#7

Well, it's the big night. 10:12 pm. I'm having my D&C in the morning. I have to be at the hospital at 5:30, so 7 hours from now. Shoot-- I forgot I still have to take a shower.

I have no idea what's in store. Well, I know what a D&C is, and I also know the doctor is going to do laparoscopic surgery on my left tube. We had some debate about whether to do both procedures at once: the fertility specialist counseled us to do them at different times, because the pregnant uterus is highly vascular and I guess that means there is more potential for heavy bleeding. (He also told us when we had our initial consultation with him that he didn't ever advise laparoscopic surgery, because it's so invasive.) But my feeling is, if you're telling me this blocked tube is contributing to our difficulty conceiving, then I want the thing fixed. In the end, we've decided to go ahead and do both procedures at once. My doc who will actually be performing the procedure tomorrow says I'll be fine if I do it both at once, and honestly, I just want everything fixed as soon as possible. Plus, conflating the procedures into one surgery means I will consolidate the days I have to take off work.


I'm scared, I won't lie. I'm scared of dying, for one. I asked my doc if there's any chance at hemorrhaging to death and dying, and he went bug-eyed and vehemently countered the idea. But I'm going under tomorrow morning and, truly, I don't know if I'll come out. I thought about going to confession this past Saturday, but I had just gone 2 weeks before (back when I was still bargaining with God to let me keep the child), and I haven't done anything that terrible since 2 Saturdays ago.

I'm also scared of the recovery. I'm a big baby when it comes to physical pain. I don't mind monthly cramps or anything like that, but any time I have the flu or a slight injury, I obsess over my symptoms. Like right now. My back was hurting a lot in week 5 of my pregnancy. When I began to spot, I went in and the doc prescribed me progesterone suppositories. He said they would also make my back stop hurting, which they did. I continued to take them even after he diagnosed me with the blighted ovum last week because I didn't want my back pain to return. Now, upon his orders, I have stopped taking the progesterone. (He says that is what has been keeping me from bleeding so far.) And sure enough, my back has started to hurt. But is it because of discontinuing the progesterone, or is it because I've been sitting up straight at my computer for 4 hours now planning sub lessons for school and I just need to stretch? And is the back pain really as severe as I'm making it out to be in my mind, or am I seizing on this and exaggerating it because I'm a baby when it comes to pain?

And I'm scared of losing my tube. I know that's the entire raison d'être of doing the laparoscopic surgery tomorrow: if the hardware is rotten, I want it out so we can have a better chance at conceiving. However, I also know that removing a tube is an end point. Even if I still have my right tube tomorrow, I've just removed from my body one-half of what God put there to begin with to make me conceive. And I think there's something symbolic about potentially losing the tube, too: in these days of bad luck and barrenness, losing my tube is yet another nail in the procreation coffin. Yes, one can still conceive with only one tube: it would not mean I've lost my chances at reproduction. But it brings me halfway there, like a cross-country traveler who hits Kansas. It's not over yet, but you're far enough along in the journey for something to have fundamentally changed. You're so far along that you truly cannot return.

But mostly, what I'm scared of is what I have to do now. Which is take the Cytotec. Two pills to be swallowed. The abortion pill. I don't think of this as aborting a living creature, of course, so that name does not resonate and pain because of that. It resonates and pains because of its effect: it instigates contractions. And the first and only time in my life I've felt contractions was when I miscarried the first time. Which was a traumatizing experience. I had never experienced that sensation before, so I was terrified. I found that intense squeezing of my uterus, like a hand was grasping my insides at regular and inexorable intervals, to be so unlike anything I had ever experienced that I truly thought I was about to die. But it's not really the fear of physical pain that stays my hand from taking the Cytotec. It's the knowledge that, if it does instigate contractions, I could potentially start passing tissue and I do not want to lose any tissue away from my doctor. I want him to do every test known to man on the tissue so we can investigate what might be causing me to miscarry. I also don't necessary fancy sitting on the toilet at home with a strainer and an empty plastic bag to collect tissue in. It's slightly obscene, considering this was the beginning of new life. I don't think I could emotionally handle the moral implications of fishing out my baby from a metal strainer and putting it in a Ziploc bag.

Before I go to bed, I want to write a farewell letter to this baby. But I think I should go take the Cytotec first. I'll return shortly.