Miscarriage
Nothing prepares you to hear a doctor say your pregnancy is not viable. I had spent the week googling information on late developing fetal poles, and even though I had a sinking suspicion Poppy was not meant to be, I still can’t describe the devastation and hopelessness you feel when a doctor confirms your worst case scenario. We had what is called a blighted ovum. According to the American Pregnancy Association, a blighted ovum happens when a fertilized egg attaches itself to the uterine wall, but the embryo does not develop. Cells develop to form the pregnancy sac, but not the embryo itself. You experience all the signs and symptoms of pregnancy, but no baby develops. Blighted ovums typically occurs due to a chromosomal abnormality.
As I was crying in my doctor’s office about our pregnancy that wasn’t meant to be, I was given two choices. One, I could let my body naturally miscarry the pregnancy, or two, I could take medication to induce the pregnancy. Ryan left the decision up to me because it was my body, and I immediately chose option one.
As hard as it was to hear our pregnancy was not viable, it was even harder to tell our family. They had been so happy and hopeful when we found out we were pregnant and having to tell them the pregnancy was not viable felt like a bigger disappointment than telling them we had to undergo fertility treatments. I couldn’t even bring myself to call my mom or my sister; the only thing I could muster was a text that just said “the pregnancy is not viable.” Looking back, that is most definitely not how you want to find out your sister and daughter is going to miscarry, but it was either that or not telling them.
The rest of that day is pretty much a blur to me, but what I do remember is doing some internet research on how long it would take for my body to miscarry, and I was amazed it could take weeks. On top of the time it would take for the miscarriage, I would have to wait until my cycles returned until we could start our next treatment cycle. The reality set in that if I did not take the medication to induce the miscarriage, we would lose precious time to try again. It was a Friday, and when I called to tell my doctor that I had changed my mind, we had to race to the doctor’s office before they closed so that I could sign the forms necessary to get the medication.
The medication given to me was misoprostol, and it has other uses besides inducing labor/miscarriages. When you are given the medication, you are not given a ton of information on what will transpire. I did what any normal person would do, I turned to the internet. Luckily, I found a blog post written by a woman who shared her experience, so I had an expectation of what to expect. I took the medication on Friday night so that I could weather the side effects over the weekend, then head to Springfield for legislative session on Monday. All weekend I anticipated the painful cramps, but nothing much happened. By Sunday night, I had realized I did not think the medication had actually worked.
First thing Monday morning, I called my doctor’s office, and they confirmed the medication did not work. After they called the medication into the same pharmacy I had had it filled three days prior, I waited. And waited. And waited. Ryan and I were all packed up along with our dogs, ready to head to Springfield, and the pharmacy was taking forever. We finally decided to just go to the pharmacy. Much to our chagrin, the pharmacy I had spoken to on the phone had experienced a water pipe bursting, but instead of telling customers they could not fill their prescriptions, they were just communicating nothing. I then had to call another pharmacy to get the medication transferred, and that triggered an insurance problem, which meant I had to call my insurance company. Through tears I had to explain the situation to the woman on the other end of the line, and she had no idea what the hold up was. After twenty minutes on the phone, Ryan took matters into his own hands, and just went into the second pharmacy. Turns out all it took to take care of the insurance issue was a click of a button by the pharmacist. Talk about a face palm moment.
We were finally on our way to Springfield where I would take the second dos of medication. All of the side effects I was trying to avoid during the work week, I had to experience on a Monday night. Fourteen months later, and I can still remember crying through the pain as my pregnancy was finally ending.
I woke up emotionally and physically drained the next day, and I went to work. I had two clients in town that week, and I did not feel I could tell them I was having a miscarriage so I would not be able to go to work. One thing no one tells you when you miscarry is that you have to wear pads which essentially feel like a large diaper. I can still tell you the outfit I had on that first day and how self-conscious I was that entire day. I had tried to keep my calendar clear after work, but at the last minute I had a client invite me to dinner, and since it was a client I did not know all that well yet, I felt I had no other choice than to go. Though it kept my mind off of everything happening, I remember it being the longest dinner I had ever been to. To be honest, the time between the miscarriage and our next cycle felt that way too.
The rest of the week was pretty uneventful for me, and I made sure to take extra care of myself. One story that does stick out was when a co-worker was 15 minutes late to meeting a client, and when she did finally arrive, she said she was late because she could not decide what to wear. I yelled at her, and I know she probably holds this incident against me to this day. What she does not know is that it was the day I was bleeding heavily, and all I could think was “I am having a miscarriage, and I still managed to be here early.”
Looking back, I probably could have been more open about my miscarriage, but at that point, I could not even be open about our fertility treatments. That changed when Ryan and I were driving back to Chicago that week, and I realized I forgot the jar of tissue from my miscarriage that I had been collecting all week for testing. We were too far from Springfield to drive back. Luckily one of my friends was still there, so I called her and had to explain the miscarriage, and she, the amazing person that she is, brought it to me (I warned her not to look in the bag). And that one incident eventually encouraged me to start talking about infertility and miscarriage. Not long after I started opening up about our experience, I knew one day when I was ready, I would start a blog telling my story because throughout my experience, I really relied on other woman whose stories I read on the Internet. I found comfort and knowledge in reading their stories, so this blog is one way I am paying it forward.
