HSG Test

3.17.2022

This is a trauma response. I’m ok. I’m ok. This is just trauma being triggered.

I don’t think I’m ok.

Today I’m getting my HSG test, which is just an X-ray of my uterus with contrast. I’ve put this test off for quite some time. I was supposed to get this done in December and then would see if I had a tear in my uterus or not and if so, then would just retest in 3 months. Well I completely skipped that December goal and continued to push off this test blaming it on busy schedules, kids, never getting time away. I was told I shouldn’t even try for a baby until minimum March and definitely not before getting this test. If there is a tear, an embryo will have a hard time growing and if the embryo attaches to the tear it would miscarry.

^^^

I sat down in the changing stall after taking off the gown and socks and returning to my normal clothes. A quiet slow tune of a familiar worship song began to play in the back of my mind but all I could focus on was stopping myself from an audible sob as woman waited outside the stall to change next. I did my test. It’s done and while I struggled and fought my trauma response the entire time with eyes full of tears just about to seep out…I did it.

“You had a C-section you said….do you have a baby now?”

Daggers. The dagger to my heart, stabbing through the scar tissue I’ve been building around my pain the past 7 months. I spit out a clean and calm “no. I don’t.” The rest of the test was filled with extreme gentleness and compassion….pity. The reaction and behavior that I know all too well from every experience I have while in a gown with hospital socks. One tear spilled over. Just one. And then the Lord laid his blanket of peace over me and I braced through the test. It was done live, simply putting contrast through my uterus and seeing if any leaked out to show a tear. They faced the screen away from me and I anxiously wondered when I would know the results. Well they gave me the results right away.

I don’t have a tear.

The doctor assured me that everything looked normal and that she couldn’t see any tear. Thank you God. Why does this still make me want to cry though? We’re my first reactions. Why am I so upset? I’m relieved yet I’m sobbing over this news in a changing stall. Or am I sobbing over having to even be in a situation where I had to find out if I could house a baby again or not? Maybe that’s it.

Do you have a baby now?

The absolute nicest way to ask me, yet it still gave the same punch to the gut.

..I get confused by my reactions. Why am I responding like this? I’m relieved, happy, upset, sad, broken, redeemed. I’m not sure. However, I’m happy I did wait 7 months to get this test. I don’t think I could have endured this at any previous point in my grief. This was extremely hard on me emotionally. After composing myself in that stall, I walked out of the building and the Lord brought that quiet tune of a worship song into actual lyrics that I could recognize.

Now I can see, your love is better, than all the others that I’ve seen

I’m breathing deep, all of your goodness, your love and kindness to me

I will leanback in the loving arms of a beautiful Father

I will breathe deep and know that He is good, He is a love like no other.

I felt God’s presence fill me as I walked out the building. His love and redemption and definitely his glory should be seen in these results. I was supposed to get a hysterectomy 7 months ago and the Lord saved me. He saves my uterus, my ability to have more babies. He is so good.

I walked across to the parking garage and glanced to my right to the front of Beaumont royal oak where I flashed back to when I first walked out of those front doors after saying goodbye to Alba and breathed in the fresh air. Like a torture victim leaving her torture house….I quickly glanced away and continued my trek back to the car with thankfulness to God that I’m not where I was 7 months ago….but still praying for continued healing because obviously I’m still struggling.