Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance

August 5^th, 2017

Sarah Ophelia Plaisance was like a shooting star, by the time you saw her, marveled at her beauty, and made a wish, she was already gone.  For the 17 days that I knew I carried her, I loved her and was honored to know her, even if most days I didn’t believe she was there.

I have spoken publicly about my miscarriage of her on Facebook, but I wanted to put something more permanent down on paper.  The date of my last missed period was April 21, although I did have some bleeding for a few days in June.  Dr. Hirsh, my OB/GYN believed that her conception date was in June.  Dr. Brown and the ER told us Sarah had stopped growing at 7 weeks, so his date didn’t line up with the June date.  Jay and I believe that she was conceived May 5^th, so she was a Beltane baby, which would have made her about 8 ½ weeks old when I miscarried her. 

The night of her conception was a lovely night.  I had started working on uploading my book that day, and was feeling fine.  My periods have been coming more regular, since I cut mom out of my life last year, and so I wondered if I might be fertile.  I kind of counted days and guessed.  Hey it was Beltane, time for love, sex and fertility, right. 

That month I began to develop breathing problems in my left lung.  It hurt when I laid down at night, I could feel something kind of squeak in my lungs, each breath felt like a rubber band was around me.  And I was exhausted, more tired than I had ever been in my entire life.  We hoped at first that it would just go away.  I was facing my own imposed deadline of trying to be finished with the book by the first of June.  I was tired but other than that I felt good, happy, and my negative thoughts seemed to have stopped.  I missed my period in May, but I thought nothing about it.  This often happens when I am under good or bad stress, no big deal right.  The doctors had told me it would take a team to get me pregnant, and 14 years of unprotected sex, had yet to yield anything. 

My breathing problems continued, as well as pain in my heart.  Of course being a big woman I am always fearful.  After about 6 to 8 weeks of this exhaustion and breathing problems I decided to risk going to the doctor, and being told it was nothing.  My regular doctor was out, so I saw a friend of his, who spent I think a sum total of 3 min with me.  Blood work, ex-rays, and a urine test later, with no pregnancy chaser (cause I told them I could not get pregnant, I wish now I had, or they had at least asked why), and no answers.  They gave me a steroid and an antibiotic, and no explanation to my problem.  Two weeks later I came back, with the same problem.  I saw my regular PCP and he said, “Well your heart is a little enlarged.  I’d like to get you in for an echo, and a CAT-scan right now.”  That was Friday night, Father’s day weekend.  Again I was asked, “Are you pregnant?”  I glared at him and told him, “No way.”  Again I regret that I didn’t say, “Why the fuck not,” and have the damn test.  Maybe she wouldn’t be dead; I’ll never know.

I did not want the cost of going in the hospital.  So we made appointments to see a cardiologist for later in the week.  When I was asked what I wanted to do I said, “I want to talk to Jay.”  So I went to his office.  He said, “You’re going.”  So we went and spent 24 lovely hours there.  For the CAT-scan they tried to put an IV, so they could give me contrast.  I blew all 7 times they tried, had a panic attack in the middle, and finally they had to do it without it.  Nothing there.  I had an Echo.  It took a month for the results to come back and be relayed to me, it was fine.  Blood work all normal, and no they didn’t do a pregnancy test, even though I asked for one.  So Saturday morning the doctor comes in and says, “Well we don’t see anything on the CAT- Scan, your blood work is fine, you’re heart is not enlarged, and since your EKG was okay we think your Echo will be too.  We don’t know what’s wrong with you.” 

Here I was in the same place, in the same hospital, with the same people I was 10 years before, when I had been given the same diagnoses.  I had pain, and no one knew why, or really honestly didn’t seem to care.  I was fucking livid!  And I told him about having been checked in to the hospital all those years ago, about my excruciating pain, and that the doctors said, “Oh it is your hiatal hernia causing you hip pain, and pain in your vagina.”  (I was later diagnosed with IC and pelvic girdle dysfunction.)  This doctor upon hearing this said, “I would see a GI doctor.  It might be your hernia.”  I was so fucking mad, I damn near threw him out of my room.  I turned away from him, he got the idea and left.  I was so mad I ripped off the heart monitor!  Jay had gone to get breakfast for himself.  I was so mad I had to throw something!  So I stripped my bed, his bed, dirty towels and put everything in the hamper.  I packed my stuff, and just waited. 

Bobby Joe and Amy, cousins who are more like an Aunt and Uncle to me, came in about that time to see me, brought me coffee, and I just cried in Amy’s arms and feel apart.  Here I had spent all this money I didn’t have, to be told, once again, that there was nothing wrong with me.  I asked the Doctor, “Is it psychosomatic?”  He said no.  I had explained to him that being a crazy, fat woman in the South doctors don’t take me seriously.  He had no explanations for my breathing problems, and seemed honestly like I was just another number and he didn’t care. 

We left there and went to Wal-Mart.  Tired of being asked if I was pregnant I bought a test.  I thought, it was be negative, so I bought a cheap one.  They are always negative, so why waste the money.  Jay and I have this system where I pee on the stick and then give it to him.  He doesn’t tell me anything unless it is positive.  But this day he was at work when I took it. 

I took the test and when the results came back positive I said, “I can’t be pregnant.  I don’t get pregnant!”  I called Jay and said, “Hey hunny.  I just took the test and there is a plus sign.  I’m not sure what to do.  Is that good thing?”  He confirmed that it was, and I could hear joy and shock in his voice.

We were both in shock and hesitant to believe it.  We had been through fertility medicine, and when that failed I was told, “Go home and lose a hundred pounds and it might happen.”  We gave up hope and have learned to be contented living without children.  Several of my childhood friends are now grandparents.

