(Disclaimer: I'm going to be blunt,
use harsh language, and at times be very graphic
in blogging about my miscarriage, so if you can't deal with it, you may
want to stop reading now. This blog is also written with the
information that I knew at the time, and nothing else.)
I feel that my memory of this time is already more foggy than I'm comfortable with. I feel immense guilt that I've let myself forget details about my pregnancy, however short and horribly it ended.
I'm actually riddled with guilt at all times. When I'm happy, I feel guilty that I could possibly feel any amount of joy after such a ridiculously horrible event, and guilty that I'm moving on.
When I find myself hysterical in the car or in the shower, I feel guilty that I'm letting myself drown and feel too much sadness at once.
When I'm furious with the world, angry that it feels like my world is collapsing, and that I can't handle anything else, I'm feeling guilty. After all, many people have it a hell of a lot worse than I do.
I'm well aware that I shouldn't feel guilty about all of my emotions. It doesn't really change much for my current reality though, just adds another thing to feel guilty about. Feeling guilty about feeling guilty....
-----------------------------------
I've never been great about putting my negative emotions into words. I despise arguments regarding feelings, and I tend to keep my negative emotions bottled up, only to be verbally let out in the form of, "Well, that's fucking stupid." I also do occasionally angry-cry too.
Blogging about this has been my only way to really talk about my miscarriage, and honestly even writing about it is emotionally exhausting, which is a lot of the reason it's been so long since I posted. When I'm pressed to speak about it in social situations, I try to keep it as brief as possible. "I was pregnant, and then I wasn't," "We we're going to have a baby, now we have to wait to try." I haven't yet become comfortable enough/ cold enough to be able to really speak about it without becoming overwhelmingly sad. My shortness on the topic has been confused by some at relief that my pregnancy ended.
-----------------------------------
One thing I do remember was that directly after the appointment we needed to go to the pharmacy to pick up the cytotec. I didn't want the awkwardness of picking up the RX where I worked. It was too close for comfort.We decided to go to a small pharmacy close to my OB's that I had never been to . I remember thinking about how strange it felt that I was still alive and able to interact with others with all of my internal emotions. I also felt very uncomfortable thinking about what the pharmacist might think about me considering that my association with cytotec was abortion. That being said the pharmacist was very nice and it was likely all in my head. Also, I'm sure I cried multiple times while there.
-----------------------------------
I forget about how awful working in a medical profession must sometimes be emotionally. I tend to think about all of the skill and pressure that is involved in diagnosing or performing surgery, but doctors have to give patients and their family's the worst news they might ever receive. They have to tell people that their loved ones are dead or dying. I really hope that there are mental health programs specializing in the treatment of medical professionals.
-----------------------------------
I pretty much immediately started researching cytotec. I wasn't going to take the medication until Sunday afternoon to ensure that I would be able to have a follow up appointment within 48 hours to check my uterine lining via ultrasound. I was left with a lot of time to panic and try to plan for the worst, just in case.
(More about Cytotec later in the post)
-----------------------------------
The next day I had to work. It was surprisingly easy to pretend that I was okay in my interactions with customers and most of my coworkers. I confided in a supervisor who had known about my pregnancy who was eager to hear about how far along I was and how the appointment went. I dreaded telling her, but when I did she was very warm and empathetic. She told me that she herself had a miscarriage years ago and that it was horrible, but that life gets better. As strange as it sounds, it was nice to find that my first admission about my miscarriage was to someone who had also had that life experience. It's like a fucked up club for people who have had their hearts ripped out, and their babies stolen.
I spent a huge chunk of my day at work covering my shifts for the entirety of the following week. I knew that the Cytotec could fail, and that even if it didn't, I was going to spend the time in physical and emotional pain. A friend at work put the pieces together of what had happened without really being told, and even covered the next day, so I just wouldn't have to come back and worry that I'd miscarry at anytime.
