septum

A week ago they took a septum out.

Apparently it was pretty ginormous - this thing that, at the previous hospital, I had scanned five million times with no clear diagnosis. But the new doctor out here just didn't like it, whatever it was, and went right in there to get it. Apparently while I was under the nurses literally gasped at the size of it and at how much space appeared in my uterus once it was out.

The doc told me this thing definitely could have caused a second trimester loss. I'm trying to let that idea sink in. I've so completely resigned myself to the fact that I'm never going to know what killed my baby (too many options, probably the polyps, or my cervix, or just shitty luck....) that I can't even feel happy or hopeful that the septum is gone. Meanwhile, my doctor is super psyched that we took it out and convinced everything will now be fine! I don't feel psyched though. I feel sort of numb.

I mean, I am glad it's gone. I am. It's one less thing to worry about. And while preparing for this surgery almost killed me, re-triggering my PTSD in a variety of exciting ways, I did get to find out that I like morphine a lot. And my doula sister was super awesome. And Brian fed me homemade strawberry ice cream.

What if my first doctor had put her foot down and said, I'm taking this thing out? I would have been pissed and resistant and worried and traumatized, just like I was now, and I'd have gotten through it.

So it's possible I'd have another baby by now. Dammit. I really liked that doctor. She was super nice, super accommodating, super respectful of my process. What a crock I let us both get away with! What if I'd been less stubborn? What if I'd said, take it out, whatever it is, just do the surgery. With a fortieth birthday coming up on me, it's hard not to feel stupid.

We won't go back to trying on our own, although it occurs to me that we could. Septums like this one totally screw with implantation. Maybe I could get knocked up. I just feel like we are out of time. So I'll heal up over the next month and start an IVF cycle in August. Two years after the doctors first spotted this thing... this thing that was maybe nothing or maybe a bi-cornuate uterus or maybe a septum or maybe a "normal variant" or maybe just one more quirk I'd have to live with.

The what-ifs. They are annoying, I know. I'm trying to just let them out, let them go. I'll try to be happy that the doctors fixed something, that our chances are better now. But being hopeful is just super exhausting. Ginormous septum? Sorry, universe, I guess I'm just not easily impressed.