***Warning: sensitive/trigger - miscarriage***
I am not a great story teller, never have been. This post is me recounting the events that took place with my miscarriage, in the best way I can. My missed miscarriage was very early in the pregnancy term, but still pained us in a way we did not anticipate. We were fortunate and thankful to get pregnant on our first try, but sadly it led to a painful outcome. Some women definitely go through much tougher experiences, and my heart goes out to all women who have had to endure this pain, no matter what stage of pregnancy.
(Music by Taylor Swift... you never know what heartbreak anyone may be going through)
“Ok so, what is next?”, were the first words that came out of my mouth. I tried to portray a false sense of bravery and preparedness when the gynecologist delivered the news that the baby I thought was growing inside of me, no longer was found to have a heartbeat. Miscarriage was not foreign to me, as I had unfortunately experienced very close relatives that endured the painful news and reality in the past. So, when we my husband and I decided to finally start trying for a family of our own, I knew that miscarriage was a possibility and thought that I could prepare myself for all potential outcomes. The truth is, miscarrying is an emotional, physical, and mental - truly awful - experience that no one can really understand or prepare themselves for.
I felt lost, confused, in denial, and really found no comfort when I finally left the doctor’s office that day after discovering the missed miscarriage. Through many phases of my life, I got through difficult times by googling online forums. Heartbreak, friendship downfalls, school, failure in grades – I confided in others' words online by reading about their personal comments/opinions. Online strangers who shared their lives helped me build confidence and not feel so alone. I found that same desperation to find sanity through my miscarriage by googling individual's stories. It helped me navigate my own emotions, but also attempt to comprehend what was happening to my body. As I continue to heal after our miscarriage, my real hope in sharing this personal experience is that if any other person is trapped going through the same pain, my story can maybe help one other person feel a little less alone. Confused is the kindest way I can describe the mental and physical turmoil I went through, and for anyone reading this, I hope you know you are not alone.
I felt set in my career, where my husband and I were living, and where we were overall in our lives. We decided to start a new exciting phase and start trying to have a baby together. A few weeks passed, I missed my period, and knew it was time to take my first pregnancy test. In the bathroom at work, I peed on a pregnancy stick, and waited… my eyes lit up when I saw on the digital screen POSITIVE . In my husband’s wedding anniversary gift, I placed the test for him to find, and to share the news that we were starting a family. We were so excited, and even now typing this, I remember the joy we shared… even the difference I felt in myself with the hormones of pregnancy and excitement in that time.
Very early on, things within my body shifted for the worse. I was five week pregnant, yes I know, really REALLY early. It was a typical day at work, mid-treatment on a difficult case, as I felt a rush of blood between my legs. Every woman knows the familiar sensation of when it’s that time of the month. It immediately sent the thought to my brain, of... "well shit, you’re miscarrying. That’s ok, you knew this could happen". … I care a lot about my work, and when I am treating a patient they are my number one focus from start to end. So, I excused myself for a second, which I never do my assistant knows, went to the bathroom to put some toilet paper to catch whatever bleeding was happening, and took a Tylenol to dull the pain I was going through in my lower abdomen. And then went back to work as I was close to finishing up the case. Within a couple seconds of sitting down and continuing to treat my patient, I felt a hot flash like I had never felt before, an extreme sensation like something was pulling on my right pelvic area, and then my vision became blurry. I excused myself again, this time stumbling to my owner in my office, as my vision continued to form a white halo. I quickly told my boss I needed to go to the ER, and if he could please take care of my patient.
On the way to the ER (I was driven there), my body slowly started to regulate back to normal. I still had a tugging feeling on my lower abdomen with some severe pain, but could slowly start to see again and no longer felt like I was going to pass out. At the hospital, I knew I had miscarried. What else could it be? I made it to the ER, waited some time, and spoke with the physician. By this time, the bleeding had stopped and I felt completely normal. After waiting a while, I had an ultrasound done, then waited again for the results. The results came back. “Subchorionic hemorrhage”. “Gestational sac is present”. The ER physician tells me that some pregnancies are prone to hemorrhages, and that it can still be a successful pregnancy. At this time, there was still a pregancny and I was recommended to follow up with a gynecologist. left with some hope, and an appointment the next day.
I went to work the next morning, and then to the OBGYN appointment. The doctor there greets me, tells me based off of the ultrasound report from the hospital I probably miscarried. I had already previously accepted that outcome, and I proceed to tell him I thought so too. He wants to check everything again with another ultrasound to confirm. Within a couple of seconds, he points out the fetal pole on the screen, and also that he can find a heartbeat. “Congratulations, you are definitely pregnant.” He prints the ultrasound for me to take home, and tells me the baby is measuring a little over 5 weeks. I left that day feeling hopeful, and excited to share the news with my husband and mother after confiding in them about the worst day prior. I continued to feel pregnant and felt my body slowly changing. I took videos, excited to see what my stomach would look like in a couple of weeks… months.
