I just posted about my computer woes and the five week wait issue and I have so much more to say about that, but I won’t. My head is spinning from all my computer angst.

I finally decided a good title for this post would be Six Weeks or Seven. I am not able to decide which would be better so I will just go with both. And here is what I have to say about that:

• The upper and lower lips are forming.
• The tongue is developing.
• The eye is obvious, reflecting the fact that the retinal pigment has formed.
• The upper and lower eyelid primordia appear.
• The primordia of the fingers, called digital rays, start to develop.
• Hiccups first occur.
• The ends of the limb buds become flattened to form foot plates.
• The oral cavity is developing.
• Spontaneous movements, such as twitching of the trunk and limbs, have been reported.
• The pelvis is developing.
• Movement of the muscles is being controlled by the nervous system.
• The heart is contracting at a rate of 40 to 80 beats per minute, as measured with an electrocardiogram.
• The salivary glands begin to develop.
• Startles first occur.
• The aorta is developing.
• Ear swelling is present.
• The oral and nasal cavities are confluent.
• All of the muscle blocks have appeared.
• The pancreas is developing.
• The thyroid is developing.

Now do you understand Six Weeks or Seven? Go ahead; explain.

Today I hit seven weeks. I began feeling green yesterday with twinges of greenness the previous three days before that. With Bairno, the volcanic eruptions that flowed from my stomach until I had nothing to erupt and still spewed forth were how I knew I was pregnant. It was bad. I was scared often during that pregnancy. I had had some morning sickness with One and Two but Three, Four, and Five were relatively mild. So when I began showing signs of hyperemesis with Bairno I was not sure what to do or really that I could do anything. If I sat up in bed – I got sick. If I rolled over in bed – I got sick. If I opened my eyes – I got sick. If I opened my mouth to speak – I got sick. As a matter of fact, for me, the attempt to talk was my worst trigger of all. My head would spin and I could not walk sometimes. It was just bad. I never really let on with anyone (much) outside of the house just how bad it was. And this all began before my body was willing to tell me it was “late.”

I realize that this post may not be what some of you would choose to know or read. If you are squeamish or sickened easily, do not read. It really isn’t that bad, but we all have different thoughts on what is TMI and what is not. The only things here today are just about morning sickness and the differences I have experienced with different pregnancies. And not everyone wants to read about that either. And I am writing weekly for journaling purposes. So you get what you get with this pregnancy.¹
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We have had a really rough couple of days here yesterday and today. I was busy enjoying some chat time in the conference room of the HOTM online conference yesterday morning when my coffee kicked my bladder in to full gear. I went to the bathroom and discovered that there were possible problems with the pregnancy – I was bleeding. Not much, but any during a pregnancy is not good.

I got on the phone to make an appointment to see a doctor asap. As I tried to get into office after office I was met with the same responses after explaining my situation:
Have you seen a doctor yet?
No, appointments were made, but not yet met on the calendar.
Okay, so let’s see what we can do to get you in today?
Thank you.
How about this afternoon at 1:45? We’ll get you right on back and the doctor will probably want to do some blood work and as is his practice in situations like this he will do an ultrasound to check things out.
That’s fine. I’ll be there.
While we have you on the phone let’s speed things up a bit for the office processing and go ahead and get your insurance information in the computer. Who’s your insurance provider?
I don’t have private insurance so I’ll be using the LA Moms program.
OH, well we can’t see you here then. You need to go to the emergency room and find another doctor or go to the health department. We are not taking any more Medicaid patients.
So who do you recommend?
The Yellow Pages or the health department where our doctors do rotations once a month.
Thank you for your kind voice and attitude toward me while you thought I had private insurance and maybe you should check your attitude and uppity ways at the door before you treat those of us without private insurance like less than human and not worthy of your time.
- – - – -
Why is it that as soon as I told them that I would be using medicaid there voice became almost hateful with sounds of disgust to be talking to me. They sounded as if they couldn’t wait to get off the phone with me. We’ve seen this time and time again with our children as well. Times they’ve had to go to the ER we’ve been treated poorly in comparison to others and other people’s children. We are NOT less worthy than those other people! And my baby is NOT less special than anyone else’s baby or needs.

So after my husband got home and we talked a bit about what to do and where to go, we decided we were not going to be treated that way. We are not going to let our baby be treated that way. It’s not our fault we do not have insurance! Don’t even get me started on that issue right now. Because my words will not be kind. We decided to call back to the office of my choice and take the appointment offered with the doctor I liked and just pay out of pocket. The attitudes changed once again to the kind caring medical field who wanted to help make sure everything was fine or at least help me through a negative result.

I’m not ready to talk about the results. To be honest I may not ever be ready. There is a lot of physical pain and emotional pain and much confusion going on right now. The results are confusing and complicated and contradictory at best right now. I’m in a fog. Life feels very surreal right now. Nightmarish.

We covet your prayers and God’s healing.

As of this afternoon I am officially no longer pregnant. I awoke this morning at 3:00 having some cramping pains about every thirty minutes. Just as I would begin to drift back off to sleep I would be jostled awake by yet another cramp. This went on for most of the day. I tried to function past it, not focusing on the pain, but what all I needed to do today. Around 11:30 Flynt (4yo) and I went to the grocery store for the week’s groceries ($313.27, thankyouverymuch – and that was all store brand stuff). Flynt is so much fun to take places by himself; I just love having conversations with him alone – for a four year old his vocabulary just blows me away and the child can read although I’ve never really taken that much time to teach him the specifics. I knew having him with me would be just right to keep my mind off of my pain (both physical and emotional).

It’s not exactly fun going grocery shopping in the rain, you know loading all those bags in the car with a rain storm on your head. We got home just after 1:00 and unloaded the car. I put away most of the cold items then headed to bed because standing upright was becoming a bit of a challenge from the pain. It wasn’t much longer before the inevitable began to happen. I’ll spare you the details. I must admit that I am very much tempted to write out every detail – I do not want to forget.
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I am so tired of crying. I know it is still fresh. I know I am supposed to be sad. I can not imagine that anyone wants to read the description of the images in my head of what I keep seeing and feeling. It is not pretty. I believe the baby was a girl. I find myself not knowing how to reference that life, so brief. Then I get angry again. I think I am not angry anymore until I find myself stumbling for words and I feel so utterly ridiculous about it all. The knowledge in my head and my heart are ringing true to give me what little strength I find I have but it’s clashing with the emotional.

I feel physically weak for being angry. I feel spiritually weak for being angry. I don’t want to admit that either. I don’t want anyone to know that I’m angry. I am on the verge of a foot stomping, door slamming, high pitched screaming, temper tantrum. I guarantee you my tantrums are not pretty. We’re not supposed to ask why, right? But I find myself chasing away those questions all the time.

Why give us a child that You are only going to take away? Why put us through all this pain and suffering? What do You want me to learn? Is this it? Will there be no more for us? Will this hole always be here? Will I always remember? Will I forget? What did I do wrong? It is not mine to question.

Yet I do.

So let’s pretend you didn’t read that part. Let’s just fast forward.
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