If God exists, he's an @$$
Posted: Mon Apr 03, 2017 9:09 am
So, to start off with, I'm probably in the anger stage of the grieving process.
I don't personally put much stock in believing in an omnipotent being upstairs, but respect that many people do, including some of my closest friends. But the conclusion I always seem to come back to is that he's an asshole.
My wife has never been keen on having kids, for two reasons. First, she helped raise her two little brothers, and second because she didn't want to turn into the...ahem...raging bi-polar bitch that her mother and mother's mother had turned into when they had children....likely because of undiagnosed thyroid problems. I assured her that between the fact that she isn't narcissistic like her mother, and that we know about the potential thyroid issues in her family now, that her concerns were unfounded. She really enjoys playing with our close family friend's daughter, and she is great with children. We talked about it several years ago, and although she still didn't want a passel of little ones underfoot, she had agreed to one child when we decided we were ready.
Well, about a month ago she realized the time for her period had come and gone and suddenly her nose that was normally deadened by taxidermy smells had suddenly started working again. Combined with some morning sickness she did the obligatory pee-on-a-stick and lo and behold, our lives took a suddenly unplanned turn. We told only our folks until we could get into the doctor.
It turns out that doctor offices, especially OBGYN's, are maelstroms of bureaucracy and fucking incompetence. Oh, the doctor may be WONDERFUL, but the office staff that treats patients like cattle and puts office "policies" before common sense may prevent you from ever seeing said wonderful doctor. For once my mother-in-law's temper was useful in getting some results, acting as an advocate for my wife when I was out of town for work. My wife half jokingly threatened to go to our vet for better care, because "at least at the vet, when you tell them you're getting a new puppy they give you a whole information packet on the how, when, and why!" I'll save the details, but we started looking for another practice.
We got the "What to expect when you're expecting" book, and started reading on our own.
My wife continued to have spotting, but no one could tell us if it was REALLY something to worry about, or not. She was at 5-6 weeks and they didn't see anything on the ultrasound. We started to get concerned there was something wrong and the incompetent OBGYN office wasn't helping make us feel better.
She started to feel more and more uncomfortable, with a dull cramp-like feeling in her right hip area. Finally, on Tuesday night, the pain got to the point she couldn't sleep. The thing about my wife is that she has a very high threshold for pain, i.e. As a kid she broke her arm, and the doc didn't believe her because she wasn't in enough pain...until he saw the x-ray. I made the executive decision and called first the on-call doc at the OBGYN, and after consulting took Amethyst to the ER.
After another ultrasound, the ER doc came in and told us she had an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, which is what the OBGYN office had suspected but couldn't confirm. He called in both doctors from the OBGYN office, and they prepped Amethyst for surgery because the pregnancy was non-viable and had to be removed. She had started bleeding internally from the tube, but luckily it had not yet burst. So at 3-4AM on Wednesday, our short pregnancy ended. Our folks came to the ER to help me deal with everything.
She came through surgery fine, with her right tube removed and cauterized, but the ovary still intact. The embryo had been 4-5 CM long. The OBGYN doctors were both great, explained everything, and even said that it was caught relatively early, which is sometimes hard to do because a few days of growth can make a big difference, possibly explaining the lack of a diagnosis at the OBGYN office. We went home later that day. Walking out through the delivery ward was one of the few times in my life I felt like I would break down and lose it.
So here we are, several days after the emotional roller coaster of becoming parents, losing a baby, and trying to figure out if we can handle trying again sometime in the future. We're recovering, and I'm pretty sure we will be ok at this point. It had just started to become real to us when it was ripped away. I can't imagine losing a pregnancy much further along or a still birth, but yet some of the care material we received from the hospital says it happens to 1 in 4 women. I haven't even SEEN a statement from our insurance or a hospital bill yet, but I'll be sitting down when I open that piece of mail. At least I have good medical insurance through my employer, but it's still going to be one hell of a dent in my paycheck this year I'm sure.
So when people say "oh, it must be God's will," it really pisses me off. Because either it's not God, or he's an asshole.
I was really hesitant to share this, because I don't normally share personal things like this with "strangers." I guess I needed to get it out, so that's why I continued typing. I'm not really looking for sympathy, God knows (hahaha) that there are other people far more sympathetic and in need of support than I, Mr. DuToit comes to mind immediately. The physiologists say you are supposed to feel better after talking about your problems. I guess we'll find out over time. Thanks for listening.
