Blades

Chapter 1. Forever

I always thought forever seemed like such a long time. Like promising forever was the ultimate gesture. If you married someone it bound you together, a bond that truly said eternal love. But with time I soon realized nothing could truly be forever, otherwise, a person like myself who always strived and thrived on perfection, would in fact have manifested a truly perfect and forever relationship.

I was a 26 year old Mom who thought in the beginning that I was truly manifesting a perfect life for myself. I always strived for perfection, so it just made since to me that being married almost 10 years and about to have my 4th baby that I had in no doubt achieved the dream life I had always wanted. Well, until one day I suddenly lost my mind and decided I just didn’t feel happy. But why on earth with everything that I had did I suddenly just feel like it was just not enough? Maybe it was because just last year I died. Yup, you heard me… I died.

It was Easter of 2020 and I was pregnant with my 4th baby. All of my previous pregnancies never had to many concerns. I had 3 healthy babies already so the whole pregnancy thing just seemed to be so easy for me now that I had so much experience. I knew all of the symptoms I should experience and didn’t feel to many of them yet considering I found out about 9 days after I ovulated. I was peeing on ovulation strips and pregnancy strips for over a month. I had no Idea why. I had never tracked my ovulation or taken tests before I missed my period before. And for some reason this time I was just drawn to them. I was peeing on sticks like 6 times a day. I just felt like for some reason I needed to all of a sudden. When I got my first positive pregnancy test it was so faint my husband Jackson didn’t even think he could see a line. But I definitely could. I kept testing and testing. Finally it was the day of my missed period and it was hard to miss the line but at the same time it wasn’t as dark as my lines were with my other pregnancies. It started to worry me but only in the back of my mind. After deciding around 5 weeks that the tests were just worsening my anxiety I decided to stop. I didn’t feel to much out of the ordinary though. Starting to feel tired and like I needed to pee all the time assured me that I definitely was pregnant and the tests were probably just faulty since they were a cheap pack I got off of amazon.

I was only 5 weeks and 3 days when I started gathering other symptoms though that I realized had been here all along that I seemed to have just ignored not seeing the significance until now. I got so dizzy that morning I felt like I was going to pass out. And I started to feel a stabbing pain come and go on my right side that I kept brushing off telling myself it was probably just gas. But what really made me worry was when that evening I used the bathroom and bright red blood was on my toilette paper when I wiped.

Immediately I started to panic. But having being diagnosed with anxiety over 10 years ago I told myself over and over that it was ok. A lot of women have some spotting early in pregnancy. And it was probably just from a hematoma or something that is actually pretty common in early pregnancy. So I kept telling myself it was nothing to worry about. It was just some spotting. I didn’t have any more before bed and that I was going to be fine and that I just am overthinking everything like always.

It was 2:03 am exactly when I woke up that night. I had the worst cramps and side pain I had ever experienced in my life. I put my legs over the side of the bed and just sat there hunched over squeezing my stomach for around 30 minutes. I kept telling myself I had a normal stomach ache and I felt like I had to use the bathroom. Finally I decided to make my way over to the bathroom when I realized the pain wasn’t going away. I sat on the toilet a very long time it felt like. I felt like I had to go to the bathroom so bad but I just couldn’t. I told myself I must be constipated. Eventually I started throwing up. I needed to try to make it back to my bed. But what felt easy when I first walked into the bathroom now felt impossible to make it out. At that moment that something was seriously wrong. I crawled back to my bed on all fours and barley made it to the edge before curling into a ball and writhing side to side making a deep moaning noise. The pain I was feeling was worse then when I had been in labor 3 times previously. I felt tears in my eyes beginning to form. I knew that it was my pregnancy. I automatically new it was ectopic. “It had ruptured” kept playing over and over again in my head as I was twisting from side to side in more pain then I had ever experienced in my life.

At this moment I realized I was going to die if I didn’t get to the ER. There was no doubt in my mind that I was dying on my bed at that moment. So I rolled over and started smacking my husbands foot with what little strength I had trying to wake him up without waking up my sleeping baby in the middle of the bed. I made a small cry out loud to him. “Jackson, Jackson…please wake up.” “What?”, he growls at me half asleep. “I need to go to the hospital,” I cry out to him “It’s my stomach, somethings wrong with the baby. I need to go to the ER.” “Rory, just go to sleep babe. It’s 3am. You’re gana be ok” he says in a I can’t believe you are wanting to go to the ER over a stomach ache type of voice. “Call my mom” I tell him “ she needs to come over and stay with the kids so you can take me to the ER.”

