Whoa, what happened to the optimism?

Item – I managed to get a GP appointment for this morning. Yay!

Item – The GP was, naturally, one I’d never seen before in my entire life (oh, the joys of belonging to a large urban practice). But she was sweet, and sweet is good.

Item – We explained the Saga and showed her all the letters from Mothership Hospital’s EPU. She did a visible double-take when reading the date of my last period. Yes, quite, that’s what we all thought.

Item – She then asked me the very same thing quite a few nurses and doctors and consultants have asked me now. What on earth made me take a pregnancy test at a mere two weeks into the cycle? What, apart from the violent stabbing cramping pain in my right iliac fossa and sudden freaky bleeding? Surely if anything gynaecologically weird happens, you reach for the HPT? No? Oh. Well, I decided explaining about calm, sardonic little voices in the back of my head was open to misinterpretation. So I waffled something about feeling a bit sicky and weird and having a hyper-sensitive sense of smell, as in all previous pregnancies (and most previous luteal phases, but hell no I’m not mentioning that).

Item – Dear Internets, this was actually untrue. The nausea and tracker-hound smellorama only started a couple of days ago. At the time I took the test, I only had that little voice, sounding wryly amused at the very suggestion it was making.

Item – Anyway, the GP seemed a little non-plussed by the original diagnosis of non-viable and/or ectopic, so I reminded her of the weird dates and weird bleeding and weird cramps. She went through a delicate routine of trying to be optimistic about the rising beta (but not a doubling beta, as H keeps pointing out, I think because the sight of people being chirpy about this causes him actual physical pain he’s so anxious), while expressing due acknowledgement of the all-tits-up nature of the Saga so far. She even, Gottenyu, went on to suggest I make another appointment at the GPs if the beta next Monday goes well, so they can book me into the ante-natal clinic. At which point the tiny, shrivelled gland I use to generate hope exploded in a little puff of dry dust.

Item – So I asked if, in that case, I should go back to work tomorrow? She instantly switched to a serious face and said that really, under the circumstances, it would be better if I stayed at home for a few days and relaxed as much as possible. WTF? I mean, I know the heavy-lifting, front-desk-staffing parts of my job should probably be avoided, and I had planned on asking her for a note ordering my bosses to let me stay in the inner office and catalogue books with a distracted expression on my face. But stay home altogether? Did I say WTF?

Item – H then asked if I would be OK on my own all day, and she very promptly said, err, no, actually, it would be better if someone was with me for at least most of the time.

Item – Umm, so, is the GP being ridiculously cautious? Or was her optimistic act the ridiculous part? Should I be reassured? Should I be scared shitless? Anyway, H has got an office lap-top now and will be hanging about looking as bored and frustrated as I am, so no-one else need be anxious about me. Just, WTF?

Item – This is going to be a very long week.

Item – Also, there are six pee-sticks left in the house. Any bets on how many will survive until the weekend?

Limbo (I think I’m going to be sick)

It’s only ten o’clock in the morning. I’ve had time to get back from the Mothership Hospital and eat breakfast. We drove down there just as the sun was rising over a city transformed into a silvered, sugared version of its usual self (it’s below freezing down here). Such beautiful days we’ve had so far this year. The irony.

Instead of the usual sonographer (I’ve just found out the NHS calls them sonographers, not ‘ultrasound technicians’ or ‘wand-monkeys’), we actually got the actual consultant (do you call them consultants in the States/Down Under? The doctors in charge of the clinic?). She got off to a good start by completely blanking us as the nurse showed us into the room, being busy on the computer. H and I went behind the curtain, I undressed and lay down, and we waited while she talked scheduling and such with the nurse as if she had no concept whatsoever that someone had just taken her knickers off ten feet from her desk.

I was a little tetchy at this point, and entertained myself by composing sarcastic remarks I probably wouldn’t dream of using to her face.

However, when she came through the curtain she did say hello and introduce herself civilly, and from then on acted like a good doctor. Brisk, matter-of-fact, treating us as if we were perfectly intelligent, not unsympathetic (I even got a pat on the knee when she had finished reaming me out with the dildo-cam). I think we simply didn’t exist for her until she’d switched her patient-mode on.

Anyway, my insides were thoroughly explored, and while Cute Ute didn’t seem to mind it much, I think my pancreas felt she was getting a little over-zealous in there. Especially when she started pressing down on my abdomen to jostle my organs into more photogenic configurations. At least she said ‘sorry, I know it’s uncomfortable’.

Findings:

1. So far, nothing pregnancy-ish visible anywhere. Given that they don’t expect anything to be visible on a scan until your beta hits about 1000, this is exactly as expected and possibly even vaguely reassuring.
2. Fallopian tube still thread-like and near-invisible.
3. Satsuma had gone for a little meander into the recesses of my abdomen and had to be coaxed into view with a hard prod on the belly from outside, but looked much as usual when excavated.
4. Now this was interesting. She became quite fascinated by a something in the muscle of the womb. She asked if I’d ever been told I had fibroids. I explained all about Cute Ute’s cute heart-shape, and that that had been nearly diagnosed as a fibroid at one point, but she didn’t seem convinced. This was something else. This was, in fact, probably a fibroid. But, she explained, it had nothing to do with the possible pregnancy.

Upshot, I am not in imminent danger of rupturing an internal organ. But we can’t be sure this pregnancy is viable. We can’t even see the pregnancy. As, at best guess, I am 13 dpo, or, possibly, seven weeks into a prolonged miscarriage with multiple bleeding episodes (no one seems to be taking the ‘left over from October’ scenario very seriously – I don’t know if this reassures or annoys me), the only thing to do is wait until my beta SHOULD be over 1000, and check it again.

So I have been booked in for another beta in a week. A week! I mean, yes, that makes perfect sense, my intellect and logical faculties grasp this absolutely, but a week? We have to hang about in limbo for a week?

[May takes short break in which to beat head against stair-way newel-post]

Meanwhile, my body is now taking this all very seriously indeed, and is doing nausea, hyperactive sense of smell and occasional aching breasts. You know, as I am, against all odds, however temporarily, and in the teeth of much melodrama, pregnant.

Next steps, visit GP. Decide if I need to stay off work, or actually go to work. As I am on exploding-tube-watch, and have been told over and over again to come yea verily most swiftly back to hospital if I get pain or bleeding or fainting or dizziness or cold clammy shivers or low blood pressure or anything at all that bothers me in any way, is it better for me to be in an office surrounded by persons who all nominally know how to use a telephone, or will I be so flustered and of so little use it’s better for me to stay at home? Will work, who do know something of the situation, even want me there at all in my role of Possible Medical Liability? Is it, however, safe for me to spend hours and hours on me tod? Things to bother the GP about.

I will no doubt be back to update this later today.

And maybe post about other stuff, like family, New Year’s Resolutions, how H is doing, OMFG FIBROIDS, and so on.