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I was 14 weeks 3 days pregnant when I experienced the most traumatic day of my life.
24 hours before I had had a tiny bit of blood, accompanied by some abdominal discomfort. I was worried of course, but having also experienced a significant amount of bleeding in my pregnancy with my 9 year old at the same gestation I chose to remain hopeful and chalked it all up to constipation. There was no more blood besides the initial scant amount, and every time I checked and found nothing my hope increased.
My husband took the kids to bed, and I went to the bathroom, hoping it would finally the end of the constipation and the abdominal discomfort. But while on the toilet I also started to bleed, and then I felt something else slide out of my body and into the toilet. My head knew it was my baby but my heart didn't want to believe it.
I put on my biggest heaviest duty cloth maternity pad and went to get a Ziploc bag to retrieve my baby, who we have since named Jordan. I looked into his/her teeny little face and counted their little toes and fingers. We couldn't just throw away this tiny, perfect baby who fit in entirely in the palm of my hand, so my husband dug a hole and buried Jordan at the top of the driveway.
Meanwhile I could feel that I was bleeding what felt like a fair bit. I went to the toilet again, and had already soaked through the pad. I passed a lot of blood and clots (we have a composting toilet instead of a traditional one, so I got a good look at how much there actually was, not being diluted in water) and when DH came back inside I told him we had to go to hospital urgently.
My 10 year old was the only one awake, and grandma lives next door if there was an emergency, so we told her daddy would be back soon and were in the car within minutes. We are a 5 minute drive from hospital and by the time we got there I already felt so woozy. DH got me a wheelchair and lucky me got to bypass both triage and the full waiting room and was taken straight to a bed as I was obviously on the verge of passing out.
My husband and the nurse had to help me get from the wheelchair to the bed and get undressed and into a hospital gown. I don't remember at what point I let my husband leave - while I wanted him to stay I was more concerned about my daughter at home panicking about being left alone. But it was fairly quickly, and he did make sure my phone got plugged in as the battery was quite low.
I nearly lost consciousness while the nurse was placing my IVs, and while I have a vague recollection of various people introducing themselves to me at the beginning, I was barely able to keep my eyes open, let alone focus on anything. My BP had tanked to 37/70, but my heart rate had also plummeted and it usually gets really fast to compensate for low blood pressure.
Once they stabilized me I was feeling better and was more with it, and the ER doc came and started manually removing clots, paged for the OBGYN and Mandy my nurse stayed at my side holding my hand and reminding me to breathe.
The GYN arrived shortly after the Dr had filled the first bowl with cots and started on the second and then the GYN took over, did an ultrasound and said that there was not too much debris left in my uterus and it was all close to my cervix, so he'd try manually removing some more and then give me misoprostol and see if that would take care of the rest.
But then after filling a the second bowl with clots that seemed to have no end he changed his mind and decided to prep me for a D&C. I was given my phone to text my husband that I was having surgery and would be definitely spending the night, brought the consent forms to sign, and then in the time I was left alone for the first time, I started to feel myself bleeding more again while I started feeling faint and I weakly called for help but couldn't find the call button...
The next thing I remember was my nurse saying "she's back" as I was being wheeled out of my room and into theatre. I'd been at the hospital a grand total of an hour and 20 minutes when I got to theatre, it had been barely two hours since Jordan had been "born", just to give an idea of the timeline of events.
I remember feeling like it was taking me far too long to be knocked out, and trying to let them know that the "little sting" I would feel in my arm felt like it was on fire and panicking that the anaesthesia wasn't going to work on me and I'd feel everything. But then I woke up in recovery 30 minutes later with the taste of vomit in my mouth (I'd thrown up a lot while waking up) and told that I was on my second bag of blood.
The rest of the night was uneventful though I didn't get a lot of sleep. I was woken at least twice to make sure I was ok as my blood pressure dropped a bit again. But bleeding was scant and has remained very minimal and I felt no pain but my throat from being intubated.
I wanted nothing more than to be in my own bed and cry. I couldn't bring myself to cry while I was in the hospital.
I was discharged at 9am and had to put my bloody pants back on to go walk out to the parking lot to wait for my husband. The fact that I had to see them, let alone put them back on, was the first time I cried.
My kids were all so excited about the baby, and due to my history of losses we had waited until 12 weeks to tell them or anyone, so it seemed especially cruel to have to tell them all that there wasn't a baby in my tummy anymore. My youngest daughter, who just turned 4 the day before the miscarriage, keeps asking me where the baby went and why it died and if it was because I couldn't protect it... And the questions keep twisting the knife in my broken heart because they echo my own questions that will never have answers.
Jordan was supposed to be the baby that completed our family and now there's nothing but a gaping void.
My body aches from the effects of the anasthesia, my throat aches from being intubated, my womb aches from emptiness and my heart aches from the loss of what should have been.
