Part 3: The Operating Room — Letting Go of Baby Lux (My D&C / Dilation and Curettage Experience)

The Waiting Before They Came For Me

That afternoon, I began quietly counting the minutes.

Around 1:30 p.m., I kept glancing at the clock. We had originally been told that I might be wheeled to the operating room around 2:00 p.m., but one of the resident doctors had also warned me earlier that my OB still had other patients scheduled before me.

So it might be 3:00 p.m.
Or even 4:00 p.m.

Still, the waiting made every minute feel longer.

Nurses came in and out of the room throughout the afternoon, checking my blood pressure, oxygen levels, and asking the usual questions. Each time the door opened, I wondered if it was finally time.

At 3:30 p.m., the gurney finally arrived.

When the Orderlies Finally Arrived

The moment I saw it, my heart started racing.

Even though I had been preparing mentally all day, the reality of the moment suddenly felt very real. I tried to stay calm as the orderlies helped transfer me from the hospital bed onto the mobile gurney.

Hanz was standing beside me.

As they wheeled me out of our private room, he walked near the head of the bed, filming quietly. Later he told me he just wanted to capture the moment — perhaps his way of holding onto something real in the middle of everything that was happening.

Soon we reached an area of the hospital where he was no longer allowed to enter.

That was where we said goodbye.

“Pray for me,” I told him.

And then almost instinctively, I added something practical.

“Please take care of Tuz… and keep an eye on our things in the room.”

Our hospital room didn’t have a lock, and nurses had been coming in and out all day. Even in that moment, part of my mind was still thinking about ordinary responsibilities.

Then they wheeled me away.

The Pre-Op Waiting Room

The first stop was a recovery preparation area, where I stayed for about thirty minutes. Nurses checked my vital signs again and asked the routine questions hospitals always ask — allergies, medical history, dentures, previous anesthesia.

Everything felt orderly, calm, procedural.

But underneath that calm was the quiet understanding that something important was about to happen.

Entering the Operating Room

Shortly before 4:00 p.m., they wheeled me into the operating room.

The room was enormous and brilliantly lit. The surgical lights overhead looked exactly like the ones you see in medical shows on Netflix — large, circular, high-tech.

I remember feeling strangely reassured when I saw how modern everything looked.

Even though we were in Dumaguete, I suddenly felt confident that I was in capable hands. The operating room looked even more advanced than the one where I had delivered Tuz ten years earlier in Alabang.

That realization calmed me.

Talking with the Anesthesiologist

The anesthesiologist introduced himself, and this time I was the one asking questions.

I asked him how the anesthesia would work and how it would differ from the epidural injections I received during my cesarean section ten years ago.

He explained that this would be spinal anesthesia — a single injection placed into the spinal fluid using a smaller needle than the epidural.

They asked me to turn onto my side and curl into a fetal position, bowing my head forward.

At some point they had already placed oxygen tubes into my nose. I remember thinking that breathing felt slightly uncomfortable while curled tightly in that position.

A male nurse gently supported my entire body, almost hugging me from behind, helping me maintain the position so I wouldn’t move while the anesthesiologist prepared the injection.

The Moment of the Injection

The anesthesiologist warned me that I would feel a sting.

And I did.

It was a deep, sharp sensation that seemed to travel inward toward my spine. It wasn’t exactly like the epidural I had experienced before — but it was still painful enough that I focused on breathing slowly and imagining calming places.

The beach.

Happy memories.

Anything that would keep my mind steady.

Before the sedation began, I asked one more question.

During my cesarean section years earlier, I had been half awake and half asleep during the procedure. I asked the anesthesiologist if that would be the same this time.

He gently recommended that I be fully sedated.

Because there was no baby inside me who could be affected by the anesthesia, he explained that it would be easier for me emotionally and physically to simply fall asleep and wake up when everything was finished.

That made sense.

When My Body Started to Go Numb

Soon after the spinal anesthesia was injected, the doctor asked what sensations I was feeling.

At first, my feet felt warm.

Then a tingling sensation — like tiny pins and needles — began moving slowly upward from my toes to my feet, then my legs, then my thighs.

Within minutes, I could no longer feel the lower half of my body.

That feeling has always been unsettling to me. Losing sensation in half of your body is something your mind instinctively resists.

Then the cold began.

Suddenly my body started shivering uncontrollably. My muscles trembled as if I had stepped into a freezer or into the icy air of the North Pole.

The anesthesiologist reassured me that this was a common reaction to spinal anesthesia. They placed a blanket over the upper half of my body to help warm me.

I remember trying to stay awake, trying to remain aware of everything happening around me.

But the sedation slowly took over.

And then everything faded.

The next thing I remember, I was waking up in the recovery room.

Going Through the D&C Procedure

While I was asleep, the doctors performed a procedure called a Dilation and Curettage, or D&C, to remove the abnormal placental tissue from my uterus.

If you’ve never heard of a D&C before, it may sound mysterious or frightening. In reality, it is a common medical procedure that doctors perform to safely remove tissue from the uterus.

A Dilation and Curettage (D&C) is a medical procedure doctors use to remove tissue from the uterus. It is commonly performed after miscarriages, molar pregnancies, or to diagnose certain uterine conditions.

In my case, the procedure was necessary to safely remove abnormal placental tissue caused by a partial molar pregnancy.

For those who are curious about what the procedure actually looks like medically, I’ve embedded two short educational videos below explaining how the procedure works.

If you’re interested in a more detailed clinical explanation, I’ve also linked to a more comprehensive medical video above.

Watching these videos helped me understand what my doctors were doing while I was asleep — and it gave me a deeper appreciation for the care and precision involved.

Waking Up in the Recovery Room

The next thing I remember, I was in the recovery room.

I woke up to the sound of nurses talking nearby. My body was shivering again — rocking slightly back and forth because of the cold.

My voice sounded rough when I asked one of the nurses if I could have another blanket.

They quickly placed more blankets over me.

Slowly, the shaking began to ease.

I drifted in and out of sleep while the anesthesia continued to wear off.

Returning to the Room

Eventually, they began wheeling me back to our hospital room.

Even though I was still groggy, I remember thinking about Hanz and Tuz. The procedure had taken longer than we expected — between preparation, the surgery itself, and recovery time.

They must have been worried.

When the door to our room finally opened, I could sense their relief even before I fully opened my eyes.

Tuz later told me that the moment he saw the nurses wheeling me back into the room, he felt an enormous wave of relief.

I gathered enough strength to speak.

“I’m okay,” I told them softly.

“I’m just sleepy.”

And not long after that, I drifted back to sleep.

When It Was Finally Over

Sometime between drifting in and out of sleep that evening, the full weight of what had happened slowly settled in.

Earlier that afternoon, the doctors had carefully removed the abnormal placental tissue that had been growing inside me.

What we had believed for several weeks to be a developing pregnancy had turned out to be something else entirely — a rare biological accident called a partial molar pregnancy: