The One With The Miscarriage
I thought a lot about this post. Write it vs don’t write it.. In the era of internet influencers and people putting their whole lives on the public stage, are there certain things that should be kept private? Are some things too much to share? I started asking questions like:
Will people think I’m sharing this just to get attention, or so they feel bad for me?
Am I exploiting the situation for a story?
Do I owe this story, since I spend so much time sharing all the good, fun stuff? Is keeping the really sad, hard stuff to myself ‘fake’?
What’s the point of telling strangers when you haven’t even told all of your friends or family yet?
After mulling over it, I came to these very simple truths:
When everything was happening, I was googling the internet looking for a similar story to read. It was hard to find, but comforting when I did.
Writing about things that are hard helps me process.
There is not enough information out there about what happens when you have a miscarriage, and that it’s not ‘cramping with bleeding and some clotting, like a heavy period’, for everyone. We don’t hear enough stories about miscarriage with all of the unpleasant details.
No one would blink an eye had I simply started blogging about my pregnancy experience - which is generally a private, personal matter. We’re comfortable sharing the ‘authentic’ details of personal matters - as long as they have a happy ending.
The thing that ultimately pushed me over the edge was this: telling my story might help someone else who had/is having a similar situation feel less on their own.
I spoke with my husband first, as it’s his story, too. Funny enough - his reply?
“I was going to tell you that you should write about it.”
This post is going to be long (probably about a 15 minute read). And detailed. I’m not going to spare any of the nitty gritty. Why? Because it’s time we start telling the shitty, scary truth. We can’t be squeamish about something that so may women deal with anymore. I’m not willing to be cagey about it. Or sugarcoat for the comfort of anyone else. This is the truth.
Before I can tell you about my miscarriage, I feel like I should give you the context of the pregnancy. I found out that I was pregnant on August 16. We were not trying. At all. In fact, in the three weeks leading up to taking the pregnancy test, I had not one - but four - conversations with friends about how I was pretty sure I didn’t want kids. Sure, if it happens, it happens - but I won’t feel like my life is incomplete if we never have them. I don’t feel like anything is missing. Little did I know that I was full on pregnant while I was having these conversations.
I have a blog post written and saved from the days after finding out about the pregnancy, because I wasn’t overwhelmed with excitement and glee. I cried for the whole day. Cried myself to sleep. I was terrified. I was shocked. I was grieving the life I had, and thought I would have. I later found out (again, thanks to bloggers!), that this isn’t uncommon. I wasn’t crazy. Over the next few weeks, with lots of honest conversations, through telling some friends and family and seeing their excitement, with that first ‘heartbeat’ ultrasound getting closer - I got more and more on board every day. Sure, I was still scared and it was unsettling to have your reality completely shift in a few seconds, but as we were driving to that appointment - I was actually excited to see/hear this thing. So far things had been super easy. My boobs were big and sore and I was tired AF, but there wasn’t much nausea. I was feeling good. This was going to be the world’s easiest pregnancy.
Funny thing. The Sunday before our Tuesday appointment after we had told a few aunts and uncles, I said to my sister, “I feel like we shouldn’t have told them - I still think we’re going to go to the doctor on Tuesday and they’ll be like - uhhhh yeah the other doctor’s test were wrong, you were never pregnant.’.
I was prepared for it to have been a mistake. I wasn’t prepared for what came next.
When the OB did the ultrasound at what should have been 9 weeks, he told us that one of two things was happening:
I was actually only 6 or so weeks along. This is why it’s smaller than expected and there’s no heartbeat yet.
2. The pregnancy had stopped growing a few weeks ago.
I had blood drawn that day, and would go back two days later to see if the ‘pregnancy hormone’ hcg was rising or falling. Rising? Just earlier than we thought. Falling? We had lost the pregnancy.