We were in shock and tried to not be too happy, because we knew it could be a false positive.  We found an OB/GYN who took high risk clients and when I talked to them on the phone they said we did not need a blood test to confirm.   We told a few friends and family.  We had to wait until Jay’s next pay check to afford the $100 co-pay to see the doctor.  So in the mean time, I read my cards again, and they confirmed it.  The Sun card came up again, just as it had in my reading a few months ago.  I called Mother Mari and asked her to do a reading to confirm my pregnancy.  She read my runes and she was told I was carrying a girl.  I knew that already, but didn’t tell her.  I had asked the sex of the child to my runes, and been told it was a girl too.  So we named her Sarah Ophelia.  What we had always wanted to name her.

I started a group of letters to her, and wrote often.  I fed her regularly, with the best food I knew to give her.  We even began to read to her.  And I rested, which I hated because I had so much to do.  I had cramps most of the time I was pregnant with her, on my right side. 

Some days I believed it, and some days I didn’t. It was too much for me to comprehend.  Even now it seems like it was all a mistake or a dream, but knowing an impossible thing is possible, I think changes you.  I thought of her often and then would forget I was pregnant and go back to what I was trying to do.  I worried constantly how we would feed and clothe her, afford to by her school supplies.  I began to read books on pregnancy, and went to the Thrifty Peanut to buy a few. 

Sunday we took Precious for Swimmy day at the lake.  It started bleeding Monday.  With IC there are times when you can have an irritant and bleed from your bladder, in fact most of the time I have microscopic blood in my urine.  I thought I am just having a flare, but by Tuesday I was passing small clots.  I believed it was coming from my bladder but by Tuesday night I could not tell where it was coming from.  Wednesday was the big day.  Jay took the morning off work to take me to the OB/GYN.  They took me in for an ultra sound, and I informed them I was having an IC flare and was bleeding.  They had never heard of IC.  They could not find her with the belly monitor, so they had to do a vaginal ultra sound.  Now under ideal conditions this is fairly painful for me because of my IC, but I was in so much pain that I was screaming, and biting my hand, and Jay’s hand to keep from screaming more.  I just wanted it over with.  They never could get good pictures.  I think because I was jumping around too much.  Finally the tech stopped and said, “I don’t know what to do.  This should not hurt her like this.”  When I got off the table I nearly collapsed, but stopped myself.  In pain Jay and I hobbled to the bathroom to put on some clean panties and a fresh kotex.  I think I was miscarrying at this point, and that is why I was in so much pain.  My cervix somehow did not seem right, like it was not as strong as it usually was.  I’ve just looked it up, and I wonder if I was already in early labor at that point.

We went in to visit with Dr. Hirsh, and she confirmed that I was in fact pregnant.  I cried I was so happy.  I showed her my period dates and she believed that the baby was about 4 weeks.  She wanted me to come back in two weeks and we would do blood tests and all that good stuff.  She was great and I really liked her.  I hope to see her again at least as an GYN.

On the way home, we called the family and told them we were confirmed.  We asked Kenny and Lucy to be Godparents, and they agreed.  I was so happy.  It was a wonderful few hours.  Jay dropped me at home.  There was a lot of blood and I was passing bigger clots.  We didn’t know what was going on.  He looked and said it was coming out of both.  He went back to work and I tried to rest, but I had problems.  I felt like I was having a period, with cramps that went down into my legs.  I had trouble sitting on my pelvis, so I laid down.  I just could not get comfortable, so I ended up laying on a pallet on the floor.  I called Pam and talked to her about 5 and told her I was in a lot of pain, and I just wanted someone to talk to.  We chatted for a while and then I called Lucy, and we began to plan my baby shower.  I told her I wanted to do it around Halloween, “A boo for the Boo,” was going to be our theme.  We talked about my pain and my bleeding and they both soothed my fears that spotting was normal in the first trimester. 

Jay came home and from then till about sunset it seemed to just get worse.  I just could not get comfortable, I could not stand, or walk without pain.  Finally I ended up leaning.  I keep going back and forth to the bathroom thinking I had to poop, but nothing came out.  And there was just so much blood.  I finally was in so much pain that I made him call my urologist and then the OB/GYN’s office.  They both said to take me to the hospital.  At one point I remember backing myself into the corner, because of the look on Jay’s face.  I started crying saying, “I’m sorry.  It will go away.  There is nothing wrong with me.”  I was terrified of another hospital bill and that I was miscarrying.  He called the boys at the fire station. 

The ambulance came down the road, and out of it came our friend Paul.  I cried, that it was him.  He is such a good man, and damn good nurse.  Before he even opened the back door of the truck, I was handing him my paperwork with my meds on it, driver’s license, and insurance card.  Jay was running around behind me packing my bag, tending to the kids, and putting Star and Henry away.  The pain I had been feeling at that time seemed to be coming in waves and intensifying.  At no time, during my entire hospital stay was I told I was in labor and having labor pains.  Even when I asked the nurse again as we were leaving the ER, “Why am I in pain?!”  I was told they did not know.  I had to go and talk to two nurses after words who confirmed that yes sometimes women who miscarry, do so with labor pains.  My pain was coming every 10 min or so.  Just this intense wave of pain, then me screaming, and finally it would subside, long enough for me to feel okay again, and then it started all over again.

I arrived at the hospital screaming my head off.  Once in the ER room the stupid doctor comes up during a contraction and asks, “How are you doing?  Are you on any meds?”  Paul had already given the nurse my list with meds on it and all my info.  I was in no capacity to talk and very pissed off at that point.  I finally was able to say to him, “She has the list.”  And at last the nurse confirmed to him that she had a list of all my medications.  Jay arrived about that time and I am not sure about what happened in the next little bit.  I was given a total of 8mg of Morphine.  That shit is awesome.  Makes you feel warm and fuzzy and forget your problems.  Gods no wonder it is so addictive, and it works almost instantly. 

