Good night, sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest...
-William Shakespeare


It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.
-Rose Kennedy

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Put on your big girl panties and step out into the world!

(Thanks, G. for the picture for the post!)
I awoke today with a turn in my stomach, my annual pap was at 10:00am (rescheduled from last week thanks to Mother Nature, my period starting 3 days before I had planned!). I went in the office thinking I could put my big girl panties on and they would stay up. I was alright when I arrived, only two women in the office both older and not within child bearing age. I checked in with the cheery receptionist who said, "no changes to insurance? Have you been in within the last year?" to which I laughed and replied "most definitely." Thinking of course, do they ever check a chart around here? As I sat in the waiting room, in walked three, yes three pregos and one Mommy with her little one in a carrier. The receptionist asked the one with the tyke in tow, "how old is HE?" "six weeks," she replied. Me sitting there thinking oh, great how much more of this do I have to hear? Oh, so much more to come! She sits down next to a prego and the prego says, "I can't wait to get to that point, I only have seven more weeks left." "The last two months are hell," replies the Mommy. I'm thinking to myself, A. do I have my ipod with me and B. shut the hell up, bad things happen to good people. Finally, I get called back, "please step on the scale." "How are you?" "I'm here," I reply. "I don't know if that's bad or good," replies the cute little nurse. "It's NOT my favorite place to be," I say. She drops all other conversation and states, "have a seat in the small waiting area, if you need the restrooms they are right down the hall." Once again, I want to say, "Hello, B, I have been here too many times to count and the last time was NOT, I repeat, NOT a happy time." I however keep my mouth shut and sit down. I stare at my shoes, and the picture on the wall away from all of the other people who are yes, pregnant. I think to myself, I'm alright, I'm doing alright. WRONG!!! In comes Mommy with her 6week old boy and sits yes, right next to me with the carrier sitting at my toes. I'm OK, I can do this. The baby starts to whimper and my first thought is to grab him and run, my second thought which is what I did was to run to the end of the hall. I get to the end of the hall and stare out the window, looking at the clouds and praying with all of my might that they will call me soon. I wait ten minutes and get called, I find my solace in my little room, where my BP is taken and I'm told to undress and wait, the doctor will be in shortly. 30 minutes later the doctor arrives and she hugs me and says she is so sorry and yes, she too is nine months pregnant. No, I don't look at her tummy and she knows why. We talk and I cry and she says someday she hopes I will be where she is. I say I hope so too. She has suffered IF, for years, so I sort of feel a connection (not that I suffer from IF, but she too has had hopes dashed.) I leave feeling a bit better but realizing that my big girl panties have fallen around my ankles and I thought they would stay up.

I came home and slept, worked my way through the rest of the day, I managed to pull my panties back up. I seemed to be doing better. My sister called, she had left a message, so I returned her call. She wanted to tell me something, she didn't know whether or not she should but she decided it best. What is this thing she wanted to tell me? My nephew, my sweet lovable nephew who is going to be 9 this month, told her, "I wish Aunt Amy would have told me earlier that she was pregnant." "Why?" my sister asked. "Because, maybe I wouldn't have wrestled with her so hard, or jumped on her, maybe William would still be here." Big girl panties falling again, I cry, "no, no, no, he, there wasn't anything he did wrong. I will talk to him but I want to talk to him in person." B, my sister says, "he's been so quiet for the last couple of days, I didn't know what was wrong until he brought this up." My nephew is not the quiet type. Only when he is sad. I hung up with my sister after the tears and the usual I love yous. I thought for a minute and called my Mom, I did the usual talk with her, hung up and decided to call my nephew. If he was thinking about this I didn't want him to have a sleepless night. So I called, "Hey L & M it's Aunt Amy, may I speak to BC?", "just a minute we'll get him." BC comes to the phone and I say, "BC, I don't really want to get into this on the phone but I do want you to know, you had nothing to do with William not being here." "I know" comes a sad voice. " Do you really know?" I ask. He says,"Hey, do you remember when we were at the lake? Did you swallow any water? I mean because if you did, the germs could have..." "BC, no, I didn't swallow any water and nothing..." "But remember you were trying to get me away from your tummy and you were tired that day, you were pregnant but we didn't know it yet, you didn't tell us." "BC, there is nothing you did wrong. There is nothing any of us here on earth could have done to prevent this. We have no answers but it definitely was not you." "O.K." he says. (Niece crying in the background b/c she wants in on the conversation.) We decide to leave it at that and talk later, my Niece is a Drama Queen! She gets loud and we decide to leave it be for now. I tell him I love him and to please remember there is nothing he did wrong, nothing he could have possibly done to have made William not be here. Big girl panties are back around my ankles again.

I live in the mid west, big girl panties is something we utilize to put on our game faces. My panties didn't want to cooperate today, they didn't want to stay up, my game face was no good. My true feelings came through and my heart breaks everyday that William is not with us. I guess it'll be another day when I decide to put on my big girl panties and step into the world, until then, I think I'll stick to my training pants and put my thumb in my mouth and cry.

15 comments:

Green Apple Cat said...