My husband tried to keep me positive, reminding me that there was a chance that it was just early. I knew, though. The moment the doctor opened his mouth, I knew. I did the bloodwork. I went home. I spent the next 2 days in bed, crying for no particular reason. I’d look ay myself in the mirror, notice my boobs had started going back to their normal size, and burst into tears. Almost immediately, all of my symptoms seemed to vanish. I kept squeezing my boobs, hoping they would hurt again. I didn’t eat all morning - which previously would cause a wave of nausea - nothing. The week between our ultrasound, and getting the results of the bloodwork back were awful. We couldn’t relax, but we couldn’t move on either. That glimmer of ‘maybe’ hope was worse than knowing for sure that it was over.
It felt like a cruel joke. I didn’t even want to get pregnant. I had spent the last three weeks wrapping my brain around it. I finally, finally, got excited about it and BAM. The universe kicked me square in the face. People who accidentally get pregnant don’t have miscarriages, right? Where’s that ‘very special episode’? This is the dumb shit that goes through your mind. Now, I had to wrap my brain around the idea that all of those changes we had started planning for were NOT actually going to happen. Life would just go back to…normal? Even the idea of drinking feels weird. Like, oh. I guess I can drink now?
Like I said, for whatever reason, it took a week for the bloodwork to come back. In that week, my symptoms vanished, and I had started spotting. I googled ‘first trimester miscarriage’, to try and prepare myself for what was coming. The general consensus was that it’s like a heavy period, and most women don’t even realize they’re pregnant - they just think it’s a late and heavy cycle. So I bought some pads, and awaited what I knew to be the inevitable.
9 days after our ultrasound, I was at a meeting about 90 minutes from home. At about 12:30, I received a phone call from my OB confirming that my hcg levels were, in fact, dropping and I would likely miscarry in the coming days/weeks. He told me that since I was young and healthy, I would likely be able to let things happen naturally. He assured me that this was nothing I did, and should I want to - I would most likely go on to have a healthy pregnancy in the future. We hung up, and I went back to my meeting. It sounds cold, but I’m honestly grateful that we had that week between ‘maybe’ and ‘definitely’. I had grieved. already. This was just confirming what I already knew, and giving me the closure of certainty. Now, I just had this super fun cloud of ‘when is is going to happen’ hanging over my head.
I want to talk about the ‘nothing I did’. I’ve had two doctors, multiple nurses, friends, and family, and the internet, all tell me that it’s nothing I did. Even the night out in Boston with all the drinking before I knew I was pregnant. ‘No, that most likely had nothing to do with this - most of the time there’s no medical reason, these things just happen sometimes.’. Even with all of that, I can’t imagine from where I sit now, that I will ever not wonder, what if I had just taken that fucking pregnancy test sooner? What if I knew sooner? Maybe if I knew sooner, and didn’t drink that night, things would have been fine. I will never know the answer to those what if’s. I hope a day comes that I stop wondering. Until then, there is going to be a twinge of guilt in the back of my mind. I don’t have inspiring words for you for overcoming that - because I haven’t done it yet. Back to that meeting -
We wrapped up around 2, and I started my drive home. At about 2:45, I started getting hit with a huge wave of painful cramps like nothing I’ve every felt before. I texted my husband to let him know I might not be able to coach the 5:30pm class like I was supposed to, because I was in too much pain to drive. I was going to pull over and lay down in my car to let it pass. I hadn’t parked for 5 minutes before I felt it. A rush of blood as if I had peed my pants. I jumped up so I wouldn’t ruin my leather seats - gotta protect that new Cadillac. It took 10 seconds for me to bleed through the super-absorbent pad I had out on, as well as my jeans. Luckily, I had a kitchen towel in my car. I stuffed it down my pants, and hauled ass to the nearest CVS.
I figured I would grab a box of super duper pads, a pair of shitty CVS leggings, clean up in the bathroom and get myself home. By the time I grabbed the pads and got to the bathroom, I had bled completely through the towel. When I sat on the toilet, it was as if someone had dumped a pint glass full of blood and golfball-sized clots into it. ‘Some clotting?’ Are you fucking kidding me?! I spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom. Just sitting there. In a random CVS, in a random town, an hour from home. How in the fuck did this happen?
