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

Beautiful little moments

It is the evening of August 13, 2016, and Jay’s birthday.  I am watching him cooking in the kitchen, a beautiful little moment for us.  A sight I feared for many days, might never happen again.  It’s been a hell of a two weeks. 

The trouble started about 3 weeks ago.  Jay woke up with what looked like a fire ant bite with and a nasty red ring around it.  We now believe it was a spider bite.  The bite hurt him.  We popped it a few times over the next few days, and the pain would ease.  When he had MERCER a few years ago, (The Girls) he had a similar pimple on his arm, but no red ring. 

Jay is a medical assistant (MA) and works in a medical office.  He saw the nurse practitioner that is there at the clinic.  Both feared it might be MERCER again and he was prescribed a sulfur based antibiotic called Bactrim.  Jay took it for a week as prescribed.  The bite did not get worse, but Jay developed a fever and did not feel well.  He was tired and weak.  He had trouble getting threw a full day of work, and came home early several times that week.  I knew something was wrong.  It was not like Jay, and he should not have a fever if on antibiotics, or at least as I understood it.

I took Jay to the doctor that Friday the 5^th.  The doctors were baffled and it took them a while to figure out what was going on.  Jay’s blood pressure was in the tank.  His top number was in the 90’s, where it was usually in between 120 and 140.  He’d lost 20 pounds in two months, his sugar was over 300, and his platelets were extremely low.  We had been unable to see our regular physician, Dr. Warren, so we saw one of his buddies in the clinic.  Within a few minutes, He called Dr. Warren, and the two begin to consult, then they called in a hematologist (blood Dr).  We had no idea what was going on.  After back and forth of about 3 hours, and multiple viles of blood, Jay was admitted to the hospital.  Their guess, the antibiotics were doing this to him.

Jay would spend the next 3 nights in the hospital.  Now Jay never lets me stay overnight.  I hate it, but there is little I can do.  He is just too damn stubborn, and what’s worse, he is right.  He needs to rest, and being there will only make me worry more.  I need a mental break, and to take care of things here on the farm.  I came home and fell apart that first night.  I began to be terrified he would die while I was not there.  I begged Holda, if you take him, just let me be there when it happens.  I truly did not know if I would ever see alive again. 

That first night in the hospital, Jay’s blood pressure got to 68/41.  He was given steroids to make him better, and it worked.  He improved and his platelets came up, but the steroids kept his sugar high.  He was diagnosed with ITP (Immune Thrombocytopenic Purpura) an auto immune disease.  We were given no more information on it, then a small piece of paper with the word on it. 

Sunday afternoon, as I sat waiting for Jay to be released, we talked with the hematologist.  I mentioned to him, how red Jay was in the face, how flushed.  I said, “He only gets this way when he drinks.”  We knew he was allergic to the sulfites in wine and beer.  He used to be able to drink 3 or so beers and then turn red.  Now he does good if he can drink a half a beer.  As we talked, the Dr. began to believe, that the sulfur in the Bactrim, had done this to Jay.  That if he was not allergic to sulfur based medications, he was at least sensitive to them, and that sensitivity had at least caused this adverse reaction.  It was advised he not take sulfur based medications again.  A phone call to Jay’s mom, reviled that Jay’s grandfather PawPaw, was also allergic to sulfur based medications.  Maybe it’s a genetic thing, I am not sure.

The Dr. sent us home with a prescription for steroids, to finish up his course of treatment.  Jay was advised to not go to work for a few days.  So he rested and I tended him.  He just seemed to still be so very weak.  Little things like taking a bath, exhausted him and made him dizzy. 

He tried to go back to work on Thursday the 11^th, but his boss sent him home a few hours later.  She called the house to tell me she was sending him home, and she wanted to make sure he had made it here.  She thought he needed to see the Dr. immediately.  At the office they had tested his sugar and it was very high.  His blood pressure was 81 / over a bottom they could not hear.  We called Dr. Warren’s nurse, who advised, with a blood pressure that low, that we should go back to the hospital.  We transported Jay by ambulance, so he would be seen quicker.  I followed behind.

