Back to the story...
Ok so to recap,
back to 23rd December 1999.
I had felt "a bit off" for a day or two and then it dawned on me that I
was late, not late for work but L A T E!
I went to the pharmacy a bought a home pregnancy test, the old faithful
that had confirmed Miss Meggie-moo. Naturally,
I was too anxious to wait for the morning, so when I got back to work I went
straight to the loo. After five minutes,
there were two blue lines and an incredibly astounded me!
I calmly walked
back to my desk and emailed Haydn. If I
recall correctly, I typed, “Just passed that test with two blue lines, eeeem
hello?” Within seconds, the phone
rang. “Yes. No, I am not kidding. I am going to ring the Dr now. I love you too. Bye”
The next morning
I was at my Gynae’s rooms at 07h30, I was a high risk patient because of my
previous miscarriage. She did an
internal scan and the news was not great, my world collapsed around me. “No, please no. Not again!”
I was about 3 weeks pregnant and the scan was not promising. I was sent off for the bloods that do the
qualitative hormone count. By the time I
got home, later that morning It was all over, I had started bleeding and I knew
what that meant. I curled myself up into
a ball and gave work a complete miss, it was Christmas Eve and supposed to be
my last day anyway.
At around noon
my doctor rang. “The bloods look good, I
think it may all be okay.”
“No, it’s not, I
am bleeding, it’s all over” I replied.
“That could be
from the internal scan, is the bleeding heavy?”
she asked.
“No, not heavy,
but I haven’t got the courage to hope.” By now the tears were sliding down my
face and my throat hurt like hell from the effort of holding in my sobs.
“The best thing
for us to do is wait a day and then repeat the bloods again, if they are still
climbing, then your baby is still growing and you are still pregnant” she
sounded more confident than I felt.
I think that her
confidence gave me some hope, I took a deep breath and we discussed a plan that
included me getting medication to strengthen my cervix and Haydn and I still
driving to Gonubie, East London. On
Boxing Day I would have a second blood test down there and we could take it
from there. Haydn and I discussed it and agreed that we
were not going to tell everyone – especially if I was going to have a
miscarriage for Christmas. The dark days were back!
Christmas lunch
was at mom and dad’s mountain house. The
day was difficult and after lunch we left for Gonubie. This is an 11 hour drive from the Highveld
down through the Free State into the Eastern Cape, it is a long journey. We arrived at about 3am and went straight to
bed, in the morning Nana looked after Meg so that we could catch up on some
sleep. Boxing Day was a public holiday,
but it was also the day that I had to have the next blood test.
The only blood lab open was at the hospital
and so off we went. After explaining to
three people why I had to have the bloods done, a nurse came to me and
explained that as it was a public holiday, they were only handling emergency
cases and that I should rather come back tomorrow. In true Tracy
style, I lost the plot, “Do you mean to say that for me to find out if the bay
inside me is alive or dead is not an emergency?” I enquired at the top of my
lungs. The nurse stammered and muttered,
everyone in the waiting room shuffled uncomfortably.
Before she could string a sentence together a
Doctor rushed in and ushered us out of the waiting room and into a consulting
room. With a vague apology he told the
nurse to do the bloods and tell the lab to put a rush on it. With my
adrenaline still pumping, bloods were drawn and we left with a promise from the
Doctor that he would contact my Gynae with the result as soon as possible. In the car I burst into tears, frustration
and anxiety overcoming common sense.
At about six that evening she called, “the blood levels still look good
but unforturnately it is not conclusive because the test was conducted by a different lab and
the counting methods differ, so to be absolutely certain, you will need to go
back to the same lab again in 2 days.”
Argh! When will it end, I just wanted to know, one
way or the other, was I or wasn’t I? The
stress was unreal! Another two day wait,
another blood test. It all just seemed
so cruel!
The next blood test was quick
and easy, the lab must have been forewarned as they were very professional and
efficient. On the 28th of
December it was confirmed that the foetus was still growing and therefore the
pregnancy was still viable. But, to add to
our worries the sonar scan measurements insisted that I had been 1 day pregnant
when I had undergone, general anaesthetic to have kidney stones surgically
removed. This meant that our baby had
been exposed to radiation from x-rays, etc, just 1 day into her creation.
Once again, my
doctor assured me that the amounts of radiation were not enough to be of major
concern and that our baby was going to be fine.
But there was still that lingering worry that this little girl (we saw
in the scan that she was a girl) who was still holding on to life, was not
going to be normal. At 36 weeks I went
on maternity leave, it was Friday. On
the Sunday we took Megan to Emmerentia Dam for a day out, on her scooter. It was hot, I felt so
uncomfortable and tired it felt like I had walked a marathon. The rest of the weekend went by in real discomfort.
On Monday
morning I was dressed by 6:30am, Haydn teased me that I was on maternity
leave, had my little porridge brain forgot?
“No,” I replied, “something is not right, I am going to the
doctor”. He laughed again and said,
“well she is only coming out on the 18th so you may want to take
some time to rest and stop worrying. I
am going to Vereeniging for a meeting today.
Call me if you need me.”
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