It looked like a murder scene. Blood on the floor, on the toilet seat, on the walls, all over me. OK, I decided - get your shit together, Kristin - we’re gonna clean this place up, stuff these jeans, get back out there, and get the fuck home.
In the three minutes it took me to walk the store to get that my plan wasn’t working. I had a sweater that I was able to tie around my waist. Back to the bathroom to try again to clean up. It’s really amazing how the mind works, and what adrenaline can do. Looking back on it - I realize that I . wasn’t scared. I wasn’t even in pain. I was 100% focused on how do I solve this problem? What are you gonna do, Kristin? I even started laughing at one point after I slipped on my own blood on the bathroom floor. What the hell was I going to do?! I guess I live here now, in the CVS bathroom. This wasn’t ‘bleeding’. This was a horror show. My jeans were in the trash at this point. I had nearly clogged the toilet with toilet paper, so now I was throwing handfuls of blood-soaked paper towels and toilet paper into the trashcan, too. It was completely ridiculous - and NOT what those mother fucking websites told me it would be. If this was a ‘heavy period’ - women wouldn’t go to work. I could not believe that a person could be losing this much blood while walking around.
After another 10-15 minutes (maybe? I dunno, the timeline gets a little foggy), or so in the bathroom, I tried to go to my car. It became very clear that I was not going to be driving anywhere without doing so in a literal pool of blood. Can’t ruin that fresh interior. I grabbed my keys and my wallet and walked back into the CVS, directly to the manager and said, “I’m having a miscarriage, can you please call an ambulance? I‘ll be in your bathroom - please send them back when they get here.”. By the time I got to the bathroom, I had bled through the leggings, and there was blood all the way down my leg, and out the bottom cuff onto my foot.
I’m not being graphic for shock value. I’m not trying to shock you, or gross you out. I’m telling you because even though I googled and searched and tried to prepare - NOTHING I found about first-trimester miscarriage mentioned anything like this. If just ONE person reads this one day, and finds themselves a little more aware of the wide range of experiences that there are - I will consider the amount of detail I’m providing worth it - because my ass was NOT expecting this.
The EMTs came, and were supportive and kind. They told me that I did the right thing. Sure, lots of women miscarry at home, but some don’t. I wasn’t in any position to drive. You did the right thing.
I got to the hospital, and they rolled me into a room. Not five minutes later, a felt a huge ‘gush’: a whole bunch of blood and clots all at once. A nurse came in. I looked at her and said, ‘I feel really lightheaded. I think I might pass out.’. I closed my eyes to catch my breath. I opened them, now flat on my back with 7 people in the room all rushing around putting monitors on my chest, and IVs in my arms. “Hi there!”, she said to me with a big comforting smile. “You were right! You passed out there for a second. Welcome back!” *Quick pause to say that the nurses at RWJ Hamilton, Brit and Katie, were saving graces that night. They were light, and made jokes, and never made me feel like I needed to panic. Even when my blood pressure was something ridiculous like 70/40 or some shit - Brit stayed calm and told me to just hang tight, it would bounce back. A thousand thank-yous.*
My vitals stabilized while I was lying flat, so flat I stayed. Huge blot clots kept on coming. When I say huge - I mean from the size of grapes, to the size of a kiwi. I’m not exaggerating. I told them that if my husband arrived, not to let him come in yet. He’s not great with other peoples blood and with the position I was in - we might have two unconscious people on our hands. I got a laugh.
At this point, the on call doctor said that I was likely having the miscarriage in it’s entirely right now, and could choose not to have a D&C (dilation & curettage, where they remove all of the tissue/blood from the uterus) if I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to. I really didn’t want to. I told him that I wanted to go home and let nature take it’s course.
I was in the hospital for another 4 hours. I would feel pressure and cramps, bear down a bit, and a what felt like cups of blood and handfuls of clots would shoot out of me. I kept thinking about those websites. This was NOT what they said to expect.
