A very helpful forum thread

When the bleeding first started, I found a thread on Mothering.commune where women discuss their miscarriages. It is very detailed, and helped prepare me for my own miscarriage.

HERE is the link. I hope none of my friends ever need to use it, but if you do, it will definitely help.

Women (and men) need to talk more openly about miscarriage. It isn't shameful, and it really helps when you have friends and loved ones around you to support you and help you through it.

It's done

It's all over but the crying. About half an hour ago, I passed what I think is the placenta - about 2 x 3 inches. Dark red like liver, smooth on one side, and kind of grainy/bumpy on the other. There was no cord or baby. Either that is still in me, or it disintegrated and was absorbed, or it never formed in the first place.

I'm strangely numb and accepting. I feel fine, physically.

Thanks to everyone for the love, and the support, and the prayers.

I'm glad I'm not doing this by myself. I don't think it should ever be a secret, unless the woman wants total privacy. I am happy to have the community I do, who I can talk to openly about this.

**edited to add
I talked to the midwife right afterwards and she reassures me it's fine for me to stay at home unless bleeding gets very heavy or I get clammy/panicky/shocky feeling.

I will still go to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic on Mon or Wed to have them check my hcg levels and for an ultrasound to verify everything has been passed.

***edited AGAIN to add
This could go on all night and tomorrow. Cramps, passing  more clots, tissue, blood, etc. Yay. But it is strangely painless, aside from very mild period-like cramps. Nothing like heavy-labour contractions, like some women experience. For that I am very grateful.

Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic

I called the midwife on call and spoke to her about what was going on, and told her about my trip to the hospital.

She's doing a referral for me to the Early Pregnancy Assessment Clinic, hopefully I'll get an appointment on Monday. They will do an ultrasound and another blood test, to compare baseline HCG levels to see if the numbers are increasing as they should be. If they are the same, or have dropped, we'll know the pregnancy has ended and to expect a miscarriage.

The amount of blood has me worried - it seems like it's not possible to lose this much and still have a viable pregnancy. But stranger things have happened. I'm going to try to be positive, but it's hard.

Pointless exercise

Well, my trip to the hospital was almost pointless. Besides being subjected to all manner of germs and such, I actually ended up leaving the hospital at midnight without being seen. Apparently having a meeting with a doctor (or Nurse Practitioner, for that matter!) for two minutes to discuss bloodwork results is impossible. I'm going to have my midwives call for the results Monday.

When I got there, the waiting board said 6 hours for non-urgent patients. By the time I had left, they had changed it to 8 hours.

Thanks to Jenn, who went and sat with me for three hours even though she had to work this morning.

Thanks to Alex, who brought me a little something to help me feel better.

Thanks to everyone's well wishes. Hopefully stuff gets resolved one way or the other. It's the not knowing/waiting that sucks.

Up in the air

Well, we still don't  know what's going on. I've been having more bleeding and I spoke with my midwife this morning. She suggested I go to the Urgent Care Clinic to have bloodwork and ultrasound done. I couldn't do it earlier but will go after dinner when Ben is home.

Hopefully that will give us some definitive answers of whether or not the baby is alive. HCG levels will tell us if the baby stopped developing at some point in the last few days/weeks. And the ultrasound may show a heartbeat, or not, or an empty sac.

This sucks.

I will post regarding the results.

Worried

I'm a little worried. I've had some spotting, and I'm concerned I might be miscarrying. I know that bleeding is actually fairly common in the first trimester, but it's still a shock to see it. It's early days, yet, and I don't want to be a statistic.

Please pray or light a candle or whatever it is you do in these situations.

New baby, old blog

Wow. Hard to believe it's been since 2008 that I wrote on this blog. I guess there isn't much to say about your pregnancy, once you have the baby! But guess what! We're having another baby!

We have a lot going on right now - just bought an apartment condo in Woodstock so Ben will be closer to work, and now a new baby on the way. I'm a little scared, to be honest - it's a lot to take in, and with the issues that arose with D's birth, I have some stuff to deal with, emotionally and physically.

I've got my first midwife appointment (Thames Valley Midwives, since they serve Oxford County woohoo!) on July 21. Looks like I'll be going by myself or with D since Ben probably can't get the day off. They have their head office in London just down the road from us (about 20 minutes walk or a 4 minute bus ride) and clinic in Ingersoll, so that's where we'll be going for checkups once we move.

I would have loved to have used Womancare Midwives again, but all of the old midwives are gone anyway, except for Marie, so it's no big deal. And they don't serve Oxford County. They said they could present it to the midwives to see if they would all agree to drive to me, but I didn't think that was fair. So I went with TVM.

I'm hoping that the Woodstock Hospital is done by February! I'm assuming since the hospital will be brand new, that the birthing section will be awesome. Hopefully a tub and stuff like that. I'd like to go natural and avoid the whole lithotomy position (on the back) because that will virtually guarantee another broken tail bone, and I CANNOT deal with that again. It still bothers me, sometimes!!!

Oh yeah - the estimated due date is February 26, 2012. Just think, if it stays in there a few extra days, it'll be a Leap Year baby!!! But it's not likely to stay in there past due date, considering D came early and all. We'll see.

I don't have any photos of me (or ultrasounds) to show, so here's a photo and some text from a pregnancy clinic I found online. At the end of this week I'll be 7 weeks pregnant, so I'm in the 7th week of development right now. Tell me that's just a bunch of cells. Yeah, right. Hard to believe abortions are legal and accepted at this stage, huh?

Major organs have all begun to form. The embryo has developed its own blood type, unique from the mother’s. Hair follicles and nipples form and knees and elbows are visible. Facial features are also observable. The eyes have a retina and lens. The major muscle system is developed and the embryo is able to move.