The Post Op Check

10.17.13

   I had my first (and only) post op would check at 4 weeks post-surgery. I had it originally as one of the first few appointments of the morning, but since Alex was trying to fly in to go to the doctor with me, I called and changed it to one of the early afternoon appointments.
   All morning I was really worried and anxious about going to the doctor's office. Luckily, I had Alex and my Mom around to distract me most of the morning, but when Alex and I got in the car to head to the doctor's office I was a nervous wreck. My stomach hurt as a result of all the emotions running through my head, and I kept playing "worst case scenarios" in my head over and over and over.
   When we went into the building, my head just kept saying "the last time I was here I was pregnant," "the last time I was here, I was happy", "the last time I was here, my baby girl was still alive," and "the last time I was here was the last time I saw her alive on the sonogram." A complete. Wreck. I managed to hold back the tears, but I know Alex noticed that I was walking really slowly as we made our way up to the third floor waiting room. I breathed a sigh of relief when we walked into that room and there weren't any babies there (it was not uncommon for me to see new moms every time I had an appointment over there since all the moms wanted to show off their new kiddos).
   While we were waiting, I had my head buried in my phone and kept refreshing the facebook page waiting for someone to write something else. One of the MA's came back and called for another patient, and all I remember is that she was way too cheerful. The other patient walked back with her and the door shut. A few minutes later it was my turn and we stood up and headed back to the exam room. Oh my gosh I was so nervous, I couldn't take it. I just sat quietly as the MA took my blood pressure, which was surprisingly normal, and she asked how I was doing and I just shrugged. She said, "As well as you can, huh?" and I just nodded.

    As we sat there and waited for Dr. L to come in, I kept looking around the room as if something new was going to appear. I did ask Alex to pass me a little diagram of the female anatomy because I was curious to see where exactly she had cut in reference to my bladder. Not as interesting as you'd think, but it wasted a good 5 minutes. Then Dr. L came in. I almost started crying right then and there. I don't even remember what she said first, but she told us how sorry she was again. She did her exam on me, and then she sat down to talk for a few minutes. I asked her if this had ever happened to her before, and she confirmed what we had expected, that we were her first true stillbirth couple. She asked us if we had heard anything about the autopsy, and we told her we hadn't but that we expected to hear from them soon. I asked her if since we had a stillbirth if it would make me a "high-risk" pregnancy next time, and she said, "Not technically, but we will treat you as one. We will do sonograms and Dopplers anytime you need them." Then I said, "I need to ask the question that I don't want to ask but I need to ask: How long do we need to wait before we start trying?" Now let me preface her answer by telling you that I had prepared myself for the worst: Kate had been told 18 months to 2 years (but her c-section was a completely different story than mine), one of my nurse friends had said probably a year, another friend had said probably 18 months, and all that input was a big source of my anxiety for this appointment. I knew that I didn't want to wait a year, because it wasn't really a year it was a year plus nine months which is pretty close to hitting the two year mark until we had a *hopefully* healthy baby in our arms. I was ready now. I just had this huge pit in my stomach as Dr. L finally replied, "6 months". Oh thank you, Jesus! I was so incredibly relieved to hear that it wouldn't be as long as I had anticipated, and at this point we were already a month in to the 6 month waiting period. Hooray! I left feeling totally elated in the fact that we wouldn't have to wait quite as long as I thought.