~~~~ Don’t read this if you don’t care for a little gore~~~~

I can’t even begin to explain just how humbling yesterday was. I realize more now than ever that women are, by far, the toughest and strongest critters God so thoughtfully put on this Earth. And any man who doubts that can kiss my grits.

I wanted the d&c last week, and now I know why. If you ever have to have the opportunity to experience a miscarriage after 8 or 9 weeks, don’t. Opt out. Opt for surgery. I couldn’t have the d&c last week, despite that we knew last week that there was no heartbeat, because the doctor was busy until this Tuesday. He gave me some stupid doctor babble (I guess he thinks I’m stupid, and why wouldn’t he? I’ve been pregnant 3 times in 7 months and lost all three. What kind of gluttonous dumb ass does that to themselves?) about the cervix needing to soften a bit before surgery. Blah, blah, blah. But I knew I would start miscarrying before then (like this weekend). And I knew what a late first trimester miscarriage was like. And BTW, have you ever tried to get health care on the weekends?

Saturday night I started spotting more heavily. I tried calling my doctor, since he told me to if I started bleeding. I couldn’t even get through the answering service. The operator insisted that I was fine to miscarry at home. Uh-huh. Bitch. How about I punch you in the nose and you can bleed profusely at home, Operator?

I woke Sunday morning with pretty good cramping but not any heavier bleeding. I thought, “Ok, maybe this one won’t be so bad.” I popped a Lortab leftover from the last d&c. We loaded the kids up to go to Wal Mart as the cabinets were nearly bare…

I found myself in a bit more pain while shopping. I figured the walking around was just getting the cramps going. I asked Jeremy to go ahead and get the groceries while I went and picked out some pads and shampoo. On my way back to where Jeremy was with the kids, I felt weird suddenly. I decided to make a pit stop to the bathroom. I used the family bathroom instead of the public bathroom– I hate those nasty cramped stalls. As soon as I locked the door behind me, the flood gates opened. There was suddenly so much blood everywhere– it looked like a murder scene. I panicked. Not worried at all about what was happening to my body, I got on my knees and began trying to clean up this mess I had made everywhere. I grabbed the bag out of the trash and paper towels… I wiped walls. I wiped floors. And as I wiped, I bled more. It began getting to me, I don’t deal with blood well and this was well beyond my threshold. Not to mention I just bled more as I cleaned. I realized I couldn’t get it all cleaned up without a mop and cleaning solutions. And I couldn’t LEAVE it there! Someone would call the police! So I cleaned myself up as well as I could and, with tears and stress dripping off my face, I opened the door to the store.

Someone was looking out for me! God actually put my 2 favorite (or the only two I’ve ever talked to) WalMart employees RIGHT by the door! They were unloading some boxes for the craft department (and you can imagine how much time I spend in the craft department). I walked up to them, keeping one eye on the bathroom to make sure no mothers with CHILDREN tried to enter the murder scene bathroom! I told them what happened, that i miscarried all over the bathroom, and that I was so sorry for the mess but that I would clean it up if they would let me borrow their mop. Before I knew it there was an Army of women grabbing wheelchairs and pads and towels for me to wrap in (yes, my clothes were soiled too!) and juice for me to sip on. They paged Jeremy over the loudspeaker, discreetly checked us out at the closest checkout and helped wheel us all out to the car. When we got to the truck, I was scared to stand up. For good reason too. Gravity. I stood up and the gates opened again. Unbelievable!

We went straight to the Emergency Room, because surely I deserved getting some attention from a doctor at this point. Surely my cervix was soft now! By the time I got to the emergency room bed, I had lost a total of four to five great (and I do mean GREAT) gooshes. I wasn’t feeling so hot by now. I was pale, weak, and shaking uncontrollably. I kept seeing stars. I wasn’t quite coherent.

Before I knew it my family was rushed out, there were doctors and nurses running around my room, staring at my private regions, sticking catheters in places no one should be allowed to put things, and I had one IV in each arm. One pumping fluids in. One pumping blood in. How completely humbling!

I was rushed to the operating room because they couldn’t stop the bleeding. I was so drugged up from pain meds and loopy from the blood loss that I don’t recollect very much other than shaking uncontrollably and telling the nurses and doctors to tell my family how much I love them. I thought I might not make it.