And just like that it was decided she was on her way but she urged him to call an ambulance instead of taking me. See my mom knew me. She knew what kind of pain I could take and that something must be seriously wrong if I was crying over a “stomach ache” as my husband had put it. After all I had 3 babies I had delivered naturally and even broke my clavicle at the age of 4 without shedding a tear.

I lie in bed continuing to moan and hold my stomach. At that point my husband had taken the baby and was waiting at the front door with it open for the medics to come in. And of course my anxiety started shooting off everything that was going to go wrong with me going to the hospital at home with my husband watching the kids. “Shit” I thought. My youngest baby wasn’t even a year old and exclusively nursed. How was I going to feed him. I only had 4 ounces of milk I randomly decided to pump the week before and I didn’t even have any bottles in the house. And my 5 year old was going to need help with his school in the morning because he was remote learning because of COVID. “Fucking COVID” I thought. Shit I didn’t even realize until now that I was going to an emergency room during a pandemic where the body count was said to be high and hospitals flooded with patients. I started to worry about possible recourses being low because of so many people being in the hospital right now.

Finally I heard the medics walking into the door and I realized I was in nothing but a nursing tank top and underwear. Just great. I look up and my mind clears as I see a stretcher just out the door. I’m told to try to stand up as I am slowly brought over to the bed to lay on. I struggle and eventually make it to lie down as I get strapped in and made to answer so many questions I get annoyed. I start being wheeled out of the house. The last site I see is my mom holding my baby and rocking him in a blanket trying to keep him as calm as possible. I start to cry as I tell her I only have 4 ounces of milk and that I didn’t know what to do after that. It dawns on me that with COVID they aren’t allowing anyone in the ER. I worry about feeding my baby and suddenly feel so alone as I’m wheeled to the curb thinking about how my husband won’t be able to be with me. There is a man in front of the foot of my bed I notice. He isn’t helping the other medics lift me into the ambulance. But instead I see him just standing there.

His bright hazel eyes look concerned as he intensely stares at me from the end of the bed. We lock eyes as the door closes and he steps inside and sits in the corner. A chill hits me as I see what looks like fear in his eyes. The other medics start taking my vitals and trying to start and IV. Our gaze breaks as I start to throw up.

I was in the ER for 10 fucking hours moaning in pain. Not a single Dr checked on me until I was there almost 3 hours. He did a quick ultrasound on a shitty machine and told me that my HCG levels were only 150. He didn’t see a baby and it was probably an early miscarriage. I told him it was ectopic, just like I told the nurse 3 hours earlier. But still everyone seemed to not believe I was in pain, or that anything was seriously wrong. The ER was desolate. I had pictured not enough rooms, machines going off in every direction, people dying. I think I was the only one there. But somehow being ignored by every Dr and nurse in the wing like I had the plague. I wasn’t hooked up to monitors or IVs. I wasn’t checked on or asked how my pain was. I was alone.

I had started bleeding shortly after I had arrived and wasn’t even given a pad. I sat there for 10 hours crying and alone. Finally the Dr came in again and said he was going to transfer me up to labor and delivery. At this point my pain was so bad it was like I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything. I lay in the bed motionless and felt almost like I was sleeping but awake. All I could do was nod.

As I was being transferred to labor and delivery I felt slightly more awake thinking about my son. My boobs were rock hard and in pain. My gown was soaked in milk at this point from not nursing for so long. I asked if since I was no longer going to be in the ER if my husband was aloud in the room with me. I remember some hospitals allowing 1 visitor when not in the ER. The nurse assured me she would call my husband and that he would be able to be in the room with me. I asked her if he could bring my son temporarily in so that I could nurse him, explaining that he wasn’t even a year old and didn’t take a bottle and I felt like I was going to get mastitis. She told me no almost instantly. She was going to make me starve my baby? I was fucking furious and told her I needed to feed him trying to get her to understand my urgency to feed my baby regardless of COVID or how much pain I was in. she told me she had to call the health department to see if it was an exception. My bed was parked in a room and she told me my nurse would be right in.

It took maybe 30 minutes before anyone came into the room and it was my husband with my baby. I felt so relieved. The nurse followed behind him and told me that it was an exception and that my son had to leave after I nursed him. Agreeing I latched him on while the nurse started to take my vitals. I was asked all of the questions of my symptoms and pain I was first asked when I came into the ER. It was hard to focus though. My pain was unbearable and it felt so hard to nurse my son. I was also distracted by a faint moaning scream I was hearing out of the door of a women in labor. I felt so empty. This women was having a baby and I was loosing mine. Even though everyone in the hospital tried telling me nothing was seriously wrong with me. I knew I was having an ectopic pregnancy. I felt so certain. The nurse brought back my attention by telling me the OB was going to be in soon and that she would be taking over my diagnosis. I felt so baffled, why was no one taking my condition seriously? Did I not look like I was in enough pain? Did they think I was faking it? What was wrong with all of them. A few hours? It seemed so far away and I felt so cold and tired. She left my room and Jackson looked at me with his dark hazel eyes seeming unfazed by what was going on. Did he not believe me either? Why didn’t he look worried? Or stressed? He asked me if I was done nursing and reluctantly I said yes, not wanting to let my baby leave. It felt so finite. He took him from my arms and said he would take him home to where my mom was watching my other 2 kids and be right back.

