From 089d3dcf64a1647acc8fcd5c336ca0c846bb1a7f Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Monty Taylor Date: Wed, 1 May 2019 19:16:25 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] Clean up an extra talk Change-Id: Iec6c219ae26f0e9a6bc529faa90ebc6430fd9c7c --- src/posts/miscarriages.hbs | 267 ------------------------------------- 1 file changed, 267 deletions(-) delete mode 100644 src/posts/miscarriages.hbs diff --git a/src/posts/miscarriages.hbs b/src/posts/miscarriages.hbs deleted file mode 100644 index c0261bc..0000000 --- a/src/posts/miscarriages.hbs +++ /dev/null @@ -1,267 +0,0 @@ - - - - Miscarriages - - - -
-There are moments that the words don’t reach -There is suffering too terrible to name -You hold your child as tight as you can -And push away the unimaginable -The moments when you’re in so deep -It feels easier to just swim down -
- -

-Since 2014, Sandy and I have been trying to have a child. We know now for certain that -we will not be able to. -

- -

-In 2014, shortly after having been married by Elvis in Vegas on our way to Palo Alto, -we started attempting to become pregnant. We had read the books, made all sorts of -decisions. We'd use a midwife. We'd do a home birth, maybe a water birth. It didn't -take long, Sandy became pregnant. We knew from some close friends who had a miscarriage -before their first successful child that we should wait until 12 weeks to say anything, -because that's the period when things are riskiest. We went for the ultra sound. -

- -

-When you go for an ultrasound, you expect to see something that doesn't actually look -like anything recognizable but which the technician will inform you is an embryo. If -you're lucky the first time, you might even hear a heartbeat. -

- -

-What you don't expect is for the technician to keep clicking around, measuring what -looks like an outline, and eventually tell you there is nothing there. You don't -expect to have a Blighted Ovum. -

- -

-Incidentally, you also expect the ultrasound technician to have some shred of empathy. -But what you might start to learn is that the things you expect are not in concert with -reality. -

- -

-A good friend of mine told me that the Zen Buddhist definition of suffering is the mismatch -between expectations and reality. I don't know if it's actually Zen Buddhism or not, but -I'll go along with the definition at this point, because all of the ways in which reality -was diverging from our expectations weren't not suffering. -

- -

-We waited for it to miscarry by itself. When that happened, it being our first time, -we went to the ER and learned that the ER at Stanford Medical Center is the -Marc and Laura Andreessen Emergency Department. It was very nice, but it turns out -there isn't much they can do. The on-call OB, however, happened to be EXCELLENT and -became our new OB. -

- -

-That's good, because this set of unexpected reality wasn't done with us. Sandy had a DNC -to clean things out, and in the follow up blood testing her HCG levels weren't going down -properly. That's because the little Blighted Ovum had decided to become Gestational -Trophoblastic Disease. Essentially, some of the cells embedded themselves in the uterine -wall and continued dividing. Like Cancer. -

- -

-The treatment, also like Cancer, is chemo. Methotrexate injections. The last injections -actually happened during the Paris OpenStack Summit, so we got to experience getting -chemo injections in a foreign country. Sandy has a wonderful story about how this affected -her experience of L'Auberge Du Pont De Collonges, but I'll leave that to her. -

- -

-That was a lot to deal with in Palo Alto. We moved back to New York. - -

-After chemo for your gestational trophoblastic disease, you have to wait a while before -trying to get pregnant again. We had literally just start trying again, which is why -it didn't occur to us that Sandy was pregnant. (we now know that "my boobs hurt" is a great -indicator, and doesn't mean "it's time to go bra shopping") -

- -

-I was in Mexico City for OpenStack Days Latam 2015 when I learned that Sandy was pregnant -again. The way I learned is that on my way to the venue in the morning, I got a phone call -from Sandy's good friend Shantel telling me that Sandy was in the hospital, having been -taken there in an ambulance the night before after rupturing a fallopian tube. I booked the -next flight back to New York and rushed back to New York. -

- -

-Sandy almost bled out. By all accounts, given the amount of blood she lost to -internal bleeding, she should be dead. Woodhull Medical Center in Bed-Stuy is not nearly -as pretty as the Marc And Laura Andreessen Emergency Department. People in the area call it -"Woodhell". The blinds on the door to Sandy's room were broken and were partially replaced -by a sheet that had been tacked up onto the door. This is, of course, because Bed-Stuy is -a neighborhood full of brown people who don't deserve the same medical care as the folks -at Cougar Night on Sand Hill Road. -

- -

-But here's the thing. The doctors at Woodhull are fierce, and Sandy is alive. If I ever get -billions of dollars for no good reason, I'm totally going to endow a Sandra Trahan Emergency -Department in Woodhull. -

- -

-After this, I'm going to be honest, it starts to run together for me. We had some more normal -miscarriages. We went and saw Hamilton. We moved to Dallas. We saw a heartbeat once, then -miscarried, which was life reminding us that we weren't numb yet and that it was still -possible to punch us in the face. -