It’s crazy how quickly you lose any fucks about who is looking at what. I had like, five people staring directly at my vag, which probably looked like a crime scene, and I didn’t give one single rat’s ass. The Pope could have walked in and I would have just looked over my knees and waved.
They did an ultrasound to check for any remaining tissue, and to see if the gestational sac had passed yet. A crazy painful ultrasound. Tear-inducing, digging into my husbands hand. It was a very very long ultrasound, at what felt like a million different angles, and the pressure of something going in while so much was trying to come out, felt like borderline what I was able to bear.
Around 9:00, I felt like most of the bleeding had stopped. They told me that my hemoglobin level was at 10. Not great, but not dangerous (12 is normal for women). My vitals were pretty stable while I was lying down, so it was time to sit me up and see how they hold, and I could be on my way.
They sat me up. My heart rate shot up to 133, bottomed out to 60, and I opened my eyes lying flat once again - I’d passed out. Again.
At this point, the new doctor on shift came in and he was really pushing the D&C. I had lost too much blood, that my heart couldn’t get it where it needed to go. Sure, I could go home and wait - but I’d just be back here needed the procedure and probably a transfusion. To say that this guy was using some scare tactics is an understatement. How did we go from, ‘you can go home’, to ‘you’re gonna need a blood transfusion if you don’t get a vacuum shoved up your vag’. He did a terrible job of explaining what was happening. Eventually, the OB got to the hospital, drew more blood, and came to talk to us.
Here’s the deal:
When you’re pregnant, your body sends a TON of blood to your uterus. My hcg level was lower than before, but still relatively high and there was probably still some fetal tissue in my uterus, despite how much blood/tissue/clots I had already expelled. What this meant, was that my body was still sending lots of blood to my uterus that I was then losing. Apparently, I was still slowly losing blood even though I couldn’t feel it anymore. They felt that they needed to perform the D&C in order to get all of the remaining tissue out, so that my body would recognize there was no pregnancy and stop sending blood. If it wasn’t for the fact that I had passed out twice, they wouldn’t be as concerned - but that wasn’t a good sign. This made sense. We agreed to the procedure, I had a good panic cry because I watch way too many medical shows I was certain that I was going to die because I was going under anesthesia and there would be some random complication. It’s fine.
Just before I went into surgery, my newest bloodwork came back. In the few hours I had been there, my hemoglobin level had dropped from 10 to 8.3. “Do you want us to call the blood bank to have it ready in case she needs a transfusion?”. Few things will motivate you like the words “blood bank”, and “transfusion”. Seeing as how I was still clearly losing blood - the D & C was the right call.
I came out of ‘surgery’ at midnight (ish). I was discharged the next morning. It was over. It was all over.
I know it sounds awful how everything happened - and it was. BUT I’m lucky that it happened how it did. If I wasn’t at a meeting that day. If I was home. I never would have called an ambulance. I would have toughed it out. Who knows what would have happened. Would I have passed out on our bathroom floor? What would have happened if I didn’t get fluids right away like i did in the hospital? What If I was near the stairs and fell down them? What if I stayed in bed and just continued to bleed all night, and ended up in an emergency situation? There are so many what ifs, but I truly believe that if anything had happened even a little bit differently, things could have been a lot worse.
I’m also grateful that it all happened at once, and that it happened coincidentally the same day that we got confirmation. For some women, miscarriage can last weeks, or comes without warning. I’m grateful that I didn’t have to walk around, not knowing when it would happen, but knowing it would. As scary, and awful, and traumatic as it was - I’m grateful that it was just one day and that I knew ahead of time. I can’t imagine what that would have been like to go through the physical trauma, while simultaneously registering the actual loss.
