November (Personal) Wrap-up 2016

Oi! This is going to be a very different kind of wrap-up post. I only read one book in November and that's because it was for book club.

All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. I haven't even written a review for it yet. I will. I promise.

As for favorites or least favorites um...well. I didn't particularly like the one book I read so I guess I'll just skip that part of my wrap-up.

And now for my long winded recap of this hellish month! The reason I haven't been reading etc.

So, I've been married just over three years now and I'm no spring chicken so my husband and I have been trying for kids for the entire three years....With no luck. I won't go into details but we tried just about everything except IVF.  And then, just when we'd given up and stopped trying everything, in October, we got that little pink line! We were pregnant! I couldn't believe it. I was beyond ecstatic. I told my family and close friends right away! I couldn't help myself. On Halloween, Oct 31st, the morning sickness started. My whole family has had it so I knew there was no getting out of it. And it was awful. Really awful! The smell sensitivities, the nausea, the puking, the food aversions. Oi! I spent all my time lying on the couch trying to keep food down and re-watching Gilmore Girls so I'd be all ready for the comeback episodes. (I'm still working on the last season so please, no spoiling the comeback yet!)

My first doctors appointment was November 21st. I was so nervous and by the time the 21st came I was beside myself. I kept getting this horrible feeling like something was wrong. There was no way I was lucky enough to have everything be normal and okay....I was right. :( We went in to the doctors office and met with a midwife, talked for a bit and then went in for the ultrasound. The minute my uterus came onto that screen my heart broke. There was nothing but an empty gestational sac. I knew exactly what I was looking at before the midwife said a thing. There was supposed to be a 9 week old baby in that sac and it just wasn't there. Of course the midwife was flustered and kept leaving the room and coming back. She was trying to find out how to measure the sac. She explained what I already knew. There was supposed to be a baby in there and there was nothing there. I had what is called a blighted ovum. Which means the baby stopped developing at 4-5 weeks but my body didn't get the message and the gestational sac and placenta kept growing and raising my HCG levels.

I was sent to the hospital for blood work to see what my HCG levels were and given some options for miscarrying as I still needed to face the fact that I needed to get my uterus cleaned out.

My husband and I drove home in silence in pouring rain and then sat in the driveway crying together.

After another HCG test we saw my levels were dropping so I chose to let the miscarriage come naturally. It came on December 3rd. I won't go into the details of that hellish experience but I will tell you I had two weeks to mourn so passing the tissue was a relief. I feel at peace now. As peaceful as you can feel after something like that.

On top of all this my family just found out that my mother has breast cancer that has spread all over into her body. I won't say more on that because we're still pretty in the dark on the whole thing.

Needless to say, you can probably see now why I only read one book this month. Sorry to be a downer. I just wanted to share my story with you guys. It's therapeutic to talk about it. I'm obviously still sad but I'm alright. It's not something I'd ever want to go through again and something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy but I have learned from this experience  and am OK. Thanks for reading, if you still are. Love you guys! You're a great community that I love and feel safe enough to share my experience with.

See you around the blogosphere!