Bissell visited yesterday to read my review, but they didn’t reply via e-mail. I’m sure those Big Dogs have bigger fish to fry than worrying about Lil’ Ol’ Stepherz. Poor, poor Stepherz…

Why is it that customer service isn’t important anymore? Where I come from, you want your customers to be happy so that they return, so that word-of-mouth is positive, and so that they are wowed by your attentiveness. Companies just got too big to care, didn’t they? Such a shame…

I can’t really tell you how chaotic this house is at times, and give it any justice. CHAOS. I only have 3 children, but too often they are yelling (Bella), biting, pinching (Noah), and being a smart ass (Austin). Don’t get me wrong, I adore them and they are FANTASTIC kids. But… Well, here’s a little example of the craziness:

In the first hour of being awake, I dealt with 11 temper tantrums, one serious bite, and a few bruises from a pinching Nooskers. All I wanted was a cup of coffee. After 1.5 hours, I finally had a quiet moment. I was making a cup of coffee and the kids were quietly watching television (shahhh, right). I finished making the perfect cup (which is a small art form) and then started walking to the living room. As soon as I reached it… “AHHHH! NOOOOO! WHAT? IS? THIS?” Noah had grabbed the giant bottle of blue acrylic paint off of the kitchen table (I know, I know) and squirted it all. over. my. area. rug! I panicked and started wiping it. Wiping it spread it. Panic. Gray hairs simultanuously popping out of my scalp.

But then I had a fruition. I own a Bissell Spot Bot. I yanked that bad boy out of my closet and it cleaned it up like a champ. Shew.

Now some history…

I started noticing these weird burn marks in my bedroom rug. No one smokes in our house, and yet it didn’t look anything like a ciggy burn anyways. There weren’t burns on any of my other rugs, and the other rugs are wool. The one in my bedroom is a weird cheap synthetic fiber.

Back to the story…

So a couple of months ago I bought a Bissell PowerVac for $45. I have light vacuuming (mostly pergo flooring), so I couldn’t justify spending very much for it. I didn’t love the machine, it quit having good suction, and I finally relaized that it was the vacuum putting the weird burns in my rug. It only does that when it’s sitting upright and I’m using the hose to vacuum under the bed or in corners. I figured it was because the brush keeps turning and causing friction while the vacuum sits in one place— thus the burns. So, I took it back to Wal Mart. They wouldn’t allow me to exchange it for another machine and made me get the same peice of crap vacuum. SAVE YOUR RECEIPTS, Y’ALL!

Today, I vacuumed under my loveseat with the vacuum’s rediculously short hose. The vacuum always tips because the hose is so short. Today it tipped and then laid against the couch while I wasn’t paying attention… THIS is what happened. And this is only ONE of the burn marks it made as I busily vacuumed. Stupid me. Stupid worthless fire hazzard peice of crap Bissell! Seriously, shouldn’t it be recalled if it’s burning holes in whatever fiber it sits on for longer than a moment? Isn’t that some kind of fire hazzard or something?

So I called Bissell. The Rep was extremely condescending and rude. She insinuated that I was lying and changing my story, saying “I have this conversation recorded and I can replay what you said earlier in our conversation”. I told her, “No, I’m not changing my story. You just aren’t listening to me through all of your blabbering about why this is my fault. PLEASE rewind and play it back. PLEASE!?” She said that Bissell wasn’t going to have any responsibility in it because I wasn’t using the product as the manufacturer recommends. She continued to talk down to me and tell me that I purposely ruined my own furniture so that I could get new ones. I explained that the couch burns might have been a weird situation because it tipped and then landed on the bottom front of the couch, I didn’t mean for it to be used that way. But the rug burns, happened when the vacuum “…was very fucking much being used as recommended, you condescending jerk!”

She said, “Stephanie, if you speak to me that way again I will disconnect this call.”

Bitch. Disconnect the call, you aren’t helping me anyways!

But seriously, how can you be calm and pleasant with someone that accuses you and talks down to you? You kind of rise a person’s defenses when you accuse them of lying about burns on a $200 rug and a $1000 couch. Nevermind that my $200 rug and my $1000 couch are fug fug fug now! She could have at least apologized or offered to replace the stupid machine with one that won’t burn my house down!

So, long story short… Don’t buy the Bissell Vacuums. I love my Spot Bot but will never buy another Bissell Vacuum again. Now I have to check my homeowner’s insurance policy to make sure that it will cover my house burning down from a peice of crap vacuum? Or, maybe I’ll just stick to a Dyson or Dirt Devil next time…

~~~~ 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.