But here I am! I’m home today, feeling really, REALLY crappy, and enjoying being waited on hand and foot by my sweet husband. The worst pain I’m feeling is from the shaking– not from surgery or catheters or needles– I feel like I competed in the Iron Man Contest or something. There is not one single muscle that isn’t in DIRE pain today. Even my shins hurt! My jaws hurt! Hell, the muscles in the front of my neck hurt!

But I’m here to tell you all about the most humbling day of my life, so far. And it’s over now. I’ve cried– most of last week was about mourning my little babe. This week I can work on healing my body a bit. I have 20 days until my next, and hopefully last, female surgery. My tubal. And I finally have peace with that, the permanency of that. It used to scare me. But not so much now. The thought of having another pregnancy terrifies me, and the knowing that our family is PERFECT just how it is comforting. And I know that means we’re done.

Thanks for all of your sweet, thoughtful, and kind comments and prayers. YOU are why I’ll always be a blogger!

I went to see the doctor early, today rather than Friday, because of the very slight spotting. The spotting has ceased, but I was still worried. They did an exam and the cervix looked pregnant and my uterus measured 10/11 weeks, just as it should. We listened for a heartbeat and couldn’t hear anything on the doppler. So I drank 50 cups of water and waited for the ultrasound tech to consider my bladder full enough to get a good read on the US machine.

Sweet Lil’ Sticker was stickin’, but his little heart wasn’t tickin’. My little bubs measured 9 weeks and 5 days, I am 10 weeks and 2 days.

I’m feeling really blue about it. I guess I had sort of tried to make myself numb to feeling any emotion, and I thought I would be “prepared” either way. But I’m really bummed. I imagined him/her. I named him/ her. Sophia if she was a girl, Elijah if it were a boy. And it’s taken 5+ weeks to get me excited about him/her, so it’s going to take some time to readjust to the idea of not expecting.

I signed the consent forms for my tubal ligation. I have 30 days to change my mind, but I’m sure I won’t. I’ll have a d&c next week, after my cervix has some time to soften unless I start bleeding before then, and then I’ll have surgery sooner.

I heard the words “fetal demise” a million times today– nurses, docs, lab techs, ultrasound techs. What a hard thing to hear. Those words are so hard to wrap around my brain right now. It’s just so hard to explain. I have so much to be grateful for. But, this is a weird, selfish kind of hurt that I’m feeling. This morning I was excited and shopped on eBay for fetal dopplers. I wore maternity clothes to my doctor’s appointment. Tonight I’m writing this to you. How many emotions can a person feel in one day?

Thank you for your well wishing and support, y’all. I’m going to be just fine, especially since I have this amazing family who are all working together to treat me so sweetly tonight. Drop a little prayer for us, for healing. And for all the other mommas out there feeling my same sadness tonight.

I’ve been in this bloggy slump for a few months, and I’ve not been a very good blog friend to many of you. Remember when I read your blogs every day? I bet you do, and I miss having more time to keep up with you.

But I’ve realized over the last few months that I have a tendency to use my computer too much. For instance, I wake in the morning and can immediately think of a reason to check the news, the weather, causes for leg twitches, how tall Tom Cruise is, etc, etc. etc. Some doctors would call me an addict. I seriously cannot go an entire day without checking my email or blog. And maybe that’s not a bad thing, but I haven’t always been that way. And I never realized it but perhaps I let it distract me too much.  I rely on it a little too much.

Jeremy said something to me the other day that got me feeling kind of bad. He’s said it before now, but the way he said it this time kind of made me mooshy…

“Maybe if I painted a keyboard on my chest, I could get as much attention from you as that laptop…”

Ugh. Oh. My heart! I’d NEVER want anyone to feel neglected in my family! And as many times a I’ve tried to use the computer “in moderation”, I somehow tend to use it excessively even when I don’t think I am. And that would probably be alright if Jeremy liked computers or games or television more than he does. But he likes me more. And that’s something special.

The other night Jeremy bet me that Tom Cruise is taller than 5′9 and I insisted he was a bit shorter because I had read it somewhere on the internet somewhere. So, I looked it up on the internet to prove him wrong. And sure enough, he’s like 5′7 or something. After I laughed at Jeremy and flexed my muscles for being right (I usually am), I closed the top of my laptop. I then decided I wanted to open it back up and check to see if a payment went through in my bank account. I opened the lid… Nothing. No lights, no sounds, nothing. It was DEAD!

