Things Are Looking Up Buttercup

Almost three weeks now have gone by since my miscarriage.  I'm feeling much more grounded and much less like an emotional wreck.  I believe my hormones are normalizing and my crying randomly has lessened to once a day or less.  While I still don't feel up to engaging with babies and small children, I can at least see them with their happy mothers without breaking into tears.  There are still triggers to my sadness however.  When I'm around a friend or co-worker that is expecting a child or has recently given birth to a healthy newborn baby, my composure is lost.  I can't bring myself to ask about the pregnancy or baby.  I don't want to see pictures of the newborn or hear stories about the birth.  My mind will start to wander and it takes all my energy to not have an emotional breakdown.   This really bums me out.   I don't want to react in this negative and sad way to such a joyous and wonderful event in my friends' lives, but the emotions come on strong and it's hard to control.  I'm happy for how far I've healed in just a couple of weeks, but I'm looking forward to feeling as strong as I did pre-pregnancy.

I was thinking the other day how different the feeling of loss is when it's from your own body as compared to something outside yourself.  When I was grieving the loss of a friend, the triggers to my sadness were things that were more separate from my being, like hearing a certain song on the radio or walking by a certain restaurant.  My grief from losing my baby has effected me on a more intimate level.  I'm finding it hard to eat foods that I enjoyed during my pregnancy, or take any vitamins or supplements.  I had been taking a soothing, hot bath after work every other day, and now I haven't had a bath since the night of my baby's birth.  Generally speaking, I just seem to have lost any interest in really taking care of myself now that it's just me again.  I know I'm not depressed, just grieving still.

I'll end this blog on a more positive note than the last one, and say, life is beautiful and amazing and I can't wait to get back into it:) 

Lost Love and Lost Life

When I was 16 years old, I fell in love.   Kevin and I were going to be together forever.  Though I didn't see myself getting married or having children at that age, I could look far into the future, and all I saw was Kevin.  It was perfect.  Then he slept with my best friend.  I lost not only my best friend and love of my life in that experience, but my dating innocence.   Never since Kevin have I been able to completely lose myself in a relationship.  Never since Kevin have I let myself completely love another person.  When I date people now, I look into the future and see myself alone.  I don't mean to come off as totally jaded, and nor do I FEEL totally jaded.   I just know I'll never love the way I did the first time, with complete abandon.

Having this miscarriage at age 34 has made me feel like that innocent 16 year old all over again.  Only instead of losing the feeling of becoming lost in love, I can no longer be pregnant with total abandon.  Pregnancy doesn't mean a beautiful, perfect baby anymore.  When I look into the future, I don't see my baby or toddler or teenager.   I just see myself.   Alone.

My mom says that when I become pregnant again (because of course I will...) that I will be more grateful and appreciative of each phase of pregnancy.  That I will be a better mother because of my lost pregnancy.  A stronger person.  Perhaps that's all true.  Right now though, I don't feel strong.  As much as a long to be pregnant still, I don't want to be pregnant again.  I just miss my baby.    

Postpartum Posting

Day three after my miscarriage.  Wait... it's only been three days??  Time just really doesn't mean much to me right now.  I guess it's good I took a week off of work.  At first I thought maybe that was excessive, but I need it.  It's been tough taking the time away from work though.  I was so used to working ten to twelve hour days.  Coming home exhausted and having just enough time and energy to do some daily chores, take a shower, eat dinner and get into bed.  Not that I think it's a good way to live or anything, BUT it kept my mind and body busy anyway.  Now I have all the time in the world to heal physically, which is good, but that also gives my mind time to dwell in grief.  Letting myself go through all the emotions that it needs to I'm sure is psychologically healing, but it sucks.  Hopefully these intense mood swings abate a little before I go back to work in four days.   Four days?   Normally I would say that's super soon.  Now, with the way time is passing, that seems like an ETERNITY.

