At 7:30 am on July 31st, we dropped the dogs off at my mother’s, making sure to give her all the instructions we could think of. “Feed them at 8 am, noon, 4 pm, and 8 pm… we should be back by 4 though. Anyway they eat every 4 hours. Leave the food down for 10 minutes then pick it up. Don’t give them any people food. Doozer will bark at the door when he wants to go out, although he might not do that when he’s here here because he doesn’t know your house… Sprocket just sits staring at the door or the window so you have to watch him more closely. If you’re in doubt, just put them out every 45 minutes or so. They’re only 10 weeks old so they can’t really hold it that long.” She hugged us and told us she loved us.
By 7:45, we were on the road. I drove, because I’m better at directions than Rob (only because I’ve lived here all my life, he’s lived here for 4 years). At about 8:45, the cellphone rang. Rob answered; it was the hospital. Were we going to be there soon? It was more than likely that Day Surgery could fit me in sooner than they’d thought, if we got there within the next half hour. Luckily (even though I took a wrong turn – I was nervous!) we were there within 20 minutes. I registered and got my two bracelets put on (the regular hospital one and the one to tell what I’m allergic to aside from pollen and pets and grass – which is salmon. I don’t know why they need to alert the hospital of this. I wasn’t getting salmon implants). The nurse weighed me (STILL FAT THANK YOU) then took me to my little … what is it? A cubbyhole? A cargo bay? A stall? Three walls, and a curtain. They asked me to take off my clothes and dress in the jonnyshirt and robe thing. There was a locker for my clothes and shoes, and a gurney for me to lay on. Two nurses came in and asked me all the same questions as I’d been asked during registration. First one nurse asked the questions, and then the second nurse asked the exact same questions again. They were in the same room. Standing next to each other. Did they think I was going to lie about anything? Surprisingly, I still weighed the same as I had 20 minutes earlier. I still was allergic to salmon. I still hadn’t had any major surgery since I was 13, if you didn’t count my wisdom teeth (which I don’t). Guess what? I still have asthma, yes my lungs both collapsed when I was 21 but I haven’t had anything like that since, and I still take Symbicort and Zantac. Since the last time someone asked, 20 minutes ago.
When they left, Rob was allowed to come in and sit with me. We talked about nothing in particular, just trying to keep our minds off things. After about half an hour, the surgeon came in. He’s an OB/GYN who does gynaecological surgery. We’d met before, after my HSG went tits up. He explained again what the surgery entailed (at least two incisions, four at the most, and cameras going in through each incision to see the outside of the reproductive organs, as well as one being put up inside my uterus, and blue dye being pushed through my uterus and hopefully out the ends of my Fallopian tubes). He said that it would take at least two hours, but it could take longer if he found anything inside that he thought he could fix, like endometriosis or a bent Fallopian tube. He asked if we had any questions. I said no. Rob said “If you find anything weird in there, like action figures, let me know. There’s a bet riding on this.” Dr. F said “Oh, I’ll definitely let you know, and it will be all over YouTube”.
Rob and I were left alone for another half-hour, then the anaesthesiologist came in. It wasn’t the same guy I’d met with back at the end of June; in fact it was a lady. She had a medical student with her. She asked me… the same questions as the nurses had. Fourth time. The medical student just stood behind her and listened. I told her about my alopecia and asked if I had to wear the little hospital beanie or if I could just leave my bandanna on. She agreed that the bandanna was fine. We were all finished with her by 10:30 am.
My surgery had originally been scheduled for 11:30 am, but we had been told it would probably be earlier. Guess what? It definitely was NOT earlier. Rob and I sat in our cubbyhole nervously making jokes. We heard that there was another Louise right across from us (kind of hard not to hear, with just a curtain to separate us), but she was 84 and was there to have her goiter lanced or something. She went off for her procedure at 11:15. When it got to be 12:30 and we were still waiting, I began making inappropriate jokes about how The Other Louise was going to wake up to a surprise to find out that they’d been doing fertility testing on her 84-year-old Fallopian tubes. I’m not right in the head.
