Tuesday, December 20, 2011

A pregnancy tale

This month, my period started a few days early. More annoying than alarming, I didn't think anything of it. Then, 3 days after it started, it stopped. Completely. Done. Nothing.

For me, that's not normal. I've been pretty lucky in that I'm a regular gal, and my cycles are very, very predictable.

There has been only one time in my life that my cycles were all messed up, and it happened right after I got diagnosed with PKD. We were also trying to sell our house and move, which meant that I had to keep our house spotlessly clean every day or leave with an active 4 year old WHILE I was reeling from the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease. I went to the doctor, he looked at me and my chart and said, "Um, it might be stress." To which I responded, with my eyes bugging out and my mouth foaming with spit," I AM NOT STRESSED AND IF YOU DON'T IMAGE MY OVARIES TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE NOT EXPLODING I WILL KILL YOU!"

(Or something like that.)

(It might have been stress.)

I told my girlfriend about my not normal cycle (because, yes, women talk about their bodies. A lot. Especially when they're bleeding, because the crazy, it likes to share). She suggested it might be implantation bleeding. She suggested I google it, call a doctor, and get myself to the nearest CVS for a pregnancy test.

I shuddered. Pregnant? Really? No. Bad.

I'm on Lisinopril, you see, which is great for my blood pressure, but bad bad bad for a fetus. Like, KNOWN bad, not just maybe could be we need more study bad. So I googled implantation bleeding, and sure enough, it sounded just like my not normal cycle this month. I told my husband about it as we went to bed last night, and for a half an hour, we considered what it would be like if I was pregnant.

We got so excited he was almost ready to run to the store in his pajamas to get a test. He relaxed, though, when I told him it could wait until morning.

Which was a good thing, because this morning, it became abundantly clear that not only was I not pregnant, but that the early spotting I had was just a warm-up for the real thing.

And it made me sad. Not relieved, just sad. The half an hour when we thought I was pregnant was a pretty awesome half an hour.

I know, I know. Being pregnant is bad. I know the risks. I'm not stupid, nor am I reckless. My creatnine is up, my kidneys are as uncomfortable as ever, and my blood pressure doesn't respond well to procardia, the only blood pressure drug I know of that is safe for pregnancy. Pregnancy would mean 9 long, difficult months, most of them spent either in bed or in the hospital. It would mean my husband would bear the load of the child-rearing and the house-hold chores (not that I'm very good at those in the first place, but 1 person doing a half hearted job is better than nothing, as we rapidly learned the last time). It would be difficult all the way around, with an unpredictable, possibly dangerous outcome for me and the baby.

I know, I know, I KNOW.

It still made me sad.

2 comments:

Rob Monroe said...

Oh Heather. So sorry you are going through this - my wife and I had those hopeful nights and hard days to follow. Even when you do not want - or do not think you want - to be going down that road, the excitement can change your mind easily.

Will be thinking of you.

Heather O. said...

Thanks, Rob!