Posted 7/30/2009 7:59 PM (GMT 0)
I have missed you guys! For such a long time life got so busy, and things were so stressed that I just didn't find time. Then when I did have the time I just wasn't emotionally able to handle talking to people. To put it mildly 2009 has been the worst year of my entire life. I'm hoping to be able to get back into things, and keep up here again.
As a short recap of my year:
-January 15th my Papa (grandpa) passed away
-March 6th we found out that after 8 years of trying hubby and I had been blessed with a pregnancy. I was sent to a high risk OB, and my regular OB, regular doctor, and pain doctor all were happy for us, and everyone was working with us to keep this baby healthy... my pain doctor was awesome and we found out that there was no reason for me to stop any of my medications. The baby was conceived based on the doctors dates on Valentines day, my Papa's birthday and due on my late Grandma's birthday.
-Late March to Early April I was on a trip to Virginia visiting my family like I do every year
-May 26th I ended up hospitalized due to serious stomach pain. (You chronic pain people will get this, none CPer's just dont) when you have a new pain that is worse than your "regular pain" you know it's serious. Due to my being pregnant they couldn't do the MRI they wanted, and didn't want to put me under for anything. They did two ultrasounds that came back fine so the general surgeon, my ob and I decided to give it time. They were hoping that it was just something being stuck (I've had gastric bypass surgery and having something get stuck is not all that uncommon) - after three days they did a CT of my gallbladder that was fine, and then did the thing where they stick the tube down your throat into your stomach, that showed things being fine. (They didn't put me under at all for this and it was horrible!) The doctors decided it would be more dangerous to continue to play the wait and see game than to put me under and go in to look around. When I woke up I was told that parts of my bowel had gotten stuck in an opening left by my gastric bypass surgery, they had gotten kinked, wound up, and such. The surgeon had to take them out, set them straight, repair a few parts that were damaged, put them back where they should have been, and then sew up where they had gotten stuck. The baby made it through all this just fine.
-May 31st I went home from the hospital
-June 26th we found out we were having a boy and had already picked out the name "Christopher Allen" for him
-June 30th we had a serious fire on our patio due to a smoker (used to smoke meats not a guy with a cigarette) malfunction. Luckily I was home and got myself and the animals out fine. Our patio was pretty much destroyed and the smoke got into the house which led to a lot of cleaners coming in. We were very blessed in this case as there were so many things that could have been worse that weren't.
-July 3rd I ended up back in the ER, then the OB ward after I started having some blood. Turns out that I have an incompetent cervix and part of the water sac the baby sits in had come through my cervix, and my cervix had dialated. When the ultrasound tech was doing the ultrasound Chris actually kicked his foot out of my cervix. The baby appeared fine, his heart was beating great, but we were told we probably wouldn't be able to keep him. After doing everything they could to get more fluid in the water sac (on a scale of 6-25 my water level was a 7), and everything they could to get the sac back where it should be, the water level went down and the sac came out more.
-July 4th my temperature started going up, and my blood started showing infection and we were told that we had to induce labor for me, and deliver the baby. It wasn't a choice between me making it, or the baby making it, if we didn't deliver Christopher (he was just over 1/2 way through the pregnancy, 22 weeks old out of a normal 40 week pregnancy) the infection would spread I would probably not be able to have children in the future and there was good chance I wouldn't live either. So at 12:51AM my son Christopher Allen was born into and taken from this world. I can honestly say that telling the doctors they could start inducing me knowing there was no chance he could make it was the hardest thing I have ever done and I hope to ever deal with.
-July 4th also - just as the contraction got bad the police called my husband down to the ER, someone had broken into his car in the parking lot.
-As of today we still don't have all our clothes and linens back from the restoration people, the house is cleaned of all the smoke, and my patio is still not fixed. They demo'd the walls and cleared away the trash but haven't given us a patio door that works yet (it's stuck closed from melting).
So that is how 2009 has treated me so far. I've had the happiest and saddest moments in my life in the same 6 month period. I'm still "handling" things as best as I can. I am trying hard now though, to reach back out to the people I'd sort of shut myself off from. At one point I was too busy to keep up, and then it was recovering from surgery, and after that from the hardest loss I've ever felt.
There are actually days when I wish my back hurt worse because maybe then that pain would over shadow the emotional pain I've been feeling.
I really have missed you guys, and I hope to again become an "active" member.
I'm not sure, but don't think, it's against the rules, I just did a quick look, but could have missed it. If so I figure one of the moderators will let me know and I can remove it, but if anyone is interested I have a blog at "www.doernbaby.blogspot.com". There are some pictures there, if anyone is interested, of our son. He's not scary or anything to look at, just tiny. It's also a blog with more info on what's been going on.
*hugs* to all of you
I have missed you so much.