The OR nurse finally came to get me at 1 pm. In the intervening hours, I had been trying to convince Rob to sleep (he hadn’t slept much the night before), and reading (pretending to read. Actually read the same sentence over and over again, and it didn’t register. I haven’t touched that book since). When it was time, I walked down to the OR, where I hopped up on the table and they hooked me up with the blood pressure cuff and the heart monitors. The anaesthesiologist and her student came in and started trying to find a spot to put my intravenous drip. Unfortunately, I have terrible veins that hide from the slightest poke. It took the med student four tries, and then the anaesthesiologist took over. It took her two attempts, and instead of in the usual place (back of the hand) it ended up on the inside of my wrist. Very uncomfortable.
Then the surgeon (Dr. F) came in, said hi, told me everything would be fine. He asked the anaesthesiologist if everything was ready. She said “I’ve got the Propofol all set,”. I said “Propofol?” she said “Yeah, you’re getting the star treatment. The same stuff as Michael Jackson used!” The funny thing about being hooked up to a heart monitor is that everyone can hear when your heart speeds up because oh holy lord, they’re using the Death Juice! Dr F chuckled and said “Don’t worry, we know what we’re doing. Can you moonwalk?” I was asked to count down from 10. I got as far as 8 and woke up staring at the overhead lights in the recovery room.
A nurse came over and asked how I was doing. I felt around at my stomach and said “What? No lipo?” and he laughed. He told me that Dr. F would be in to talk to me soon, that he was over talking to Rob right now. I asked him what time it was. “About 3:45,” he answered. “You’ve been in here for about 20 minutes”. That’s when I knew that the surgery had only lasted two hours, and that if they had found something in there, it wasn’t repairable.
A few minutes later Dr F came in, sat down, and asked how I was doing. “I’m okay,” I said. “What’s going on in there?” No more joking. He explained that when they put the camera in through my bellybutton, everything looked normal from the outside (so it’s not unicornuate like they’d thought after my HSG). But when they put the camera inside my uterus, he could only see the left side, and it looked really small (in his words, “A normal uterus is like a balloon… yours was like a tube”), and when they put the dye through, “it didn’t go anywhere” (in a normal situation it would go up through the uterus and Fallopian tubes, and come out through the ends). I was still slightly high from the anaesthesia so I’m pretty sure I uttered something profound like “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeird”. He went on to say that he’d never seen anything like it, but that from what he could tell, the way things were in there, IVF wouldn’t work, and since we’ve been trying for three years to get pregnant and it hasn’t happened yet, it’s 99.99% certain that it wouldn’t happen on its own, either. I shrugged and said “Bummer” (I am very eloquent when under the influence). He told me that he had been in to speak to my husband, and told him the same things he’d told me. He asked if I had a followup appointment with my regular fertility specialist, and I said yes. He said that she might decide that this was the end of the road, or she might send me to Halifax to the other specialists there, who might do the same operation and know better than him what was going on. I said “Thank you.” He got up to leave, came back, sat back down and took my hand, and said “I am so, so very sorry.” I said “It’s okay!”, even though it wasn’t. He left. I closed my eyes and hummed “La Bamba”. Don’t ask.
I guess they got tired of my vocal stylings, because they finally wheeled me back into my little cubbyhole. The first thing I did was reach for Rob’s hand and tell him “I’m sorry, love”. He looked at me and he had tears in his eyes. He slipped my wedding and engagement rings back onto my finger. I of course had to do my Dancing Monkey routine and told him “They found all kinds of GI Joes up in there!” He laughed a little. “Did they find the Millenium Falcon?”
