I would have been twelve weeks yesterday.
I know the statistic for having a miscarriage is high, but I was really hoping that it wouldn't happen to me.
I found out on September 14th that I was pregnant again. I was a little shocked, considering we hadn't been trying for very long. I had just bought a "Best Brother" shirt for Lewis at the thrift store, not knowing I would need it the next day. I was so excited to tell Spencer and he happened to get home late that day. Lewis usually eats with only his diaper on (ain't nobody got time for food stains) but I had him wear the shirt under his bib for when Dad came home. Spencer was wondering why Lewis was wearing a shirt underneath his bib while eating. But then he exclaimed, "So you got a positive pregnancy test today!" after he saw Lewis without the bib. I may have been testing earlier than I should have. xD I received a positive ten days past ovulation, I knew exactly how far along I was. My estimated due date was May 27th, 2022. I soon started to feel nausea, cravings, and food aversions. In other words, lots of Wendy's! ...and rice pilaf.
I had my '8-week' appointment on October 12th was when I was 7 weeks and 4 days. Spencer came with me because we were going to hopefully see the heartbeat that day. During the ultrasound, we were told that I was measuring at 5 weeks. I knew my calculations weren't off, so I took the statement that the embryo could have been a "slow grower." My midwife admitted that she has seen many cases where babies have turned out healthy after being in a similar situation. She sent me to do some blood work to see if my HCG numbers were rising and told me to come back in two days. Great, instead of only doing blood work once this week, I had to do it twice!
The first blood draw was pretty uneventful, as everyone hopes. But during the second blood draw Lewis was with me while Spencer was working from home. Since I had bruising on my right arm, I opted to do my left arm instead. Wrangling Lewis in the car and driving put a lot of pressure on the inside of my elbow where I had blood drawn.
As I was driving home everything seemed pretty ordinary. I had eaten a good breakfast and I felt completely normal.... until I was about to exit and I saw blood was seeping through my gauze. I'm pretty squeamish per my previous pregnancy and I've passed out immediately or during after blood work. I was about four minutes away from home when I called Spencer to tell him I was blacking out and lightheaded. I tried to find a safe place to pull over, but my head wasn't in the best place to make a turn on a less busy street. I managed to see an opening on the right side of the road where I could stop until the episode was over. I was already blacked out as I pulled over, so I didn't have great perception on whether I was completely stopped or not. I thought I was stopped, but I was quickly corrected when my car hit a brick wall at about 5 miles per hour. No damage to the brick wall, but my ego and my front right bumper were a little scratched.
I'm very grateful that Spencer worked from home that day, because he was there to rescue us within five minutes of that phone call. He talked to the workers and smoothed everything over so I could go home with him and Lewis. They seemed pretty concerned for me, and I'm sure they were very glad I wasn't a drunk driver with a toddler in the backseat.
My HCG level results confirmed that they were increasing, so my midwife told me to come back in two weeks for my second 8 week appointment. This pushed back my due date to June 14th, 2022.
This gave us hope, and when we went to visit my parents and grandparents in California, we told them the exciting news that I was pregnant. I still had food aversions and I was exhausted all the time. Spencer was an amazing husband (and Dad) and let me sleep in every day during our visit. It was a glorious vacation.
Three days later after we got home from California, we had that appointment on October 27th. Spencer came with me as Lewis was being watched by a friend. When the midwife came in she took us right back to the ultrasound room to see how our baby was progressing.
I didn't see any flicker of a heartbeat and my heart immediately dropped. She tried her hardest but there wasn't anything to show that the pregnancy was viable. My midwife said that their ultrasound equipment is outdated and referred us to their imaging department for a vaginal ultrasound to make sure she was correct. She talked about how it's possible that I was experiencing a blighted ovum, and that this pregnancy was most likely not viable. But the imaging department would be able to see the embryo easier.
While on the drive over there, Spencer and I both agreed that our gut was telling us that I was going to have a miscarriage. The ultrasound technician confirmed our suspicions, as the embryo was now measuring three weeks behind at 6 weeks and 4 days. We both thought it would be a girl.
Two weeks later, my miscarriage was not progressing naturally, so I had to take Misoprotol yesterday (the day after my birthday) to cycle through it. I would not wish my enemies or anyone else to go through this.
I warn you that the next couple paragraphs are going to be very graphic, so if you're squeamish you may want to skip to the ending.
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I don't believe that my midwife warned me on how intense experiencing my miscarriage via Misoprotol would truly be. I know I read online that I would experience heavy bleeding, and that I could compare it to a heavy period. But to be honest, due to being on birth control pills or having an IUD, my periods were fairly tame. This meant I didn't know if I was bleeding too heavily to the point I should go in.
Spencer took the day off so he could take care of Lewis. As it would have been impossible for me to cycle through the miscarriage while taking care of him. I inserted the Misoprotol vaginally at 10:45 a.m., and I was told to lay down to make sure that they dissolved properly. Around 2:30 p.m. I started to bleed and I was shocked on the amount of blood and clots that came out all at once. I just kept telling myself it was a heavy period to keep myself calm. I believe I saw the embryo at the very beginning because I saw a little cord attached to it.