-----------------------------------
Cytotec is also known by its generic name, Misoprostol, and not gonna lie, while researching the drug, I got pretty terrified. Cytotec's purpose is to treat stomach ulcers. Inducing a miscarriage and abortion is an off-label usage, but because Cytotec is a class X drug, and an abortifacient (a drug that induces an abortion/miscarriage), health care providers frequently prescribe it for those purposes. Alone, Cytotec has an 65-93% "success" rate depending on the sample groups. For abortions (as in elective), Cytotec is prescribed together with a drug called Mifepristone, also known as RU 486, which I'm sure sounds a little more familiar, but also is more effective than the Cytotec alone. Cytotec is also sometimes used to induce labor, and ripen the cervix but the statistics on that seem pretty scary too.
I found a couple of blogs about what taking the Cytotec is actually like, which were incredibly helpful, terrifying and heartbreaking. It's really overwhelming even rereading some of it now. It's not as lonely of an experience to know that it happens to other people, but also heartbreaking that it does. My heart breaks for all of the women who have scooped their babies bodies out of the toilet, but even though it's kind of sounds sick and fucked up, I also am envious in a sense. My baby disintegrated, and at times I feel I have nothing but heartbreak from the experience. Comparing my grief to that of anyone else is ignorant and hurtful to both myself and others, which is a topic I'm sure I'll come back to at some point, because it's incredibly important.
-----------------------------------
In reading all of these posts, I got a sense of the range of things that could happen once I took the Cytotec. I knew what I would need to have at home, and I knew how bad it could get. I could bleed out or pass out, and I made sure to make Stefan a list of phone numbers and drug allergies (My list is a little longer than average, ha), and the schedule for taking medications. If I got really sick, and he was panicked, everything was in order to get help ASAP.
-----------------------------------
I'm going to end my post here, because if I start talking about my experience with Cytotec, this post will go on forever. The next post will hopefully be within the week, and not months from now. I will pick up where I left off.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
The Beginnings.
(Disclaimer: I'm going to be blunt, use harsh language, and at times be very graphic
in blogging about my miscarriage, so if you can't deal with it, you may want to stop reading now. This blog is also written with the information that I knew at the time, and nothing else.)
We found out that I was pregnant September 8th.
We had been talking about a having a baby for a long time, and when Stefan got a full-time job with benefits, the discussions became a lot more serious. I went off the pill in July, and we went back and forth on whether we should wait a few months or really try. We ultimately decided to give it a go. We had friends who took awhile to conceive, and we didn't want to waste any time.
I don't know if any of you have ever gone off of birth control after years and years of being on it, but withdrawal from the pill is a bitch. I had a lot of cramping, to the point that I called my gyno's office, and was told by a nurse that it's apparently totally normal for up to three months after going off of the pill. Basically, any pregnancy symptom is also a birth control pill withdrawal symptom. Nausea, tender and sore breasts. It was frustrating.
My expected period didn't arrive when it should have, and I knew not to expect regularity since I was freshly off of birth control. I took a pregnancy test. Negative. I wasn't disappointed exactly, just frustrated thinking about how we couldn't even really start trying until there was at least a period to show that I was ovulating in the first place.
A week and a half later I was cramping, thinking about how the cramps weren't quite what I remembered them being off the pill. I thought maybe I might have forgotten what menstrual cramps felt like off the pill. It had been years. Every day, I told myself that I would definitely get my period soon. I wore pads and everything, just in case.
-----------------------------------
The weekend rolled around, and still nothing. I woke up on Sunday morning and decided that it was probably time to take another test. I was convinced that there was no way I was pregnant, but I was so frustrated with waiting for my period that I couldn't wait any longer.
I normally try not to look at the pregnancy tests until the allotted time is up. It's my way of trying to stay chill about the situation. This time I didn't. Less than 10 second after I was done peeing on the stick, there were two distinct pink lines.
"Uh babe, we're having a baby." I said from the bathroom. Stefan was still in bed watching TV.
"What?"
"There are two lines on the stick!"
"What?"
"I'M PREGNANT!"
"Really?!"
He apparently couldn't hear me the first two times. We were more surprised than anything else. It was clearly planned, but we didn't think we'd get so lucky that it would immediately happen. (In retrospect, I guess we weren't.)
The idea took a few days to get used to. I set up appointments and picked out an OB. And I told a very few select people. I told myself that I didn't want to lie about being pregnant, and that if someone asked, that I'd be honest. There was no reason to lie about something wonderful.
