The Awkwardness of Recovery

Fair warning: I'm not holding back on this post and there will definitely be TMI. I kindly ask you to pass along if you don't want to read it.

Overall the recovery has been pretty easier than I expected. Not much bleeding at all, whoop!

My biggest issue has been constipation. Between the anesthesia, pain medication, and poor food choices (I may have eaten a burger Tuesday night, Chinese food Wednesday night, and ICE CREAM!!! last night...whoops) I've been in a lot of pain. Thankfully I had some relief today but I am still cramping a lot and have had back pain.

I've had some major anxiety about the catheter. I'm sure it's really not that big of a deal to have it, but I'm terrified of accidentally removing it. I kind of got over my fear of accidentally pulling it out while sleeping after the second night. BUT, I've had a (probably) irrational fear that while dealing with the constipation, I'd accidentally force it out. It didn't help that the visible tubing between my upper thigh and where it inserts into my body is a bit longer and looser now. Fingers crossed I didn't screw it up somehow!

My teeny tiny abdominal incision from the laparoscopy has been a bit more troublesome than anticipated. I had a laparoscopy in high school, so the incision is right along the previous incision. I was really sore Thursday and Friday and E had to help me out of bed whenever I needed to use the restroom. Thankfully by Saturday, it was starting to get better and I was managing to get out of bed on my own. Today it's significantly better.

Tomorrow I go to have the catheter removed and that brings on a whole different anxiety. I'm scared. E is planning to go back to work (of course) but we're not sure how I'm going to feel afterward so he's trying to decide if he should take a half day off. I'm going to call in the morning to find out their advice. I'm probably just being a baby.

E is seriously the BEST husband on the planet. I knew that before this weekend, but he absolutely solidified that belief. He helped me out of bed, made me food, ran to the store multiple times, got me water, cleaned the house, got the oil changed in both of our cars, took care of the little puppy, and so much more. He's great!

Good News All Around!

I'm so glad that I trusted Dr. M. As we got closer to surgery date I was secretly starting to have some doubts if the surgery was worth the money. After meeting with her on Monday I was seriously starting to doubt if we should go through with it. The images should have shown something, right? Thankfully I stuck with it!

I had a 3cm septum that was successfully (we believe, at least!) resected yesterday. I don't remember much of what Dr. M told me so this is all based on what E remembers. Let's hope he's right ;)

From my understanding, the surgery was on the longer end but they got great pictures (E was sure to let me know that he got to see the inside of my uterus...strange indeed!), they had to do the laparoscopy and they did resect the septum. E tried to explain what he saw in the pictures and it sounds like my uterus was a pinkish color (it looked like "meat" apparently...gross) whereas the septum was white in color which indicated that it wasn't getting blood or nutrient flow. He said that the after pictures showed the white gone and only a healthy looking uterus. Let's hope this did it for us!

I was in recovery for a while because I was in quite a bit of pain and was really nauseous. The recovery nurse was wonderful and I wish I remembered her name because I would love to send her a thank you card! Dr. M. came to speak with me and all I got out of that conversation was that there was a septum and they fixed it. The rest of the time the nurse had to deal with me crying and saying "I'm so thankful" over and over. She was a saint.

We got home around 4/4:30, I believe, and my sister stopped by quickly to drop off some flowers and a gift from her, my parents, and grandma. My nephew picked out the card and it is certainly a two-year old card. So cute!

Then I was pretty much off in la la land the rest of the night and slept. I woke up around 2am and was in and out until 5:30 when I woke E up. He got me a small breakfast and I took some more pain meds. Then it was back to sleep!

I'm actually feeling pretty well now. I'm trying to walk around a bit to hopefully keep the gas pains to a minimum and I haven't taken any pain medication since this morning. The most uncomfortable and awkward part is the catheter. It's not a traditional urine catheter, of course, so its strange to use the restroom. It just doesn't feel right. I feel bad because E has, once again, gotten quite an education with this surgery. He's such a good guy and I'm incredibly lucky to have him!

Right now, all of this uncomfortableness from the catheter and the slight pain is totally worth it and I truly am thankful. While it's going to be a while before we can start trying to conceive again, I'm glad that we're finally moving forward and may have finally found a solution.

The Start of a New Chapter?

Today's the day and I'm scared.

I met with Dr. M. on Monday and she solidified the idea in my head that this is an exploratory surgery. She still thinks there will be something to resect/fix, but she can't say that with certainty until she gets in there. So that means one of two things will happen:

1. If it ends up being just an arcuate uterus, there is nothing they can really do. In that case they'll take a ton of pictures and send me off to a Reproductive Endocrinologist armed with all of my pictures, blood work, chromosome analyses, etc.
2. If it's a septum, they'll resect it and insert a balloon catheter. The catheter would be in for 5-6 days and it would be taken out in office. I would also take estrogen for a month followed by 10 days of progesterone which would bring on a bleed. We would then need to wait 3 cycles to ensure the lining builds up enough before trying to conceive again.

I slept horribly last night and had some really, really screwed up dreams. Then this morning I had a minor cry when I was telling E how nervous and scared I am that they won't be able to do anything. It feels (and sounds) so wrong, but I've been praying that there is a septum in there and they'll be able to fix it. I just want there to be an identifiable problem and a solution, which takes place today. That's not too much to ask for, right?!