Knot Now

The last fifteen months have been hard on me, physically. Let's recap:

Jan 2016 - Missed miscarriage discovered, d&c.
March 2016 - Natural miscarriage
April 2016 - Natural miscarriage
May 2016 - Saline sonogram reveals scar tissue and thin lining
May 2016 - Operative hysteroscopy to remove scar tissue
June 2016 - HSG with catastrophic reaction & results
July 2016 - Stims for first injectible cycle
August - October 2016 - Morning sickness, lost 6% of body weight by the end of the first trimester
October 2016 - Pprom. Severe damage to digestive system. Constant pain.
November 2016 - Pain. Bedrest. Infection. 26 hours of labor. 2 emergency surgeries. Antibiotics.
December - January 2017 - Pain. Ulcers throughout digestive system. Saline sonogram reveals major scar tissue.
February 2017 - Pain. Operative hysteroscopy, balloon stent, estrogen. FemVue procedure. Ear infection, virus, fever.
March 2017 - Stims for second injectible cycle.

When I was a kid, my mom had this picture of a kitten hanging onto a rope. The words on the picture read "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." I was hopeful that once the ulcers healed and I wasn't in constant pain, things would be better. Back to normal, whatever that was. That hope -the hope of 'back to normal' - was the knot I was holding onto, as I hung at the end of  my rope.

It's really coming unraveled. I noticed during the last few ultrasounds and the TI that the parts of my anatomy involved felt unusually uncomfortable. They were raw, which I remembered from my last time on Estrace, but everything also started to feel a bit swollen. As it turns out, 'a bit' is a dramatic understatement. Everything south of the border is swollen to proportions identical to those seen at my two week post-partum visit. And at that visit, my doctor's exact words were "You poor thing, you're so swollen." You know when an OB feels the need to tell you you look bad post-partum, you look bad.

I don't know what's causing this. The Estrace? Maybe, it's got a ton of dye in it, and I know I'm sensitive to that. The feminine hygiene products I've used to keep the Estrace from staining my clothes? Maybe. The soap DH and I have used to clean up before and after TI? That's a good candidate, and would explain a lot. All I can tell you is that I hurt, it hurts to wear clothing, but I'm now on estrace and prometrium, so going commando is 100% not an option. Plus, it's 15 degrees outside. Brrr!

That would have been enough to start my knot unraveling, but no. There's more. I also have a UTI. Bad enough to come with a fever and constant pain, plus burning. I've been started on Macrobid, and taken a day's worth of Azo to try to manage the pain. Which is, of course, just what I want to be doing when there's hopefully a little embryo trying to grow and settle in. Yep, adding more medications sounds great. I also have a history of chronic UTI's that I finally shook 6 years ago when a urologist put me on 6 months of low dose marcocrystal. The thought of going back into that constant UTI cycle, after everything else, is pretty close to doing me in.