The ER took forever!  His blood pressure was in the mid 90’s, lower when he slept, his sugar was still high, and his fever was back.  They knew they wanted to admit him at noon, but did not find him a room until about 6.  We asked for a tray.  He is diabetic and he had not eaten since 6:30 that morning.  They did not feed him until he got in his room.  He went 12 hours without eating!!  I was soundly pissed!  Jay took it all in stride.  We were told, “Oh we ordered it, Oh we will look into it.  We have a lot of people today.”  Nothing. 

This time Jay’s platelets were good.  They admitted him for what they called dehydration and acute kidney failure.  We were told nothing else.  But we were told he would not need dialysis or a transplant, you know after I asked.  Dr.’s you understand are too busy to give us mere mortals any scraps of knowledge or information, we are left to figure all this out by ourselves.  Google really is our own friend.  Well except Dr. Warren.  He really is awesome!  He always takes his time with us, listens to us, and helps us understand what is going on.  We could not figure out why Jay was dehydrated though.  He was drinking lots of water, I made sure of it, and peeing copious amounts.  How was it possible he was so dehydrated, he was in kidney failure?

After a conversation with a friend, who works at an animal clinic of all places, she helped me understand.  The sulfur meds and steroids had damaged Jay’s kidneys.  He was drinking enough, but his kidneys could not process the liquids fast enough, and the meds were ridding his body of them too quickly.  The fever was because his body was working so hard, to try to compensate.  Jay and I talked and I told him to ask his Dr’s whether or not he should be taken off some of his meds.  We had begun to believe that because Jay had lost so much weight, his blood pressure was actually normal and the meds he was on were making them too low.  The Dr. agreed and took him off almost all his meds, and he has begun to feel much better. 

Yesterday, he looked better than he had in what seemed like forever.  When I picked him up from the hospital today, he wanted to drive, he wanted to go visit with him mom, and finally he wanted to go grocery shopping.  I was really shocked to see him have so much energy!  Then he made most of dinner.  He hadn’t done that much, in what feels like weeks!

In all this fear and anguish Jay has given me some of the most beautiful moments.  He has been a diabetic for more years then we can remember (at least 5 or so).  He has been treated with Metformin, and then a few months ago they added Invocana.  We think the Invocana helped him to lose the weight, and had a hand in the putting him in the hospital the second time.

When Jay was first diagnosed as a diabetic I tried to educate myself about all this disease, to teach him.  I told him I would go on the diabetic diet with him.  I begged and pleaded with him to check his sugar.  And Gods and Jay forgive me, even making fun of him in front of the doctors and others when they asked if he checked his sugar, trying to rattle him, or shame him into doing it.  Nothing.  For years nothing.

It’s no secret that Jay and I love food.  We own a food truck for Gods’ sake.  But even as a diabetic, having diabetics in his family, his father having kidney disease, and Momma Muriel from complications due to diabetes, Jay refused to check his sugar, or eat as he should.  Now he has never been a sweet eater, but he loves rice, gravy, and sweet tea.  When we went to see Dr. Warren’s partner, he prescribed Jay injectable insulin, and I think it kind of scared him. 

Jay came home from the first hospital stay, talking about carbs, something he NEVER did.  I even went so far as to go to library and check out a book on diabetes.  I even began to measure out our food. 

This trip in the hospital he was visited by a nutritionist.  They chatted for a long time. I was not there.  Later that day he told me he wanted to start eating better and to start walking.  I played the role of supportive wife.  I told him I would help him, do anything for him, and when I had a moment alone to myself teared up, and gave thanks to the Gods that he finally wanted to change.  That he had finally seen the light, moments I had dreamed of, dared to hope for so long ago, were finally coming true. 

As we sat at his mom’s this afternoon we talked of what to make for dinner.  He told me he wanted to go to the grocery to pick up more things for tonight, but that he wanted to take his time.  I had an idea what he meant.  In the grocery store, here was my beautiful, stubborn, incredible, husband, flipping over packages, and making choices of products based on carbs, and how many starches he could have in a meal. 

I did really good, and kept my composure.  I did not push, I let him, be him, and tried very hard not to cry at the miracle happening before me.  He got it!  After all these years, it took him getting this sick to finally get it.  I am still too stunned to understand it all.  Overwhelmed, tired, confused, ever grateful, and praying that this bubble will not burst. 

I think we just went from #Team Ilsa, to #Team Plaisance.