Though I know being at work isn't what I need right now, I just really don't know what I DO need.  I feel listless and dull.  My body is mostly healed from the miscarriage, though I still have light bleeding and if I do too much physically I get some pains in my abdomen.  I'm certainly not bedridden though.  Finding ways to occupy myself in these past days has been a challenge.  There's really no books I feel like reading, or movies I want to watch.  I'd like to knit, but the only yarn I have is the baby yarn I recently bought.  I attempted to try and knit something, ANYTHING, with the yarn.   All it took was seeing a picture of a happy, smiling baby on the yarn label to start me sobbing, so I gave up on that for now.  I've been going for slow, short walks to run errands.   It's nice to get outside and enjoy the budding springtime in Portland.  It feels good to move my body and breathe fresh air.  When I leave my home however, I run the risk of seeing parents with babies and young children, or happily pregnant women with their proud partners.  I can turn into a disgusting, sobbing mess in no time.  While being at home doesn't seem to change the fact that I can turn into a disgusting, sobbing mess at any time, at least I'm in the privacy of my own home.  This blog has really been the most cathartic endeavor I've tried.  It's a nice release to put down in written words what my experience has been and the thoughts that have been emerging from minute to minute.  Instead of looking at the clock and thinking, "How will I get through the next hour?", I marvel at how late it's gotten and I haven't even eaten lunch yet.  Speaking of which, time for another bagel and cream cheese...

The Wait is Finally Over.

The days following my MMC diagnosis were just awful.  Knowing that I had been carrying my angel for a month after it's precious heart had stopped beating, and that I still WAS carrying it, was nearly unbearable.  Why did this happen?  I felt betrayed by my own body.  However, Alisha was right in having me wait to make my decision on how to handle the MMC.

I read stories online from other women that had gone through similar situations, and that gave me strength to search in my heart for how I wanted to proceed.  I decided I truly did NOT want to have a D&C.   The thought of going to a hospital and having some doctor I'd never met sedate me and then rip my baby from my body seemed barbaric and terrifying.  As hard as it may be, what I really wanted was to give "birth" to my baby and have sacred time with it in private.  I wanted to have all my faculties so I could be truly present for the entire experience.  I don't think there is a "wrong" way to handle this situation, I'm just glad I didn't make a rash decision that I couldn't undo.  Waiting for the miscarriage to happen was the most difficult thing I've had to do, but it allowed me to go through most of the stages of grief before I got to meet my baby for the first and last time, and I'm glad for that.

And I DID wait for my body to recognize the nonviable pregnancy.  I waited for a week.  By the eighth day of waiting I was just too much of an emotional wreck.   I had gotten acupuncture that's design was to help induce miscarriage.  While the treatment was very therapeutic for me psychologically, my body did not respond.  I then tried taking a tincture of blue and black cohosh to help induce miscarriage.  That only made my bowels feel weird and had no effect on my pregnancy.  I was torn between wanting to trust that my body would do what was best and just wanting this experience to be over.  I had to think about my mind's well being while also considering what my body was going through.   I finally decided that I was ready to try the medical approach.  I called Alisha and asked her to write me a prescription for misoprostol.

The rest of this post will contain the full story of my miscarriage with as many details as I can remember and feel the need to share.  If you don't want to read graphic descriptions of a late term miscarriage, PLEASE DO NOT READ ON.

 On  May 13, 2015 at around 7:30 PM I inserted 4 misoprostol tablets inter-vaginally.  Alisha had warned me that doing the miscarriage this way was essentially labor as my baby was around 16 weeks old.  I would have contractions, and have to push my baby out just as with full term labor, but unlike full term labor I wouldn't have the supreme joy of hearing my baby take it's first breath and cry it's first cry.   My angel wouldn't be placed on my chest, nor would I experience it's first latch.  All of this I knew in my heart, but that doesn't make it easier.  Never having had given birth to any baby, full term or not, I didn't really know what the labor experience would be.  I just knew that women had been doing this for thousands of years, and now so too was I.

My contractions began at about 9:30 PM.   I just laid in bed with a heating pad on my abdomen and went through the contractions as they built in intensity.  I wasn't really looking at the time much, but I believe at around 11:30 PM my contractions built to a level that was nauseating.   The medication causes nausea and loose stools, so I knew I needed to get to the bathroom.  I vomited a couple of times and had some loose stools (luckily not right at the same time).  I wanted to do a water birth, so I got the bath going.   As I sat in the bath waiting for it to fill, I felt much better.   My cramping and contractions had seemed to cease.  This was both a sense of physical relief and emotional distress.   I didn't want to have gone this far just to have it fail.  The success rate of misoprostol for miscarriage is 90 to 95 percent.   With the luck I'd been having with this pregnancy, it wouldn't have surprised me if I fell into that 5 percent failure rate.  However, after a little while the contractions began again.

