. I had started my "period" on September 9th. I should have not been so curious, but I did 4 separate pregnancy tests between 9/11 and 9/15 and they were positive with varying degrees of darkness for the line, getting fainter as time went on. Which explains my post on September 16th. After talking to my OBGYN many many times, he decided I should go on progesterone suppositories starting around day 18-19. I didn't think I should have bothered this past month since it was so messed up and I didn't take clomid but he said I should. That was unpleasant. Day 30 I had a blood test, negative HCG. Then on October 10th I started on Provera to make my period start. Today it did. The only problem is, my husband is still travelling a lot for work so it seems pointless to take clomid and not be able to make the most of it. I'm not even sure if he'll be home on weekends. It's frustrating. I feel like if we did try our best I could at least get my hopes up and it would make it worth it to take the yucky suppositories again. If I have to take another month off, then that is ok with me. I just want to have a plan.

I've been seeing a new therapist, I don't feel like we've made a lot of progress yet, but I feel like we're going to. I feel like I'm getting there. I went through my journals for the last 2 years and highlighted things of interest to talk to him about. He has some homework before next week's appointment.

I think I always knew deep down, but the reason why I go to these appointments is because I can talk about Isabella and Sean and it's not weird, it's not awkward. I don't feel like I'm bumming someone out. It helps me to talk about them and remember them, to validate that they existed. So even if I cry for some or all of the hour, I feel like it's worth it. Otherwise I'm not sure if I would find time in the week to really think about them, really find some other way to make them part of my existence. It's like making time to pray, I haven't been doing any of that, mostly because I'm still angry with God, but I'm sure He understands. But with anything, if you don't set time aside for it, it will never get done. I want to be happy and not have to go to therapy every week, but I need to find some other outlet. I told my husband how I felt about going to therapy and why and he said he didn't feel the need to talk about Isabella and Sean, that "it is what it is". My new therapist is going to help me teach my husband to be more sensitive toward me since it's come to his attention from everything I've told him that my husband didn't learn how to be sensitive from his family. That's something to look forward to.

I also met briefly with the woman who monitors my medication. I haven't been sleeping well lately so I wanted to try something different. Back in July I started taking Zoloft, then because of that I couldn't sleep at night, so I took another thing at night to help me sleep. But since then my level of Zoloft has increased and sleeping is getting weird again. I told her that I would rather not be on anything at all. I feel like it's a band aid on a broken arm. It's not going to help me get pregnant and it's not going to make me forget all the pain from these last two years. I will never again be that naïve woman who's never been pregnant before and only has hope for the future. If I could go back I would shake that Shannon from two years ago. But I can't.

I can only move on.