I was sent for another ultrasound with much bickering.  I told him I had already had one today.  He told me he had no access to those records, which is a lie because it was all done at the same hospital, just a different branch, and all of their records are tied in together by computer.  Thankful this time I was high and it didn’t hurt that bad.  My tech said, “They couldn’t get clear pictures?”  When I told him no he stifled a laugh.  I asked him what he saw, and he answered, “The doctor will have to tell you.”

Dr. Brown came in about midnight to tell me that, “You have a UTI and you are miscarrying.  Your baby stopped growing at about 7 weeks and there is no heartbeat.”

I said, “So she’s dead.”

“There is no heartbeat.”

I asked if I would have to have an abortion, and he told me, “No, you should pass it in the next day or so.  You won’t even know.  It’s just a little clump of cells.” 

I asked him, “So I killed her, because I didn’t believe I was pregnant.  My negative energy, and somehow my body killed her, with too much worry, too much stress.”

He just looked at me confused, and then at Jay who told me, “No you didn’t kill her.”

I was loaded up with antibiotic and sent home.  It least the UTI explained why I was peeing blood.  We stopped to fill our prescriptions and have a snack.  We got home about 2 in the morning.  Jay left for work a few hours later, but came home early to be with me.  That morning I passed something that was about 6 inches long, and my pain stopped not long after that.  In it I could recognize an umbilical cord and a tiny little right leg, and the rest I couldn’t.  It was a mash of cells.  I know y’all think I am gross for reaching my hand in the toilet to retrieve it.  But I could not stand the idea of my daughter’s finally resting place being my septic tank.  I wrapped what I found up in tissue, and gave Jay a chance to look at her.  Then I wrapped her in pink tuile, circled her with dried flowers and herbs just as I had so many fur babies before her, folded it all up and tied it with a black ribbon. I rocked her for a few minutes, sang to her, and cried.  Holding her felt no different to me then holding any other child.  And I knew in that moment that I really have been a mother for more years then I care to count.  She was just a different species.  And her life was no more and no less important than my other children.  Jay and I walked out to our little grove and buried her in Holda’s Well.  The same place we had buried Punka so many years before. 

I’ve spent the last three weeks or so resting.  The first week I bled so much I didn’t know I had that much blood in me.  I made calls to my PCP and OB/GYN who were sad to hear that I had lost the baby, but unless I was soaking a pad an hour that I didn’t have to come in.  I have not seen a doctor since I was in the ER.  It took a week for all the pain to go away and two for all the blood to stop.

I have been exhausted, board out of my mind and frustrated for the last few weeks, until this week when I have finally be able to work a normal schedule.  You clean up after the dogs, wash clothes, write, do dishes, repeat.  My breathing has returned to normal, and after talking with a nurse friend of mine, she believed that it was related to the pregnancy.  That the baby was putting such strain on me that it was aggravating my asthma. 

I have been very open about the miscarriage and losing Sarah.  I posted on Facebook the morning after, and received wonderful comments, messages, and phone calls.  I think this honestly helped me get through this.  I was struck by the number of women who opened up and told me about their similar experiences.  Making those phone calls to Beau, and my family were some of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  It reminded me of when Momma Muriel died. 

Friday I posted to my yarn group and told them they had all asked what they could do for me, I said I need hugs.  Our attendance had been low lately being that its summer, so I asked if they would all please come to our regular meeting.  And several of them made a point to show.  It was very healing for me to sit with them and talk about all of this, and to listen to them tell their stories of losing their own babies.

I called a cousin who had been through a similar experience.  She had delivered an 8 month old stillborn.  She was told she could never have children.  She has PCOS to, and erratic periods so she thought nothing of missing them for so long.  She had no symptoms of pregancy.  She told me point blank, “I went to a dark place after my child died.  I will not let that happen to you.  So if you need to call me and cry and scream, I am here for you.”  I think we spent an hour talking on the phone, and it was wonderful. 

Jay has been wonderful through this all.  He has been my rock through both hospital visits, and the grieving process.  I have yet to see him cry though and that worries me.  I think he has just not been doing it in front of me.  I am continually asking him, “How are you doing with all this?” and he says, “Good baby.”  He told me in the ER that night, “I don’t care if we lose the baby.  I just can’t lose you.”  I told him, “I’m not going anywhere.” 

The other day when I cleaned her grave and showed him, he got a little teared up and sad.  I think now that I am better, he might be able to process all this a little more.  That is her grave on the picture above, circled in white quartz stones. 

The cards tell me that another child is imminent, and I hope so.  At least now we know it is possible, something we didn’t know before.  So I am taking my prenatal vitamins, and doing deep breathing exercises to try to keep my root and sacral chakras open and cleared.  Preparing to become a vessel for the next child.  I told Jay last night, that maybe Sarah came to open the door and clean me out physical, emotionally and spiritual, to prepare me for the next time she tries to come into our world.  Jay thought it was good that I could look at it like this.  I saw my councilor on Monday, and shocked as she was about all this news she said, “Ilsa you realize that if this had happened a year ago, you would have been a basket case.”  I agreed.  My life is in order now.  I am who and where and what I want to be in this life.  It took a long time, and as hokey as it sounds, I think I am ready now. 

Ilsa

Team Ilsa

So it has been almost a month since Oh Goddess here we go again! was written and there have been many little victories and improvements.  I happy to say that many of you have offered not only your good wishes, but your expertise as well.  I am calling this endeavor Team Ilsa.

No I was never able to afford to see the nutritionist.  So I have a friend who I am talking with about my food issues, and nutrition in general.  I checked out a book on nutrition from the library.  Even thought it makes me want to vomit with anxiety every time I look at it.  I am at least trying.  I may only make it through a page or two, at a time, but hey better than nothing right?  Oh it gives me the same anxiety as math does!  I just look at it and go, nope I can’t do it.  I just keep reminding myself, if I can survive 9 hours of French in one summer and leave an abusive marriage, I bet I can do this too.  This shit is real confusing so y’all stay tuned for new developments on that front too.

