So It Begins

summer, nursery colors, loss, masses

“Health is wealth!” You’ve likely heard that expression. I had too but it turns out I didn’t really hear it. Now that my wealth is in question, it rings in my ears daily. Another one: “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone!” I find myself particularly annoyed with these expressions for no other reason besides they are true. Screw you, Joni Mitchell.

The only real way to describe the last few months is I have been living in a dark and twisted nightmare. Any moment now and I should wake up from it. Because there is no way this dealt hand is mine.

Though the nightmare began at the end of last year, the first bad card I drew started three years ago. My husband and I had just bought our first home and within a few months, I was staring at a positive pregnancy test. Flooding emotions, we were joyful and blessed. It was summer at the beach, and the memory of walking down the boardwalk, talking about nursery colors is seared into my brain. On the bad days, I bring myself there. A beautiful memory wrapped in blissful ignorance for what was ahead. Later that same summer day, I began bleeding.

A year from that, I would draw my second bad card. Staring at another positive pregnancy test, but this time the emotions were different. Joyful and blessed joined in with fear. Through reassurance and possibly more ignorance, our first appointment provided me with another beautiful memory. A little heartbeat. For a week, I let the thoughts of nurseries and future plans consume me again. The next appointment, that beautiful heartbeat was no more.

I stare at that bedroom wall sometimes, the same color from when we moved in. I wonder if I will ever paint it and if I do, for what reason. I needed another year to heal.

One year later, I made a fertility appointment. Tentatively hopeful, ready to not stand still anymore. Ironically, I would learn that making this appointment would save my life but in the moment, I was distraught to be there.

“When it rains, it pours.” Yes, another expression that runs true. Except I thought I was already standing the pouring rain so when the doctor tells me I need an MRI because the ultrasound looks unusual, I am a little thrown. At the time, they thought it was the shape of my uterus. Fast forward to a phone call from that same doctor post MRI, turns out it’s two masses, one on each ovary.

I remember that phone call so vividly. The moment I heard masses, I couldn’t hear anything else. My body threw itself into a panic attack and everything before that call would be a metaphorical line between before and after. I would never be the same, physically or mentally from then on.