would like to take a moment...

to give the last month the finger. A lot has happened since my last post. I sort of hate to put this all out on front street but my blog is my release so here goes. If you don't know all of this and you are close to me, please forgive me for not sharing all of this with you personally.

I found out the Tuesday before Christmas that I was pregnant. Holy crap. Totally unexpected, but two pink lines regardless of my expectations. Knowing better, I went to Oxford Kids Co. and bought a sweet little white lamb. I wrapped it up and gave it to Austin and told him he was going to be a daddy again. We cried, hugged, and went to bed to rest up for our early doctor's appointment the next day. I made a quick appointment with Dr. Dulaney because I had been spotting but I wasn't too concerned because I spotted with Andrew. We were both apprehensive to get excited and agreed to set fire to the little white lamb if the blood test turned out to be negative. Laura, Dr. Dulaney's sweet nurse, was pretty excited to see us and hear the news. I kinda think they are all secretly rooting for us a little extra because we lost Andrew and have had such a hard time making him a little bro or sis. She took my blood and told me we'd know in a few minutes. Few minutes go by...blood test positive. The lamb is saved. Dr. Dulaney seems a bit more skeptical since the timelines don't seem to be adding up and the ultrasound looks sketchy. She can't find anything in my uterus and kinda preps me for this not being as perfect as it seems. She said we'd know more the next day when my blood work comes in and we see what my hormone levels were. We went home and settled into the idea that we might be parents again.

The next day, I was a wreck. I just didn't feel like things were right. In my heart, I couldn't shake the feeling that this baby wasn't where he was supposed to be. I kept thinking tubal pregnancy, tubal pregnancy, tubal pregnancy. (where the baby implants in the fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. Tubal pregnancies cannot continue and either miscarry or must be medically/surgically removed.) Corinne tried to ease my mind a bit, but I guess a momma just knows when things aren't right in her body/with her kids. Dr. Dulaney called mid-afternoon and told me that my levels were very concerning. My hormone levels were much too low for this to be a viable pregnancy and I was either miscarrying or had a tubal pregnancy. I hate when I'm right. Merry Effing Christmas.

So began two weeks of blood work and doctor visits. All bloodwork pointed to this most likely being a tubal and not a miscarriage. I spent one night in early January in the emergency room in Memphis with severe cramps. After that, Dr. Dulaney wasn't happy with the way the bleeding was continuing and how my hormone levels were not falling like they should have been. On the 4th, I had a D&C which confirmed the fact that the pregnancy was in fact tubal. I had two shots in my rump of methotrexate to take care of the "products of conception." I wonder who decided on that term. I did my last bloodwork on Tuesday and she's satisfied that this whole ordeal has come to an end.

I feel more hopeless than ever now that we'll ever actually parent a child. We've been struck by lightning twice now and I'm not sure my heart can handle a third. I wonder what I cosmically have done to have this all put in my path. I am not writing this to be pitied or anything of the sort...I'm just wondering aloud. The silver lining in all of this is that I was able to get pregnant...just in the wrong spot. And the awful moldy black lining is that I am much more likely to have another tubal now that I've had one.

And this whole experience has strangely made me feel farther away from my Andrew. I wonder if I'll feel even farther away when I get pregnant for real. It felt awfully like moving on and I'm not sure I liked it.