I just laid in the tub and rode out the contractions.   I realized how very unprepared I was for labor and birth.  I didn't get far enough along in my pregnancy to ever go to a birthing class.  The most I'd done was take one night of prenatal yoga.  I wasn't sure how close the contractions were supposed to get before I should start pushing.  I hadn't brought my phone into the bathroom, so I couldn't text or call my midwife.  Whoops.  That's when I took my mind back to the fact that this was a natural experience that millions of women had over thousands of years.  I could do this.  I was tough and strong.   The contractions built to such an intensity I found myself rising up, clutching the sides of the tub and moaning and grunting in such a way that is unique to childbirth.   I felt now was the time to push, so I did.   That first push brought nothing, but I could actually feel what it was like to push with my uterus.   It's something that you read about, but to actually FEEL it is something you can only know when you're doing it for real.  The pain from the contractions was now pretty steady, and I knew that I just needed to get this baby OUT.   I waited until the contractions were almost unbearable and I gave the biggest push I could muster.   That's when I felt an object push out of my vagina.   I reached down and pulled my baby all the way out.   The relief and release was almost immediate.  There was a tiny, ashen colored baby.  It was a perfect little boy the size of my hand.  His lifeless little hands and feet had five digits a piece.   His mouth was open as if he was trying to cry his first cry.   This was both utterly heartbreaking and precious at the same time.  I don't know if I had spent all my emotions in the week leading up to this moment, but I didn't cry a single tear.  I suppose now that I had had the time to envision this moment for a week, and I was just glad to meet my little boy.  I think if the miscarriage had happened without me knowing it was coming, this experience would have been far more traumatizing for me.

Now I'm looking in the bath water to see what all came out.   I'm holding my baby, which is still attached to the umbilical cord, which is still attached to the placenta, which is still inside of me.   I see the amniotic sac on the other side of the tub.   What I don't see is any blood.   Not a single drop.   In most situations you would be disturbed and sickened to see blood, but in this one I'm very confused and concerned at it's absence.  I feel fine though, considering the situation.  The relief from the contractions ceasing put me a very calm and relaxed state.  I cut the umbilical cord with a pair of scissors and got out of the tub.   I cleaned myself and everything up.   My little angel I wrapped up in the tiny receiving blanket I had knit for him.  The time was about 2:00 AM, so I figured I gave birth at around 1:45 AM.  I got into bed and just spent time with my little one.    I knew I wouldn't have even close to the amount of time with my baby that I wanted, so I just wanted to be with him.   I also knew that having the placenta still inside of me was really bad, however I still felt mostly fine.  Exhaustion got the best of me and I managed to fall asleep for a bit.   I awoke at around 3:30 AM with severe pain in my abdomen.  At that point I really knew I was going to have to go to the hospital to get the placenta out.   Being a total female, I wanted to wait until it was a more acceptable hour of the day to call Alisha for advice.  I managed to wait until 4:30 AM, when the pain was becoming nearly unbearable, to call her.   She answered the phone right away and said that yes, I would need to get to the hospital as the situation was probably beyond what she could help with.  I then called my sister to have her take me to the hospital.  Erika said of course she'd be there in 30 minutes.  By this time my pain was excruciating.  I knew I wasn't in life threatening danger, but fuck I was in pain.

Upon getting to the emergency room I was in so much pain at this point I could barely move or speak.  The nurse got some morphine in me as quick as she could and after a little while I felt pretty damn great.  Apparently the placenta had lodged at the opening of the cervix and was acting as a stopper for all the blood.  The doctor was able to manually pull the placenta out in one piece so nothing was left in my uterus to later cause infection.  As he was removing the placenta I could feel this huge, warm gush of blood leave my body.   Fortunately, that's all I felt.   My pain had completely abated with the help of the morphine and the removing of the placenta.   I asked to see the placenta so I could really have the full picture of this experience.   Dr. Smood asked if I was sure.  I was totally sure.  I mean, I just had a late term miscarriage in my bath tub, I'm pretty sure I can handle seeing a placenta.  It amazed me that the placenta was as big or bigger than the baby.   That would help explain why I couldn't get it out myself.   If my baby was full term, then the placenta would have been a cinch to get out following the baby.

