One where I whine a little

You know 'those days'--the ones when you swear the universe is out to get you, and it gets to be slightly comical because everything goes wrong? I had one of those this week on Wednesday. I also have an update for you on my medical situation but first I have to give the spotlight to my Day From Hell.

I have been doing pretty well with my energy levels lately and so I saw two patients Wednesday morning before my all-important follow up appointment with the OB clinic at 1:00. Everything was going swimmingly and I was driving out to the doctor's office with questions bursting from my mind, waiting to be answered. Would the ultrasound show less 'conception products' meaning that the shot in the hospital worked? Would my giant/annoying blood vessel still be there? And would my pregnancy hormone prove to be dropping down to 0 in my blood work? All very exciting answers to be had since it had been a week after my little stint in the ER.

So doo-dee-doo, I'm about 5 minutes away from the clinic (which is a good 10 miles from home) and I go to push my gas pedal and there is no power in my car, all of my warning lights are lit up on the dashboard, and I can barely steer my freaking wheel (excuse me, but 'freaking' might be the word of choice in this post, so bear with me). I somehow manage to pull my car off to a side street and wonder if I just ran out of gas---a first for me, really embarrassing, but it's bound to happen at some point since I do like to push the limits with my gas light. But the light only came on to warn me of lower levels one minute before my car sputtered out on me, so I really didn't know if that was the diagnosis but I figured I had to try adding fuel first before anything else.

I started the trek to the nearest gas station, which I swore was only a block away while I was driving down the street, but in actuality was about a half mile away. So it's 90 degrees in Milwaukee, which by Wisconsin standards is basically an inferno, I have flip flops on and my feet are killing me, and I am not supposed to exercise at all at risk of my uterus springing a leak. Great. All in the name of a stupid 2 gallon plastic tank of gas that was dripping all over me as I hauled it back to my stupid car. And then? I couldn't figure out how to attach the gas spout and literally, I felt like the biggest space-cadet ever. Thankfully a nice mom-type lady stopped and we figured it out together, but I swear it really wasn't the easiest procedure. So of course, I put in 2 gallons of the really expensive gas that had spilled all over my sweaty, tired self and my car still would not start. It just keeps getting better, right?

At this point I had officially missed my appointment so I called to tell them the situation and they said they might be able to squeeze me in within the hour if I got there in one piece. I was hoping that my car would magically fix itself and I could continue on with my day but of course that would be too easy. I told the office I'd do my best, and then I called AAA and expected them to be my saving grace. Good thing I have a basic membership and they could come to my rescue and turn the universe around for me, right? Um, no. Old dude was no help at all and tried adding more gas to my car with the same crappy results I had before. Thanks, AAA.

And so I waited some more, because that is my full-time job lately as Julia-Waits-A-Lot, as AAA hunted for a tow truck company that could get me the heck out of this mess. An hour later, a truck did arrive, and by that time I had been stranded for 2 whole hours. I was fighting off the tears and teetering on the verge of a breakdown but decided to snap a pic and post it on Facebook instead. Priorities, right?

Once my buddy Nick, from the towing company, got my car up on his truck the best part of the day happened: he went to open his driver's side door and noticed that he had locked HIS keys in his truck. Amazing, right? You can't make this stuff up! He walked around to the passenger side and somehow, by the grace of Jesus, the door was unlocked and he could crawl in just fine. I should have known right then that Nick-ster wasn't exactly on top of his game but I really didn't care since he had AC in his pimped out tow truck. I thought to myself, 'What in the heck would I have done if Truman was with me right now?' and thanked God that at least he was safe with Lori and I wouldn't have to decide between holding him in my lap inside this tiny truck and calling a taxi so that I could use the car seat. Cannot even imagine how much worse this would have been with Truman out in the heat.

As we headed back to my little suburb, which of course was out of the 'free 5 miles of towing' radius, Nick hit two detours which had us wandering around greater Milwaukee for a bit until I decided to pull out my own Garmin and take charge of this faulty expedition. We finally landed at the shop at 3:30 and after I swung a deal with Nick to only pay for the miles he SHOULD have driven to this place, my mother-in-law met me so we could get Truman.

But of course, before we even had a chance to wrestle my car seat out of my car and into my mother-in-law's teeny tiny two door Civic, Lori called to say that Truman had a 100.9 degree fever. His 15 month well-baby appointment was the day before and he did have 3 vaccinations, so I knew that was it---but seriously? A baby that has a fever is so pathetic and sad and heartbreaking. And it was just the last straw.

We finally made it back home and Truman just could not fall asleep that night. He was uncomfortable and overtired and just wanted to be held. I held him and rocked him and rubbed his back while I let myself cry it out a bit in the process. My baby doesn't feel well, I'm still going through this horribly drawn-out miscarriage, and now we have to pay for my car to be fixed on top of the ever-mounting medical bills. I try to be a positive person most of the time but at that moment I had a major pity party for myself.

But you know what? I honestly think that my car broke down for a reason that day. I missed that appointment but already had a second-opinion appointment set up for the next day, with my old OB that delivered Truman. I called her up after my ER scare and she talked to me on the phone for quite awhile, giving me much more confidence with my situation. I planned to switch my care back to her once this dreadful ordeal was over, but when I didn't make the appointment with the other clinic, I decided that enough was enough---that was my sign to switch my care back to my old OB immediately.

I won't go into detail but I haven't been happy with my care with the new OB. Of course, with a situation this horrible it's always going to have a negative cloud over the care you receive but I needed to move on from that place and back into my comfort zone of Truman's OB. Insurance woes aside, I knew I needed to be her patient again.

So on Thursday I saw her and basically she says I need a D&C immediately because my uterus still has tons of 'products' remaining inside of it. She assured me that my uterus walls were 'beautiful' but my poor body just can't get rid of everything although it's trying to hard to do so. 5 weeks after the Cytotec was placed I am still bleeding and my body need help to end this mess. She is not concerned about the mutant blood vessel because she feels this is a normal thing to happen when a uterus thinks it's still pregnant, but I have another 'high tech' ultrasound this afternoon just to be sure. As long as that is okay, I am having surgery on Monday morning at 7:30 (prayers please!)

I have a million and one thoughts and questions and feelings about the course I've been on since that ill-fated ultrasound 6.5 weeks ago. But mostly I just want this to be over since I have done my time with this part of the physical journey. My mom is coming to town to be with me and help with Truman after the procedure and I feel a sense of peace about this decision for surgery. It's going to be okay. I'm going to get through this and learn a whole lot about patience and trusting in God. And I really do have faith that I will have more children in the future, looking back on this time as a horrible speed bump on the way to growing our family.

My OB gave me a printed out picture of my newest ultrasound of my poor uterus, ironically so full of 'loss', that it's the complete opposite of the happy ultrasound pictures showing actual babies with beating hearts, pinned up on refrigerators around the world. At first I couldn't look at the sad sight but now I feel like that picture symbolizes the low point and someday when I have my happy ultrasound picture full of new life, I'll look at this current picture and smile. It's got to get better. I just know it.

After all, I am very blessed, aren't I?