the lottery of life

as i said in my post about last friday i had a few personal reasons for not mentioning this new pregnancy yet. here's the story of one of those reasons, as i wrote it down at the time:

"Wed 19th June 2006
hmmmm... reason for the gap? my last pregnancy ended in miscarriage 8 weeks in. i'm now 6 weeks along again. i can't get excited. i know what the stats are and i know the likelihood of another miscarriage is really low.
but there it is.
let me finish the last story properly.

everything seemed to be going fine. i was peeing all the time, hungry and tired.
we also couldn't help telling people. our parents, karl and sindy, emma and david and on a saturday nite at a party at their home in lilyfield; robyn and phillip.
we'd driven the jeep to rob and phils and when it was time to leave paul was too pissed to drive and i never drove the jeep so we caught a taxi home.
sunday morning we rode the bikes back to rob and phil's, me with the bike rack strapped to the pannier rack. as we rode along i felt a gathering 'moisture', like maybe 5mls of blood, in my knicks. rob and phil weren't home so we loaded up the bikes and went home. my feeling of moisture may have just been sweat as there was nothing there when i showered and changed.
we went to watch a movie in the afternoon. i don't remember which one. part way thru i developed a headache which was pounding by the time we left. i am prone to bad headaches and migraines however i know the usual triggers and i thought this was brought on by not hydrating enough in the morning during the bike ride. even tho it was a short ride and i went thru 2 bottles of water, and more at home.
i insisted we go straight home where i fell asleep on the lounge. i woke about 5:30pm and was bleeding moderatly. what now? is this normal? technically my period was due, if i hadn't had a baby growing inside me.
we rang dr beale's after hours number which just refers to opening hours and the hospital number. so we rang royal prince alfred hospital up the road in newtown/camperdown. i was put thru to maternity. a sympathetic lady spoke with me and after explaining what was happening to me she said it sounded very much like i was having a miscarriage. i then spoke to a doctor who repeated the same assessment. the doctor explained i could attend accident and emergency that evening or come in the morning to EPAS; early pregnancy assessment service. given the likely wait at A&E we opted for EPAS, i was also not in any particular pain. but what else do we do? i don't recall feeling that sad that evening. was the pregnancy real to begin with? wasn't a miscarraige something that happened to other people? what does this mean for our future chances?
god, do we have to tell everyone and what do we do with their reactions?
i slept surprisingly well that sunday nite. monday morning we were up and at EPAS on the dot of 8:30am as we'd been told this was when it opened. maybe this is when the doctors start! over three visits i learnt 7:30am is opening time.
we registered and waited 2 hours. paul called our works during this time to advise we weren't coming in.
i had both an external and vaginal ultrasound. the vaginal was not even uncomfortable, let alone painful as i have since heard it can be. we were advised that given the size of the fetus it had probably died around six weeks.
i am six weeks again right now.
i'm content just to wait. i'm not doing anything different and certainly nothing bad. are you still alive little baby? how can i know? what could i do anyways? i just want the time to pass....

we waited again after the ultrasounds. i was uncomfortable more because there were no pads at home and i had spent the last 20 or so hours with wads of toilet paper in my underpants. great.
finally a doctor spoke with us. he confirmed again that i was experiencing a miscarriage. we were given two options for what to do immediately. a dilation and curette under general anaesthetic or leave my body to expel all the material naturally. as i'm pretty healthy and my body seemed to be doing the job on its own i chose this option.
we left the hospital around 2:30/3pm. we did some shopping- ostensibly for what? easy guess.
paul returned to work and i returned to the lounge.

i bled out on tuesday. i filled 14 maxi pads. it was depressing and distressing. was this a normal amount? i had asked the doctoer yesterday what i could expect. "the usual amount" was the response. obviously he'd never had a miscarraige. what fucking answer is that?! normal! normal? yeah, i do this all the time. i know what normal is.
well, i didn't die, i didn't even faint or suffer much pain. my lower abdomen felt tight and uncomfortable but okay.
i stayed home on wednesday with a medium amount of bleeding. i returned to work on thursday with lighter bleeding but unfortunately painful cramps - maybe it was in the increase in moving and walking.
friday was a painful crampy day. saturday was amanda's birthday. i tried to go but ended up crying on the steps at redfern train station. i think i was hormonal and because the trains weren't running i was swamped and gave up.
2nd ultrasound on 7th march. arrived at 7:30am and got thru quicker. still not complete. maybe the ultrasound loosened things up. wednesday at work i passed some large clots and lots of blood. a bit alarming. i would have preferred to be at home. on friday i had drinks with the girls at the opera bar and on sunday was david and leannes wedding. finally by tues 14th march i stopped bleeding.
at the 3rd ultrasound on fri 17th the doctor pronounced the miscarriage complete.
the end.

except for the legacy."


that's what i wrote three years ago. i've had moments when i missed that little life. in this lottery we're doing ok.