It was around 7:45 AM, twelve hours after taking the misoprosol, that I was released from the hospital and the physical part of my missed miscarriage was finally over.  Erika picked up bagels and cream cheese for me and dropped me off at home, where I was finally able to go to sleep.

Here is my little angel.  I named him and buried him in a park close to my house that I spent some lovely, pregnant nights at with him.

MMC

As with many terms related to pregnancy, a "missed miscarriage" was not something I'd ever heard of.  What exactly IS a missed miscarriage?  It's when an embryo or fetus stops developing for one reason or another and the body doesn't recognize it as a non-viable pregnancy right away.  You continue to carry the pregnancy until your body eventually realizes the pregnancy is no longer viable and then have a miscarriage.  When I first became pregnant I was just so excited and so SURE about this pregnancy that the thought of miscarriage was far from my mind.  Basically the main things I knew about miscarriages were that 20 to 30 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and the chances of miscarriage after 12 weeks dramatically decrease.

With those statistics in mind, as I entered my 13th week having my awful first trimester symptoms abating and feeling more pregnant with my bump starting to show, miscarriage was but a distant thought.  My mind was concerning it's self with making sure I was eating right and making plans for the future birth of my baby.  I made my appointment with my midwife to have my 20 week ultrasound on May 5th, Cinco De Mayo.  The main purpose of the 20 week ultrasound is to check the growth of the baby and make sure it has all it's little arms and legs and fingers and toes.  That was really of no concern to me, I was SURE my little angel was perfect.   I was most excited to find out if I was having a boy or girl!

By week 19, a concern that I WAS having was that I hadn't felt any movement as of yet.  I of course read everything I could online to determine when I should be feeling anything and what was normal.  Most women start feeling the baby kick from week 18 to 22.  Although I REALLY wanted to feel my little one inside of me, I convinced myself that I was still in the normal zone and that one day soon I would be feeling those kicks.

Cinco De Mayo arrived on a Tuesday, and I couldn't wait for my appointment with Alisha, my midwife!  I hadn't been in to see Alisha since week 11, so we were happy to see each other again and she remarked how beautifully pregnant I was looking.  We chatted for a bit about my experiences so far and any concerns I might have.   Overall, I just felt great and really had no real concerns.  She got me up on the exam table to listen to the heartbeat of my little one.  I didn't think much of this as I knew my baby had a healthy, strong heartbeat at 11 weeks, so why should it be different?   I just wanted to get to the ultrasound and SEE my little one!  She got the doppler out and began moving it around my abdomen.  Just a lot of fuzzy static at first.   Then there was a heartbeat rhythm, however it was just the sound of MY blood flow.  She moved the doppler from my left side to right side and up and down, and nothing.  She said my placenta must be in the front and it was making it hard to find the heartbeat.  She said it was probably nothing to worry about, but she'd like to keep trying if I didn't mind.  She switched from my left side to my right side to see if that would help.   It seemed like hours were going by with her trying to find a heartbeat.  Just sounds of static and my maternal blood flow.  The look on her face was growing more and more concerning.   Finally, she said that this isn't normal to not hear the heartbeat at week 20.   She wanted me to have the ultrasound immediately.   She went to call the ultrasound lab and get me in ASAP.   The tears were starting to well up in my eyes.   The idea that something could be wrong with my pregnancy just seemed so, well, WRONG.  I sat on the couch and waited for her to make the appointment for me.  When  I heard Alisha say, "I need to schedule an appointment for an anatomical and viability ultrasound.", the word "viability" turned those welling up tears into full blown crying.  Everything was falling apart suddenly.  Alisha made the appointment for a few hours from then.  I didn't know what to do with myself in those hours.  She asked if there was someone who could go with me to the lab.  My sister was the only one I wanted to go with, but she was at work.  Alisha was like, "I'm sure she can take a few hours off to take you."  It seemed unnecessary for me to take Erika out of work.  I figured I could do this alone.  Alisha gave me a big hug and told me they would call her when I had my ultrasound to discuss the results with her and we would talk more then.  I left the office in a complete haze of tears and confusion.   I just sat in my car for a while, crying and watching people pass by in the normal course of their day.   Most of them seemed to be parents with babies and young children, naturally.   Finally my mind cleared enough for me to make the drive home, and I just laid in my bed and sobbed for the hours I had to wait to go to the appointment.