-----------------------------------
Our first appointment was a few weeks later. Since I had gone off the pill, and hadn't had my period first, they wanted to be able to try to date the pregnancy. At my OB, you always go visit the Ultrasound tech first, and they're located in a different office in the same building.
It was a trans-vaginal ultrasound machine, which is really quite awkward for those of you who've never had one. It's not comfortable by any means. I'm still not sure of the ultrasound tech's name, but she's an small, older woman with short hair. She didn't say much during the ultrasound, but pointed out my each of my ovaries, and the pregnancy sac, which was small, and round. (And empty.) The tech said we would need to come back in a couple of weeks to help date the pregnancy.
I was bummed, and filled with what I personally call bad juju. The tech wasn't warm or particularly friendly, and it left me feeling like something wasn't right. Stefan told me that everything was fine and that we just saw the baby too early. We were given a set of the sonograms in an envelope and were told to give them to the receptionist at the OB, but we weren't given a copy of the sonogram, something that in retrospect I don't quite know how to deal with.
Our appointment with the OB was wonderful. My OB is a wonderful, maternal, warm person. (Out of everything that happened, I wouldn't ever regret my choice of her as my doctor.) I asked lots of questions, apparently more than most women ask, but there was just so much I felt like I needed to double check and know. I'm very aware that my being overweight/obese/fat means that I need to be especially careful during pregnancy. I asked her if I should be worried about having recently been on birth control, and if I should worry about my ultrasound being so early. To both counts, she said no.
-----------------------------------
Our next appointment was scheduled for 12 days later. In that amount of time I tried to worry less, and get more comfortable with being pregnant, but it was a little hard to do when I felt nauseated the entire time. All I wanted to do was sleep. It didn't matter how much I had slept the night before, I had to have a nap when I got home. At work, I went through mints like crazy. Everything, and everyone smelled horrible. I threw up in the parking lot at school, and pretty much felt on the edge of throwing up the rest of the time.
I bought and started reading books and blogs, and message boards for moms of babies who would be born in the same month as my little one. Stefan and I went through thousands of baby names. For Stefan's birthday I got him a special sonogram photo frame. We started to talk about when and how we would tell special people who didn't yet know, and when we should be "Facebook official" with the pregnancy. We even bought tickets for Mommycon KC. I just needed to see my baby on the screen, looking like a gummy bear and heart beating. Then I would be less anxious, then I could be okay.
-----------------------------------
The morning came for the second ultrasound. We had the same ultrasound tech, and I knew the second that I saw the enlarged, empty pregnancy sac on the monitor that something was very wrong. Just like the previous time, she was very quiet.
"Alexandra," she said. "I am so sorry, but the sac is empty. You have what they call a blighted ovum."
I sobbed and tried to listen. Stefan was holding my hand tightly. The sadness I experienced in that moment was unlike anything I've ever felt. There aren't even words that quite express it. I was horribly sad and guilty for what had happened to our poor baby, and sad for our life without them.
The tech gave us a few minutes to collect ourselves emotionally, as she called the OB, and we headed for our other appointment. There are lots of things I've forgotten about this hour and a half of my life. I don't remember getting the sonograms to take to the OB. Maybe we got them, maybe someone else took them, but (again) we didn't end up with a copy.
-----------------------------------
At the OB's office we were immediately sent to a room I had never been in. I don't know if it was my devastation or not, but it was the gloomiest room. I still wonder if that's where everyone goes when they find out that their baby is dead. I thought about how much it must suck to tell someone that they weren't going to have their baby. We waited alone for a long time. Neither of us could stop crying.
My OB finally came in. She was very empathic and warm about dealing with the whole situation. She told me that having a blighted ovum isn't a sign of fertility issues, and that it sometimes just happens.She reassured me that nothing that I did could have made this happen.
She told me that since my body still was carrying what it thought was the baby, that I had what is called a missed miscarriage. She gave me three options, and told me that she would fully support any choice that I made. The first was to go home, and wait it out. My body would likely miscarry on it's own in time. The second was to take a drug called Misoprostol/Cytotec, that would induce a miscarriage. The third was to have a D&C (dilation and curettage), a medical procedure/ surgery. She said she would let us have time to think about our options, and stepped outside.
Each of the options had pros and cons.
