If at first you don't succeed

If at first you don’t succeed, why try again?  No, not talking about getting pregnant, talking about this induced miscarriage. After a weekend of pills and dreading/hoping that things would move along, nothing has happened. 

We started the 2^nd attempt today and so far, 3 hours later, nothing.  As much as I did not want to have another D&C and am nervous about the potential for scarring, I feel more inclined to do it. We leave in a little over a week to spend a few weeks all over California and it’s true that we could be gone that whole time and nothing would happen.  I will be 10 weeks on Friday and most of the time, these things resolve themselves before 12 weeks.  But they can also drag on for longer.  But there is also the chance that we could be anywhere when my body finally realizes that there is no baby to be had and starts to miscarry.  There is also the possibility that even if I did miscarry naturally I would still need the D&C if for some reason the bleeding were quite heavy.  Now, here is where making the decision becomes easier. 

I would much rather have the D&C performed by Johnson, in her office – this fabulous OB/GYN who knows my story, knows my fears and concerns about the D&C and even though I know she would prefer not to do it either - she will be cautious and careful and caring.  I do not want to find myself in some ER somewhere in California and in the hands of a stranger.  I don’t want to be sitting in a workshop in San Diego and realize that it is happening and have to get back to my hotel room to wait it out.  Nope, definitely don’t want that either.  So as much as I really wish we had other options, this one seems the most hopeful, the safest, and will allow us to at least have half of the summer remaining where we can feel free and light and have some closure.  That part sounds really nice.

Johnson’s wingman told us last Friday that in his 30 years of being an OB he has yet to see uterine scarring from a D&C.  I keep hearing his words in my head as a hopeful reminder. I want to believe him and his mustache makes me want to trust him.  It does.  But I waffle on this decision.  I just wish it would happen on it’s own already – Why, body, do you force me into this corner? Part of me feels like it would likely happen this weekend, the symptoms are fading, nearly non-existent and it seems like it is only a matter of time.  But the damn waiting.  So sick of the damn waiting.  And I don’t know how to go by in the day-to-day without it feeling like we are waiting, restricted by something, not really living while this thing continues on.  We are in our own little purgatory around here.

And we haven’t even started the part where we wait for my cycles to return again.  If it is like last time (and my acupuncturist assures me that it won’t be) we are looking at months.  Hopefully, she is right and it won’t be months this time. It’s not as if I’m starting from square one this time around.  I’ve been taking lots of supplements, herbs and vitamins so things are not where we started nearly a year ago.  Hopefully, my body can get back into the swing of things pretty quickly.  Hopefully.

So, by late tomorrow afternoon, I won’t be pregnant, again.  A friend recommended a book to me, Coming to Term, written by journalist Jon Cohen, who suffered ‘recurrent miscarriages’ (the medical term) with his wife while trying to have their second child.  He went on to investigate the issue of recurrent miscarriages, the medical studies, interventions and preventions by interviewing researchers and couples.  One lead researcher at Columbia concluded, “For most women, early losses are a sign that things are working.  They’ve made it over lots of hurdles.” Cohen continues, “Odd as it might seem, miscarriage, then, often represents a sign of hope.” 

I like to think so.