A Miscarriage Story.
Miscarriage.
It's a topic that seems emotionally charged, but also one that no one seems to talk about.
Many women have endured a miscarriage of some sort, but have kept the experience hidden or quiet, like it wasn't worth sharing. I know of many women in my life who have had a miscarriage, but I have never heard anything beyond that. I know it's emotional and maybe it's too painful to talk about, but I also know when you talk about something it can ease the pain.
This topic is seemingly made small and lacks correct information if you have never endured a miscarriage yourself or talked to someone close to you who has. During my miscarriage my husband had someone flippantly say to him "Oh, it happens all the time, it's not a big deal." The misinformation that this man held was outright ridiculous. To trivialize something large like losing a baby makes my cheeks flush with rage.
This topic is seemingly made small and lacks correct information if you have never endured a miscarriage yourself or talked to someone close to you who has. During my miscarriage my husband had someone flippantly say to him "Oh, it happens all the time, it's not a big deal." The misinformation that this man held was outright ridiculous. To trivialize something large like losing a baby makes my cheeks flush with rage.
Having a miscarriage is a heartbreakingly painful and emotional process to endure, but I don't think it's meant to be swept under the rug, kept quiet or trivialized.
I just don't think it is.
I know for me, it's not.
I endured a miscarriage very recently.
I was 12 weeks along when the miscarriage began, but had known since I was 9 and a half weeks that it was going to happen.
Our pregnancy started just like any other pregnancy. You get the symptoms, take the test and when those 2 pink lines show up you feel some sort of emotion. Whether it be scared, excited, nervous, anxious, happy. We were excited and happy. As my mother-in-law would excitedly say "We're having another little boo-boo!" With each pregnancy it always seems like I show earlier and earlier. This pregnancy was no different. The minute we found out it seemed like our little boo boo made an appearance. I was feeling fatigued, sick and all foods made me feel nauseated. The pregnancy seemed to be progressing beautifully and we were excited to be the first to have a February baby in our family.
It wasn't until at my 9 week point I was having a weird side pain. It was a bit bothersome and it worried me because of the flank location. So, I randomly called to make an appointment and was set up with an OB. When I went in he didn't seem too worried, but wanted to do an ultrasound just to make sure it wasn't a tubal pregnancy developing. I was more thinking kidney pain. During the ultrasound I could tell immediately that something was off. I couldn't see our baby's heartbeat fluttering on the screen...which, with our daughter, even at 6 weeks I could see her beautiful flutter on that screen. The doctor was very quiet and finally said "Well, there is no tubal pregnancy, you can see the fetus here, but at the moment there is no heartbeat. The baby is measuring a couple weeks off from your date, so maybe your dates are off. Just give it a week and go see your regular midwife to see if the baby is developing." I slowly got dressed as my head started reeling in what my next steps are.
I wasn't prepared for this information.
The next few days flew by in a blur, but were also the longest days I have encountered in a long while. I didn't know what to do with the news I had received, but I definitely knew it was going to happen. I wanted to be hopeful, but both my husband and I knew our dates were not off. I could feel my pregnancy symptoms diminishing each day and in that first week of knowing I had some significant contractions and hard cramping, but no spotting. One week later I went to the midwife and the same results were given to us from their ultrasound.
Our baby was no longer our baby, but turning to tissue and clots.
I was given a few options of how I could approach my impending miscarriage. Pills to help it pass, A surgical process to dilate my cervix so it can be removed and scraped out, or a natural miscarriage.
The only way I felt like I could truly emotionally connect with my body and what it was doing was a natural miscarriage.
So, we waited.
The days seemed to go by so slowly. I felt like a ticking time bomb about to go off at any minute. I didn't want to stray far from our home, but because of our wedding reception that we had been planning for months in advance (that happen to fall in the same weeks as our miscarriage news.) I had to grocery shop, clean, make big decisions and prepare. Luckily, I have 2 mothers who are also saints in their spare time who helped with cooking food and cleaning my house better than it's ever been cleaned. For them I am ever filled with gratitude.
I was a damn wreck inside my head, but tried to keep it together as best as possible for everyone else. I didn't cry much, but I got really pissed off at times. Because of all of the outside distraction I felt like I couldn't tap into what was truly going on inside my body. The cramps and contractions always made sure to let me know my reality, but I kept begging my body to just get through our reception week. I did start lightly spotting brown mucus the day before our reception, but the heavy bleeding held off until a few days later.
I knew the impending doom of what I was about to experience, but only after I had found a few great blogs describing what could happen during a natural miscarriage. Before this point I knew nothing about miscarriages. I thought they could be hard, yes because of the emotional aspect, but painful? No. You have such a tiny thing inside you, why would there be pain? It should just feel like your period, right? When I started to read about what it may feel like I knew that this will be one of the hardest things my husband and I will ever go through as a couple.
