Today I am mad... and confused..and mad... I just can't stop all of these thoughts going around in my head...Yesterday I had an appointment with the consultant that I was with for 5 years. This consultant was on the journey with us through 5 IVF treatments all the investigative work the operations... and then we stayed with her for our pregnancy.. she did the boys first scan.. she knew more than any living person what it was like for us, the ups and the downs.. as she is the only person that was aware of each step we had to go through to get pregnant...
So yesterday I was going back to see someone who I had a relationship with over years...someone who did not pick up the phone or write a note to say she was sorry to hear of our loss.. who did not acknowledge the loss of our boys.. she said yesterday I'm sorry for what happened, she had a letter in front of her with our sons names on, there names were Luke and Arthur..what she should have said is I'm sorry for your loss of your sons Luke and Arthur, after all they did exist, they were born, one lived for 2 weeks.. This is the reason I was meeting with her because these 2 people no longer exist they are dead.. and I am trying to find out as much as I can as to why this has happened so please acknowledge them..is it that hard...
I arrived to the hospital and when I went to her secretary she was confused, she checked the list she informed me that I was to meet her at the outpatients department and that I needed to queue to get my file.. I'm here to talk about loosing my twins and I need to queue for my file..IS THIS FOR F*****G real... I stood here for a few minutes and asked by DH to take my place while I went to the nurses station. I told them I was here to meet with the consultant but that I couldn't queue.. I had lost my children , I was bawling..did I need to go through this.. They apologized and said they would get my file and that I could take a seat down the corridor (as now the whole waiting area was looking on)... Oh and the consultant isn't here so we would be waiting. We waited 40 minutes, in which time I was upset, crying, angry and mad.. Then along she comes with her cup of coffee in her hand and into the room...
I sat down in the room she apologized for our loss and gave the impression well what now.. I asked her for a chronological account of the pregnancy, she entertained me. I asked about my cervix measurement at my 18 week scan which was 2.78....that was it she was now on the defensive.. what of the measurement it was normal and did not indicate anything.. I asked would she not consider it short on the low side of cervix length.. she did not, in fact she doesn't know why she measured it at all..It is not something that is done and her colleagues do not do it.. I asked why as I was considered high risk...well if we had to do it for high risk we would have to do it for every pregnant woman and we would have nothing to compare it to..but I have lots of scans between 20 and 30 all done by you surely you have something to compare it to.. she didn't have that information there and couldn't say if she had ever measured my cervix but she would make an appointment at the end of May (she couldn't do it sooner as she would be away on holidays) to measure it... It was after the meeting that I remembered her doing a procedure prior to my IVF treatment in Dublin when she did a mock of inserting the embryo into the uterus and she commented that there was a bend in the cervix..surely she has a measurement...
I know that the outcome cannot be changed but it does make me mad that my consultant did not think my cervix had shortened and did not call me back for another scan for six weeks..I questioned this and was told it was normal. I asked about turning up at A&E with pre-labor symptoms and being told it was probably a capillary bleed and that this often happens..my water broke two days later.. I asked about the scan I had hours prior to my waters breaking, I was told the doctor had no way of knowing that I was at risk of going into labor even I had classic per-labor symptoms.... I mentioned the word 'they' when I asked about a scan she scolded me and said what do you mean by they I said the doctor who scanned me she said that it was her who was in charge so to refer to her.. I mean really am I five!!!
It didn't stop there I then asked her about what was her recommendation going forward she replied that I should get an abdominal stitch. I told her what the consultant that delivered the babies suggested to get a cervical stitch she said that was ok but she would recommend the abdominal stitch and only one person in Ireland can perform the procedure. Then she recommended I research it on-line before proceeding any further. I did not feel the need to inform her that I had already started down the IVF path again.. After all is this the type of person I want to have a relationship with... Is this someone I would want to know every detail of our difficult journey..Is this someone I would want in my life at all???
After this appointment my head was reeling.. I then had to get in my car and drive two hours to the hospital where the twins were born and meet with the midwife counselor.. I told her about my meeting and she was sympathetic.. She asked me what had I wanted from the meeting with the consultant. This is something that I needed to ponder, what did I hope to gain from this meeting.. empathy, understanding, someone to blame, closure, all of the above.. Did I get that??? No is the answer..if the consultant had called me after the boys had died would I have felt better, maybe,I don't know but I did feel that without empathy and genuine concern for me and my twin boys that I was left with anger.. This woman, consultant, doctor had left me with anger..My counselor asked did I need to be brining this extra person on my journey of grief and the answer is no but how do I get rid of her..how do I let all these feelings of anger and what ifs go.. I known it is not healthy for me to dwell on this my DH has encouraged me to move on. I'm just finding it hard, I could honestly say at this moment in time I hate this person.
After my counseling session, I went for another scan.. this consultant was very nice, she had remembered that I had an appointment with my old consultant and asked how it went. I told her it was hard, and then I asked her about the recommendation of getting an abdominal stitch. This consultant said that I was not a candidate for an abdominal stitch, unless I had surgery to remove part of my cervix or a cervical stitch did not work. So why was this procedure recommended? Today I decided to write to my new consultant who is just back from holidays I asked her about the abdominal stitch and she said I was not a candidate. Its just so confusing, all these different opinions. The more I thought about it today, I wondered why my old consultant recommended a abdominal stitch as she never agreed that my cervix was incompetent, yet she wants me to go for major surgery. Oh and I had my cervix measured at yesterdays scan, it is 3.8-4.1 cm so I do have a normal cervix and it had shortened to 2.7.
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Well I guess the decision of whether or not to get abdominal stitch has been taken out of my hands as I got my transfer day today. It is on May 5th and I will need a third scan on April 25th to check my lining. So if I do get pregnant I will get a cervical stitch and if that doesn't work, I will probably go insane. What frightens me however is that I am so confident that I will get pregnant, I forget about all the failed IVF's, the ones where I did not get pregnant. It is so hard trying to stay in the here and now. Yesterday was my birthday.. happy birthday to me!!
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