Hello There,

I so can relate and I feel for you. I truly do. I lost my little William at 22 weeks in May last year. He lived for nearly 2 hours. I wish I could have sat with you and shielded you from all those pregnant ladies and all those gorgeous little babies. It sucks and it hurts.

William is such a great name. I read somewhere that it means determined guardian. I'm sure your baby William is guarding your family as is mine.

Treat yourself kindly. From one very sad mummy to another. Miranda.

c. said...

I have no desire to return to my doctor's office. I just can't...even now. Your experience is exactly why.

I'm so sorry, Amy. I'm so sorry you had to deal with all the preggos today, including your freakin' doctor. I mean, holy shit! What a punch in the stomach.

Your story about BC is heartbreaking. Just heartbreaking.

Thinking of you, Amy. Oh, and I'm glad you explained the whole big girl panty thing. I mean, I thought it was a literal thing.

Anonymous said...

what a hard day!!! i'm so sorry. I hate seeing pregnant people...I practically drool, i get so jealous. And your nephew...what a sweetheart. And how sad that he was worried about you. I am happy you have people around you who care so much. But for now, training pants and your thumb sound like a good idea. Hope tomorrow is a better day for you.
(On a completely unrelated note...I wrote about panties today in my blog, too!! But in a totally different way!)

LISA said...

Amy,

My heart reaches out to you. The day I went in for my 6 week check my Dr. had the girls at the desk put me right back into the waiting room to avoid seeing the prego's. I cant even imagine what you must have felt like.Hoping better days are in the future for you.

thinking of you, Lisa

kate said...

Hi Amy,

I am so sorry....this is such a heartbreaking post. It is just wrong that you had to deal with the OB's office like that...i mean, jeez. Of course my then-OB's office was pretty clueless after Nicolas died too.

Your nephew is so sweet...i hope your reassurances helped him. One other thing that might help is if a medical person told him the same thing -- school nurse or a doctor or something. Reinforcing the message, you know? He is at an age where already we see that our parents & relatives try to shelter us, so having it come from someone 'unbiased' might help. It is just so hard to find any meaning in this, there is no wonder that the little one struggle so much.

kate said...

Um, "little ones", that was supposed to be.

YummySushiPjs said...

Maybe I'm not a good judge, but it seems to me like you did beautifully. You were strong when you needed to be and sad when you should be. I think you're doing amazing things just getting out of bed every day. Please take good care of yourself and give yourself a break on the crying. It will happen, and no one should judge you for it.

I'm here if you need anything.

G$ said...

Double whammy day for sure! You did well though, much better than I would have. I might have said to the mommy who sat next to me, Uh is there a reason why you had to pick that effin chair to sit in? No, I'm not bitter.

I am sending you an email that is perfect for this post :)

Becky said...

I'm sorry that you had a rough day. I had similar thoughts when I sat in the Peri's office today. The last time I was there they told us that we had to make a choice...my life, or Riley's. All the happy pregnant people make me sick, still. How can they be so happy when we have so much pain? Ugh, then we listened to some woman tell her mother that she didn't care about the sex of her twins as long as they weren't two boys. EXCUSE ME? Do you have ANY idea what I would do for my boys? She was at the Peri because she was of advanced maternal age and was classified high risk because she was over 35. Give me a freakin break. If all I had to worry about was the sex of my baby...God, I can't even imagine...

We all need to take off our big girl panties sometimes. Don't feel bad because you had to. What you did today wasn't easy in the best of circumstances.

Aunt Becky said...

My heart just broke into a million tiny pieces for you. Your William Henry is just gorgeous.

I'm so incredibly sorry and I wish I could make it all better for you.

FeistyKel said...

I just wish I had wise or helpful words to offer. I care deeply, and my heart goes out to you.

Heidi said...

I have a fear of the pregnant belly too.

Love and hugs.

CLC said...

I am sorry. That sounds like torture going to the doctor's. Your nephew sounds like a sweet boy. I am thinking of you. And you don't always need to have the game face on!

k@lakly said...

Hi there,
I have to first say a big SORRY, b/c my blog roll had your page stuck on the Certificate "I Got It' post and everytime I checked on you, I thought you hadn't put up a new post yet so I haven't been commenting on your blog posts. I hope the three month mark is easing. I think that was the real low point for me and then things seemed to settle a bit.
The doc office appt sounds like torture. I don't ever want to go back to mine. I hope you get 'good' news from them.
I am so sad for your nephew. I often think about how utterly f*cked this is for the kids. There is no way to explain it and no way for them to understand it. Hell I barely do myself. I think your calling him must have helped him tremendously. Keep telling him those things. My experience with my 10 yr old son is that they just let this stuff fester no matter what you tell them so you have to keep reminding them that the one thing we do know is that it was not their fault. Kids naturally look for rational explanations and where there are none, they fill it in themselves. So give him facts about how he could not have caused it. Does that make sense?
Okay, I will stop before I take up your whole section:)
Im sorry again for my MIA, I hope you know I was checking on you everyday...

Antigone said...

Tell me about it. I had to do to the DMV this afternoon to pick up new plates for my car and it seemed like every woman in there was pregnant or carrying an infant.