A lot.

I've had a lot going on lately. I feel the need to sort of purge this in a blog post to both explain my near-disappearance as well as just get it off my chest and out into cyberspace somewhere. I promise this will be a long and descriptive read, settle in and get comfortable.

Two weeks from yesterday, my baby will be turning two, and so the timing of all this is just a little bit of a mind-boggle.  The night he was born, I had an unexpected medical crisis - I was hemorrhaging and losing a lot of blood due to a small part of the placenta being embedded in my uterine wall. This called for an emergency D&C, which I had - right where I laid on the delivery table. The doctor scraped and scraped and thankfully, after some time (and a lot of drugs and a lot of worried looks), he got my uterus to clamp down and stop the bleeding. This act saved me from a hysterectomy - something I was hugely thankful for. It also saved my life. 5 weeks later as I had just finished nursing my newborn at home, I hemorrghaged again, and after a very long ambulance wait/ride, I ended up in the ER and underwent yet another emergency D&C (this time I didn't have to be awake for it - thankfully) Again, I was thankful that this saved my uterus and my life, obviously.

Nothing can change what had to happen...I know that. I needed those procedures and they did me a world of good as the only other option at the time was to surgically remove my uterus or bleed to death - I wanted neither. What isn't so great is when your OB (who did neither surgery and who was out of town during your child's birth) doesn't even bother to follow up with you after having 2 pretty rare medical events...doesn't answer your long list of questions and basically writes you off and defaults you to the (ignorant) nurse practitioner (mind you, not all nurse practitioners are ignorant - far from it - but I can honestly now say that this one was as she answered many questions incorrectly.)

Fast forward to 5 months ago...and we're going to get a little TMI here...I was still nursing Julian, but our sessions had decreased gradually. I had half a day of spotting and figured this was it - Aunt Flow is coming back....get ready for it. Only then the spotting stopped, and what started was intense and severe pain in areas that didn't necessarily make me think "menstrual" at the time. I wrote it off as my nagging IBS (that's a whole other blog post, but yes - I have that too). A few weeks later, we had a repeat performance...a few drops of spotting and a lot of  severe pain. Around that time I happened to be in to my regular doctor to check on my eardrum (remember THAT story?) and brought it up and got meds to help with my IBS. Another month...another repeat...only no spotting anymore, and the IBS meds did nothing. I happened to have a regular annual OB visit (with the dreaded nurse practioner) and brought up my concerns to her - endometriosis? Uterine fibroids? The amount of pain was unbearable. It kept me from having a normal life and taking care of my son for at least 3-4 days every 3-4 weeks. She said it was hormonal...it was COMPLETELY normal. It was all part of weaning...hang in there honey (pat pat on my knee). She had my medical history right in front of her face - 2 D&C's...hemorrhaging, etc etc. I thought surely if there was a connection, she would make it. She told me there was NO WAY it was endometriosis..no fibroids....that's absurd. This is all normal.

Only, it's not normal. After googling the crap out of every symptom I continue to have, I finally fell upon the first thing that made absolute sense. Asherman's Syndrome. Basically, what it is in a nutshell is a hell of a lot of scar tissue in your uterus due to a D&C (or several.) It can be just a small amount and you might never know it's there, or it can completely bind the uterus together and cause it to close in on itself. I turns out your risk is fairly decent if you've had a D&C on a freshly pregnant uterus. It practically triples if you've had more than one D&C on a freshly pregnant uterus. When was I ever told about this? Never.

So, this is the part that is hard for me, because I know I'm jumping ahead of myself, and yet I know my body and my pain and I can say with some certainly that this is what I have been battling, and if it weren't for me spending literally HOURS googling, I would never have known. I am angry...to say the least. Especially because the fact that I have no period means that my scar tissue is bound to be extreme....my chances of conceiving and carrying another baby to term have just dwindled into the 'this is going to take years of surgeries and money and a lot of heartbreak' category. I am devastated. Heck, my chances of even getting my period back are a lot less than you might think. Who would have thought you'd miss something you've hated since the age of 13? Again, I'm devastated.

Eddie and I always joke that Julian will be an only child....he never has got the hang of sleeping through the night, he can be a bit of a handful and well, sometimes we do really wonder how we would handle another....but I'm not done having children, at least I didn't think I was. I always wanted another. I never wanted Julian to NOT have a sibling, and so our plan of action was to wait until he was 2 and 're-evaluate'...decide if we are ready to try again. Unfortunately that decision has now been made for us, and that is why the timing is just a little too much to handle.

On the 19th of this month I have an appointment to discuss this with a DIFFERENT OBGYN. I will not be seeing the doctor I previously used. We will hopefully get the ball rolling towards a diagnosis and treatment, but it will be a long road, and it's something I think about every day and I'm already a little overwhelmed by what can and/or will happen from here on out.  4 Days after that appointment my baby will turn 2, and I will try my best not to dwell on the events that happened the day of his birth and all the things I wish I could change. I will try not to think about 2 years worth of scar tissue and what that is doing to my life. I will celebrate the fact that he is here, and how thankful I am that he is here, and that I am here with him to see him grow and blossom, because I do realize that day could have taken a totally different turn. Trust me that I am not so jaded to realize that.

So, if I seem to have a lot on my mind and on my plate, I do. I have a bad habit of worrying myself to pieces, and I do tend to overthink things, so you can probably guess that I've been a bit of a giant mess since this started. On top of this all, my husband will be going out of the country for a bit, and I will be dealing with a lot of the medical appointments on my own as well as just trying to keep up with life, with Julian, with photography....

And please, give that Asherman's website a good read...so many women have had D&C's for a multitude of reasons and probably never were warned about the chances of developing scar tissue and just what that scar tissue can do to your body. Some women don't even have symptoms, and don't even know it's there until they have difficulties conceiving or multiple miscarriages. From everything I'm now finding online and in support groups, it is grossly un-diagnosed.

Thanks for reading my giant vent. I realize it was a lot of information to throw at the cyberworld, but sometimes you just need to get it out there and see it in type and get it all out of your head.