On June 13th, I had ovulated 10 days after my chemical pregnancy. two weeks later, I got a positive test and we were very excited. at 4dpo I knew I was pregnant, I had morning sicknes, then had vivid dreams and had to get up at night to pee, sore breats, food aversion- it was great because I knew this baby was sticking.
I waited until I would be 9 weeks from when I knew I ovulated (9 weeks along) because I wanted to see a baby on the screen of my first ultrasound rather than a blob of baby. But right before my first ultrasound, I had a dream. I was in the ultrasound room with the technician and the baby measured very far behind where I thought I was. They looked like they were 6 weeks on the screen. The technician turned to me, very sad and said "You're miscarrying". I refused to believe it and continued to look and found the heartbeat. (This was in the dream).
The day finally came to go in to my first ultrasound. I was very excited and I felt so blessed to be able to have this pregnancy, so excited to be having another baby. We went into the ultrasound room and there was the baby- but.. they measured far behind where I thought. I should have been 9 weeks. I measured 7 weeks 6 days. But the baby had a heartbeat of 160bpm, so we figured maybe the machine was just off, or maybe I was just having the morning sickness so soon due to a hormone spike from ovulation. I was optimistic that something was just perceived wrong.
I was still getting morning sickness every day, I looked like my belly was getting bigger, I thought I felt the baby move at points. I hadn't bled or lost any mucous like I did with my chemical pregnancy, so I was happy that our baby was healthy. It was time for my 12 week checkup and we went in, I was disappointed because we weren't going to get the NFT scan and see the baby again. But the midwife brought out the doppler and began to look for the heartbeat. Nothing. Thant's okay though, because we were still early, they can be hard to find. DD was always hard to find, too. She tried again and nothing. She said "Well maybe you have a retroverted uterus" and I said no, she'd never told me if I did and I don't think I did. She started feeling around my uterus and said she couldn't really feel it, but I had no fat there and it wouldn't be hard to feel this time around. I started to get that feeling that something could be wrong. So she sent DH and I in for an ultrasound. Again, we were optimistic, it was early and we'd get to see them on ultrasound, everything would be fine!
But then we got into the room, the tech had this really upset look on her face and we knew.
The midwife had gone in with us and they turned the screen to us.. our baby measured only 8w 3d. They had passed 4 days after our first ultrasound. They had already begun to stop growing at that first ultrasound and I'd been carrying their body since, still throwing up, still feeling their body bump around inside me. DH started getting sick seeing the ultrasound and began to throw up in the ultrasound room. We were able to move out of the room, but he had to run into the bathroom and continued to be sick. After this we were pulled into the room to discuss our options, a D&C, which I wanted to avoid, waiting naturally or cytotec. I went home to think it over.
At that point, the baby had already been gone and I'd been carrying them for almost 5 weeks. I looked up the effects of cytotec and the risk of uterine rupture or bleeding out really scared me. I decided to wait naturally. But a week went by. No bleeding, continued morning sickness, I was dizzy, got vertigo, was throwing up. Another week.. no blood, no cramping.. I lost some mucous plug once, but there was no blood and it grew back. On the third week with no progress, we went back in. (We had two ultrasounds to check progress between this and both showed only very minimal progress of deterioration). I decided to take the cytotec because in medical studies there had been minimal to no reports of rupture and the only hospitalizations were for dehydration or blood infusion which were very low rates.
I picked up my prescription and decided that I'd go stay at my mother's so she could watch DD if I needed to be taken to the hospital for it. I took the first dose of 3 pills. I didn't feel much for the next 6 hours, then I started cramping. It wasn't bad- just felt like I had diarrhea. (Which I did, a lot. Probably was the worst part.) I sat on the couch watching TV, getting up when I cramped really bad and then I'd go to the bathroom, bleed, pas large clots and have diarrhea.
I had decided previously, that I wanted to bury the baby, they belong to the earth and I just couldn't deal with the feeling of flushing them down the toilet like some goldfish leaving them to rot in human feces. I wouldn't be able to live with myself. But I also didn't want to see them or touch them- my heart would break. I needed to get past that so I could have closure to their life.
On the second or third trip, I was having large clots and I didn't want the baby to be in eces or lots of blood, after one large clot I flushed, then past two more clots. One of these was the baby. They weren't in a sac, but they had a little umbilical cord that broke off. They were little and pink, with a two little black eyes and tiny little legs and arms. I couldn't get them. I ran in to DH and told him I think I passed the baby. He wouldn't belive me and thought I was just being hysterical because the midwife said I wouldn't see the baby, that they'd just look like a clot. I was VERY upset and went to my mother, I couldn't just leave the baby there, I couldn't flush them. My mother went in and with some bags we pulled them out and put them in a little baggie, put them in a box in the freezer while I would wait out the rest of this.
The bleeding between bathroom trips wasn't that bad. The midwife said I'd fill like 4 pads an hour. I'd only filled one for the day. The second day was much like the first, but much lighter. I still only filled one pad. The third day, I barely had anything at all. I thought everything was done.
So we took the baby home and I bought a japanese maple tree to bury them under. I had nicknamed this baby "Fox" and the red leaves of the japanese maple seemed fitting, they would grow to be one with the tree and continue their life on through it. I had also sculpted a little fox statue to them in their memory, it really helped me to feel closure to make this for them.
a few more weeks passed. I was still getting sick, getting terrible spike headaches. I was really worried something was wrong. We took another pregnancy test and it was still positive. I was still being affected by hormones. It was three weeks after I had taken the cytotec and about 11 weeks since the baby passed away. We went in for my checkup at the midwifes. They did an ultrasound and found that there was still tissue left over. I was the first person she had ever had keep tissue from after taking cytotec.
At this point, there were concerned for an infection and wanted to schedule a D&C immediately. (This was wednesday) I put it off until Friday morning to deal with the emotional turmoil.
Friday morning came, they had to stick me with an IV 4 times because my viens kept collapsing. The nurses were all very nice, the one doing my IV was with me into the operating room (He was also helping monitor the anesthesia). He was very reassuring and very friendly with me, they told me the proceedure would take about 15 minutes and I'd be fully under for it. I remember being wheeled into the room and set up. I was talking to them and my head started to feel very heavy. I told them this and they said it was the anesthesia. I closed my eyes, because it was a very odd sensation and I wanted to block it out. I fell asleep.
I awoke about 15/20 minutes later in recovery.The nurses talked to me and I felt okay. They took me back to my husband (Oh wait, wrong room- wrong husband! then we finally got the right room with the right husband) . I got up and I had to pee. I passed a VERY large clot, about baseball sized. and a smaller clot. I passed another on my second time and that would be the last clot I would pass for a while.
We went home and I was SUPER sore the next day. Very tender, walking was very painful, I just wanted to lay down all day (and a very good thing I had taken the day off work. I was in a lot of pain) The day after that, I felt much better and went back to work the following day.
I bled for I think two days after the D&C and then it stopped. A week later, I started bleeding again and passed some more clots, the doctor said this was normal. It was the last time I would pass any clots.
I had my procedure on October 12 and I ovulated somewhere between october 26-29th, I felt my body was back on schedule. I did end up experiencing another chemical pregnancy and started my period just shy of what would have been 6 weeks from my D&C date.
So now, finally my nightmare of my missed miscarriage is over. It was a long and drawn out loss, but I hope my story will help others experiencing these fears and needing to know what may happen.
R.I.P., Fox.
Praying for a rainbow after this storm.
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