My 12 Week Miscarriage

I keep going back and forth on whether I should share my miscarriage experience. I’ve decided that I have openly shared my 3 birth stories and that my miscarriage experience was very much a mini birth experience. And in those late hours while going through it, I reflected on my friend’s experiences and how helpful it was to know some of what I was going through was normal. And if my story helps any of my friends in the future, then I want to share it. As much as I didn’t know if it would ever happen to me, I was still not fully prepared for what to expect. But these are my very real, personal feelings and details that I want to be able to look back on and remember what it was like. So that I can remember and empathize with others in the future who may have to walk this road. 

Everything was normal at my 7 week appointment. Regretfully, and I mean I really, really regret it, I did not record the baby’s heartbeat. I confidently thought I would do it at a future appointment. And all I was thinking about was “I’m so glad it’s not twins!” I mentioned this concern to a lot of friends :)

My next appointment was at 11 weeks over the phone on March 27, as to avoid an unnecessary office visit and risk COVID19 exposure. I had declined the genetic test and my Dr. and I both agreed a phone appointment would be just fine. All was normal and actually a quick, boring phone call. 

On Saturday April 3rd, I started experiencing menstrual-like cramps. I was concerned enough that I mentioned it to Erin and got into bed early that night to just take it easy. I still experienced cramps Sunday morning and called the advice nurse. I had only had the tiniest bit of pinkish/red blood after wiping once on Saturday. And Sunday morning had some brown blood that made it to my underwear. 

An hour later I was talking to an OB Dr. working that day. He assured me that what I was experiencing was totally normal. It was likely my cervix stretching. In my pregnancy history, I have never had any bleeding or cramping this early in pregnancy. It did ease my mind some that day. But to me, it was not normal.

At 8:20 pm I stood up after kissing Piper goodnight and my water broke. I say that with 100% certainty. I felt that ballooning pressure and just as soon as I felt that, a gush of warm fluid filled my underwear and I instantly ran to my bathroom. I had already been wearing a pad all day just incase. I looked and it was not blood, but a soaked pad with just fluid. I sat down on the toilet and my mucus plug immediately plopped into the toilet and I watched blood start dripping into the water. The girls were asking for me to finish saying goodnight and I just sat there on the toilet thinking, “It’s happening.” I began miscarrying our 4th baby on April 5th, 2020, in my 12th week of pregnancy.

I sat there for a while bleeding and cramping. I went out to the living room to tell Erin that I was officially starting to miscarry. We had both been thinking it was maybe possible that’s what was happening that day but didn’t know for sure. I went back to the bathroom for long periods of time, just sitting on the toilet, at times pouring out blood in steady streams like peeing, and other times just drips. My legs began to shake with the adrenaline? Shock? They were also going numb from sitting there so often and long. I had thoughts like, “If I see the baby, do I stick my hand in the toilet and grab it?” “What do I do with it? I can’t just throw it away or back in the toilet.” “We could bury it in our garden.” I looked for that first hour or so, and then I decided to let it go. Torture. 

We crawled in bed to snuggle just for a few moments until I started cramping and had to get up and sit on the toilet. Erin slept and I crept out of our room because I was tired of flushing our toilet and just wanted to be alone, really.

I watched TV on the couch for a bit. After heavily bleeding and passing large clots for an hour, I decided to call the advice nurse. How long should I expect to be bleeding this heavily? How large of a clot is too large? Was I passing golf ball size? Yes. Tennis ball size? Yes. They told me if I bled through 3 pads in 1 hour or began to feel faint and light headed to call back. I was very much laboring my baby out. Cramping and pain (contraction), immediately followed with lots of heavy bleeding then passing a clot or tissue. Repeat.

 At 1:30 am I called the advice nurse again. It had been 5 hours at this point and I was still bleeding heavily. I had soaked through 6 pads at this point, when I wasn’t sitting on the toilet. Who knows how much I lost? At this point she recommended I come into the ER. I had been trying to put this off because I didn’t want to be exposed to Covid19 or be there if there was nothing they could do for me.