No, I never was able to go to physical therapy.  That so many of you who have gotten down on the floor to show me exercises that you learned in PT, that have helped you, means the world to me.  Thank you.  Every day I get on the floor and do my back exercises.  And it is the craziest shit y’all, my back and hip hurt less.  My back spasms, that have controlled my life for so long, are down by at least 50%, my general and over all pain is down by 30% or so.  I even think it has helped my IC pain.  I am able to stand for longer periods of time, without having to sit because of a spasm.  Last night I had another little victory, I stood in the kitchen long enough to work on my pork stock, make dinner, make tea, unload and then reload the dishwasher, and dish up dinner.  Yes there was some leaning, but no sitting.  A total of maybe 15 or 20 minutes?  Unthinkable before all this started.  I noticed this morning I am not turning over in my sleep.  I have tossed and turned for years.  I fall asleep on my left side, have for a really long time, last night woke up twice on my right.  Also sleeping more on my back, never been able to do that.  I am standing to do my morning and evening bathroom routine, you know brush your teeth, wash your mask, take your meds, etc.  I had been sitting half way through. 

The exercises are getting better.  At first when I started doing them I screamed, cried and moaned a lot, cause they hurt so incredible bad.  Some of the worst pain I have ever had!!!  Now that is down by 85%.  Mostly now when I get down on the floor to start and when I work my left side.  I started with 1 rep, of 5 (you know 1,2,3,4,5) on each of my exercises, now I am up to almost 5 reps, of 5 (you know 1,2,..25) or hope to be by the end of the week.  I am trying to add 5 a week, to get to my goal of 10 reps (you know 50), which is what the Orthopedist originally prescribed.  Crazy man wants me to do this twice a day!  Well maybe one day, but for the moment I am damn proud to be at 25!  It’s kind of like asking somebody to move a dump load of dirt, and giving them a teaspoon.  Yes it can be done, it is just going to take a long time.  Hey I didn’t get in this condition over night, I ain’t going to get out of it in just a few weeks. 

I started out only being able to raise my left leg, when lying on my right side, about a foot, I am close 90° at this point.  Maybe I will be there next week.  When I do my back relax, it’s the first thing I do (lay on back and put legs in chair, hold for 15 minutes), I put my arms out to the side, slowly they are relaxing.  I didn’t realize how much tension I was carrying in my shoulders and arms.  I wonder if it is the boobs?  At first I could not do this exercise without a pillow under my head, now I don’t need it.  My arms would not go down all the way.  I would stretch out my arms, but could not rest them, palm side down.  I am there now with my left.  My right is better.  I can finally get it to lay almost all the way on the back of my hand, I am close to being able to turn it palm down and leave it there.  As more and more of my arm relaxes I feel different parts of it hit the floor, first my under arms, and now almost all of my fore arm.  Thought I could not get them down ‘cause there was just too much fat, nope, muscles were just to freaking tight. 

My time has gotten better, as far as how long my floor exercises take me.  When I started out it took me about an hour and a half.  I’ve got my time down to about 45 minutes to an hour.  Slowly but surely right?  Turtle won the race.  I was telling Jay yesterday, that I am kind of glad I did not go the PT route and I am doing it at home.  I think they would have pushed me beyond where I was comfortable in the beginning, 5 would not have been enough for them and once I started screaming that would have upset everyone in the building and I would have been embarrassed and not come back.  Or felt I did not please the PT and not come back.

I am also continuing with my walking.  It is helping with the swelling, even though I have had several setbacks for unknown reasons, as far as that is concerned.  Every day I walk at least once, if I do nothing but let the goats out (about 100 steps from house to gate and back) or make a loop around the barn (about 175 steps).  I will measure for you this week.  I got myself a handy app for that.  My goal daily is to walk twice, that has kind of been fucked up this week with all the rain, but I keep out it.  I even went shopping the other day, just so I could walk.  My first goal was to actually get up on gravel road, and make it back without sitting.  I made that within the first few weeks.  My second goal was to make it to the main road, and back without sitting down, about 500 steps, 0.2 miles.  I am happy to say that I made it last night, and again this morning.  I know there will be setbacks.  I know there will be days I am lapping the barn again.  But I have to keep trying, I don’t want the pain back.  My next goal is to walk the end of the dead end road, across the street from me, without stopping.  Maybe even one day run it.  The road is a mile down and a mile back.  And why do we say it that way.  Like it’s going to be a mile down to the end and then 4 miles back.  What, are they physics and geography suddenly going to change?  LOL!

So I am reading about nutrition, doing my exercises, and walking.  I am also experimenting with vegetables.  I am trying to determine what are the most economical vegetables to buy.  This pay check we experimented with collard greens, cabbage, celery, carrots, cilantro, Bok choy, and lemons.  We are trying to not use salt in anything, other than flavor pasta water.  Jay is even trying to limit the amount of season salt he is using.  Bless him!  I love him so!  Season salt to him is like garlic powder, he puts it on just about everything! 

Below is how my vegetable experiments turned out:

• I made collards in the slow cooker, with onion, garlic, and ham hock.  Tiny bit of salt and sugar.  They were really great!  Served with cornbread.  Next time might do hot water cornbread instead, and change ham hock to another kind of meat.  Was not crazy about the smoke flavor with it.
• Draped the seasoned cabbage in bacon and steamed on the stove with some water.  Really good.  No change needed, except perhaps less bacon.
• Jay made a really good sauce, was really like a pesto.  Had the juice of 3 fresh squeezed lemons, cilantro, minced garlic, little lime juice, jalapeno juice, olive oil, basil, and dried oregano mixed in the blender.  Then we marinated chicken breasts in it, and baked at 350°.  Was really good. 
• Shanghai Bok Choy is a really cool vegetable.  We tried at first steaming it in the rice cooker for 45 minutes.  They were still kind of crunchy.  Next marinated it over night in Jay’s left over pesto, then microwaved it for 10 minutes and it was perfect!  One Bok Choy per person.  Jay does not like Bok Choy.  Kind of like greens, lends itself to whatever flavors you give it. 
• Put a bag in the freezer to put all my ends and nibble bits in to make stock.  Used my pork chop bones, ham hock, carrot ends, and onion peels from this week.  Cooked it all day long in the slow cooker.  Added onion powder, black pepper, and garlic powder.  Kind of flat without salt.  Slow cooker did not reduce water in it.  Had to take it out and boil it on the stove to remove half the liquid.  Will do it on the stove next time.  Plan to freeze it in greased muffin tin and then pop out and put in freezer bags.  Need to invest in ice cube trays.

