I've had a very long holiday weekend to think about knowing.
Earlier this past week, I had my perinatologist appointment. If you don't know what a perinatologist is, they're sort of specialized obstetricians... uber-OB's, if you will. These are they guys (and gals) who handle the highest risk pregnancies and the women who have the hardest time conceiving. The OB who delivered William decided it would make more sense (and insurance would pay for it) if I requested the blood tests I wanted done through a perinatologist.
Of course, I couldn't get in to see him for almost two months... these uber-OBs are very much in demand, and they get paid quite well for their services. It was $500 just to walk into his office. My OB estimated the blood work (I haven't seen the bill yet) somewhere around $2000.
So after all that waiting, I finally got to see him on Monday June 29. He ordered all the blood work to test for all those things known to cause stillbirth - things like thrombosis, lupus, thyroid, homocystine, etc. Then he said that the results would be back by Thursday, and he would give me a call.
So Thursday came, but no call. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, and I called their office around noon. The nurse said the results were in - but the doc hadn't signed off on them yet, and he would call me when he had. Of course, he didn't call. And they stopped answering their phone and let it go to message starting at about 3pm. My guess is they all left early for the holiday weekend.
Which meant I had to wait again. Which I've been doing, patiently, or not so patiently, depending on my mood, since Thursday. And look at that, Monday is tomorrow. Just around the corner. A phone call with the blood test results is, in fact, now just hours away. The results are sitting there - they've been sitting there for days. Someone knows. I might not know, but someone knows.
They say knowledge is power, and I'm sure, in some ways, that's true. But I've been sitting here wondering, since I've had time to wonder... which is worse - knowing or not knowing?
I thought I knew. I thought not knowing was worse. Much worse. I thought that knowing would give me information, and perhaps, the power to change things next time, to prevent what happened to William. At the very least, even if all the tests came back negative, it would give me peace of mind, knowing I'd done everything I could to find out what happened.
But now... on the eve of knowing... I'm not so sure I want to know.
There are things you just can't unknow. Maybe that's it. That sense that ignorance really is bliss. I look around at the women who have never lost a baby, and I know something they don't. And I can't unknow it. I can never be back in that place of unknowing again. I know - and I wish I didn't.
Right now I don't know... and that ignorance feels very safe.
Tomorrow I get information which will, one way or another, pop that safety bubble.
But tonight, I want to stay here. Not knowing. The woman in the bubble. That's who I want to be right now.
10 comments:
(((dawn))) i'll be thinking of you tomorrow.
Sometimes the anticipation of the event is worse than the event itself. Maybe knowing won't be that bad once you're there, but waiting to find out is horrible. My mind can create thousands of possibilities when I have to wait for test results, usually all of them terrible. I believe in knowledge and in the old cliche, Forewarned is forearmed...Don't stress out too much, I'm betting you're making it into something bigger than it might actually be (I hope anyways). Sending you hugs, Margaret
I get you on every single word. I felt this way, too. And knowing for me, I'm sorry to say only made it worse. Because once we knew, it became crystal clear that she could have been and should have been saved. It should just have never happened.
It has helped with TTC though, knowing that what did happen was a rare, freak occurence with no INCREASED chance of it happening again. I carry the same risks in to this new pregnancy as all the smug, innocent women out there - the same woman I was just 12 months ago.
Sometimes knowledge doesn't help. Because it doesn't provide ANY ANSWERS.
Remember, lots of babies are stillborn and they don't know why.
My Freyja was like that. They couldn't find a single thing wrong with her. Nothing that could have been the reason for her death.
She was one of the "unknowns".
So all we know is that they don't know the reason for her death.
Finding out your baby died for "no reason" is not helpful.
((hugs))
Thinking of you.
I'm sorry that you've had to wait for the results.
Some days I wish I knew why. So I could stop searching for a reason and have some peace. Perhaps it wasn't my fault.
Other days I'm glad I don't know. Perhaps it was my fault.
The only explanation I've ever been given is that multiple pregnancies carry a higher risk of complications. But no explanation of the particular complication in my case.
And I wish we could unknow it all.
xx
Oh sweetie... I hope that the answers help and arent just another "we dont know". I really hoped that when we had tests run initially and the "sorry, we have no reason why" made it worse.
Sending you hugs and hoping that this brings you a little bit of peace in all the hurt.
I don't know what's better either. On one hand, if your blood tests show something then you can be treated accordingly in the next pregnancy and possibly be less anxious about it happening again. On the other hand, then you will know that something could have been done to save your baby if only they did these tests as a standard protocol. It's frustrating either way. I had all of those blood tests done too and there was nothing in them, except one weird genetic mutation that supposedly didn't mean anything. But I obsessed over that for months. And because of that I took baby aspirin and B-complex in my next pregnancy. Yet, we don't know if that made a difference. Maybe it just made a difference in my mind. Good luck today. I will be thinking of you.
i also think waiting sucks.
i had a lot of those tests too. something is going on, but nothing is at a clinical level. But like clc, i am doing aspirin and FABB for the next go-round. And it also doesn't hurt to know for your own health reasons.
The perinatolgist was pretty shocked when I told her that I knew that I would never know why Dresden died, and I was somewhat okay with that.. because knowing that something MY BODY did to him would have been somehow harder, you know? But even though we have no results that say one way or another.. that momma guilt still comes in.. and it would of course be nice to know what the chances are of it happening again.. I hope you get your answers soon.
Ironic. Since you still don't know. I used to think I didn't want to know. Scared it was something I did or ate. Something that could have been prevented. Something that might visit us again... but when I found out Logan had DS it made some things a little better. Like, it wasn't my fault (not really, not logically), it couldn't have been prevented (unless I would have started having kids years ago, and even then that's not a for sure thing) and though it could happen again...it isn't guarunteed to do so. I am glad I know. But then if it turned out to be something I did...maybe that guilt would have eaten me alive.
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