The truth...

hurts.

I imagine this post is going to take a long time to write, and that I will probably revisit it and revise it even after I have published it.

Because it is the post I have wanted to write, needed to write, but have tried not to write. Because it hurts too much.

On January 4, 2010, I went in for my 12 week OB appointment. I was expecting it to be a normal appointment, and I had even told Brandon to not worry about going with me since it was scheduled for 2:50, too early for him to leave from work. No worries I said.

So I went in by myself.

After talking to the nurse about the medicines I could take for the cold that had been nagging me for a week, I went in to my room and waited for the doctor. It was not my regular OB but one of the other doctors in the practice (which is normal procedure, but strangely enough, the first time I had not had my regular doctor--I guess up till then I had just been lucky getting her all the time). This new doctor took the fetal doppler out to hear the heartbeat (you're supposed to hear it at 12 weeks), and when she didn't hear it, she told me not to be worried.

But I already was.

She moved the doppler around and around on my stomach, trying to hear the heartbeat, and couldn't find it.

No worries, she told me. Sometimes it is still too early to hear.

So she brought in the ultrasound. She tried the ultrasound on the stomach, moving it about and about just like the doppler, searching in vain for a heartbeat. Still no heartbeat.

No worries, she continued. Sometimes the baby is so low and hidden in the pelvis that you can't hear it from the stomach ultrasound.

By now I was secretly freaking out. Alone.

So she brought out the vaginal ultrasound.

And I could see it in her face. I don't even know if I was really even looking at the ultrasound screen at this point, because the doctor's face said everything.

Which was nothing.

I don't know how long she continued to pretend to look for a heartbeat, but when she did finally look at me and say, "There's not a heartbeat," all those worries that she had told me not to worry about just exploded.

"Can we get a second opinion?" I asked.

Of course, that's normal procedure, she informed me.

Minutes later, my normal OB came in. This is the doctor that has been with me through the entire roller coaster of this past pregnancy, and I could tell immediately that her heart hurt for me. And just like the doctor that had tried before her, my OB looked and looked in vain for a heartbeat, but it had stopped beating weeks ago.

I burst into tears.

***

My doctor asked if my husband was with me, and I told her "no." She then asked if I wanted to call him so that he could be there (she knew he worked in the area), and I said that I would.

"Brandon, I just need you to come here."

That's all I said.

I'm assuming he ran all the way from work to the hospital (we've never really talked about it), but he made it there in record time, and I told him. I probably didn't have to tell him anything, though, because my eyes say everything.

The doctor returned shortly after Brandon arrived and reassured me that I hadn't done anything wrong, that it was likely just some random problem (as are most miscarriages), and would be unlikely to happen in the future. She gave me 3 options: a D&C, waiting for a natural miscarriage, or drugs to induce the miscarriage.

I chose the drugs. I was scared of the D&C and all of its risks, and I didn't like the idea of waiting for the miscarriage to come on its own because you never know how long that would be (and my baby had apparently been gone for about 3.5 weeks and I hadn't had any symptoms save one excrutiating cramp on Christmas day that I just attributed to fatigue or food). And to be honest, I just didn't like the idea of something being dead inside me.

***

I took the drugs at 9:30 on the morning of Thursday, January 7. It was a snow day (school was cancelled), and I had already called in for the next day as well (but I got "lucky" in the sense that school was cancelled Friday, too).

I inserted 4 Misoprostol vaginally. The doctor said to take them this way since it helps make the process work a little better as opposed to taking them orally. For the first couple of hours, I didn't feel anything and honestly wondered if maybe the pills had fallen out. But three hours into it or so, I started feeling a little bit of cramping. By 1:30 (4 hours into it), I was experiencing full-out contractions and didn't think the pain medicine I had been prescribed was working very well, but wouldn't be able to take more for another couple of hours, so I just laid on the couch and tried my best to deal with the contractions. I started bleeding around 4 pm, and by 5, the blood had increased tremendously.

I'm sorry if this is too much information for some, but it's just something I need to get out, write, and remember.

For that next 45 minutes or so after 5 pm, I was experiencing uncontrolled bleeding, almost like clots passing through. I would be lying on the couch and feel that pressure of something getting ready to go through (like blood getting ready to gush), and I would head to the bathroom.

At 6:00, almost on the dot, I hurriedly ran to the bathroom again for what I thought was one of those gushes of blood.

But as soon as it happened, I knew exactly what it was.

It felt like an egg falling from me and splashing into the toilet. I will always remember that feeling and that noise, and as soon as I heard it and felt it, I freaked out. There's no other way to describe it--I freaked out.

Still sitting on the toilet, I cried for Brandon to come in.

"I can't look. I just can't look."

So he did, and I cried.

I'm not sure exactly what happened for the next half hour or so because I was so hysterical that it's hard to remember, but I do know that Brandon verified that it was tissue.

And then he flushed our baby down the toilet.

We had both had every intention of salvaging the tissue, of somehow saving it and burying it somewhere. But in my hysteria, I couldn't even look, and Brandon in his coolheadedness, was just practical.

It was at the bottom of the toilet. There was snow outside and the ground was frozen solid. We have a toddler and 3 dogs and nowhere to store human remains until the snow melts.

He flushed our baby down the toilet.

****
Tomorrow marks three weeks since the miscarriage, and while I would like to say I am doing well, I do have my moments of pure fragility. There are certain things that just make me cry--seeing a pregnant 16 year old student (or any pregnant woman, for that matter), having one of my pregnant 18 year olds invite me to her baby shower, trying to exercise those 12 pounds off that I gained for a failed pregnancy to no avail and yet not losing a single pound (I'm starting to think it's the hormones).

Seeing sisters and brothers play together.

I had a follow-up with my doctor on January 11, and she verified via ultrasound that everything was gone. I've had bleeding and cramping since then, but it has tapered off tremendously.

I'm not sure everything will ever be gone, though. I don't want it to be.