I decided to just try and sleep for a bit on the couch. I was exhausted at this point. An hour later I woke up soaked. The blanket I was using, my pants, my shirt bottom, wet with blood. I slowly made my way to the bathroom. My pad was completely red, no white at all. I passed several very, very large clots and pieces of tissue and immediately began to pass out. I thought, “Was that the baby?” I had been looking for hours, to see if that clot was big enough. If the baby lived until 12 weeks it should have been the size of a cupcake. 

I quickly laid myself on the floor, and just waited for it to pass. Everything was spinning. I was extremely lightheaded, sweating and breathing heavily. After a few minutes I called my mom at 2:30am. She answered after 2 rings with something like “Hi, what do you need?” I told her that I had been having a miscarriage all night and I needed to go to the ER. She was at my house like 12 minutes later. 

I just got in her car and Erin stayed back. I knew I couldn’t have anybody with me. We walked past a large yellow tent outside for testing Covid19 patients and before stepping 1 foot into the ER, the security guard squirted sanitizing foam into my palm, asked if I had a fever or cough, and told me no one visitors allowed in right now.

At this point it was 3am. I wore my mask. I repeated for the 4th time that day that I was having a miscarriage. Saying those words out loud made me cry every time. In my head I was holding it together, but saying it out loud brought out my emotions. There was not one single other person in the waiting room. It was not easy being that one person in there, literally alone. 

This is the only picture I took. It was a surreal experience, being alone in an emergency room during a pandemic, wearing a silly bright colored cheerful mask in a horrible situation. 

I went into a private room with a real door and I was grateful for that. A nurse came to take my blood, again I repeated why I was there. The ER Dr. was very nice and she did an ultrasound, confirming there was no baby in the uterus. Empty. I was grateful the baby had passed on it’s own but it was still heartbreaking to see it.  She paged the OB working upstairs to come check, too. I apologized that I hadn’t shaved my legs in a few days, trying to make light of a situation I hated. She was quickly feeling my cervix and was so nice, saying she and all her coworkers also hadn’t shaved. I was dilated 1-2cm. 

The OB Dr. came down a little while later. She and a nurse again apologized for the reason I was here, and that no one could be with me. My red cell count was low, but not concerning enough that I needed a blood transfusion. Another ultrasound, confirming she saw no bright white=bone and that it looked like it should. There was no need for a D & C, a surgical procedure they do if the baby doesn’t pass completely. They put this plastic wedge under my bottom and examined me. It was painful, uncomfortable, humiliating, and just sad. 

After that they hooked up some fluids to my IV, turned off the lights and let me rest for an hour. My mom picked me back up around 5:45am. I had a prescription for Misoprostol, which would help my uterus continue to contract, cramp and bleed, ensuring everything would pass and in hopes that I wouldn’t have to come back to the hospital to check. I showered and crawled into bed just before 6:30am. 

The mild cramping lasted for about 5 days. It felt like I was very much recovering from birth. My cervix was still going to be dilated for 1-2 weeks. My hormones had to adjust. My Dr. said HCG would be present for up to a few weeks, meaning if I take a pregnancy test it can show up positive for a while. I didn’t know that before this. For the first few days, every time I stood up from picking up a toy, getting off a chair or the couch, it felt like blacking out. My body had lost an incredible amount of blood and it very much felt like my blood pressure was affected. I got these throbbing headaches when bending down or standing up too soon, too. I just felt overall very weak. 

So, I share all this for myself and for others who hadn’t thought much about miscarriage, like me. I used to just think how sad their baby died. Thinking it must have been like just starting their period or they had a D&C. I hadn’t ever given much thought towards the actual miscarriage process. And just like experiencing birth for the first time, you just can’t really fathom the circumstance until you’ve been through it yourself.