After an Ectopic

Our situation still doesn't feel real to me. I'm beginning to think it never will.

And maybe that's okay.

TMI ahead...

We continued the PIO shots after surgery. Sadly, about four days after, I started bleeding. The next day I started passing clots and a lot more blood. We stopped the PIO shots at that point since it was obvious my body was already expelling my lining. Sadly, no miracle baby popping up in the uterus for us.Those first several days of shedding my lining were h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e. I would be resting in bed and suddenly feel a warm slimy sensation and would find a massive puddle of tissue and blood. If it's this bad after such an early point in pregnancy I don't think I want to know what it's like after giving birth.

Recovery has been about what should be expected. Part of me thought I should feel normal already. But then I remember that this was my third laprascopic surgery in five years and realize there is no way for me to be back to normal less than two weeks out. My boobs finally started getting the message and stopped hurting a few days ago. They're still bigger than normal. I had lots of hot flashes and night sweats the last week. I'm sure it's from my progesterone level dropping and probably my other hormone levels dropping as well. My poor butt is still a bit itchy and has red spots from the PIO. The pharmacy gave us needles that were too short the last time and so the PIO wasn't getting in deep enough. It gave me awful itchy rashes around the injection sites of my last several shots. My butt still hurts from the shots. It's still sore and occasionally has sharp stabbing pains. I wonder how long that will linger. Not fun at all.

My incisions are healing fairly well. Although, now I have an internal stitch poking out of each incision on my hips. The three incision sites are still tender to the touch, however, the bruising is finally starting to fade. Post-op I also had two red spots near my belly button. After a couple of days they scabbed over so we figured they must have been burn marks. I'll be asking about those at my follow-up since it's not something that should happen. I remember in recovery and back in my hospital room the nurses being concerned about those spots. I'm guessing the doctor will know more. Overall the swelling in my abdomen has gone down enough that I can finally button my pants. Although, I still leave them unbuttoned and hooked together with a hair tie since when they're buttoned it puts too much pressure on my belly when I'm sitting.

I have a repeat beta Monday. I got to skip one this last week since we were out of town. (I don't recommend going out of town for any reason in the week following surgery, but it was planned months in advanced and the doctor cleared me to go). I have to do them weekly until they're negative. Since I had my period and it's done now, I'm hoping I'll just have to do the one beta. My poor veins are getting so beat up. 

I'm going to wait until I have a normal cycle, then we'll do another mini-IVF banking cycle. Hopefully we will be ready for a retrieval by the end of May. We're down to four blasts, three of which are very poor quality. We will eventually transfer all the blasts we have, but obviously the poor quality ones don't have the best chance which is why we want to bank some more first. I'm guessing it will be the end of July or early August before we're ready to try another transfer. That seems like a very long time to me.

For now, I'm just taking it one day at a time.

p.s. (Fuck you to the stupid grocery store that still had St. Patrick's Day cards on display today. The holiday was two weeks ago and your evil reminder made me cry for two hours straight. Assholes.)