Two weeks later, I had a scheduled follow up appointment at the gynecologist. I meet the new doctor seeing me at the same practice, we went over the previous history, and I was back to having a follow up transvaginal ultrasound. As someone in healthcare, I know the thought process of hesitation a provider goes through when they discover not so great findings. I can tell with the long pause from her and with the ultrasound, she’s searching, trying to find some good news. “The doctor before said they found a heartbeat?”, she says. “Yes,” I hesitate. Some more searching continues on the ultrasound. She takes the ultrasound out, and shares the news that she is not finding a heartbeat. The baby stopped growing the week prior. I tried to be strong, and tried to rationalize that I already knew that this could be an outcome in that moment. “Ok so, what is next?”, I said, as if I was so accepting of the outcome and ready to move on. We went to her office, and I immediately started crying as we began to speak. She explained I was having a missed miscarriage and that my options were to wait and see if my body would expel the pregnancy, take a pill to help my body expel the pregnancy, or have surgery through a D&C. I didn’t know what to do, so I asked her what she thought was the best. She went through the risks and benefits of all options, and I decided to take the pill. Misoprostol, 4 tablets transvaginal. I left the office confident that I can move on and that I will be ok.
That night, I started to feel denial. A feeling I did not except. I started to deny that there was something wrong. Maybe the baby was still ok. I started reading about other people’s experiences online when it came to finding out about a missed miscarriage, when the baby stops growing but the body has not recognized it is no longer pregnant. I still felt pregnant and had symptoms, and that’s thanks to hormones still in your body continuing to make you feel that way. Reading others' stories made me feel less alone, but made me feel more confused on my emotions of denial. After hours of googling, I came to acceptance that I would take the pill to start the miscarriage process. My husband supported me, in anything I decided. I finally went to bed, tears still in my eyes from all of the crying I did the whole day, with emotions of failure, grief of the life I lost within my belly, grief of the life we were excited to have soon, and still confused.
I woke up the next day with my whole face still puffy from tears. I think I woke myself up crying multiple times throughout the night. Tears of grief of the life lost. My husband brought back breakfast to the apartment. I spent most of the morning googling about Misoprostol, its effects, and read others' personal stories about taking it. The doctor the day prior and the online stories made it seem like you just take this pill, and your body moves on. I took 600mg of Ibuprofen and 1000mg of acetaminophen. Then inserted the Misoprostol as directed by the doctor. Then waited. My husband and I passed the time by watching the newest season of Selling Sunsets. I waited, and felt nothing. No cramping, no pain, no bleeding. Kept waiting. Nothing. If nothing happens, you have to take another dose again after 4 hours, which my doctor had told me the day prior. Four hours later after the initial dose, still nothing. Confusion again as I don’t understand what is happening, what is normal, and what isn’t. A few minutes later, I start to experience light cramping. Nothing too crazy, and probably because the pain medication I took prior was starting to wear off. I took another 200mg of Ibuprofen even though it was before the recommended 6 hour wait time to take a new dose as I wanted to get ahead of the pain. A few minutes later, now the pain is starting to become really intense. My husband starts up a warm bath and sets up the show we were watching on his iPad so I can watch from the bathtub. The warm bath provides me some relief as I continue to wait. The pain in my lower abdomen starts to become really intense, worse than any pain I had ever experienced, but still NO BLEEDING. I am losing my mind at this point because I cannot comprehend how after 5 hours I have no bleeding with this now intense pain. Is the pill working? If it is not, there is no way I can take another dose and go through this pain again, can I? I am close to 6 hours since the initial pain medication dosage, so I take another 400mg of Ibuprofen to try to help. 5 minutes later I immediately throw up. Awesome, I am having intense pain, can’t keep anything down now to try to help the pain, and nothing is happening to let me know that the Misoprostol is working. Waves of pain are coming and going. I am bent over the edge of the bathtub, groaning at every wave, and my husband is helpless on how to provide relief. Desperation hits me as I cannot withstand this pain, and I have no mental relief that the pain is going to go away anytime soon. In desperation, I call the on-call doctor. As he gets on the line, I immediately feel a rush of blood. Finally, I start to bleed. The pain slowly lessens, and the rest of the day continues watching tv on the couch as things gradually start to feel normal again. As the gynecologist who prescribed me the medication for the misscarriage said, taking the pill sucks. And she was absolutely right.