They gave me a pamphlet that told me how to take care of myself after surgery. I can’t jog. FINE BY ME. I said I was thirsty. The nurse gave me some ginger ale. She told me that I should only have tea and toast for the rest of today. I was like “Screw that, I’m starving! Let’s go to A&W!” Rob said “No, just tea and toast!” I nearly murdered him. Luckily I had forewarned him that I get very, very grouchy and very hungry when waking up from any kind of anaesthetic (when I was 13 and had my eardrum replaced, I yelled at the nurses until they a) let me go to the bathroom on the regular toilet instead of trying to go in a bedpan and b) gave me some Kraft Dinner because who wanted to drink an OXO cube in a cup of lukewarm water?) He promised me that when we got home I could have some real food, including the vegetable stew he’d put in the crockpot the night before.
They gave me a prescription for pain meds. The nurses told me to ONLY TAKE ONE! ONLY TAKE ONE, EVERY SIX HOURS! NOT EVERY FIVE AND A HALF HOURS! SIX! SIX HOURS! DID I UNDERSTAND? SIX!
I understood.
We left for home. We did not stop at A&W. We got to my parents’ where we picked up the dogs. I actually made us stay there for awhile because I wanted my mommy. We explained to my mom (and my sister-in-law, since they live in the same building) what had happened. Showed my nephew (who is 5 and wants to be a doctor) the bandage on my belly button. He said “ooooh, ouchy”. He is an excellent diagnostician. My other nephew (4) told me all about how my dogs were at his house and they were just little puppies and he loves them and they didn’t pee in the house, and then Sprocket proceeded to pee in the house. I was in a lot of pain by then so we left. Rob went into the pharmacy to pick up my prescription and I waited in the car. While I was waiting Rob’s mother called. I explained as best I could what was going on. I don’t really remember that conversation. I do remember that there was a squirrel running around the parking lot beside the car.
We got home at 7:30 pm. I was all set up on the sofa. I got the remote control (90000 episodes of Family Ties and Punky Brewster, at my service!) and a glass of lemonade and two puppies to snuggle my feet (they like that) and pretty much fell asleep immediately. I never did get any vegetable stew that day. Foiled again!
I was in a great deal of pain for the next couple of days. Barely able to move. Check my tweets from that time, or even the blog post I wrote, and you’ll see what state I was in. I tried sleeping in our bed on Friday night, which was fine, but then I had to make it downstairs to the bathroom. Stairs were not my friend. I spent the next couple of nights on the sofa.
On Monday I realized I hadn’t pooped since the Thursday before. This was not a good thing. I went and tried, and there it was, but it wasn’t coming out. I will spare you the details of what I attempted next, except that it involved a rubber glove and tears on my part, and my husband on the other side of the bathroom door saying “WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THERE? Why have you been in there so long? Why are you crying? Do you need me to help you?” “NO GO AWAY NOW”. And it didn’t really work. Sorry, overshare. The dilemma was solved with an overdose of psyllium fibre capsules and about 2L of water. I got what I thought was my period on Sunday, but it only really lasted a day, so I don’t know. There had been bleeding (and blue dye) on Friday, but it had all ended within an hour. I *should have* gotten my period sometime this week, though, and it hasn’t come, so who knows what’s going on in there. I know I sure as f don’t.
I’m still in some pain, especially when I move, or jostle my belly. It’s been a week and I’m resuming normal activities including putting the dogs out and bringing them in (which involves bending down to pick them up, since Doozer is still very upset with the steps and will sit and bark at them all day, but won’t attempt to actually walk down them), and loading the dishwasher (boooo). I’m surprised that such a relatively small operation (2 incisions, not 4 – have I mentioned that I’m not right in the head? I put pictures up on Flickr) has had such a physical effect on me. I have stopped the pain pills because although they made me sleepy and robbed me of all motor control, they didn’t actually take away any pain. I’m fine when I’m still, but if I move, oh boy.
Mentally, well, I’ve been trying to ignore it. If I ignore it, it’s not true. If I ignore it, I won’t have to admit that I’m devastated. I’ve been reading infertility blogs for years and years, since before I started blogging 6 years ago. I thought that I’d be prepared for anything that happened. I thought “Well, these women have been going through it and they’re so strong – I shouldn’t be a crybaby about it”. And I feel like I shouldn’t complain or talk about it, because it makes other people uncomfortable and they don’t know what to say.