I don't personally put much stock in believing in an omnipotent being upstairs, but respect that many people do, including some of my closest friends. But the conclusion I always seem to come back to is that he's an asshole.
My wife has never been keen on having kids, for two reasons. First, she helped raise her two little brothers, and second because she didn't want to turn into the...ahem...raging bi-polar bitch that her mother and mother's mother had turned into when they had children....likely because of undiagnosed thyroid problems. I assured her that between the fact that she isn't narcissistic like her mother, and that we know about the potential thyroid issues in her family now, that her concerns were unfounded. She really enjoys playing with our close family friend's daughter, and she is great with children. We talked about it several years ago, and although she still didn't want a passel of little ones underfoot, she had agreed to one child when we decided we were ready.
Well, about a month ago she realized the time for her period had come and gone and suddenly her nose that was normally deadened by taxidermy smells had suddenly started working again. Combined with some morning sickness she did the obligatory pee-on-a-stick and lo and behold, our lives took a suddenly unplanned turn. We told only our folks until we could get into the doctor.
It turns out that doctor offices, especially OBGYN's, are maelstroms of bureaucracy and fucking incompetence. Oh, the doctor may be WONDERFUL, but the office staff that treats patients like cattle and puts office "policies" before common sense may prevent you from ever seeing said wonderful doctor. For once my mother-in-law's temper was useful in getting some results, acting as an advocate for my wife when I was out of town for work. My wife half jokingly threatened to go to our vet for better care, because "at least at the vet, when you tell them you're getting a new puppy they give you a whole information packet on the how, when, and why!" I'll save the details, but we started looking for another practice.
We got the "What to expect when you're expecting" book, and started reading on our own.
My wife continued to have spotting, but no one could tell us if it was REALLY something to worry about, or not. She was at 5-6 weeks and they didn't see anything on the ultrasound. We started to get concerned there was something wrong and the incompetent OBGYN office wasn't helping make us feel better.
She started to feel more and more uncomfortable, with a dull cramp-like feeling in her right hip area. Finally, on Tuesday night, the pain got to the point she couldn't sleep. The thing about my wife is that she has a very high threshold for pain, i.e. As a kid she broke her arm, and the doc didn't believe her because she wasn't in enough pain...until he saw the x-ray. I made the executive decision and called first the on-call doc at the OBGYN, and after consulting took Amethyst to the ER.
After another ultrasound, the ER doc came in and told us she had an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, which is what the OBGYN office had suspected but couldn't confirm. He called in both doctors from the OBGYN office, and they prepped Amethyst for surgery because the pregnancy was non-viable and had to be removed. She had started bleeding internally from the tube, but luckily it had not yet burst. So at 3-4AM on Wednesday, our short pregnancy ended. Our folks came to the ER to help me deal with everything.
She came through surgery fine, with her right tube removed and cauterized, but the ovary still intact. The embryo had been 4-5 CM long. The OBGYN doctors were both great, explained everything, and even said that it was caught relatively early, which is sometimes hard to do because a few days of growth can make a big difference, possibly explaining the lack of a diagnosis at the OBGYN office. We went home later that day. Walking out through the delivery ward was one of the few times in my life I felt like I would break down and lose it.
So here we are, several days after the emotional roller coaster of becoming parents, losing a baby, and trying to figure out if we can handle trying again sometime in the future. We're recovering, and I'm pretty sure we will be ok at this point. It had just started to become real to us when it was ripped away. I can't imagine losing a pregnancy much further along or a still birth, but yet some of the care material we received from the hospital says it happens to 1 in 4 women. I haven't even SEEN a statement from our insurance or a hospital bill yet, but I'll be sitting down when I open that piece of mail. At least I have good medical insurance through my employer, but it's still going to be one hell of a dent in my paycheck this year I'm sure.
So when people say "oh, it must be God's will," it really pisses me off. Because either it's not God, or he's an asshole.
I was really hesitant to share this, because I don't normally share personal things like this with "strangers." I guess I needed to get it out, so that's why I continued typing. I'm not really looking for sympathy, God knows (hahaha) that there are other people far more sympathetic and in need of support than I, Mr. DuToit comes to mind immediately. The physiologists say you are supposed to feel better after talking about your problems. I guess we'll find out over time. Thanks for listening.