- -

-Then we hit a patch of, for the first time, not immediately getting pregnant as soon as -we started trying. So we shifted our focus to IVF. -

- -

-If you haven't been lucky enough to go through IVF, it's almost as much fun as Gestational -Trophoblastic Disease, but with more needles. As part of perparation they sent Sandy to -a hemotologist, where we learned that she has two clotting disorders. This means if she gets -pregnant we have to start injecting her daily with blood thinners. But before we get to that -we get to inject her with all of the IVF drugs. -

- -

-If you haven't been lucky enough to need to inject your partner with multiple needles -every night, I don't have anything clever to say. It sucks. It was, of course, worse for -her. -

- -

-This is followed by the egg-extraction surgery. We got three almost viable embryos. None -of them took. Our IFV doctor noticed some scar tissue around the cervix from all the DNCs -we'd had to do and scheduled a surgery to take care of it before the next time. During that -procedure the doctor discovered some tissue in the uterus that had been hanging out there -since the last DNC. Kind of like the first time except this time with less cancer. -

- -

-Incidentally, our FIRST IVF doctor did a bunch of expensive tests, found elevated levels -of inflammation (maybe actually due to the extra tissue laying around?) and recommend Sandy -try removing Gluten from her diet. -

- -

-Gluten. -

- -

-By this point, we didn't have any remaining insurance for additional IVF, which isn't not related -to all of those expensive and pointless tests, but also isn't not related to having an almost -offensively but definitely absurdly low lifetime cap on our IVF benfits. Why would anyone properly -fund women's reproductive health? We decided to take a break. -

- -

-Nope. -

- -

-Right as we were starting to settle in to the idea that this just might not work out for us -and start the process of healing, we got unexpectedly pregnant. Now that the extra tissue had -been removed, we were back to being very good at getting pregnant. Due to Sandy's blood clotting, -this meant blood thinner injections. Nightly. In the belly. -

- -

-The injections hurt a lot, and produce purple bruising. The blood thinners have impacts on -Sandy's psyche. -

- -

-It should come as no surprise that even with the blood thinners, and even with the extra tissue -being gone, and even with the gallons of prenatals ... we once again miscarried. You'd think -we'd be old pros at this this time, but it was one of the more cruel ones. We had just about -hit a point of healing and acceptance, then we were given hope we weren't looking for again, -then it was once again dashed. -

- -

-That was last year. -

- -

-This year, in early February, right around our three-year annivesary of moving to Dallas, -we got accidentally pregnant again. We'd been EXTRA cautious, but that apparently doesn't mean -anything. We knew it wasn't going to work, because let's be honest here -- but we also knew that -due to the clotting disorder we'd need to give Sandy blood thinners for a pregnancy that wasn't -going to be viable or else she ran the risk of throwing a clot and stroking out. -

- -

-Acceptance comes at strange times, and it was at this point that we realized that we were, in -fact, done. We did not have it in us to fight this uphill battle anymore. It was time to choose -to be Child Free, instead of simply suffering being Childless. -

- -

-Oh wait, did I mentioned we'd moved to Texas? Let me tell you something we all know, but which -I have recently been reminded of first hand. -

- -

-Texas Lawmakers hate women. -

- -

-Not only is it illegal for our OB to perform an abortion for us on a pregnancy we know isn't going -to be viable and that we don't want without waiting until we're far enough along to possibly -hear a heartbeat, once we wait for that magical humiliating moment of going in to the ultrasound -clinic with all of the happy pregnant women and getting our non-viable ultrasound result, -it is then illegal for our OB to prescribe the chemical abortion pills in the way that is actually -effective as recommended by the WHO. (incidentally, if you're in Texas and your OB tells you to -take the pills orally, ignore them. Taking them orally carries a side effect of nausea and is also -less effective. Take the vaginally. Or, rather, go Google what the WHO recommends and do that.) -There is no valid reason to take them orally, unless your goal is punishing women who have had -the temerity to become pregnant inappropriately. -

- -
-If you see them in the street, walking side by side, have pity -They are trying to do the unimaginable -
- -

-We are now Child Free. -

- -

-I got a vasectomy, so that we don't have any more accidental pregnancies, -what with them being life-threatening for Sandy and all. I can report that my procedure was sort of like -going to get a latte, because I'm a dude, and of course medical science is going to figure out -how to make my tiny procedure as absolutely painless as possible. -

- -

-I am at peace with our choice and happy about what's next. I still have all the emotions. -I obviously have some anger. I'm devastated that I won't get to raise a kid. I'm sad that I won't -get to give my parents grandkids, which is doubly-hard since I am an only child. (I'm also adopted, -because my parents also had issues so they can empathize with our plight as well as anyone. -Yes, we looked in to adoption. No, we don't have the emotional strength left to do it) -

- -

-I'm also grateful that I have a partner I love and who loves me. I am excited to continue -to build our life together. It's not the life we expected to build, but I accept the life that it -actually is. -

- -
-There are moments that the words don’t reach -There is a grace too powerful to name -We push away what we can never understand -We push away the unimaginable -
- -Lyrics from "Quiet Uptown" by Lin-Manuel Miranda - -