24 hours before I had had a tiny bit of blood, accompanied by some abdominal discomfort. I was worried of course, but having also experienced a significant amount of bleeding in my pregnancy with my 9 year old at the same gestation I chose to remain hopeful and chalked it all up to constipation. There was no more blood besides the initial scant amount, and every time I checked and found nothing my hope increased.
My husband took the kids to bed, and I went to the bathroom, hoping it would finally the end of the constipation and the abdominal discomfort. But while on the toilet I also started to bleed, and then I felt something else slide out of my body and into the toilet. My head knew it was my baby but my heart didn't want to believe it.
I put on my biggest heaviest duty cloth maternity pad and went to get a Ziploc bag to retrieve my baby, who we have since named Jordan. I looked into his/her teeny little face and counted their little toes and fingers. We couldn't just throw away this tiny, perfect baby who fit in entirely in the palm of my hand, so my husband dug a hole and buried Jordan at the top of the driveway.
Meanwhile I could feel that I was bleeding what felt like a fair bit. I went to the toilet again, and had already soaked through the pad. I passed a lot of blood and clots (we have a composting toilet instead of a traditional one, so I got a good look at how much there actually was, not being diluted in water) and when DH came back inside I told him we had to go to hospital urgently.
My 10 year old was the only one awake, and grandma lives next door if there was an emergency, so we told her daddy would be back soon and were in the car within minutes. We are a 5 minute drive from hospital and by the time we got there I already felt so woozy. DH got me a wheelchair and lucky me got to bypass both triage and the full waiting room and was taken straight to a bed as I was obviously on the verge of passing out.
My husband and the nurse had to help me get from the wheelchair to the bed and get undressed and into a hospital gown. I don't remember at what point I let my husband leave - while I wanted him to stay I was more concerned about my daughter at home panicking about being left alone. But it was fairly quickly, and he did make sure my phone got plugged in as the battery was quite low.
I nearly lost consciousness while the nurse was placing my IVs, and while I have a vague recollection of various people introducing themselves to me at the beginning, I was barely able to keep my eyes open, let alone focus on anything. My BP had tanked to 37/70, but my heart rate had also plummeted and it usually gets really fast to compensate for low blood pressure.
Once they stabilized me I was feeling better and was more with it, and the ER doc came and started manually removing clots, paged for the OBGYN and Mandy my nurse stayed at my side holding my hand and reminding me to breathe.
The GYN arrived shortly after the Dr had filled the first bowl with cots and started on the second and then the GYN took over, did an ultrasound and said that there was not too much debris left in my uterus and it was all close to my cervix, so he'd try manually removing some more and then give me misoprostol and see if that would take care of the rest.
But then after filling a the second bowl with clots that seemed to have no end he changed his mind and decided to prep me for a D&C. I was given my phone to text my husband that I was having surgery and would be definitely spending the night, brought the consent forms to sign, and then in the time I was left alone for the first time, I started to feel myself bleeding more again while I started feeling faint and I weakly called for help but couldn't find the call button...
The next thing I remember was my nurse saying "she's back" as I was being wheeled out of my room and into theatre. I'd been at the hospital a grand total of an hour and 20 minutes when I got to theatre, it had been barely two hours since Jordan had been "born", just to give an idea of the timeline of events.
I remember feeling like it was taking me far too long to be knocked out, and trying to let them know that the "little sting" I would feel in my arm felt like it was on fire and panicking that the anaesthesia wasn't going to work on me and I'd feel everything. But then I woke up in recovery 30 minutes later with the taste of vomit in my mouth (I'd thrown up a lot while waking up) and told that I was on my second bag of blood.
The rest of the night was uneventful though I didn't get a lot of sleep. I was woken at least twice to make sure I was ok as my blood pressure dropped a bit again. But bleeding was scant and has remained very minimal and I felt no pain but my throat from being intubated.
I wanted nothing more than to be in my own bed and cry. I couldn't bring myself to cry while I was in the hospital.
I was discharged at 9am and had to put my bloody pants back on to go walk out to the parking lot to wait for my husband. The fact that I had to see them, let alone put them back on, was the first time I cried.
My kids were all so excited about the baby, and due to my history of losses we had waited until 12 weeks to tell them or anyone, so it seemed especially cruel to have to tell them all that there wasn't a baby in my tummy anymore. My youngest daughter, who just turned 4 the day before the miscarriage, keeps asking me where the baby went and why it died and if it was because I couldn't protect it... And the questions keep twisting the knife in my broken heart because they echo my own questions that will never have answers.
Jordan was supposed to be the baby that completed our family and now there's nothing but a gaping void.
My body aches from the effects of the anasthesia, my throat aches from being intubated, my womb aches from emptiness and my heart aches from the loss of what should have been.
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I'm so so glad your OK tho but iam really truly sorry for your loss xx