Well so that is kind of where I am at with all this y’all.  Thanks for letting me prattle on.  I just pray to have the strength and desire to keep doing all of this.  It’s an awful lot for me to juggle.  I have no idea if I will, what tomorrow holds, or if this time will be any different than all the other times before.  I have no faith that it will be.  But then again, I felt the same way when I started writing almost a year ago.  I am 350lb, the odds that I can lose 200lb on my own, naturally, with no help of surgery is pretty astronomical.  So I am not being crazy and focusing on that.  I want to ease into this gently and slowly, maybe then it will stay.  I am focusing on not having as much pain.  If I could have less pain, than that would be a victory I would take any day of the week over being skinner.  And that people you can take to the bank.

Ilsa

After Momma Muriel's Death

My health had been in decline for some time prior to Momma Muriel’s death.  For months I had been going thru sever stomach and lower belly pain.  There were some nights it was so bad I was on the floor crying, rocking on my hands and knees trying to survive the pain.  I had been hospitalized with hip and stomach pain in December of 2007.  After three days and a battery of tests, the doctors concluded that I had a hiatal hernia in my stomach and that was causing the pain in my hip.  They called it reflexive pain.  In truth they had no idea what was wrong with me.  I was beginning to think my job in life was to live in pain. 

A few months later, still in pain, the Dr’s begin to believe it was my gallbladder.  I had test that showed it to be working just fine.  The Dr’s came in and said, “Well we can take it out and hope it fixes your pain.  It has about a 50/50 shot of working.”  I told them to call me when they could give me better odds.  It was some years later that the lawsuits about Yasmin, an anti-testosterone birth control pill, came out.  I had been on Yasmin for several years.  But at the time I was having this pain, I was off of it.  They now believe this medicine to cause problems with the gallbladder. Yasmin and Metformin were what I had been taking to combat my PCOS.  They were the only drugs available to treat the diseases at the time. 

My pain came and went over the next few months.  I began to see a new OB/GYN a few days after Momma Muriel’s death.  I explained to her that I was in a tremendous amount of pain, and that I often had pain after I had intercourse.  I had told my previous OB/GYN this for the past five years. He told me I was too tense, that I needed to relax and have a glass of wine before I had sex. As I did not want to go through life having to drink in order to have sex, I got a new Dr.  She said the most beautiful words to me that you can say to a person in chronic pain, “If you’re having pain, there is a reason.”

 After listening to my symptoms, taking a history and examining me, she decided to send me to a Urologist.  I had been to one before.  I kept having what I thought were UTI’s all the time, but my urine was always clean.  I had struggled with urinary problems most of my life, but it really became quite bad after I left Mike.  At one point they had to put me on a bladder pill for having to go so frequently.  I remember being excited that I could go and pee whenever I wanted.  I remember drinking cranberry juice all the time, and taking lots of AZO pills, because everyone told me that it would help.  The UTI problems came and went. The first Urologist I had been sent to, early on, told me he really didn’t do women’s health.   He could give me no answers.  My new OB/GYN sent me to someone who specialized in women’s urinary health.  A month later I was diagnosed with Interstitial Cystitis.  I was told to get off all caffeine and high acidic drinks like grapefruit and orange juice.  Thank the Gods I was already depressed ‘cause I slept for weeks.  I had been living on cokes and coffee for many years, so getting off was not easy.  It finally leveled out after about 6 weeks. 

Interstitial Cystitis (IC) ought to be called Painful Irritated Bladder Syndrome.  I have the sensation that I am coming down with a UTI all the time.  Three of its primary symptoms are having to pee all the time, pain or burning in the pelvis and pain during sex.  Cranberry juice and other acidic drinks make IC worse.  This disease limits how long I can sit or stand.  How long I can ride in a car and what I can wear.  When I am having a flair, I cannot even stand to be touched.  It is a progressive and painful disease.  It will only get worse with time.   There is only one medication which is very expensive without insurance.  Although there may be genetic components to IC, there is to date no real known cause and currently no cure. 

So within the span of a few months Momma Muriel dies, I am given a devastating diagnosis, Novelle dies and then Precious the first died.  The hurricane winds had been blowing a lot that fall.  On ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­September 2^nd, 2008 what was left of Hurricane ­­­­Gustav rolled thru town.  It was the first one that had hit us that year.  We were without power for 55 hours.  That’s kind of hellish when you are dependent on a CPAP to sleep with.  My neighbors, who are on a different electric company, that we can’t get on, were out about 30 minutes. 

As the storm rolled in the winds began to change.  The dogs started going ape shit, chasing all the new smells.  Precious the first ran off in the woods.  Not a big thing.  We have such a big place that we let our fur kids roam free, and we have a doggie door so they might come and go as they please.  They were always in the woods and Precious the first loved to do nothing more than hunt.  My friend Marie and I were sitting on the porch enjoying the breeze as the power had already gone out.  As the rain started I began to count kids and came up one short.  Precious must still be out hunting.  I remember Jay and me going out back of the house tying to sense where she was. I got nothing.  I became hoarse from calling from her so long.  I finally collapsed in the tall wet grass, weeping.  Jay had to help me back in the house.  I was distraught.  She would not stay out in the rain.  She never did.  Something had to have happened to her, something bad.  She was my light.  She was my child.  She and I had been thru so much together.  I could not lose Momma Muriel and her too.  It was all too much. 

