Missed miscarriage in progress - how big is too big for blood clots?

[Cartersmomm]

*Warning*- this could be TMI for the weak stomached

My husband and I found out at 16 weeks that our sweet baby no longer had a heartbeat and likely stopped growing at 10w5d. I was told I had experienced a missed miscarriage. I was offered the options of either waiting, drugs, or the d&c surgery. I always tend To go for the more natural route so I wanted to wait and let my body do it's job.
That was two weeks ago, last week I had some light cramping and spotting. This week I started bleeding like a period on Monday night, it continued through until today (Friday) the blood clots so far have been less clot-like and more just really thick strings of blood. But today I've had increased painful cramping and when I went to sit on the toilet I felt something slip out. I thought i had passed the baby because it was so big, but when I collected it I could see it was just a really thick blood clot. About the size of a mandarin orange (flattened - not round).
I've read that if you're passing clots bigger than a quarter to go to emergency, but I'm not bleeding a lot, like barely saturating half a pad over a few hours. So I'm not concerned about losing too much blood. I'm just wondering if anyone else who has had a miscarriage around 10weeks and passed it naturally, what their bleeding was like before they actually passed the baby.
I feel like I'm going to pass the baby soon, because so far that was the biggest clot I've passed and the most pain I've been in, so I guess I'm just wondering if my intuition is right?
It's been a long couple of weeks waiting for this to happen, so I'm hoping it will be over soon so that we can have some closure.

Please respond with details I won't be grossed out! It's so hard to find information on this topic in the internet. It's all so vague. Searching for some clarity!

Thank you!

 

[slowloris]

IM not sure about size of clot. But i remember with last i passed something similar which was main part and very painful. That was 7week embrio.

in expecting same this time but bigger as 9weeks.

 

[eme]

I miscarried at about 11.5 weeks....in 30hrs I passed 30-35 clots ranging in size from golf ball to grapefruit. I went to the emergency room twice in 48 hrs. First it was because I was freaked out by the sheer size of the clots I was passing and how often (every 30min-1hr) as well as bleeding in between. They originally told me that the bleeding was normal and to be expected for how far along I was.

I went home, later that day I fainted after using the bathroom. I didn't have to have a transfusion or anything as my blood work came back as normal....however I did have problems with my blood pressure being far too low so they kept me for a while. Since then I've had issues with a racing heart via low blood pressure issues. I met with my OB and she said that I'm symptomatic for hemorrhage and anemia due to the blood loss.

Although eating lots of spinach and other foods to boost my iron naturally has been helping a lot. However, it didn't matter how much water I took in, I was losing so much blood so quickly that they still gave me two IV bags the last time I went to the ER.

So I said all of that to say this: the clots are normal, however if they are frequent and last longer than a day.....if you feel dizzy, light headed, or extremely weak, go to the doctors just to be safe. I hope you're feeling better soon and that it's behind you so that you can start the real healing process.

 

[RaspberryK]

I had lots of large clots including the placenta all about the size of my hand. I was told to expect it and unless I was bleeding through a maxi pad in an hour or less then to stay at home.
I did have a large gush of blood that covered a very large bath towel when I passed the baby but as it didn't continue I just stayed at home.
I had 3-4 hours of contractions exactly like labour with ds 3 mins apart to every minute/1.5 minute at the end and a feeling to push so be prepared for that.
I have hard flooring in the bathroom and was more comfortable kneeling there on a towel than on the loo which made coping with the pain too difficult.
Xx