Archive for November, 2006

At Least I’m in a Lot of Pain

by athena714 Saturday, 4 November, 2006

Ow. Crampy.

I took the medication yesterday afternoon at about 3:30, and by about 7pm I was cramping pretty bad. I was kind of concerned that I didn’t start bleeding before I went to bed, but I figured maybe it just took a while to start working.

I shouldn’t have worried about it. I started spotting this morning around 6:30, and by the time I got up at 8, I was full on bleeding.

Mainly what I’m feeling is relief. I’m glad this seems to be working. I hope it finishes the job.

Yesterday when I took the medication I was feeling differently. For the past couple weeks all I’ve wanted was for this to be over. But actually faced with the physical reality of miscarrying, it was devastating. My baby really is gone, there is no more hope this time.

And now we have to start over completely.

Excuse me while I go curl up in a ball and moan.

in Loss.  Comment?

The Beginning of the End

by athena714 Friday, 3 November, 2006

Hawk and I went this morning (at 6:30 am - how sick is that?) to see the fertility specialist my OB-GYN had referred us to. I have been in contact with him over the past couple weeks while I waited to miscarry, because once this is all over with, he’s the one we’re going to work with to try again. His office is about five minutes away from our house, which is awesome.

He did an ultrasound to confirm that the pregnancy was, in fact, not viable. It showed that the gestational sac was still only about a centimeter, when, at almost nine weeks, it should be closer to three centimeters. The yolk sac was still there, but what killed me was what he called “the suggestion of a fetal pole”. A fetal pole is the first hint of fetal development. Meaning that I didn’t have a blighted ovum, where the embryo never develops at all. My baby actually did start to grow and then, for some reason, it stopped.

We don’t know why it stopped growing. There could have been something chromosomally wrong, just a group of cells that went awry. But it also could have been a hormonal problem. It’s possible that my stupid ovaries just didn’t produce enough progesterone to let the baby grow. And I can’t get it out of my head that this means that it was somehow my fault. It was my dumb body that screwed things up and my baby couldn’t grow. I know that’s stupid, but I can’t stop thinking it.

Anyway, the doctor gave me a prescription for a medication, misoprostol, that will cause me to miscarry this weekend. I take it tonight and within about 8 hours it should start. If it doesn’t do the job completely, I’ll still have to have a D&C, but I’m willing to take the chance.

I just want this to be over with.

in Loss.  Comment?

What A Fucking Day

by athena714 Thursday, 2 November, 2006

Today I:

- Helped convict a man of first degree murder and burglary and after the verdict was read, watched the mother of his victim weep uncontrollably for her lost son.
- Saw, on my way to lunch, the sheet-covered dead body of a woman who had, moments before, jumped to her death from the roof of the courthouse I was just in.

Needless to say, not a great day.

in Day to Day.  Comment?

Day One and This Already Sucks

by athena714 Wednesday, 1 November, 2006

I just remembered that I signed up for NaBloPoMo, thus pledging to post everyday for a month. Drat.

I don’t WANNA post. I’m tiiiiiiiiired (imagine that in the whiny voice of a petulant five year old and you’ll get my mood). *Pout*

So anyway I’ve spent the last week in downtown Los Angeles serving on a jury. I can talk more about it after tomorrow (hopefully) as we started deliberating this afternoon and will (hopefully) wrap this up quickly.

While I can’t talk about the case, I can talk about how much it sucks to actually be on a jury. You are at the mercy of so many people - the judge, the lawyers, the witnesses. No one ever told me that serving jury duty meant so much sitting around and waiting. Waiting for the courtroom to open up, waiting for the judge to be ready, waiting for the lawyers to be ready, getting kicked out of the courtroom and into the jury room while the judge yells at the lawyers. And until you actually start deliberating, you can’t talk to the other people on the jury about the case, so you have to make hours of mundane small talk as you sit, trapped, in the tiny, flourescent-lit jury room. This was supposed to be a 4-5 day case from beginning to end, meaning we were supposed to wrap up on Monday or Tuesday. I haven’t been able to go to work since last Monday. We get paid a measly $15 a day for our troubles. Ah, civil service.

And let me tell you, real life court is nothing like Law & Order. On TV, lawyers are concise, direct, to the point. Yeah, they’re not really like that. Hawk told me that it’s as if they’re trying to make their case clear to a retarded ten year old, so they have to - painstakingly - lay everything out step by step. I admit I am not a particularly patient woman, so this sort of legal cartography does not go over well with me. I end up wanting to stand up and scream “GET TO THE FUCKING POINT, COUNSELOR!” You think the judge would, like, kick me out for that? I think there’s a part of him that would silently applaud me, but, you know, he’s got to keep up appearances.

On the other hand, another tactic is when think they’re being clever and dance around the point they are trying to make, so much so that they DON’T END UP MAKING A POINT AT ALL. That’s fun, I tell ya.

Oh well, hopefully we will wrap things up tomorrow, then I can regale you all with tales of the trial, and of deliberations, which, I can already see from the 45 minutes we had today, will be a laugh riot.

Help me.

in Day to Day. 1 Comment