The day it happened I woke up knowing it was the day. I asked my body to let it be the day. I had an overwhelming feeling that I needed to rest so I slept in with our sleeping beauty. I felt so exhausted the whole day and was having cramps, but needed some sort of grounding, so I took our daughter outside in the early evening as the cramps began to increase in intensity and frequency. As I watched her play in all her innocence, feeling the sun warm me and hearing the breezes sing calmly in my ear I succumbed to the peace and told my body she was ready. A half an hour later while sitting at the dinner table with my family I began to intensely bleed bright red blood. I ran to the bathroom and passed my first clot. From then on I was having contraction every 2 minutes apart and could feel the bearing down feeling every time I needed to pass clots. The pain was intense just like labor. The bearing down feeling came when large clots were passing and I had to push to get them out of my body. Every time I had contractions I could feel blood pouring out of me. After a few hours of passing clots on the toilet I felt intense contractions hitting me and decided to switch to a tub filled with warm water. It helped to calm and relax me in the process. The water was magical in a way. I passed several more clots while in the tub, but began to feel light headed and feeling as though I would pass out every time I stood. It was at that time my mom showed up so Rob and I made the decision to go to the ER. I had an IV for fluids put in me and we waited until I could stand to go home.
Finally, when we got home around 3:30 AM I was feeling better than I had been and the contractions had subsided. My first round of contractions lasted about 9-10 hours.
The next day I slept a large portion of the day and woke up with more contractions, clot passing and heavy bleeding. This cycle lasted for a few days after the initial miscarriage process began.
If you ask me how I am doing emotionally, physically, mentally I don't think I could give you a straight answer. It's been a couple of weeks since our miscarriage, but I still feel like my head is in a fog. I just feel off. I feel like a clouded mess who can't shake a dark cloud.
I want to cry, a lot.
I have, but not enough.
I have gotten really angry and broken down to nothing to give but tears and silence.
I was asked recently when I would get out of this funk I'm in. When I would stop living in a fog.
I have no answer for that. I don't know.
Most days I silently suffer because I don't know how else to cope with this loss. A loss of what could have been my child. A loss of another family member we'll never get to meet. A loss of a sibling for my children. A loss of seeing my husband squeezing so tightly at our new bundle.
I can be comforted in the fact knowing, though, that among this darkness that we endure, there is light that comes from it and we learn from our encounters. Good and bad.
Through this loss we will learn.
I was 12 weeks along when the miscarriage began, but had known since I was 9 and a half weeks that it was going to happen.
Our pregnancy started just like any other pregnancy. You get the symptoms, take the test and when those 2 pink lines show up you feel some sort of emotion. Whether it be scared, excited, nervous, anxious, happy. We were excited and happy. As my mother-in-law would excitedly say "We're having another little boo-boo!" With each pregnancy it always seems like I show earlier and earlier. This pregnancy was no different. The minute we found out it seemed like our little boo boo made an appearance. I was feeling fatigued, sick and all foods made me feel nauseated. The pregnancy seemed to be progressing beautifully and we were excited to be the first to have a February baby in our family.
It wasn't until at my 9 week point I was having a weird side pain. It was a bit bothersome and it worried me because of the flank location. So, I randomly called to make an appointment and was set up with an OB. When I went in he didn't seem too worried, but wanted to do an ultrasound just to make sure it wasn't a tubal pregnancy developing. I was more thinking kidney pain. During the ultrasound I could tell immediately that something was off. I couldn't see our baby's heartbeat fluttering on the screen...which, with our daughter, even at 6 weeks I could see her beautiful flutter on that screen. The doctor was very quiet and finally said "Well, there is no tubal pregnancy, you can see the fetus here, but at the moment there is no heartbeat. The baby is measuring a couple weeks off from your date, so maybe your dates are off. Just give it a week and go see your regular midwife to see if the baby is developing." I slowly got dressed as my head started reeling in what my next steps are.
I wasn't prepared for this information.
The next few days flew by in a blur, but were also the longest days I have encountered in a long while. I didn't know what to do with the news I had received, but I definitely knew it was going to happen. I wanted to be hopeful, but both my husband and I knew our dates were not off. I could feel my pregnancy symptoms diminishing each day and in that first week of knowing I had some significant contractions and hard cramping, but no spotting. One week later I went to the midwife and the same results were given to us from their ultrasound.
Our baby was no longer our baby, but turning to tissue and clots.
I was given a few options of how I could approach my impending miscarriage. Pills to help it pass, A surgical process to dilate my cervix so it can be removed and scraped out, or a natural miscarriage.
The only way I felt like I could truly emotionally connect with my body and what it was doing was a natural miscarriage.
So, we waited.
The days seemed to go by so slowly. I felt like a ticking time bomb about to go off at any minute. I didn't want to stray far from our home, but because of our wedding reception that we had been planning for months in advance (that happen to fall in the same weeks as our miscarriage news.) I had to grocery shop, clean, make big decisions and prepare. Luckily, I have 2 mothers who are also saints in their spare time who helped with cooking food and cleaning my house better than it's ever been cleaned. For them I am ever filled with gratitude.