That right there is tricky.
People have asked me how the surgery went. I’m not sure what to say when they ask. Do I tell them the truth? Usually when I do they either a) just don’t say anything or b) change the subject as quickly as they can. Sometimes they say other, well-meaning things. “Well, you can have one of my kids. Just pick one! They’re getting on my nerves today!” “Don’t be sad, if you’re sad it will make me sad!” “I would totally be your surrogate mother and donate my eggs to you, if it wasn’t so expensive”. “My cousin and her husband tried for years to get pregnant, and they had finally given up and started adoption proceedings when they found out they were having twins!” “Oh, you must hate me, because I have babies” “Now I feel badly because I’m pregnant”. “Well, you have a doctor’s appointment at the end of the month… she will probably figure out how to fix everything”. “I go to Church every Sunday! I’ll pray that you get pregnant soon!” “Well, you’ve got two dogs! They can be your babies!”
I’m not going up to random strangers on the street and telling them the news. Strangers aren’t saying these things to me. It’s family members. Close friends.
And I don’t know what to say, how to respond to remarks like that. Really, at this point, I don’t want people trying to help me by suggesting possible solutions, unless they are qualified physicians. I understand that they mean well. They’re not saying these things out of malice. But you know what? I don’t want to hear stories about miraculous pregnancies. Surrogacy and adoption are not in the cards for us right now (or probably ever), because hi, very expensive, so mentioning them doesn’t really help. Yes I realize that 40 years ago when you adopted, it was free, but it’s not like that anymore. Telling me not to be sad isn’t something that you can do – of course I’m sad, and I think I have a right to be, don’t I? Not only do I have a condition that keeps me from ovulating and makes me fat (okay, the chimichangas might also be making me fat), but even though we’ve figured out a way around that, now it turns out that my uterus is so messed up that even if something could get fertilized in there, it couldn’t ever live, even if you prayed over it every hour of every day. Yes, I have a doctor’s appointment. I’m enough of a realist to understand that when you’re told that it’s something they haven’t seen before, and that it’s messed up, well, it’s messed up. No, I don’t hate you because you have kids. I don’t hate you because you’re pregnant. I am very happy for you that you can, and do, have children. I’m just sad for me that I don’t. There’s a difference. At this point? I just really want sympathy. Someone to say “I’m sorry,” or “That really sucks.” or “This must be really hard for you”, and actually listen when I want to talk about it, instead of not responding at all or saying “Oh well! Hey look, a bird!”. And in real life, only my husband has said any of the things I’ve wanted to hear, and only my husband has listened when I’ve needed to talk.
I understand that hearing this kind of news from someone can be really uncomfortable, and I hate making people uncomfortable. Which is why I feel like I should just keep it to myself… but then we’re faced with well-intentioned relatives and friends asking us when we’re going to start our family. I’m not going to go around wearing a giant dayglo orange “ASK ME ABOUT MY INFERTILITY” t-shirt, but when people ask, shouldn’t I be able to tell them? I don’t know. And I feel really really badly because my jacked up ute and the rage/pain/sadness it has caused are probably going to feature on this blog fairly often for awhile, which is probably boring.
Okay. So now I’m just rambling. Sorry this is so long. Rob and I are both devastated. And hurt. And sad. But we will be okay. He is lovely. Hey, we have two dogs who can be our babies! Wheeeeeee! /sarcasm
Kind comments would be greatly appreciated (you don’t even know how appreciated they would be), if anyone actually still reads this, but please don’t feel obligated.
EDITED TO ADD: Hi – if you’re here from the Twitter (where Y was kind enough to link to this post, because she’s a wonderful lady), I just wanted you to know that I’m not always like this. I’ve been blogging for six (seven?) years, and am usually kind of funny and nice. Sometimes I’m actually a good writer, and am generally not a giant sissypants crymonkey.
