Thought #1: Where am I?
Thought #2: PAIN
Thought #3: Is this real?
Thought #4: I'M PREGNANT. Oh god, I have to tell them I'm pregnant! Where am I? What is happening? I swear I screamed, but no one heard me. They all said I didn't scream at all.
They had taken the baby, my only baby, and they had taken the tube. It had gone well. I was lucky I did not bleed out. I was lucky I did not pass out alone, and bleed out on the floor. I was lucky my husband loaded me in the trunk of the hatchback and called a nurse friend who told him not even to stop to get me a blanket. I was lucky I passed out and don't remember the pain. I was lucky I had excellent doctors and an excellent facility which saved my life and both ovaries without even leaving a scar! I was lucky for the excellent drugs they gave me. And then my luck ran out. That was 2012, a long time ago.
I call myself "Patient Subfertility" because of how detached, impersonal, clinical, and cold this process is. I'm a patient. Voicemail, last first DOB.When I started IVF, I thought this was just a blown tube we'd avoid, easy. HA! Oh, you're the ruptured ectopic. Salpingectomy. Diagnosis: secondary infertility, tubal cause and the dreaded RPL, recurrent pregnancy loss. Oh, and antiphospholid syndrome (APS) with lupus antibodies. So I've been a patient a long time. And I am working on staying patient, if that's possible.
Ruptured ectopic 2012.
Lots of drugs, 2012.
Failed IUIs, 2012-2013.
Failed IVF #1 with chemical pregnancy, December 2014, 5 frozen.
Unicorn "spontaneous pregnancy" in the two month wait to start IVF #2, Jan 2015. I took cytotec (misoprostol) for my "missed abortion" at 9 weeks.
IVF #2 July 2015, freeze all for CCS, 6/7 normal.
Four known dead embryos. Five figures spent. Three pregnancies. Three years. Eighty (more?) visits to the fertility doctor. I'm still here trying, I think. Well, I'm trying to do something.