I’ve felt appreciation to have a supportive partner. It’s easy to say that these are things a partner just SHOULD do - but the reality is that some people don’t have it in them. We’ve been through some stuff - but nothing like this. We’re both very independent people, we mostly deal with shit on our own. I know that this was hard for him. As many reservations I had about having children - I know that he was excited. I know that losing this pregnancy was painful for him, and I’m sure that seeing me in the hospital, bleeding, crying, and passing out, was scary, and unsettling. Through all that - he was there for me, even with everything he was probably going through. He didn’t put any of that on me. He kept calm, encouraged and comforted me when I got scared, or was in pain. I thought about women who have had to go through this alone. Who don’t have a hand to squeeze, or someone to say it’s ok when fear washes over you, or even to make you laugh when things feel overwhelming.
I also felt privilege and gratitude for the fact that the cost of all of this didn’t even enter my mind. I have fantastic healthcare through my job. I didn’t hesitate to call the ambulance for fear of the bill. I didn’t panic every time they hooked up another bag of IV fluids, or ran more bloodwork, knowing it was going to cost me. I was able to focus on myself, and my well-being ONLY. I never worried about how I would pay for it, and I’ve never been so aware of that. I imagine there are women who would have stayed in that bathroom, because they can’t afford the ambulance bill.
The OB told me that this was probably a fluke. It has no bearing on me, my health, or my future. That even though I’m going to be anemic for a bit because of the blood loss, that I would bounce back. Go home, rest, drink lots of water, eat lots of protein.
The days that followed are a bit of a blur. I was very, very tired. Not sleepy tired. Tired like if you had done a really REALLY long workout and your body was just spent. Just no energy to do anything. I stayed in bed, I ate a lot of food, drank a lot of water, and watched a lot of Netflix. My dad came down for the night, we all went out for a huge steak dinner and watched some stand-up. I’ve been taking it real easy ever since.
I did the first workout since the miscarriage 7 days later, knowing it was going to feel different. My heart rate still jumps up pretty easily, and I get winded just walking from one room to the other. I get lightheaded and dizzy when I stand up too fast. I couldn’t finish the workout in the given time frame. Previously, it would have taken me 10. I couldn’t do it in the 16 minute cap. I wasn’t pushing by any stretch. I moved very slowly - and even that required lots of breaks and rest. It’s emotionally challenging to be in the gym. Before, when I was winded or tired, it was for a purpose. I was pregnant, after all. Of course I’m tired. All good! Do what you can. Now, when I’m tired and winded it’s not for any ‘purpose’. It’s a reminder - you feel this way because of the thing you’re trying to recover from. The thing that has no finish line. That shitty thing that happened. I want to get back to full ‘me’. This was a major part of my life, of who I am. I was willing to allow that to change for the sake of the pregnancy. Now? It just feels like another part of me that’s been taken away. Another thing that I have to recover from. I walk the line between grace and rage.
People keep saying things about getting pregnant again. My husband asked the OB if complications with the D&C could impact other pregnancies. A card came, offering sympathy, and expressing hope for future excitement and family expansion. “Will you try again?”, seems to be the first thing people ask. I know the intentions are good - but I cannot even begin to think about that. Being sad about this loss, doesn’t mean I’m suddenly aching to have a child. I have no idea how I feel. I accidentally got pregnant. I ended up being excited about it, because hey - it’s happening, so get on board. Now it’s over. I’m disappointed. I’m sad. I feel guilt, and heartache, and hurt. For this loss. For this pregnancy. Sometimes I feel like I want to get pregnant again ASAP - but I know that’s more my desire to go back to before the miscarriage. To erase it and go along with the schedule we thought we had. To undo what’s done. I don’t know how I really feel yet. Not only do I not know how I feel about future kids, but right now - I cannot begin to fathom risking going through that again. And I swear, if you hit me with, ‘the risk is worth it!’ - I will reach through this screen and smack you. I’m sure the view from Everest is worth it, too. That doesn’t mean I’m about to throw on some snow shoes.
There was a lot about this pregnancy that felt like the timing was right. We were about to renovate the house. A good friend of mine is due 4 months before my due date, and just moved to a house 10 minutes from us. A friend from the gym is just one WEEK ahead of where I was in my pregnancy. I was going to have two friends, with kids the same age, within 10 minutexs. I was going to have someone with me going through the exact same shit. I feel like I’m mourning the loss of what that would have been, a well as everything else.
