"You must hold yourself up. Up above the crowd. The huddled masses all with their own prayers hanging from their tongues. You must touch the sun. Maybe there he will hear your plea and decided to have pity on you."
— Unknown
11/28/12
A month ago we started to build a house. We had to live in an RV while the whole thing was taking place. During that time, I slept in the back bedroom with our son while Joney slept on the fold out couch. Needless to say, sex was not an option. It was well over a month before we got to spend our first night together in our new house. We took advantage of it of course. Over and over again. Afterwords, it was just back to business as normal.
A few weeks went by and Joney still hadn't had her period. This was fairly normal for us. Usually a few days would pass and it would start. It didn't. So we waited a few more days. Still nothing. Around day 11 we decided to go ahead and buy a test. We are usually hesitant about this because 100% of the time it's negative, but given the days Joney was late, we went for it. If you have ever been down this road, you know what you go through after the 100th time of taking a pregnancy test. You basically just piss on the stick and leave it. Just forget it ever happened. For some reason we didn't do that this time around. We huddled around the sink where the test lay and waited. After a few minutes, an hour glass showed up. I looked at Joney and asked her what it meant. She checked the box and informed me that it was faulty and we would have to do it again. I went and sat on the bed because my nerves just couldn't take it anymore. She forced a little more pee out for the second test and we went back to waiting. The results came quicker than we both thought. After a minute, the test beeped and she reached for it.
I have to stop for a second here. I have to return to that 100th time bit. I have felt my heart get tight and my hopes lifted up a ton of times over the years. It's this feeling of extreme want. It's not just to have the ability to say “We are pregnant” or to just have another kid. This is everything to us. I have four brothers and one sister. Joney has one older brother. I could not see my son growing up alone. It would break my heart to never have someone there to call his brother or sister and share his life with forever. That's what killed us the most. So at that moment she picked up the test, my eyes were locked on her face. I just wanted a sign to help numb the pain that was sure to come. I just couldn't take another disappointment.
She cracked a smile. My heart pounded. She looked at me and said...“Well shit...I'm pregnant...soooooo...now what?” I grabbed the test and sure enough there was the word “Pregnant.” I immediately told her to call her doctor. She told me she couldn't yet because we didn't have insurance. So I asked her what we needed to do. I was in a panic. Not frantic, just a little on edge. You see, I know the dangers. I know things can go wrong quickly. Joney's chances of having another ectopic pregnancy (tubular pregnancy) are great. Add on top of that the fact that she is RH negative and you have yourself a pretty messed up cocktail of future disappointment and heartache. I didn't want to wait around and watch us lose this baby. I wanted to make sure that everything we could do to increase our chances of having a healthy pregnancy was covered. The only option we had at that time was to go to the walk in clinic at Wal-mart and have a pregnancy test done so she could apply for Medi-care asap. Secrets out, I'm poor as shit!
We went ahead and drove to our local Wal-Mart. The test was fairly cheap and it was over in about ten minutes. The whole time there though I couldn't help but think that the nurse would come back and tell us we were in fact not pregnant. I just waited to hear those words. Instead she came back into the room and showed Joney here piss cup...is that the medical term for that? Piss cup? I think so. Anyways, she asked Joney to look at the top. For a second there I thought this was some clever way to help break the news to a patient that they were not pregnant. I honestly had no idea what she wanted Joney to see. Apparently neither did Joney. A second later Joney looked up at her completely lost and said...
“What am I looking at?”
The nurse said “Do you see those two pink lines?”
Joney said “Yes”
“Well my dear...that means you're pregnant.”
Joney sat back down and looked at me and without missing a beat, the nurse added...“Is that what y’all were hoping it would say?" We both said yes and the nurse smiled a bit. Kinda uncomfortable, but whatever man, we were going to have another baby.
I should have been happy. I should have been jumping off the walls. I sadly...wasn't. I was scared shitless as we made our way back to our car. Joney barely talked and I knew she felt the same way too. We had been here before. We remembered what this felt like. At this moment, there's no telling where this baby is. That alone will shut you up. You just can't even try to find the words to start off a conversation. You want to say things like “It will be okay” or “There is no way it's going to be another ectopic pregnancy,” but you can't say that. You don't know. You just don't know. So you sit there and hold her hand all the way home and beg God for some form of mercy.
Once inside she called her doctor that helped us with the last ectopic pregnancy. She informed us that if Joney ever got pregnant again we needed to call her immediately. She helped us a lot after the surgery. We went back for a checkup a few days after Joney's surgery. She lied and told us that having her tube removed did not decrease our chances of having another baby. Hard truth is, it does. Usually when you have a regular ectopic pregnancy and the tube didn't have to be removed, your chances of conceiving another child is 60%. Our chances were of course less. After our talk, she had Joney looked at by a nurse to see how her incision was healing. While Joney was away, she showed me pictures of the tube they removed from Joney. They showed me the black orb that was bursting its way out. There are no words to describe the feelings I had while looking at those photos. I'm still unclear of why she felt she needed to show them to me.
Joney made an appointment to get blood drawn the next day. She would then go back 2 days later and have blood drawn again. This is commonly known as the hCG test. hCG stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, the pregnancy hormone. It's used to gauge if you are in fact pregnant and if the pregnancy is healthy. If the levels of hCG go up over the course of a few days, then usually that’s a thumbs up. If the levels go down over time or double, then this could spell disaster. After the second test, Joney was told her levels looked great and from what they could tell by looking at her chart, she was about 6 weeks pregnant. We breathed a sigh of relief, but this fear has yet to pass.
We are no stranger to tragedy. We still know that an ectopic pregnancy most commonly happens in the 8th week of pregnancy. We know we are not out of the woods yet. Tomorrow we go to see her actual doctor. We don't know what to expect. I'm not sure what all the're going to do or if they'll be able to tell us anything. I just want some good news. I just want to be able to breathe. I want to know our baby is okay. I truly want this to be a happy ending.
Wow, I cannot even come close to imagining what you two are going through but I truly appreciate you sharing this with us. I will be hoping and praying that things turn out okay for the both of you *big hugs*
You need to find out which ob/gyns in your area specialise in high risk pregnancies. I really hope you make it this time.