If I went with all natural, then I wasn't doing anything to my body, I would just let my body do what it needed to. I would also be a ticking time bomb. I could miscarry at anytime, anywhere. I could be at work, or in class, or it could be in the middle of the night.
With the Cytotec, I would need to take a drug to induce the miscarriage, but I could also be in the "comfort" of my own home, and know when it was going to happen. The Cytotec had a chance of not removing all the tissue that it needed to, leaving me with no other option but to have the D&C.
The D&C was the "quick" option. It could make the situation resolve quickly. My OB said many women choose that option to help them move on emotionally at a quicker rate. It was a surgery, so it also seemed to have the most risks. My uterus could be perforated, I could have scarring that might affect my fertility. I also knew that it was abortion-y, and that made me feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-choice, and will be until the day I die, but my personal choice isn't and has never been abortion.
I couldn't deal with being a ticking time bomb, and I was so scared of scarring from a D&C, that I decided that I would take the Cytotec. My OB came back in, and we discussed it more, and she told me she supported me and wrote me a prescription for the medication. A nurse came in and told me that I had Rh-negative blood, and that I needed a shot for it, and gave me a card to carry around with me in case of emergencies.
Stefan took the rest of the day off and stayed with me. I remember looking over at him a few times as he drove us home. He silently cried the whole time. I broke down a few times that day, and Stefan would just hold me. Throughout this entire experience, I've never lost sight that Stefan is my person/soulmate, and that I would never be able to get through something like this without him.
I'll pick back up where I left off in my next post.
For more information about deciding to go off of your birth control pills, or about birth control pill withdrawal symptoms:
Questions About Going Off Birth Control Pills- Go Ask Alice
Getting Off Birth Control Pills Can Be Tricky
Supplements You Need after Being on “the Pill”
We found out that I was pregnant September 8th.
We had been talking about a having a baby for a long time, and when Stefan got a full-time job with benefits, the discussions became a lot more serious. I went off the pill in July, and we went back and forth on whether we should wait a few months or really try. We ultimately decided to give it a go. We had friends who took awhile to conceive, and we didn't want to waste any time.
I don't know if any of you have ever gone off of birth control after years and years of being on it, but withdrawal from the pill is a bitch. I had a lot of cramping, to the point that I called my gyno's office, and was told by a nurse that it's apparently totally normal for up to three months after going off of the pill. Basically, any pregnancy symptom is also a birth control pill withdrawal symptom. Nausea, tender and sore breasts. It was frustrating.
My expected period didn't arrive when it should have, and I knew not to expect regularity since I was freshly off of birth control. I took a pregnancy test. Negative. I wasn't disappointed exactly, just frustrated thinking about how we couldn't even really start trying until there was at least a period to show that I was ovulating in the first place.
A week and a half later I was cramping, thinking about how the cramps weren't quite what I remembered them being off the pill. I thought maybe I might have forgotten what menstrual cramps felt like off the pill. It had been years. Every day, I told myself that I would definitely get my period soon. I wore pads and everything, just in case.
-----------------------------------
The weekend rolled around, and still nothing. I woke up on Sunday morning and decided that it was probably time to take another test. I was convinced that there was no way I was pregnant, but I was so frustrated with waiting for my period that I couldn't wait any longer.
I normally try not to look at the pregnancy tests until the allotted time is up. It's my way of trying to stay chill about the situation. This time I didn't. Less than 10 second after I was done peeing on the stick, there were two distinct pink lines.
"Uh babe, we're having a baby." I said from the bathroom. Stefan was still in bed watching TV.
"What?"
"There are two lines on the stick!"
"What?"
"I'M PREGNANT!"
"Really?!"
He apparently couldn't hear me the first two times. We were more surprised than anything else. It was clearly planned, but we didn't think we'd get so lucky that it would immediately happen. (In retrospect, I guess we weren't.)
The idea took a few days to get used to. I set up appointments and picked out an OB. And I told a very few select people. I told myself that I didn't want to lie about being pregnant, and that if someone asked, that I'd be honest. There was no reason to lie about something wonderful.
-----------------------------------
Our first appointment was a few weeks later. Since I had gone off the pill, and hadn't had my period first, they wanted to be able to try to date the pregnancy. At my OB, you always go visit the Ultrasound tech first, and they're located in a different office in the same building.
