April 08, 2005

On Fertile Ground

One interesting thing about endometrial ablation is that you can't get pregnant after having one. Well, you can get pregnant, but it's a very bad thing, essentially guaranteed to end up as a tubal pregnancy, miscarriage, or a uterine rupture because the lining of the uterus has been removed by the procedure. Any small areas left aren't sufficient to provide nutrients for a growing baby via the placenta. Therefore, the placenta often attatches firmly into the uterine wall, and when it tries to detatch, results in rupture, hemorrhage, death--the kind of clinical outcome you'd really like to avoid.

All of this is to say, I was up crying last night realizing that my childbearing years are officially over.

That's heavy. I mean, I knew this before having the surgery. But knowing before hand and really knowing afterward are two different things.

So there I was, teary and sad last night, without being down really, more a profound understanding of the passage of time and opportunity, a full-stop within steady movement, the knowledge of such things making my tired womb heavy, and my heart too.

This morning I awoke to Jenna's near-hysterical voice:

"THERE'S A BABY! THERE'S A BABY!"

I wonder, what TV show is she watching.

"MOMMY COME NOW!"

And it sinks in slowly. Oh no. Not the hamsters she got three weeks ago, the ones that were supposed to be two girls.... Oh no.... no.

Yes.

There they were, mother and father in the habitat wheel, father munching on one baby, mother hovering over the others, the two parents starting to run inside the plastic wheel, which had the odd slow motion effect of spewing babies out of the wheel, down the slide, and into the shavings at the bottom....

Surreal...a hamster baby machine spitting out little pink hairless blobs.

Hamster babies being cranked out hither and yon.

"Oh my oh my oh my--go get Daddy."

That's what I said.

During the next half hour, we got Coco, the father, out of the cage and into his hamster ball, so he's rolling around the house, while I fill up a large bin with shavings. I can't tell you the iterations we tried--put Marshmallow the mom in the habitat cage and Coco the dad in the big plastic bin. But no, Marshmallow is intent on dragging all dozen babies back into the wheel, the problem being that, she's SPINNING the damn wheel while she's up there, and babies are flying around inside the wheel like popcorn at Walmart.

Marshmallow, you can't put your babies up there!

She remains determined.

So we take Marshmallow and the babies (using a tea strainer so as not to touch them) into the plastic bin, but she's distressed in there because it's unfamiliar, running around with a baby hanging out of her mouth, like, WHERE DO I PUT IT!?

I'm like, how do I know--I'M INFERTILE!

Then I get it! She wants her stupid wheel!

So I take the wheel OFF the habitat cage and anchor it in the shavings in the big bin (so it won't spin for God's sake), and scoop the remaing babies into the bin. Marshamallow then carries all I-don't-know-how-many-live babies -- maybe 10? -- left into her motionless-plastic-wheel den, where she's been sitting on them for an hour.

Marshmallow's got water, food, and a bunch of pink babies that seem to still be alive in her new big plastic bin.

Coco's got his cage back, minus the wheel, the hole plugged up by an expensive fruit bowl, and he seems full and rather happy digesting his offspring.

It's all really too much for me.




Actual Sessum Hamster pictures forthcoming.