A few days later I began to hear Precious the first’s voice in my head telling me she was gone.  I did something then I had not done in a long time.  I did some non-dominate hand writing.  What I wrote was a letter from Precious the first to me.  She told me not to cry, that she was okay and in the heavens with Oma and Momma Muriel.  She said she had been chasing a rabbit and got hit by a car.  That she had died quickly.  I begged her to lead me to her body so that I might bury her.  She told me she did not want me to see her that way.  She told me that she died doing what she loved, being free.  She thanked me for loving her and bringing her to this land.  She said she wanted to ride in the Wild Hunt with Holda.  I told her that was fine, but she had to come home to me very soon.  I begged her to at least have something of hers so I might have closure.

The day after the writing, one of the fur kids brought me her collar.  Complete intact with her tags, and undamaged.  It was a breakaway collar.  Meaning it was designed to unbuckle should she get hung in something, so as not to choke her.  It was still buckled.  My guess is that she got hung in the bushes chasing a rabbit and it slipped off her head.  Despite looking for one, we never found a body.  I still don’t know how much of what I wrote was me and how much was her.  Or was it all me?  I don’t know.  I may never know.

I felt at times I would break, and perhaps I did, and I was remolded.  It was all too much for me to handle. I had to keep reminding myself that with great death, comes great rebirth.  I think Jay took Precious the first’s death harder then Momma Muriel’s.  At least with Momma Muriel’s we had been prepared, and she had lived a long life. We had known it was coming for a long time, and we had time to say goodbye.  Precious the first’s death was just out to the blue.  One moment she was there and then the next she was just gone. 

When Momma Muriel died she left us the land we live on and half her estate.  A few weeks later I told Jay that for the first time in my life I wanted to buy a dog.  I wanted to buy a Dachshund girl and have the joy of raising her from a pup. I knew a good responsible Dachshund breeder in town that raised beautiful fur children.  I talked with her and told her that Jay and I wanted a pup.  We were hoping for a black and tan little girl.  She told me that she did not have any girls available at the time, but that Cookie, one of her girls would be in heat soon.  She hoped to breed her to Dan, one of her males.  I told her if she had a girl from the litter, no matter the color, that we would like her.  We were content to wait for the right fur child to come into our lives. 

Now Dachshund genetics are a weird and complex thing.  You have 2 sizes, Mini and Standard.  Unless you are from Europe and then you have Rabbit, Mini and Standard.  Rabbit sized ones are so small they can go in a rabbit hole.  You have three coat types; smooth, wire hair, and long hair.  Then there are multiple colors with variations like piebald and dapple.  I believe there are 16 different colors and combinations.  Cookie was a standard chocolate long hair.  Dan is a standard red and white piebald.  With that combination we had no idea what we would get.

On December 21^st, 2008, at noon, Precious Teufel Plaisance was born.  She was born on Holda’s holy day and at her holy hour.  She was the only girl born to a litter full of boys and she was black and tan, just like her grandmother had been. We believe Precious the second to be Precious the first reincarnated.  Now that is not that odd of a belief.  Our animals often return to us.  Have you never caught yourself saying, “You know she reminds me of this dog I used to have.”  Many animals believe it is their duty to protect us our whole lives, or even generations of our families.  Even if that means they might have to go thru a few bodies to do it. 

We fought over who was going to be the first to hold her.  I won!  Oh she was so tiny!  She fit in my hand.  I got to hold her when she was just a few hours old.  Her little eyes and her little ears were closed and she still had a bit of dried umbilical cord on her.  Oh she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen!  But then doesn’t every mother say that about her child.  Fur, skin, scale or feathered it matters not.  A child is a child, and after many long months, mine had finally come home.

Precious Teufel, who I will call Precious the second here, needed time to grow and learn important things from her doggie mommy before coming home with us.  You take a pup away from its mom too soon and you end up with a neurotic dog.  My breeder friend would not release her until she was 8 weeks old.  Which I think is just wonderful because that lets them be better adjusted.  She always has her pup’s best interest in mind.  But we were allowed to visit until she could come home and got regular pictures.  We got to bring her home around Valentine’s Day. 

We maintain a good relationship with her breeder and even adopted Cookie, when her breeding days were over.  Although I got to hold her first she quickly became a Daddy’s girl, again.  In many ways she is still who she was.  She loves her daddy and she still loves to swim.  But in some ways she is different, and that is fine with us.  Now she could care less about hunting, she is content to lie on the couch.  Time changes everyone, but not who we are at our core.

I am still often not sure what happened to Precious the first.  Did it happen the way she told me?  Did whatever is in my woods get her?  Did someone pick her up on the highway?  Or did she end up living out her finally years at a neighbor’s house I know nothing about?  Did she end up in the pound and was put down?  Is she still alive?  These are the things I torture myself with before I go to sleep at night.  Is Precious the second really her reincarnation or am I just fooling myself and seeing what I want to.  Sometimes I wonder.

Ilsa

 

Behind a big woman's eyes - Infertility, Weight, and Mental Illness

Warning –this one is good, but long

My diets continue until I am 18.  I graduated high school weighing about 180lb.  I started my period when I was 11, I began to have irregular periods by the time I was 15.  In college I am diagnosed with Hypothyroidism, a conditions which runs in my family.  It is known to make periods irregular and very heavy.  It is also known to make you gain weight.  Shorty after I meet Mike, and become sexual active,  I am put on birth control.  Their hope is it will also make my periods regular.  It does and it also makes me gain 30lb.  My breast swell past D’s and I have trouble walking until I get used to them.   I tip 200lb for the first time.  I quickly get off of it, but the weight stays.