It was a trans-vaginal ultrasound machine, which is really quite awkward for those of you who've never had one. It's not comfortable by any means. I'm still not sure of the ultrasound tech's name, but she's an small, older woman with short hair. She didn't say much during the ultrasound, but pointed out my each of my ovaries, and the pregnancy sac, which was small, and round. (And empty.) The tech said we would need to come back in a couple of weeks to help date the pregnancy.
I was bummed, and filled with what I personally call bad juju. The tech wasn't warm or particularly friendly, and it left me feeling like something wasn't right. Stefan told me that everything was fine and that we just saw the baby too early. We were given a set of the sonograms in an envelope and were told to give them to the receptionist at the OB, but we weren't given a copy of the sonogram, something that in retrospect I don't quite know how to deal with.
Our appointment with the OB was wonderful. My OB is a wonderful, maternal, warm person. (Out of everything that happened, I wouldn't ever regret my choice of her as my doctor.) I asked lots of questions, apparently more than most women ask, but there was just so much I felt like I needed to double check and know. I'm very aware that my being overweight/obese/fat means that I need to be especially careful during pregnancy. I asked her if I should be worried about having recently been on birth control, and if I should worry about my ultrasound being so early. To both counts, she said no.
-----------------------------------
Our next appointment was scheduled for 12 days later. In that amount of time I tried to worry less, and get more comfortable with being pregnant, but it was a little hard to do when I felt nauseated the entire time. All I wanted to do was sleep. It didn't matter how much I had slept the night before, I had to have a nap when I got home. At work, I went through mints like crazy. Everything, and everyone smelled horrible. I threw up in the parking lot at school, and pretty much felt on the edge of throwing up the rest of the time.
I bought and started reading books and blogs, and message boards for moms of babies who would be born in the same month as my little one. Stefan and I went through thousands of baby names. For Stefan's birthday I got him a special sonogram photo frame. We started to talk about when and how we would tell special people who didn't yet know, and when we should be "Facebook official" with the pregnancy. We even bought tickets for Mommycon KC. I just needed to see my baby on the screen, looking like a gummy bear and heart beating. Then I would be less anxious, then I could be okay.
-----------------------------------
The morning came for the second ultrasound. We had the same ultrasound tech, and I knew the second that I saw the enlarged, empty pregnancy sac on the monitor that something was very wrong. Just like the previous time, she was very quiet.
"Alexandra," she said. "I am so sorry, but the sac is empty. You have what they call a blighted ovum."
I sobbed and tried to listen. Stefan was holding my hand tightly. The sadness I experienced in that moment was unlike anything I've ever felt. There aren't even words that quite express it. I was horribly sad and guilty for what had happened to our poor baby, and sad for our life without them.
The tech gave us a few minutes to collect ourselves emotionally, as she called the OB, and we headed for our other appointment. There are lots of things I've forgotten about this hour and a half of my life. I don't remember getting the sonograms to take to the OB. Maybe we got them, maybe someone else took them, but (again) we didn't end up with a copy.
-----------------------------------
At the OB's office we were immediately sent to a room I had never been in. I don't know if it was my devastation or not, but it was the gloomiest room. I still wonder if that's where everyone goes when they find out that their baby is dead. I thought about how much it must suck to tell someone that they weren't going to have their baby. We waited alone for a long time. Neither of us could stop crying.
My OB finally came in. She was very empathic and warm about dealing with the whole situation. She told me that having a blighted ovum isn't a sign of fertility issues, and that it sometimes just happens.She reassured me that nothing that I did could have made this happen.
She told me that since my body still was carrying what it thought was the baby, that I had what is called a missed miscarriage. She gave me three options, and told me that she would fully support any choice that I made. The first was to go home, and wait it out. My body would likely miscarry on it's own in time. The second was to take a drug called Misoprostol/Cytotec, that would induce a miscarriage. The third was to have a D&C (dilation and curettage), a medical procedure/ surgery. She said she would let us have time to think about our options, and stepped outside.
Each of the options had pros and cons.
If I went with all natural, then I wasn't doing anything to my body, I would just let my body do what it needed to. I would also be a ticking time bomb. I could miscarry at anytime, anywhere. I could be at work, or in class, or it could be in the middle of the night.
