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My Miscarriage

April 24-April 30, 2011 is National Infertility Awareness Week and I’ll be sharing my infertility story with you.

Read The Short Version, or for the whole story read:
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5

My Miscarriage
*Warning: There is A LOT of talk about blood in this post. I tried to keep it mild, but it is what it is.

My second appointment was scheduled for September 08 when we would get to hear the heartbeat :). On Monday August 25 I woke up with a queasy feeling that you usually get with the onset of a period, so I called off from work that day. I decided to call the dr. to ask about the Crinone since I would be reaching my 12 week mark that Saturday. For the past few days small “chunks” of the Crinone mixed with dark brownish blood would be present when wiping in the morning. When I called and left a voice mail with the dr. office I asked about the Crinone and told them about the tiny bit of blood and asked if we could do an ultrasound (usually they only do one at 20 weeks). A receptionist called me back telling me that the OB said I should take my last Crinone application on my 12 week mark and they scheduled an ultrasound for Thursday 8/28.

Later Monday evening around 6pm I felt a small trickle. I pulled down my pants right there in the kitchen to find a dime size drop of bright red blood on my panties. I went to the toilet and was wiping more of the same kind of blood. My mom called the OB’s emergency line and I got to talk to another OB in the practice. He said that unless I’m bleeding very heavy that the ER would likely not even do an ultrasound and send me back home to wait it out. He asked me many questions and then told me not to worry yet, that sometimes this kind of bleeding happens and nothing is wrong. He said to think positive and he scheduled an ultrasound for the next day. After the initial scare I began to feel much more positive and was looking forward to getting to see my baby on the ultrasound the next day. Within a half hour the bright red blood was gone and by the time I went to bed my pad only had a very small amount of blood on it.

The next day by the time I was at the drs at 11:30am the bleeding had stopped entirely and my pad was completely clean. We went in for the ultrasound on Tuesday August 26 when I should have been 11 weeks 3 days along according to my LMP. I could barely move because I had to pee so bad so the tech told me she’d take a quick look and then have me empty. She did the abdominal ultrasound and said that I did a great job filling up my bladder (yippy, do I get a gold star?!), she pointed out the sac and said that we’d have to go internally to see the baby because it’s still so small.

She had me go to the bathroom to empty completely. Woohoo! I was thrilled because I was so uncomfortable. I peed as much as I could but when she started to do the transvaginal ultrasound she said that my bladder was still too full and sent me to empty again. Okay. She tried the transvaginal ultrasound again, and she again mentioned that my bladder wasn’t empty, but it must’ve been ok because she continued the exam. I found the transvaginal ultrasound painful but I kept quiet through it. She was moving and twisting the wand in all sorts of directions. She didn’t say anything through the whole exam until towards the end when she said that she was coming back out, she mentioned that she took a look at the ovaries and she pointed out the sac again.

(To read the story of how I got copies of these ultrasounds click here)

I went to the bathroom again and there was a small amount of blood mixed with Crinone which I assumed was because she’d been poking around in there. We were told to go to the waiting room.

After a short while we were brought into a room with the same NP that I had for my first prenatal visit. First she asked about the bleeding which I explained to her. Then she told me “It looks like you’re having a miscarriage.” She said that the pregnancy hadn’t progressed since the last time that they saw me, that I was measuring at 6 weeks (when I should be almost 12), that the sac was misshapen and should be round (when the tech pointed out the sac we saw an oval shape), and this is called a blighted ovum when the sac grows, but the baby doesn’t. Then she said something about a “rod”, but my husband and I heard two different things. I thought I heard her say that “All we’re seeing is a rod when we should be seeing a baby by this point.” And my husband thought he heard her say that, “We’re not even seeing a rod when we should be seeing a baby by this point.”

Then she went on to explain what we were to do next. She said that they would send me for an HCG (Quant) test and that I would have one every Monday until the numbers show that the pregnancy hormone has gone down and I’ve completely miscarried. At that point I can make an appointment to speak with the OB and then start trying again after a few cycles. She said to stop taking the Crinone until my cycles were normal again. She said that my upcoming appointment on 9/8 would be canceled but that I could call her with any questions. She said to call if I get a fever, severe abdominal pains, or bleeding worse than a period. She said that it looks as though my body is trying to miscarry and that it was giving us signals with the bleeding. She explained a D&C and said that some women prefer this because they can’t bare the pain of going through the miscarriage naturally. I told her that I didn’t want a D&C and that if this was going to happen I prefer it to happen naturally. She said, “We believe that it is best if your body is able to do it naturally.” Then we left to get the blood test done.

After the ultrasound on 8/26 I continued to bleed. I didn’t experience any pain or cramping although the later in the day that it got the more period symptoms I felt. The pregnancy nausea that I had been having went away about a week prior, but I had assumed it was because I was approaching my second trimester when many symptoms leave anyway. I was still experiencing fatigue and tailbone pain.

On Thursday August 28 at 4am I woke up bleeding heavy. I was having cramps like intense menstrual cramps, although they weren’t unbearable and I’ve felt them before during a period but not often since I’m not usually much of a cramper. Blood was coming out in big clots (almost ping-pong ball size). This bleeding was definitely heavier than a period, I’d never seen or experienced anything like it before. I probably flushed more than 20 times with the toilet full of blood each time and went through a jumbo roll of toilet paper in a few hours. An hour later I woke up my husband and had him call my mom to come over. My mom sat with me on a kitchen chair in the bathroom while I continued to cramp and bleed and cry. By 6:30am it felt like it had slowed down enough to be able to lie back in bed again. I continued to bleed for another week and spot for another week after that. I never saw the sac come out and, yes, I looked for it.

I had an appointment to talk with the OBGYN on September 23. She said that according to the first ultrasound on 8/26 and my low HCG level, she can say with 100% certainty that there is no baby. She did an internal exam and said that my uterus felt like it was almost back to normal size. I requested to have an ultrasound done. I asked her about my weight since I’d gained 8lbs since the beginning of the pregnancy. She pretty much said that it’s just regular weight and has nothing to do with the pregnancy.
(So yay, I have no baby AND I’m getting fat…yippy! 😦 )

Getting fat for no reason

Two days later I had an ultrasound to confirm the miscarriage. There was no baby and the sac was gone. The u/s tech said that it looks like everything is back to normal in there and that all of the “products of conception” were gone. I was obviously upset, but I felt a little better and relieved to know that it was almost over.

I had to go once a week to have blood drawn so that they could monitor my HCG levels. It took a little over a month for the HCG hormone to completely leave my body.
HCG Levels
08/26: 6460.0
09/01: 506.9
09/08: 86
09/15: 28
09/22: 12
09/29: 7.7
10/06: 0

On October 02 I got a call from the doctor. She said that according to the ultrasound the miscarriage looked complete and everything was back to normal. She said that on the ultrasound she also noticed what looks like a cyst near my ovary.

To be continued