My Pregnancy Loss

**very detailed, very graphic, very long.

This pregnancy was unexpected, but not unwanted. My husband had reservations, but those were easing by my 6^th week. I  had an EDD of February 26, 2012. I was looking forward to a possible Leap Day baby. I was waiting for my first midwife appointment, scheduled for July 21^st.

I didn’t have many symptoms with this pregnancy, just exhaustion, hunger, thirst, and sore nipples when my DD nursed. The (almost) lack of symptoms didn’t really worry me, because my 1^st pregnancy was similar. I lucked out in the morning-sickness area.

Looking back, the few symptoms I did have this time around abated at some point in the beginning of my 6^th week. I didn’t really notice at the time.

On Wednesday, July 6, I had strange perineum pain, like a shooting pain that intensified when I changed positions or got up from a seated position. It reminded me of my labour with my first child and I was worried. I also had cramps first thing in the morning, which I attributed to the very loose stools I experienced shortly afterward. The perineum pain had disappeared by Thursday morning.

Thursday evening, I was surfing for baby carriers and thru Kijiji (like Craigslist in the US) had found a woman nearby who makes them. She was selling wraps for $15 each (which is a GREAT price) and sent her off an email. I had to pee, so I got up to go into the bathroom….and saw bright pink blood on the toilet paper, and a dime-sized spot of red on my underwear. I was SHOCKED. 

I had zero bleeding with my first pregnancy, so I was immediately very scared. But it was late, close to midnight, and I didn’t want to “bother” my midwife at that point. So I tried to relax, and went to bed.

The next morning, the TP was free of blood the first time I peed, so I relaxed. But an hour later when I went in again, there it was – and stronger than before. I paged the on-call midwife. She told me it could be anything, and since I didn’t have cramps (I mentioned the perineum pain and cramps from Wednesday but she didn’t seem concerned) she wasn’t able to offer a definitive answer. She said I could go to an Urgent Care Clinic, make an appointment for the Early Pregnancy Assessment Unit (EPAU) for the following week, or wait and see what happens. I said I’d wait and see.

I bled all day. Like a light- to medium-flow period. It’s hard to judge exactly how much blood I lost, because I use cloth pads with dark surface fabric, but there was a large amount each time I wiped, and drops fell into the toilet as I would pee. I was getting more and more worried, and I found the “Exactly what to expect with a m/c” thread on MDC. I started reading and was very sad and cried off and on all day Friday. 

Friday night, I decided I wanted to know if the pregnancy was viable, if the baby was dead…I wanted to KNOW. So I decided to go to the Emergency Room. At that point, the Urgent Care Clinic (which would have been more appropriate and I would have gotten better service) was closed. I had to wait until after my husband came home from work to stay with our daughter. I ate dinner first, because I knew I’d be there for a while. My husband and daughter (and dog) dropped me off at the ER and my friend would bring me home. They drove off. My daughter had asked all the way there why I was going, when I was going to be home, and if they were going to cut me up. I have no idea where she got that. She’s three and very intuitive. I understand now she was very upset at leaving me there.

I walked in between 1900 and 1930 hrs, and my heart sank to see that every seat was filled. It’s a big hospital, in a large city (350 thou plus) and the wait board said “6 hour wait for non-urgent cases.” I waited until 2000 hrs triaged, got registered, and the triage nurse drew 3 vials of blood. I went out to the waiting room and my friend showed up about half an hour later. Around 2100 hrs, another friend of mine (a doula) showed up and offered me a shot of whiskey to help relax me and hopefully stop the (undetectable to me) contractions that were making me bleed. She said one shot wouldn’t hurt a viable baby, and if some other reason/irritation was causing the bleeding, it might save the pregnancy. I figured, at that point, that I would try anything, and it wasn’t going to hurt. I went back into the ER to wait.

At midnight, I decided to go home. At 2200 hrs, they had changed the sign to read “8-hr wait,” I had been there for 5 hours, and figured a good night’s sleep would be better for me than waiting even longer just to hear my beta hcg level. They had already said they wouldn’t do an ultrasound because there wasn’t a tech on duty. So I had basically wasted my entire night. My friend drove me home.

I ended up falling asleep around 0200 hrs. 

Saturday, July 9, the bleeding was even heavier. More like a medium period. I called the on-call midwife around noon and was on the phone with her when my husband got home from work (he works half days on Saturdays and Mondays). She didn’t seem optimistic, given the rate of flow. I had also seen some small clots, similar in size to those I saw during a regular period – about ½ cm across and smaller. She told me how much blood is “too much” (soaking a pad front to back and side to side within 20 minutes, 2 in a row) and said to expect a heavy period with cramps/labour pains. I wasn’t overly worried, just hoped it would be over soon.

My husband had been invited to a friend’s campground for Kids Day – he was asked to do an RC helicopter demo for the kids. There would be swimming, kite building/flying, and a BBQ. We had all planned on going, but I couldn’t bear to be out somewhere and end up having to deliver my baby in some latrine, so I asked him to take her and go. The dog and I stayed home. 

I slept from about 1500 hrs to 1800 hrs. I got up and re-heated previous night’s dinner (Indian – yum) and took it outside to eat and read the “Exactly what to expect” thread. I was feeling mild cramps at that point. I think I had felt some previously, but nothing severe. Ones that are indistinguishable from poop cramps, if you know what I mean. (I had been suffering from intermittent constipation, so that’s nothing new). 

I knew at that point that I should expect to lose the baby for sure. Before I got cramps, I could pretend it was possibly something else happening, but once I felt cramps, I knew.

 My neighbour came out (she’s awesome) and I talked to her for a bit. My husband and daughter got home around 2000 hrs and my husband carried my DD inside (she was sleeping) and up to bed. I gathered my stuff and followed them in.

