(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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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”