I think one of the reasons I marry Mike is that I have felt all my life; no man will want me because I am so fat and therefore so ugly.  To have someone find me sexy and attractive, at least in the beginning, is a dream come true for me. While in college and in my abusive marriage to Mike I continue to gain weight. I hit 300lb for the first time.  I develop breathing problems and sleep paralysis.  I am taken to a lung specialist who undoes my bra and tells me part of my problem is I am wearing such a tight bra it is cutting off my air flow.  I am wearing a D.  I get new bras and measure in at 52 I.  My bras are now very expensive and come only from a specialty shop.  I am told the sleep paralysis is coming from the excessive stress I am under.  The Dr. also tells me I must immediately loose half my body weight. 

For the first time I join a gym.  I remember going in the bathroom to change into my work out clothes.  I come out shaking, terrified that people will make fun of me.  No one does.  I graduate and we move back home.  When I go to work for the car dealership they offer perks like helping you pay for a gym membership.  I sign up.  Not long after I leave Mike I have lost 50lb.  I continue working on my weight, at the gym and by joining Overeaters Anonymous (OA).  After I lose my job at the car dealership I continue to work out at the gym every day, writing my article for the paper and going to meetings.  In total I lose 87 pounds.  I plateau. I weight 217 lb. when I meet Jay.  Who could freaking careless how much I weigh.

After months of looking I am finally able to start a new job.  Losing weight and writing gets pushed to the side as I work and fall in love with Jay.  When we marry a year later I am at 245 lb and blissfully happy.  We have moved to Sabine Parish and there are no OA meetings for me to attend there.  The weight continues to creep back up.  There are attempts at walking and diet, but nothing sticks. We return home to Caddo Parish after Hurricane Rita.

Shortly before Momma Muriel dies in 2008 we begin the process for me to have my stomach stapled, RNY.  Mercifully I am turned down.  I have talked to many people since who have had the surgery, that are 10, 15 even 20 years out from their surgeries.  Their health is just deplorable, and for those who could not afford the plastic surgery afterwards, they look just as bad.  I am very, very glad I was turned down, but here is the major lesson I learned.  If you want to have your stomach stapled, and they send you to a psych evaluation, whatever you do, don’t tell them you are a witch.  I did and I am turned down because of it.  It takes us a while to get the evaluation from the insurance company.  The first lines read, “While Ilsa may present as possibly psychotic it is my opinion that she is just different, very different.  It is because of these differences that she may have experienced trouble in her life.”  While I passed the evaluation, it is my guess all the insurance company saw was the word “psychotic,” and that was enough to turn me down. 

We try again to diet and eat right in August of 2011.  We go to see the dietician the week before I have my first major panic attack.  I had been trying to measure my food and do as I had been told.  I still think it may have been one of the contributing factors to the attack.  When I go back into counseling in December of 2011 one of the goals during all this is to lose weight so I can get pregnant. 

Mike and I never tried to conceive a child.  Even though diagnosed with Hypothyroidism at age 18, my periods continue to be erratic.  I am unwilling to try birth control again after my first experience with it.  We settle on me taking Progesterone pills 10 days out of the month.  After I leave Mike I go in for a battery of tests.  Given what Mike was into I want to make sure he had not been cheating, and didn’t give me something.  He thankfully did not.  I am clean.  My new OB/GYN, however, diagnoses me with Poly Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).  I am given less than a 10% chance of ever conceiving naturally.  I am told it will take a team to get me pregnant. PCOS is a vicious cycle.  The added testosterone in your body makes you gain weight; the weight makes you produce more testosterone.  And round and round it goes.  The only treatment for PCOS is anti-testosterone birth control, Yasmin.  We find out later it causes gallbladder trouble. 

The day I meet Jay I tell him all the conditions I have, the medications I take and the meetings I attend.  I tell him that if he can’t deal with that, there is the door.  He stays.  PCOS is mentioned in that list but never discussed.  A month later we are standing in a Wal-Mart checkout line.  He is standing behind me, holding me and kissing my neck.  I am making baby talk with a cute baby in front of me.  He looks at the child and whispers in my ear, “What do you think?  In about a year? year and half?”  He’s asking me when I think we will have our first child.  I sputter.  Thank the Gods he can’t see the shock on my face.  I begin to unload the groceries onto the conveyer belt.  I said, “Did you just ask me what I think you asked me?”  I think he has just asked me to marry him.  I did not know that at the moment he said it, he had meant it as a joke.  But he said later, once he heard himself say it, he meant it.  He never expected my response. 

I begin with, “I have PCOS.  The doctors have told me I have a 10% chance of ever conceiving.  They have told me it will take a team to get me pregnant.  I think you are the man for the job.  Yes.”  I look up and he is smiling and his bright blue eyes are sparkling.  I follow up with, “if we can’t conceive we will adopt.  If we can’t adopt we will raise dogs.”

Since that day 12 ½ year ago Jay and I have tried to get pregnant.  Which is really hard when you have no periods.  For a while we try while I am on birth control, even taking prenatal vitamins which make me sick.  We go for long periods where we don’t try.  We try Progesterone.  We try Colmid twice, not only does it not work, I don’t even ovulate.  We have Jay checked early on.  The Dr’s tell us that he has the highest count they have ever seen.  My response is, “I must have some really broke shit then.”  The Dr’s send me home and tell me I cannot conceive because I am too fat.  To go home and come back after I have lost some weight.  I try, but nothing happens. I am routinely told it is my fault.  I am told to relax and when we finally give up it will happen. I am put on Metformin which chains me to a toilet with diarrhea for more than a year.  I am finally told the next step in infertility treatment is to give me shots in my stomach, which are not covered by insurance, and very expensive.  IVF is about $10,000 per treatment, not covered by insurance and may take as many as 7 times to work.  Besides having PCOS, I have been given no other reason why I cannot conceive.  They just look at me and throw medicine my way that doesn’t work.  It’s hell to be infertile and poor.