I did some Googling and it seemed that the heavy bleeding should last anywhere from two to four hours. I didn't feel comfortable wearing a pad to walk around and get some things done. Because honestly? I didn't like the feeling of all of the blood clots up against my skin, and I didn't really want to bleed all over my clothes. I was just stuck on my throne for over three hours trapped in my bathroom. Thankfully, the cramps weren't as bad as I thought, but I was getting really concerned on how much blood was coming out. It was a steady flow continually.
I was talking to my Mom and we talked about what hemorrhaging was like and I remember reading that if I'm lightheaded, dizzy, or start to feel nauseated is when I should go in. The flow was being inconsistent around 5:30 p.m. so I thought that I should be fine and that I didn't need to go in.
Around 6 it picked up again and Spencer asked if I wanted any dinner. To be fair I hadn't really eaten a whole lot, and I was feeling a little sick as the cramps were getting worse.
All of a sudden around 6:30 was when it was from okay to awful. (I had been bleeding a lot for four hours then, flushing repeatedly.) Spencer was still feeding Lewis dinner in the kitchen. I started to feel nauseous to where I texted him for Zofran. Then immediately after I texted "I'm feeling lightheaded." "Help" The rest was a blur, as Spencer rushed in with lemon heads (which helped with minimal nausea earlier in the pregnancy). I passed out on his shoulder and I felt ringing in my ears. Apparently he was trying to get me to drink water and putting the water bottle straw in my mouth and talking to me loudly, but I didn't hear any of it. I was completely blacked out.
Once I came back, Spencer asked if I was okay and I said no and told him to call his Mom to come here as we needed to go to the hospital. I tried to throw up in the trash can but nothing was in my stomach. While that was happening, he first called the hospital where I was having my prenatal appointments and they told him to get me on my back with my feet elevated. I stumbled to the bed with his help. They told him to call 911 to get sent to the ER. During all the whirlwind we were able to get his Mom here to put Lewis to bed. I could hardly walk downstairs and to our garage. Spencer had to steady me as I was feeling very lightheaded and nauseated (because no thank you to the ambulance cost).
We got to the ER at 7:30, and a lot of our visit was waiting. The nurse hooked me up to a blood pressure monitor and got an IV ready. An ambulance arrived so the nurse left to help them. While we were waiting I felt very cold and I started to shake and chatter my teeth. Spencer kept my legs elevated while we waited and tried to keep me calm. My blood pressure and heart rate kept fluctuating and I started to cry because I was scared. I didn't know why and what was happening to me. I asked myself, "Do I need a blood transfusion? I saw so much blood leave my body..."
The nurse came back after 20-30 minutes and an ultrasound specialist came around 8:30 to see what was happening during this part of the miscarriage. She heard that I was cold, so she brought two warm blankets to use which was very much appreciated! She didn't say anything pertaining to what she was seeing during the ultrasounds, but she was really nice and gentle. I ended up getting an abdominal and transvaginal ultrasound which wasn't unpleasant as the first one I got over two weeks ago. After she was done she said that the radiologist had to look over the images and tell us the results.
More waiting, the doctor finally came in around 9:30 and he asked what happened (which I feel I've had to repeat multiple times since being there.) He pressed on my abdomen and checked my heart. After that, the nurse took more blood for labs, then hooked me up to a saline. She said my hemoglobin levels were at a 12, which meant I didn't need a blood transfusion. The doctor gave me a pelvic exam around 9:45-10 p.m. He said that we were waiting for the ultrasound results and we would go from there. Then we just waited. And waited. And waited. I told Spencer I hoped to leave before midnight. Spencer didn't think that would be an issue.
A nurse came in around 10:30 to change my saline bag and admitted to me that the ultrasound results shouldn't take two hours to process (there was a sign on the wall that said, "Ultrasound...... Two hours") But she didn't have any updates for us. At 10:50 I relented and pressed the call button to see if the head nurse knew anything. She checked with the doctor and said he was getting the ultrasound results. At 11:00 he came in and asked how I was feeling, and I bluntly stated I was tired and I wanted to go home. He told us to monitor the situation for the next 24 hours, but that we could go home after he wrote the discharge papers. More waiting. The nurse came in at 11:30 saying that he was writing them right now and thanked us for being patient.
When we left the hospital I was still feeling a little lightheaded, but I was very excited to go home and get the much needed sleep. Spencer is an amazing husband and let me sleep in until 10 a.m. today even though he didn't get great sleep the last two nights. Today has been better, it's just felt like a normal period with sharp cramps once my medicine is wearing off. Emotionally I am fine, as I have been processing this miscarriage for over two weeks. I am looking forward to having our rainbow baby whenever he or she comes.
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These are the things that women feel shy to talk about, but so many of us go through it. But it's a natural part of life that we should not be ashamed about. While I am aware that many of us grieve differently, and it is more than acceptable to not talk about it to everyone, I am not that type of person to hold it in.
When I told some of my close friends I was pregnant early on, I had no idea that they would be the support system to help me through my miscarriage. As some of them had already gone through one themselves. For them I am so grateful that I did not have to do this alone. One of my friends who is also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints let me borrow the book "Gone Too Soon" which is written by an author of our church. I had been reading it the past week and it has given me comfort through this experience.
One of the purposes I blog (often during the hard times) is to bright to light that being a parent is hard. If you find what I have to say is important enough that you're reading this right now, and if you (or your significant other) is going through a miscarriage or any similar experience that I've written about, I am more than happy to help you through it. I can either listen or give advice, but I don't want my friends to go through these types of things alone. I'm here for you.