I don’t know how the next year will feel. Yesterday was hard. I found myself in and out of tears for no particular reason. Even though it wasn’t a future that I had been waiting for, or trying for, or hoping for year after year - it was one that I had finally gotten myself ready for, even excited about. And now, suddenly, it’s gone. It’s a hard thing to reconcile. I think some fucked up stuff like, ‘why do those women who eat like shit and have a dozen health problems, and never work out, manage to have perfectly healthy pregnancies and here I am, the picture of health, not even TRYING to get pregnant, and I’m the asshole who can’t do it. Why does everyone else get to have their videos of telling people, not followed up with a text that it’s over?’ I know it’s terrible, and not even true. Plenty of pregnant people deal with the exact same thing, every day. I know it’s just how things go sometimes. But guess what? When crappy things happen - sometimes you have crappy thoughts.
I’m struggling with how to wrap this up. I feel like I could go on for days and days, just for the fact that pregnancy and miscarriage, for me, has come with a complicated set of emotions. I’m sort of still in disbelief. I never thought that I would be pregnant. I certainly never thought that I would miscarry. I keep thinking about forms at doctors offices, when you have to check if you’ve ever been pregnant. I always checked no. Now, I’ll have to check yes, and beside that put a zero next to ‘number of children’. This is a part of my medical history now. It’s a small, but weird thing to think about.
Even though in the end, my life will go back to normal as if I was never pregnant at all, I suppose I never really will. It’s going to be impossible not to think, ‘Isn’t is weird that I would’ve been 5 months pregnant'?’ at Christmas, or ‘huh - we would’ve been getting ready to go to the hospital’, when the due date comes. Even something as simple as when I eventually pour myself the first glass of wine since finding out about the pregnancy feels wrong. I haven’t ben able to do that yet. I’m blaming the blood loss - that I’ll get hammered off of one sip. But it’s more than that. Deciding to drink is this weird acknowledgement that it’s all really over.
Perhaps I should end with reminding you why I wrote this in the first place. The day that I found out that I was pregnant, and didn’t feel a rush of joy, it was reading someone’s blog post that made me feel normal and reminded me that there was nothing wrong with me - that someone else out there felt this way, too. When I found out that I would lose the pregnancy, it was comforting to know that other young, healthy people had been through the same thing. I finally found one blog about a miscarriage that was similar to mine, which made me feel less like a random trauma. One. One that didn’t say, ‘it’s like a heavy period’.
I hope that by putting this all out there, people who know me won’t be afraid. It’s weird to pretend it didn’t happen - but I don’t want to wallow in how sad it is for hours on end. I don’t want you to walk on eggshells, but I don’t want you to deny reality. Don’t say nothing because you don’t know what to say. There’s nothing that’s ‘right’ to say. Just say it sucks.
I hope that by putting this out there, that other people who have to experience it will see that miscarriage is as varied an experience as childbirth. From heavy period-like bleeding, to kiwi-size blood clots and unplanned procedures. That it’s OK to call for help. That you’ve gone through something major. It’s not nothing. It’s not something you’re going to just get over. It’s OK to weave in and out of whatever you’re feeling.
I hope that by putting this out there that there will be more understanding of the incredibly complex and confusing set of emotions the come along with the experience. Shock, sadness, stress, grief, and yes, even laughter. It’s layered. And different. And there’s no right or wrong way to feel.
I suppose in the end, my hope is to help even one person feel less alone. It’s one thing to read the statistics, the list of symptoms. It’s another to read a whole, messy, complicated story.
I know that I’ll be fine. I also know that I am changed. I’ll have good days, and hard days. I’ll forget for a moment, and then remember in a crash. Things are going to pierce out of nowhere. I’m no stranger to loss, I’ve done this before. It’s going to be painful, and confusing, but eventually, I’ll feel like myself again. A little bit at a time.