The days and weeks after a miscarriage are still physically and mentally painful. I didn’t except to have severe cramping weeks after. The severe cramping came and went for about 2 weeks. There were some days I had to lay in bed from the pain, thankfully those days happened more on the weekends so I could still go to work on the weekdays. During this time frame, I found it very difficult to mentally move on from the miscarriage as the physical pain continues to remind you of what your body is going through. I still found myself crying over the pain, and the grief of loss. I still continued to work, and didn’t feel any physical setbacks, just emotional days when driving to and from the office. I finally stopped having any bleeding or spotting around 3 weeks. At this point, which I think I was wrong for thinking but that’s what I thought based of the conversation with my OBGYN, that I could move on with life and that my husband could start trying to start a family again. So, we built ourselves up with hope and continued to try to have a family. Some days I still had very very light spotting, and I just waited for those days to pass, hoping things were improving. And that it was normal, since some women can continue to bleed for several weeks, as long as it is not heavy bleeding. At 5 weeks post miscarriage, I notice I am still having light brown spotting. It doesn’t look like normal period color spotting, which a period is expected at this point in time. It doesn’t get heavier, it’s just a consistent light brown color anytime I wipe. I take a pregnancy test, and it is the faintest red line you could ever imagine, indicating a positive test. Is this a new pregnancy? I call the doctor’s office and tell them that at 5 weeks I have still have light brown discharge that does not look like my period, and that I am still coming up pregnant on tests. They book me the first possible appointment I can make. That weekend I continue to take pregnancy tests that still say I am positive, and I confuse myself thinking that maybe the line is getting darker? To cut to the chase of this horrific rant, no it was not a new pregnancy. It essentially took my body 8 weeks to finally get rid of all the pregnancy hormones and tissue to finally test negative on a pregnancy test. The doctor did do an ultrasound at that 5-week mark for the appointment I called for, and said there was no tissue, and she did blood tests, which came back as a sad “19” for hCG, because I thought maybe I was pregnant again. The amount of tears and confusion continued for me for 7 weeks. At 7 weeks after the miscarriage, I finally got my period. What sent me on another spiral of confusion was that even after my period I was still testing positive on a pregnancy test (I kept testing because the doctor said if the tests were still positive the following week I would have to come in for more bloodwork). I finally felt some relief and that I could put this all behind me when I tested negative on a test for the first time, at the 8-week mark after the miscarriage. It is unfortunately a waiting game after a miscarriage for your body to go back to normal, and I did not comprehend how long this could possibly take for some.
So, that’s my story. As my OBGYN said when she delivered the heartbreaking news, 1 in 4 pregnancies result in a miscarriage. I really wish no women had to go through this heartbreak, and if you are reading this because you currently are, know you are not alone <3. It does not make the process ANY easier, nothing will, but I hope you find some small ounce of comfort in reading what others went through as you try to navigate this.
As it took so long for me to feel normal again, we are waiting to try again. I am thankful for medicine and for the care I was provided as I navigated this time. Something I did not understand were the mental and physical effects of the pill. The pain from it and the wait after the pill was nothing short from a quick experience, and I hope no one else has the same experience and is only better.
I continue to process the miscarriage as the weeks go by. When it first happened, I could not imagine ever sharing with anyone what we went through or even mentioning the bad news. I felt like a failure of my body and could not mention it prior without feeling grief for the baby we had lost. But time is slowly healing the wounds and whenever someone asks “when are you guys thinking about kids”, I no longer feel like hiding in a corner of shame since our attempt prior had led to a negative outcome. I just say, whenever God decides the time is right.
And with that, I leave one last thought: years ago, I went to a friend’s baby shower and met a couple of women there, and we chatted about our lives. I talked about how I was recently married and our current life adventures together. Then the conversation of when our timeline for kids came up. I responded as I always did, we would like kids but the time is not right for us, for now. I remember one of the ladies in the conversation saying, “It is not when you are ready, it is whenever God says you are ready.” And I didn’t really know what that meant, at that time. I thought about it often. Wondering did that mean will God plant a seed in my mind when I know it is time? Now, knowing what I know about pregnancy and miscarriages, I realized what the lady meant by God’s timing, or at least my interpretation of that statement changed. To me now, it meant whenever a miracle is meant to be born, it will, and you have to trusts God’s timing and process. That there is no “right time”, or even when you think you are ready and in control of your timeline, it is whenever God decides if/when it is that time. What is meant to be, will be. And in the end, it will be beautiful.
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