I look at my husband and often feel nothing but guilt, that I can’t give him a child with his beautiful blue eyes.  That I can’t give him a little piece of immortality.  That I can’t keep his line going.  My beautiful, wonderful, loving husband has nothing wrong with him.  It’s all on my end.  That eats at a woman.  I began to think that he needed to leave me and find another wife, so he could be a father.  That I should just end my life. 

I am blessed to have a friend like Juno, who has just a many mental problems as I do.  She is great in that I can share with her my crazy and suicidal thoughts and she understands.  One day sharing that I had been having these thought Juno says to me, “you know why you can’t kill yourself.”

“No why?”

“Jay is a wonderful man.  He is so kind hearted that if you die, who ever marries him may not be so kind to him and take advantage of him.  You have to stay alive to protect him.” 

That was one of those light bulb moments for me, game changing in my craziness.  I had to stay alive to protect him.  It has taken root in me.  Even sometimes in my moments of panic attacks I repeat this to myself.

Gods bless Jay, my weight has never been a problem for him.  He loves me just as I am.  He has never told me I was fat or asked me to lose weight for him.  He just looks at me with those loving blue eyes and kisses me.

We have attacked this from a spiritual point as well.  I know I have several closed chakras and have worked to open them.  I have begged and pleaded with Holda.  I have done spells for myself. I have attended high seat rituals to ask why I cannot conceive and when, if ever, I might.  I am told to be patient and that it is not yet time.  The last high seat we attend, Jay bless him, asks.  The oracle tells him she does not believe it will not happen without medical intervention. 

People say, “Well just lose weight.  Go on a diet. Eat more vegetables and fruit.”  They don’t work for me.  No matter what I do it won’t come off.  Fruits and vegetables are also terrible expensive.  I think many poor people, like me, are fat because they can only afford carbs and meat.  Vegetables are a luxury.  I am also really, really tired of well meaning people.  I have been coerced, cajoled and damn right bribed in the past to lose weight.  I have been promised makeovers if I lost weight.  I even had a fellow offer me a dollar a pound if I would lose weight. Why does everybody think it is there business??  Every time I was with my mom she would say something about my weight, until I finally told her it was an off topic subject.  If she started that shit while I was on the phone with her I would just hang up.  If I was at her home and she did it I would get up and leave.  I had to do this until finally she learned.  If she can’t love me and accept me for who I am, she doesn’t deserve to love me.

In the last year I have gone so far as to join a gym, exercise, give up sugar, and join OA again.  I lose 30lb initially and then gain it all back.  After a year of not losing I quit trying. I am now almost 40.  If I was to conceive at this point I am very high risk.  I have been told I will develop gestational diabetes.  I have high blood pressure and could develop preeclampsia.  At my age, my DNA has become sticky and means I could have a child with Down Syndrome or other abnormalities.  I am also on Buspar which could lead to a whole host of other problems.   At this point in my life it is not advisable for me to conceive. 

We have been asked, “Why don’t you adopt??”  I want to feel the baby move in me.  I want a baby who looks like Jay.  I want my own child.  A private adoption is about $20,000.  Most of the children in foster care have problems emotional, mental or physical.  I’m not even sure with my mental history they would let me adopt a child.  I’m not sure with my mental history I could handle one with problems.  Then there is the problem of our religion.  While Jay is Agnostic, I am a very loud, proud and out Pagan.  I talked with a friend of ours some years back.  She had just adopted her sister’s kids.  She told me, once they found out she was a witch they did not want to let her adopt her own flesh and blood.  Wonder what they would do with me.  While I am sure it is highly illegal, don’t doubt it’s being done and simply filed under another made up reason to deny people.

It’s not that I like being fat.  I often feel trapped in a failing body.  Being fat has just been part of my identity for so long that I don’t know any other way.  I am a bit terrified to be thin.  How will my soul live in such a little body?  A friend once said about me, “Yeh she’s big, but that’s because she has a big heart.”  Being 350lb is not easy.  I have frequent back spasms when I stand for more than a few minutes at a time or walk more than a few hundred feet.  I still can’t walk from here to the barn without being winded and hurting.  By the time I leave the house, walk to the barn, a few hundred feet away, put the goats away, and come back I am hurting and need to sit and rest.  My hip hurts me.  It started about 8 years ago.  I went into the hospital for it, they ex ray me and then tell me they can find nothing wrong with me.  I am convinced it is arthritis, and my possible be tied to my weight.  But have I mentioned it again to my Primary Care Physician, nope.  I am afraid he will do the tests and tell me, again, that there is nothing wrong with me.

I think the worst part about being fat is having occasionally to ride in the motorized cart at the store.  These are days when either my hip is hurting, I am having back spasms that won’t quit, or my Interstitial Cystitis pain is so bad that I can barely walk.  I am terrified of being taunted by others in the store.  The last time I had to use the cart I was with Jay at the grocery store.  I was trying to talk myself out of using it, he was trying to talk me into it.  Finally I gave in and said, “Okay but if anybody says anything to me, you beat them up!”  So when you pass a fat lady in a cart please be kind to her.  She may be riding it because of a pain you don’t know about and have nothing to do with her weight.  Just remember the lady riding in the cart may be me.

Yet the Buspar is doing something I am hesitant to discuss.  It’s a minor miracle that I am afraid might disappear or may just be a fluke if I talk about it.  But I must.  In the last few weeks I have noticed that I am eating less.  Not trying to, I am just full.  So full I can’t eat anymore.  I have to decide in my head, before hand, what and how much to eat because I know I can’t hold it all like I used to.  Last night I am thinking to myself.  I can’t have another piece of chicken, because I won’t have room for pudding.  I’ve never had to think like that.  I have so much more energy now I am even considering starting to go for walks in the fall.  But I know by saying all this I have broken the magical spell and I will go back to living in my nightgown before long, eating however I want. 

Ilsa