I had to go to the grocery store, so I left. I could feel some heavier bleeding when I stood up from the car, but nothing terrible. I was a little afraid that I’d suddenly have a big bleed, like some women described, so I hurried. I went to the beer store, too – I had originally planned to get wine (there’s a wine store right in the grocery store) but I arrived too late (2110 hrs) and it had closed. So I had to drive about 4 km to the closest beer store that would still be open. Basically, the idea was that, if I was going to miscarry, I wanted to be able to numb myself. But I wouldn’t drink it until/unless I had an actual event that caused me to believe I had lost the baby for good. When I stood up out of the car, I felt a small gush of blood, and thought, “Please God, not here,” and went inside. Of course there was a long line. I made it through and drove home.

I got home close to 2200 hrs and put away the groceries, then sat on the couch for a minute with my daughter, who had woken up while I was gone. She wanted to nurse. I felt like I had to pee, so I went into the bathroom. While in there, I felt the need to push and out plopped a big clot. I called my husband to get a pyrex bowl, a colander, and a slotted spoon.  I scooped the clot out of the toilet and looked at it – but it was just a clot. I flushed it.

Shortly after that (just before 2230 hrs), I felt stronger cramps – but nothing painful. More like period cramps. I knew it was my body trying to get something out, so I went into the bathroom. I had read of a woman using a menstrual pad to catch what came out when she pushed, so I used toilet paper. I put it against me and pushed just a little – there was no pain - and out came a piece of tissue about two inches by three inches. It was irregular shaped and coloured like liver. It was smooth on one side and grainy on the other. It was thicker in spots, especially against one edge. It was fairly thin – only a couple millimeters. It was the placenta. There were some egg-whiteish areas that I think were the sac. I didn’t see a baby. At that point, I would have been 6w7d.

I was very calm. I put the placenta into the pyrex bowl and called in my husband. We both looked at it. I should say here that I never experienced the “rush” of blood following delivery of clots or placenta like some women. I think that it’s because I had bled so heavily for the 2 days previous that there just wasn’t as much to come out.

My daughter saw it too, but I didn’t want her to be scared. We didn’t really tell her much. I had said over the previous two days that “Mama and the baby are sick” so she would let me rest, but nothing aside from that.

I didn’t shed any tears. Not then.

I called my doula friend and she said to keep the placenta in case the midwife wanted to see it.

I paged the midwife again (same one I had talked to earlier that day) and told her what had happened. I was very matter-of-fact and unemotional. I think she was surprised at my lack of emotion, but she was very professional. She said she didn’t need to see the placenta, and suggested I do a follow-up with the EPAU and said she’d get a referral going for me. They’d check for remaining tissue, confirm there wasn’t a viable pregnancy still in there, and take blood to make sure my hcg was dropping from Friday.

I went out into the kitchen and got a beer. I carried it into the living room, and DD said,

“There’s no baby in your belly anymore?” I was stunned. How did she know? But then I remembered that I had told her that I couldn’t drink beer because I had a baby in my belly. That was 2 months earlier, almost – and here I was, holding a beer. She had made the connection. Amazing. Like I said, she’s my intuitive girl.

I got a little drunk – I drank every single one of those 6 beers and read more loss stories on the MDC forum. Then I realized I was hungry and cooked two sausages. Just after they were done cooking, my husband stumbled out to go to the bathroom and I had a bit of a crying spell in his arms, then I was fine. He went back to bed.

About an hour or so later, I went to bed. As I lay there, it hit me – my baby was gone, dammit! My sobs and wails woke up my husband, but not our daughter (who co-sleeps). I crawled around the bed and wrapped myself in his arms, and just sobbed. I got too hot and went back to my side of the bed (DD sleeps in the middle because I get too hot when I’m sandwiched). I continued to sob and wail for quite a while. I don’t know how long. Finally I stopped and went to sleep. 

I’ve not cried since.

Sunday I bled just as heavily (a medium flow) with occasional small clots. Nothing baby-like, so either it already came out in a clot, was inside the placenta, was decomposed enough that it was indistinguishable, or there never was one in the first place (blighted ovum). We’ll never know.

I called the midwives around 1000 hrs this morning (Monday) since they hadn’t called me with the referral info and the admin gave me the # for the unit. I called and made the appointment for Wed afternoon. The admin told me my hcg levels from Friday night – 687. Way too low for being 6w6d. So it had ended at some point before Friday.

We had a chiropractor appointment today. We go every two weeks, and talking to my chiro’s wife really helped (she works as business manager). She’s very practical, like me, and says I don’t really need to go to the follow-up appointment, since they’d just prescribe Misoprostal if there happens to be any remaining tissue. I have no intentions of taking it, so why bother?? I might go, I’m worried about a possible haemorrhage caused by retained clots (happened after my daughter’s birth) preventing the uterus from shrinking back down to normal size. I might see about an herbal treatment to help, if I decide not to attend the ultrasound appointment.

I continue bleeding like a medium-flow period, with occasional large-ish (cherry sized) clots plopping out into the toilet. 

The thing that shocks me the most, aside from the complete lack of physical pain, is the almost complete lack of emotional pain. I don’t know if I’m numb, in denial, or what. Is this one of the early stages of grief? Will I be paralyzed with grief in a couple days? I don’t know. All I know is, I don’t feel what I expected to feel. Does that make me a terrible person? 

I’m sad that I’ll never know if the little one was a boy or girl (I feel it was a boy, but people have been wrong before). I’m sad that I’ll never meet him or her, and all of the potential that has been lost – an entire lifetime of memories. 

But I’m ok.