With the Cytotec, I would need to take a drug to induce the miscarriage, but I could also be in the "comfort" of my own home, and know when it was going to happen. The Cytotec had a chance of not removing all the tissue that it needed to, leaving me with no other option but to have the D&C.
The D&C was the "quick" option. It could make the situation resolve quickly. My OB said many women choose that option to help them move on emotionally at a quicker rate. It was a surgery, so it also seemed to have the most risks. My uterus could be perforated, I could have scarring that might affect my fertility. I also knew that it was abortion-y, and that made me feel uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong, I'm pro-choice, and will be until the day I die, but my personal choice isn't and has never been abortion.
I couldn't deal with being a ticking time bomb, and I was so scared of scarring from a D&C, that I decided that I would take the Cytotec. My OB came back in, and we discussed it more, and she told me she supported me and wrote me a prescription for the medication. A nurse came in and told me that I had Rh-negative blood, and that I needed a shot for it, and gave me a card to carry around with me in case of emergencies.
Stefan took the rest of the day off and stayed with me. I remember looking over at him a few times as he drove us home. He silently cried the whole time. I broke down a few times that day, and Stefan would just hold me. Throughout this entire experience, I've never lost sight that Stefan is my person/soulmate, and that I would never be able to get through something like this without him.
I'll pick back up where I left off in my next post.
For more information about deciding to go off of your birth control pills, or about birth control pill withdrawal symptoms:
Questions About Going Off Birth Control Pills- Go Ask Alice
Getting Off Birth Control Pills Can Be Tricky
Supplements You Need after Being on “the Pill”
Sunday, March 31, 2013
Wedding Part 2- People
 |
| The boys and their cufflinks. The hubs has the Captain America ones. |
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| The guys were all obsessed with their Tuxedo butt flaps. |
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| The guys all wore Vans shoes. |
 |
| All the girls wore Toms. |
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| Words can't even express how badly those fake nails hurt. |
 |
| Yep, totally married that guy. |
 |
| Silly faces! |
 |
| Our first dance was to Queen's "You're My Best Friend". |
 |
| I love this photo. I look a little scared though, because people kept accidentally burning me with the sparklers. |
Wedding Part 2- Decor/Details
 |
| My Bouquet- Made of white garden roses and some brooches, including and R2-D2 Lego Mini-figure. My husband wore a boutonniere with C-3PO on it. |
 |
| We rented a house out through the local Parks Department, and held the ceremony in the backyard. We got lucky, and while it was cloudy, it never rained or looked like it would. |
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| Our wedding favor boxes surrounded by photos of us and our bridal party through the years. |
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| Our wedding favors were Star Wars Crayons we made ourselves by melting down Crayolas. R2-D2 and Han Solo in Carbonite. |
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| Star Trek: The Next Generation Comic Book Heart Garland, inspired by Etsy shop Bookity. |
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| The locket that Stefan got me for Valentine's Day one year. We put pictures of us as babies in each side. Locket by TheresaRose. |
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| My little sister, Isabel (also my flower girl) trying to decide which drink to get. We bought a ton of sun tea jars at garage sales to use as drink dispensers. Sadly a bunch of them leaked and we couldn't use them. |
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| We used butcher paper as our table clothes for the picnic tables at the pavilion. We left mason jars full of Crayola crayons out, and kept all the beautiful pictures after the wedding. |
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| The Dumdum balls were one of the first projects I decided to do for the wedding. Tutorial here. |
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| A better view of the table set up at the pavilion. |
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| We had Rock Band set up inside the house for some extra entertainment. |
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Wedding- Part 2- Cupcakes & Ice Cream Bar
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| My wedding cake was perfect. I purchased lots of minfig parts so my bride could have glasses. Cake by Caketown by Anna Meyer. |
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| So many cupcakes! From top to bottom: Wedding White Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing, Hot Fudge Root Beer Float Cupcakes, Butterfinger Blizzard Cupcakes, Red Velvet cupcakes, and Andes Mint Cupcakes. |
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| Ice Cream Bar toppings, with the classic Libbey sundae glasses. |
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| I love the Lizard Man minfig. I pretend he's Reptar. |
Links
Lego Wedding cake- Caketown by Anna Meyer
Recipes
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