I was a damn wreck inside my head, but tried to keep it together as best as possible for everyone else. I didn't cry much, but I got really pissed off at times. Because of all of the outside distraction I felt like I couldn't tap into what was truly going on inside my body. The cramps and contractions always made sure to let me know my reality, but I kept begging my body to just get through our reception week. I did start lightly spotting brown mucus the day before our reception, but the heavy bleeding held off until a few days later.
I knew the impending doom of what I was about to experience, but only after I had found a few great blogs describing what could happen during a natural miscarriage. Before this point I knew nothing about miscarriages. I thought they could be hard, yes because of the emotional aspect, but painful? No. You have such a tiny thing inside you, why would there be pain? It should just feel like your period, right? When I started to read about what it may feel like I knew that this will be one of the hardest things my husband and I will ever go through as a couple.
The day it happened I woke up knowing it was the day. I asked my body to let it be the day. I had an overwhelming feeling that I needed to rest so I slept in with our sleeping beauty. I felt so exhausted the whole day and was having cramps, but needed some sort of grounding, so I took our daughter outside in the early evening as the cramps began to increase in intensity and frequency. As I watched her play in all her innocence, feeling the sun warm me and hearing the breezes sing calmly in my ear I succumbed to the peace and told my body she was ready. A half an hour later while sitting at the dinner table with my family I began to intensely bleed bright red blood. I ran to the bathroom and passed my first clot. From then on I was having contraction every 2 minutes apart and could feel the bearing down feeling every time I needed to pass clots. The pain was intense just like labor. The bearing down feeling came when large clots were passing and I had to push to get them out of my body. Every time I had contractions I could feel blood pouring out of me. After a few hours of passing clots on the toilet I felt intense contractions hitting me and decided to switch to a tub filled with warm water. It helped to calm and relax me in the process. The water was magical in a way. I passed several more clots while in the tub, but began to feel light headed and feeling as though I would pass out every time I stood. It was at that time my mom showed up so Rob and I made the decision to go to the ER. I had an IV for fluids put in me and we waited until I could stand to go home.
Finally, when we got home around 3:30 AM I was feeling better than I had been and the contractions had subsided. My first round of contractions lasted about 9-10 hours.
The next day I slept a large portion of the day and woke up with more contractions, clot passing and heavy bleeding. This cycle lasted for a few days after the initial miscarriage process began.
If you ask me how I am doing emotionally, physically, mentally I don't think I could give you a straight answer. It's been a couple of weeks since our miscarriage, but I still feel like my head is in a fog. I just feel off. I feel like a clouded mess who can't shake a dark cloud.
I want to cry, a lot.
I have, but not enough.
I have gotten really angry and broken down to nothing to give but tears and silence.
I was asked recently when I would get out of this funk I'm in. When I would stop living in a fog.
I have no answer for that. I don't know.
Most days I silently suffer because I don't know how else to cope with this loss. A loss of what could have been my child. A loss of another family member we'll never get to meet. A loss of a sibling for my children. A loss of seeing my husband squeezing so tightly at our new bundle.
I can be comforted in the fact knowing, though, that among this darkness that we endure, there is light that comes from it and we learn from our encounters. Good and bad.
Through this loss we will learn.
You are soooo right! A miscarriage is a terribly sad experience that many people try to trivialize. My first one was much like yours...finding out at 9 weeks that things didn't look right, the Drs thinking the dates were off even though I knew they were not, the waiting & then the horrible pain. It took me a really really long time to get out of the funk I was in. A lot of people who knew about it didn't understand why something so common was affecting me so much, those comments made it that much harder to deal with. Thank you for sharing such an emotional experience.
ReplyDeleteThank you for opening up about your experience! I think many people have a misconception about what truly happens when you have a miscarriage. It's not just dealing with a loss of your child whom was once growing inside your womb, but also the physical pain accompanied with the intense emotional aspect. It's truly heartbreaking and at times feels so isolating because many don't understand what you're going through.
ReplyDeleteThis is beautifully written. You honored your baby and body in such a lovely way. Miscarriages are so hard and nobody talks about them, I'm glad you broke the mold. I hope for plenty of love and healing as you process your emotions and move forward. <3
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing your miscarriage experience. I also experienced miscarriage, actually multiple miscarriages. I don't know if your belief system embraces reincarnation, but I instinctively knew that some of the babies were the same soul trying to come through again and again. Not all of the babies were the same soul, but I had 3 miscarriages in my late teens and 8 a number of years later. I have 3 children, all adults now, and I feel an inner certainty that each of them tried several times before they made it here. I also have an inner knowing that at least one of my grandchildren was originally trying to be born to me. Please accept my compassionate sympathy for your loss and I hope some consolation that this child may (actually probably will I think) come back to you later. ~Bernice Drake
ReplyDelete