And here I was again…alone. Listening to women give birth and newborns crying as they arrived into this cold and heartless hospital.

I started feeling so light, faint, cold. I felt nothing. No emotion, no anxiety. Eyes open just entranced at the ceiling feeling heavy and unable to move. My husband had appeared at some point in the sofa seat in my room again but again I felt like he was just there out of obligation. I felt like no one cared.

It had been several hours since the OB was supposed to arrive when she finally came into the room. Going though the same mundane questions everyone else had asked me. questions that didn’t seem really to matter to them. She tried telling me I got my period wrong and I was just having an early miscarriage just like the DR in the ER. I had no risks to make her assume ectopic and she wanted to send me home. I was baffled. Was she out of her fucking mind? She was going to tell me I was wrong about my ovulation and period? After I had taken so many tests I had for sure knew exactly how far along I was. And my localized right side pain, feeling like I needed to poop, bleeding and throwing up meant nothing to her? If I went home I was going to die I told her. I told her I was certain it was ectopic and that I needed her to save me. If she sent me home I was going to die.

I think I made her uncomfortable challenging her diagnosis and she then suggested “exploratory surgery” as she had called it. They would just basically stick a small camera though my belly button and two small incisions by my ovaries and just peek around. She looked at my husband and told him she was almost certain that it was not ectopic and that if the baby wasn’t actually miscarrying that the baby would end up being terminated through surgery. And that we should talk about this together. I felt the need to mention again to everyone in the room that if it was ectopic, and I was certain it was, that sending me home would kill me. I wanted the surgery and I wanted it immediately. Jackson looked at my for the first time since being there like he actually realized what could be going on. The OB told me ok and that the anesthesiologist would be there within 30 minutes with paperwork for me to sign. I felt the need to worry about my impeding surgery but couldn’t.

How odd. I have been the most anxious person my whole life until this moment. My fear of something going wrong in surgery should be engulfing me right now I thought. I felt oddly at peace. Trusting these DRs who didn’t seem to give a shit about me and didn’t even believe me that something was wrong. But it was all I could really do at this moment. The anesthesiologist was there faster than any other person had gotten to me that day. Oddly calm I signed the paperwork and he wheeled me back with one other lady helping him. It all happened so fast at this point.

There was a small team of people in the OR room placing out scalpels, counting instruments and towels talking amongst themselves. They lifted the four corners of the sheet under me and placed me on the operating table. Electrodes get placed all over my body and they hook up mu IV to a bag hanging behind me. He explained that he would be giving me medicine to make me fall asleep now and that it may make me feel panicked or make my throat feel funny but it was ok. It would only happen for a moment. He starts counting and I try to stay calm as I observe my surroundings. And then I see him. The medic that was sitting at the corner of the ambulance on my way here. But this time he stands by my feet in scrubs and looks at me with his bold hazel eyes. The same pained look and frown across his chizz led jaw as he looks at me. “It’s ok Rory, I’m here for you” he says. And I drift away instantly into a deep sleep.

Once I wake up my husband is holding my hand as a nurse detaches electrodes and my IV from me. I feel so foggy, Like I’m not really awake. “ the baby was ectopic, it was already ruptured when they did the surgery, they had to remove the baby” Jackson says. His face is blank, void of emotions as he tells me something that is so devastating but somehow rolls off his tong like nothing.

I don’t say anything I just shake my head. I felt like this was all such bullshit. How the fuck was everyone so calm during the situation. Like no one gave a fuck, really understood what I just went through. The nurse told my husband I could leave right away and she told me that they removed my right tube with my surgery. “you’re lucky to be alive” she says with a flat tone. “You died today in that room, they were able to save you and apparently beat all odds after you had a reaction to the anesthesia.” Her words cut through the room like ice. Are you fucking kidding me? I almost died because they let me bleed out for like 15 fucking hours. And then they did in fact kill me? And now not even 30 minutes after it all I’m being sent home? I still felt half asleep, groggy and suddenly feeling like I had been hit by a bus as I started waking up more. My neck hurt, it hurt to breath, to move even a centimeter felt impossible. Geeze did they fucking beat me while I was in the OR or something?