She never offered me a scan as I seemed okay but my baby had already died
I'm 32 and have two beautiful children, age 5 and 2. Today I would have been 10 weeks pregnant, and my miscarriage ended yesterday. My husband and I always wanted a third, so we decided now would be a good time. I got pregnant on the first try, which was completely shocking as we thought it would take a while.
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As the weeks went by, I never felt nauseous or tired or had any food aversions as I did with my two girls.
In my heart, I think I knew something was wrong. I decided not to tell many people for this reason. I made it to my first prenatal appointment with my midwife and I told her I felt something was off. She kind of brushed it to the side, and I also told her about some pain I was having near my right ovary. She never offered me a scan because I seemed okay to her. At this point, my baby had already died but I didn't know it.
Three days later I started spotting. The pain got worse, and I called the midwife again. She assured me that it was probably normal spotting but again didn't offer to investigate the situation.
By the next night, which was a Saturday, I decided to just go to my local ER that had a maternity ward. They were nothing but kind and caring, and they did an ultrasound to check my ovaries and see if the baby had a heartbeat.
I found out the baby stopped growing at 7½ weeks, I was over 9 weeks when I found out. They sent me home to decide if I wanted a D&C or to have an at-home miscarriage.
I decided to wait because I was only bleeding lightly. The baby passed 5 days later, but I never saw a sac. I never had any more pain, and I had no cramping, not even one.
After I passed the baby, the next day I started losing a lot of blood. I couldn't keep up, I was filling pads and the blood clots were enormous. I started to feel faint and I was at home with my 2-year-old by myself.
I decided to call the midwife to check in and see how much blood I was supposed to be losing because they didn't prepare me for what to expect or warn me that it might not go well at home. She immediately told me I needed to call an ambulance and get to the closest ER.
I was terrified and started crying on the phone, she started to get a little upset with me for freaking out, but really, what did she expect? I calmed myself down and called the ambulance, luckily my husband and the ambulance arrived together so he took my daughter to the ER with us.
My blood pressure was dropping but they got it back up with some IV fluids. They took amazingly good care of me at the ER again and an ultrasound showed that some tissue was still attached. If the tissue wasn't removed, I would continue to bleed at that rate.
I had a D&C right at the hospital in a few hours, and it went seamlessly. I was very scared about the D&C because I have never been under general anaesthesia, but it turned out to be very easy.
They actually started to put me out while I was watching TV and had no idea what was happening. I slept for what seemed like a few minutes, but it was actually an hour later... I woke up watching TV in my room! I was so happy they put me out before entering the OR.
Today is the day after the D&C and I feel great. The bleeding has almost completely stopped and I have no pain.
In the end, I'm glad I got to see the baby pass because I needed that closure. I wish things had gone better at home, but I don't regret staying home or having to go to the ER. I wish it hadn't been so urgent, but I guess there is no way I could have known what to expect.
I don't feel like the midwife group adequately prepared me for normal vs not normal blood loss. I think they should have gone over the risks in more detail.
I hope eventually to have one more child and I will never forget the moments that I was pregnant with this one that didn't make it. I was pregnant on a beautiful trip that we went on for our 10th anniversary, and that little life was still growing in me, however slowly.
The hardest part was that in some small way I felt like it might be my fault that I miscarried. Intellectually I know that wasn't the case. I wish people talked more about miscarriage so that we all knew it was very commonplace.
