Deja Vu and a New Wrinkle

Aside from many fewer tears, "deja vu" is the best way to describe yesterday's D&C.

It was on a Friday, scheduled for 10:30 a.m. The first one was also on a Friday, either at 10 or 10:30 a.m.

I wound up with the same pre-op intake nurse, although this time I was much more prepared for her. She remembered me, too. But every time she tried to get chatty, I cut her off and attempted to distract her.

Her: "So how many babies have you lost?" Me: "Six. What did my blood pressure read at?"

Her: "Have the doctors come up with any reason this keeps happening?" Me: "Well, clearly none that has solved the problem. You know, I've never had someone take my temperature before by running a device across my forehead. Is that new?"

Her: "Have you thought of adoption?" (as she's walking me to the changing room). Me: "Can my husband come back to the waiting area with me?" (Even though I already knew perfectly well that the answer was yes.)

At least it was better than sobbing through the whole interview, like I did last time.

We were taken to the exact same pre-op area, and then I was put in the exact same post-op recovery stall. And it's not like this is a small place - there must have been at least 20 post-op stalls. The only thing that was slightly different was that I think I was in the operating room adjacent to the one I was in last time. The walk didn't seem quite so far this time.

And also like last time, as soon as I set foot into the operating room, I lost it and started crying. But at least this time I didn't wake up into heaving, hysterical sobs like last time.

The wrinkle in all of this came while we were waiting in the pre-op area.

While I am usually pretty fond of Ob, I am extremely annoyed with both him and the ob rad right now. Ob stepped into our waiting area with one hand holding his cell phone to an ear and the other flipping through my chart. He said hello and then proceeded to read a couple of sentences to us from the ob rad's report that basically says I have a misshapen uterus.

I'm not clear on whether ob rad thinks the top of my uterus is just slightly sagging or if he thinks it's fully bicornate. All I know is that Ob looked very grave and said, "That definitely causes miscarriages." When I mentioned that I had an HSG in February that looked fine, he looked very surprised, said "This February?" and then when I nodded, followed up with, "Well, get the films, send them to the ob rad and follow up with him." And with the cell phone still stuck to his ear, proceeded to turn around and leave!

The next time we were in the same room together, I was unconscious. In post-op, I told the nurse I wanted to talk to Ob because I had some questions. But he had back-to-back procedures and was running almost an hour late to begin with, so we didn't see him again.

The HSG in February was my second one. My first one was 2 1/2 years ago, and that RE also said my uterus looked fine. So my guess is that it probably is fine, but I will get all the films and consult with ob rad to make sure.

What is really irritating me about ob rad at this point is that we saw him three times in a row for all of our ultrasounds during this pregnancy, and not once did he mention this! Yes, he said during the first one that he thought it looked like the baby might be in the corner of my uterus, but he didn't say, "And by the way, your uterus isn't supposed to be shaped like this..."

And then Ob just goes and dumps that on us right before I have to walk into an operating room to have him suction our 6th baby out of me. I realize what he actually said was along the lines of, "You *might* have a uterus structure problem." But translated through the filter of what we've experienced, what I heard was "You've gone through five years of hell and lost six babies, and a problem that should have been FULLY DISCOVERED before you even began any sort of treatment at all may be partially or completely to blame for all of that. And you may never be able carry a child to the point of survival. Gotta go now."

Ggrrrr. Doctors really irritate me sometimes. I'm annoyed enough about this that if I wind up talking with Ob himself about the tissue testing results, I will speak up and say something. Assuming that he even got tissue to test - since he never went out to the waiting room to let R know how it went, we don't even know that for sure.