Knowing When

During all of the pre-testing and day of surgery questions and general care from staff, home health histories, etc my pregnancies came up as part of my medical history. Mostly because it's not as simple as I had a pregnancy and delivered and that was it. Do I have or have I ever had high blood pressure? Only in pregnancy. I haven't written about this on here, but Reese and Scotlyn had blood clots in their placentas and since I don't have any of the risk factors for avascular necrosis which caused me to need this hip replacement, I think it could be from blood clots. When I met with a perinatologist about another pregnancy, he thought I might have a blood clotting disorder that has not been tested for yet. So when I disclosed that, they had some questions. Although since it wasn't a true blood clot in my leg or lungs, it's not really something that goes in the "big medical history file" at least it didn't seem that way.  I didn't really go into a lot of detail about Reese and Scotlyn unless I was asked. The pain when talking about them is much less than it once was, but it's more the reactions sometimes that is so fucking (excuse my language) annoying. Like in pre-testing I met with a nurse practitioner, complete idiot. Not by any means saying all NP's are, but she just got on my nerves. And I am sure she didn't know the whole story, but she started to say that my pregnancy was a miscarriage-um no ma'am I had living, breathing babies whose lives meant the whole world to me. So I bit my tongue and politely explained what really happened and I am not saying I expect sympathy or for people to feel sorry for me, but acknowledge that two human beings died. Nope, just went on her merry way with her questions. Not gonna lie, I kind of wanted to punch her. So the day of surgery, for the protection of probably everyone (myself, Reese and Scotlyn and anyone involved), I thought it was best to disclose what was necessary or what was asked. I know it was in my chart that I had more than one pregnancy and one nurse asked how old my babies are at home. I told her just Brennan and his age, once again not really feeling like I need to go into everything. She said "Well that's good that you don't have any really little ones running around" Really? Better for my babies to have died than to have a handful after surgery? And I am sure if she had known the whole story she wouldn't have said that, but of course that's all I could think. The physical therapist that saw me at home, who is male, was surprisingly the most compassionate when I told him. When I first lost Reese and Scotlyn, I felt this need to tell everyone about them and I felt guilty if I didn't. Now I am comfortable with whatever decision I make about how much I disclose about my loss. I don't want the disappointment of feeling like Reese and Scotlyns' lives were not worth enough that the person I am talking to can't even acknowledge their death. I want to protect my babies from the ignorance. I am sure part of it is that it is an awkward situation, but part of it is that people think since they were born at 25 weeks, they weren't really babies. I don't feel guilty when I don't tell the whole story, I know how much I love my babies and wish every single day that they were here. I know they know how much I love them.