I ended up going to the appointment alone.   Some part of me just KNEW everything was fine and I didn't want to upset Erika for no reason.   Alisha had warned me that the ultrasound techs wouldn't tell me anything about what they were seeing, and that they would relay the results to her and she would be the one telling me the findings.  As I laid down on the exam table and the tech was putting jelly on the ultrasound probe I started crying uncontrollably.   The image of my uterus came up on the screen.  I had been so nervous about seeing my baby for the first time.  I mean, it was the second ultrasound, but the first time that it really looked like a baby.  I wanted to see a baby moving it's perfectly formed arms and legs.   I wanted to NOT actually see the sex of the baby so that the tech could write down what they saw and I could read it later with my family.   I wanted to cry and smile out of pure joy.  That's not how it went.  As the image came up, I could see the shape of a baby.  I could make out it's little head, and two arms and two legs.   Only, there was no movement.  Just a perfectly formed fetus in a fetal position.  I just laid there, staring at my still baby, silently sobbing to myself.  The tech wasn't saying anything.  She then put the heartbeat monitor on the screen.   Just a flatline.  That was the part that broke me.   I KNEW then that it was all over.   The tech then said, "I just need to get a few more measurements."  The ultrasound went on for what seemed like an eternity.  I could see her entering the measurements that put my baby's growth at around 16 weeks.  Finally she stopped and said, "I think you know the answer, but I have to show these images to the doctor for a second opinion."   I just nodded and she left the room.  It took all my control to not just completely break down sobbing.  The tech came back into the room with a doctor and they both looked at the images, quietly.  The doctor just nodded and left the room.  The tech then called Alisha and told her the results so she could pass them on to me.  It was a very awkward situation to be sure.   Alisha confirmed what I already knew and told me to call her as soon as I was in my car so we could talk in more detail in a more private environment.  The tech then showed me the back way out of the building so I didn't have to walk past all the patients in the waiting room.   That was the most human and caring thing she had done since I got there and it meant a lot to me.   I got to my car and I just wanted to get out of that parking lot.   I figured I would find a quiet side street somewhere to call Alisha back.   Driving had never been so difficult.   I could barely see through my blinding tears, and keeping my focus on the road was nearly impossible.  It was then that I realized why Alisha had been so adamant about me not going alone.  She knew this would happen.  I made it to a shaded, quiet street and stopped to call Alisha.   She was so empathetic and supportive it helped calm me down a little.   She explained that I had three options.   Natural, Medical and Surgical.  Natural is just waiting for the body to miscarry on it's own.  Medical is taking a prescription to induce the miscarriage.  Surgical is having a D&C (dilation and curettage), where a doctor removes the pregnancy under sedation.  At first, I just wanted it to be over and told Alisha that I just couldn't bare to wait and I wanted the D&C.  She said that was fine, but that I should just take a day to let it all sink in and think about what I wanted to do.  I agreed.  I didn't want to make a decision that I couldn't take back and would regret later.  She explained that she too had a late term missed miscarriage, and she understood how terrible this is.  I asked which option she chose, and she said she took the natural route.  That seemed so much more heartbreaking to me, but her going through it also made it seem potentially possible too.  I then made the impossible journey back home and got back in bed and just sobbed the afternoon away.  

Embry-Oh-No

This blog was originally going to document my pregnancy.  I thought it would be a neat online journal to potentially show to my child someday in the future.  Complete with pictures of my growing bump and the weird dreams I was having.  During the first trimester however, I was far too nauseous, exhausted and just generally not in the mood to blog.  As my second trimester began, I was feeling GREAT!  I started a few posts, but I couldn't seem to find the time to finish any.   Today, my baby would be celebrating it's 22nd week Fetalday.  But it's not......