My computer died again! And I’m sort of happy about it because maybe I can recondition myself to need it less if I just don’t fix it for awhile. Or maybe it’s D-E-A-D and that means I’ll need a new computer. And I’m not going to buy a new computer! No. And would that be all that awful?

So, I don’t want to be hasty and say that I’m done with this blog. But I might be. And I don’t want to be done with y’all because I loves ya! So, I just wanted to let you know what’s going on, why I’ll be visiting less & writing less & such for awhile. I’ll miss you, your loyalty, your friendship. And that’s why I can’t commit to never being on the computer again, just less of a junkie about it. I LOVE my blog. So, if you can stand it, I just need a bit more time to figure out what’s going to happen.

Mainly I have a vacation coming up and a few other terrible expenses looming over me, so the cost of a new computer is just not a priority.

I’ll post again to let you know what happened in the ultrasound on the 1st. Until then, hugs & wish me an easy trip through internet rehab and recovery! I’ve got the shakes and twitches already.

First of all, thank you for your prayers for Penny! Guess what!? She woke up the next morning right as rain! I have no idea what it was all about but she is 100%, so I’m not going to argue with that! See!? Good thoughts & prayers work, y’all!

And now… A day in pictures…

So I had my OB appointment yesterday. I told the doctor that I have no preggy symptoms, that they diminished completely after I came down with a really nasty cold last week. He said, “Well, Stephanie, virus’ are bad news in the beginning of a pregnancy. We see a lot of losses in March because of the flu. Cold virus’ have the same bad reputation.” Well, helllloooo! I’ve had 7 miscarriages, were they ALL caused by a cold!? Anyways, I have to wait until Tuesday to see what my counts are doing. So, I guess I’ll know more mid next week… Until then– Internet Friends, meet the Sticky Pills. Sticky Pills, meet my Internet Friends. At least they are pink. Pink’s my favorite color.

And with the introduction of Sticky Pills, I’m going through the withdrawls of Zoloft, my blue pills. Which, I might add, is INSANITY! I’m the biggest grump this side of the Mississippi.

But there’s truly nothing more grump inducing than dropping your camera on the ground 2 minutes and $140 after you got it out of the shop for dropping it a few weeks ago! AHHH! Everything was ok. I immediately took a picture of the pavement that it crashed on just to make sure. Shew.

Speaking of grumpy, I’m so grumpy that my road rage is back in full force too. The distance between my little town and a bigger little town next to us, where I do my grocery shopping, is 25 miles. It costs $25 to drive this 25 miles. So, it makes sense that I should at least be able to drive the speed limit on that 25 miles. That’s a fair request, right? These Colorado drivers go 10 miles (at least) UNDER the speed limit UNLESS there is 5 feet of snow on the road. Then they drive 10 miles OVER the speed limit. Well today? These doo-doo heads drove 20 miles under the speedlimit! GGGRrrr!

Try to see through the cracked windshield and to that speed limit sign. Is it just me or does the fargin’ sign say 65?

Wanna see my speedometer? Ok. Here you go. Just try to ignore the “door ajar” indicator light. That was just Nooskers trying to open the door while I’m driving. I’m totally kidding. The light always says a door is open.

Twenty miles UNDER the speedlimit? Why don’t these dorks save the planet and get out and walk!? I could do the macarena the whole 25 miles and still get there before these dorks!

And just so you know, I don’t normally take pictures while driving on the highway. That would be crazy.  Zoloft or no Zoloft.

But, Zoloft can’t give me the kind of contentedness and happiness that these kids give me. So, here’s a few pics of the faces that light my life. I would have included a picture of my beautiful Austin but he slept until 1pm, so he wasn’t awake for pictures…

For lunch, we stopped for some sloppy hot dogs. You know, when you’re grumpy, there’s nothing like a hotdog with radioactive flourescent green relish to melt the blues (and give you a bit of indigestion). And I’d show you a picture of the deliciousness, but I ate it whole. So here are the scrumptious greasy fries I had with it… Don’t be jealous.

Tomorrow is the 4th of July, right? Well there’s a little Farmer’s saying about the growth of your corn crop, “knee high by the 4th of July.” Who would have guessed this beautiful garden belongs to a beginner!? Guess whose corn is knee high, y’all!?

I reckon this here thumb of mine is green after all! Too bad I can’t figure out how to grow some of that radioactive flourescent relish to go on my hotdogs.