You Fought the Good Fight

I was supposed to evaluate a new client, a baby, last week. The family had something come up and we rescheduled for today. They needed to change it again, so we moved the appointment to Monday.  This morning at about 6:45 I got a call from the social worker that the baby passed away last night. This is the second time in my career that a baby passed away before I got to meet the family. The first time it happened, I lost 4 clients in about the same amount of weeks; one I had never met, one I had evaluated and was waiting for it to get healthy and out of the hospital to begin ongoing services, and two I'd seen a handful of times each.  I'm not sure why I'm sharing this exactly. Parents should never outlive their babies.  What a cruel and terrible thing to endure.

Loss is vicious, weather it's the loss of something you held in your arms, or the loss of something you will never have the opportunity to hold at all. I don't know which is worse.

Yesterday, my doctor said "You fought the good fight." This was after a very messy ultrasound to determine why I've been bleeding for 2 weeks, and a review of the volumes of history in my charts. I honestly thought he'd tell me it was another bad period.  A fibroid? Yea, I've had them before. Not a shock. They come, they go, they get burned off in surgery.  This one, about the size of a golf ball, is causing me to bleed, among other things.  For some reason, I never thought a fibroid would be the final straw.  Well, that, and "I can't find your right ovary. It probably shrunk because it's non-functional. That happens to women after menopause."

I thought I'd get to hold onto my parts for at least another 6 months before I had to contemplate this decision, and that my decision would be based on how much pain the endometriosis that is sure to rear its ugly head again was causing, and if I wanted to bother with yet another laparoscopy.  There is no time for that, since the bleeding will likely not stop, per the doc. The fibroid is likely calcifying and would be medication-resistant. It will continue to cause painful cycles, painful intercourse, stupid crazy bleeding, bowel and bladder issues, and block any minute chance that my questionable left ovary, assuming again, a miracle happens, could do its job (there are cysts in the lefty, anyway, so who knows if eggs exist, and if it would matter.)  And if it were to do its job, it would be fruitless anyway, since this particular golf ball that's taken up residence in my pelvic cavity would mess up any opportunity for a cozy 9-month nesting place.

Let's face it, I just turned 35.  I was hoping that a miracle would happen sometime before summer, since it's happened for so many of my friends at this very age. But, alas. No such miracle is in store for me. I've officially been smacked upside the head.  I will never conceive, nor give birth.  Perhaps another miracle is in the works, perhaps something amazing. Or perhaps the lesson is "This life is rough, and the next will be better. Hold onto that!"

Hold on, I shall!