I was exactly 12 weeks pregnant, and it was two days after Christmas. We were in a small town in a conservative state, visiting my partner’s family. I started feeling cramps — I thought I’d just eaten something weird. As soon as I went to bed, I felt like my water had broken or something. I immediately went to the bathroom and realized I’d started bleeding. I called my dad, an OB-GYN, to ask him what was happening. I asked him if I was going to be okay — as my bleeding was getting heavier. He said yes. He said it could be a “threatened abortion,” where I’d be bleeding but everything would still be okay. Or, I might be having a miscarriage, he said.
We left our 3-year old son with his grandparents. They were very supportive — they gave me a really sweet hug. Our son gave me his baby doll to make me feel better. We went to the hospital. My partner was worried about me but tried to stay calm. He was just doing what needed to be done, driving.
On the way to the hospital, I was slightly nervous about how I’d be treated. In California, I’d never be suspected of doing anything wrong. I thought a lot about what someone in this conservative state would feel like going through it, and would they feel they were being judged.
At the hospital, everyone but the clinician was very nice. The nurse told me her sister had gone through the same thing several times, and she cried with me.
The clinician was off; she didn’t have it in her. She was young and inexperienced.
I didn’t think she was judging me, but she was not compassionate at all. She was reluctant to call the ultrasound technician because it was after hours. She said, “I have to make sure you’re bleeding a lot” first, before she’d contact the technician.
I had to give a pee sample and when I went to the bathroom, I felt something come out into the toilet. I was mostly in a trance, but something told me to reach for it, so I did. It looked like a clot. I’m the daughter of an OB-GYN and I work at Planned Parenthood — so I had to see what was happening. I analyzed it and could see tissue, so I knew I had passed the pregnancy and it was extremely heartbreaking. I tried to show my partner and he didn’t want to see. It washeartbreaking but at least, then, I had certainty.
The tech came and did the ultrasound. After it came back, there was no OB-GYN in town to do a D&C [a D&C, or dilation and curettage, is a procedure that removes tissue from the uterus, as after a miscarriage]. I knew there were two options: a D&C, or I could take Misoprostol [a medication used to empty the uterus]. The clinician didn’t offer Misoprostol until I asked about it. She said I could wait until the next morning for a D&C, which would be dangerous because I could bleed too much. Or we could drive two hours at 2:00 a.m.— through a canyon that everyone in town considered to be dangerous — in order to get to a bigger hospital with an ObGyn for the D&C.
Then I asked her, what about Misoprostol? She said “That’s just going to be really painful and last for a long time.” She had a harsh tone. I felt like she lacked empathy.
We decided to drive to the bigger hospital — we felt like it was the safest option. We also knew we needed to go back to San Diego and a D&C would make me healthier, sooner.
We got to the other hospital. Everything there was fantastic. I think they were already expecting us. Everyone was nice and explained the process to me. The doctor who did the D&C seemed disappointed that the other doctor didn’t give us all of our options, but he made me feel at ease. Everything was super quick — I was in the OR within an hour.
They gave me the anesthesia and I wanted to pay attention to how it felt, but all of a sudden I was thinking: “I’m in the recovery room.”
And after that, we drove back home. We drove to Starbucks first. My partner went in to get our coffees. The girl at the counter asked him how his day was, and he hadn’t known how to respond. You never know what’s happening in people’s lives.
Driving back together was really what I needed; it was healing, and it helped us process things together.
My partner was really there for me, and strong — but he was also very sad. Throughout this process, a lot of people reached out to me and supported me, and he didn’t get half the support I did. From emails to hugs, it was very minimal toward him. I think he was disappointed and I thought, ‘hey, he’s here too and suffered a loss, too.’
At the second hospital, they’d given us a great book called Tear Soup. It’s a children’s book about grief.
We read the book. It was weird because we were feeling grief for someone who wasn’t really there — for a possibility, or a dream, or a future. Not for someone you know who’s already a part of your life. So at some point, especially for my partner, you ask yourself ‘Am I even allowed to feel this way?’ etc. At the same time, the book validated our feelings a bit.
We came home and it was really hard; we had the house all ready, and I had my maternity clothes out. But going back to work, back into life, I started to feel a little bit of relief. We’d planned the pregnancy, but once it was no longer there, it was easy to see advantages to not having it. A big question is not knowing if we want to try again or not. I think because of what happened, we’re taking the opportunity to reevaluate. We could try again, but do we really want to?
The hardest part was telling my son about it because he’d been really excited. I wanted to tell him right away, but my partner wanted to wait. My son would see little objects, and he’d ask, “Is this the size of the baby?” I sat down with him and explained that the baby couldn’t keep growing. I’d read our Planned Parenthood guide about how to talk to kids about it. He was pretty calm, and wondered if we were going to have another baby. I said we don’t know, that I need to heal first. For a few days after that, he’d say, “I still want my baby.”
Pain-wise, it was fine as soon as I left the operating room. But I continued to bleed for a couple weeks. It was maybe 8 weeks until I was back to normal.
The convention is that you don’t share the news of your pregnancy until after 12 weeks. For some reason, my OB-GYN told me we had a 99 percent chance of success, at week 10. So we thought, Fine, we’ll just tell everyone because we were so happy, and it felt like a done deal. Which it never is. So when everything happened, we had to go back to a lot of people and let them know. I thought it was a great opportunity, because I know that a lot of times people feel ashamed; I didn’t have that feeling so it was easy for me to share that I had a miscarriage. And by doing that, I can’t tell you how many people told me they’d been through it too. It was like a whole world opened. I was happy I’d told people, so that the conversation could happen.
The worst part was being scared for my life. Being a mom, I was scared for my life for my son, too.
I would tell people who are going through a miscarriage to let yourself feel the feelings you have, however strong or not strong they are. There is a big community of people out there who have gone through the same thing.
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For resources about miscarriage, see Planned Parenthood’s of the Pacific Southwest’s guide or call us at 1-888-743-7526.
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