Miscarriage Update #2

Hopefully this will be my last miscarriage entry. Based on my blood test on Friday, my doctor decided to prescribe Misoprostol (generic for Cytotec). She told me it would help my cervix to dilate and allow the tissue to come out. She said she was giving me a fairly mild dose that would probably make me cramp, but it didn't sound too bad. But it was bad. Very bad. If your doctor wants you to take this, ask lots of questions and request a pain prescription to accompany it.

For my first dose, I took 400 mcg intravaginally (as the instructions told me to). I never got to a 2nd dose. 2 1/2 hours after the first dose, I was in such severe pain that I was screaming and doubling over every couple of minutes. I told my husband that I had to go to the emergency room, and he was so concerned for me that he went about 15-20 miles per hour over the speed limit all the way there. Luckily, they took me in pretty quickly and gave me some awesome pain medication through an IV. Once that was injected, the screaming and doubling over stopped immediately.

The doctor at the ER did a vaginal exam and extracted a big ball of tissue about the size of a tennis ball. He said I was just about to pass it on my own, but I was more than happy to let him pull it out. He showed it to me, and it looked like a red, veiny bag. The nurse told me later that they examined the contents of the bag and it looked like an embryo had never actually formed. So I've spent 16 weeks pregnant with nothing. That feels like such a waste of time, energy, and weight gain. The doctor sent me home with some Vicodin for the pain.

I went to see my regular doctor today. She had another blood test done (I believe that was blood test number 7 - the woman who draws the blood now knows who I am). It showed that my iron level is pretty healthy and that my pregnancy hormone level has gone way down, so I shouldn't need a D&C. I should just be able to finish bleeding on my own. That should taper off soon, though there's no sign of that right now. In fact, I'm bleeding pretty heavily. But at least the worst seems to be over. Once I finish bleeding, I'll wait until my next cycle and then start trying to conceive again.

I've prayed about the baby that never was. I don't know at what point we receive souls, but if that baby already had a soul, I want that soul to know that I love it. I asked God to tell that soul that I love it and that, when I reach heaven, I'll know it as either Grace or Andrew.

Miscarriage Update

I might as well give you an update even though the miscarriage isn't "finished". On the morning of Sunday, July 15th, I woke up bleeding. On Tuesday, July 17th, I passed a small amount of tissue. The tissue was stretchy and looked like it had a vein in it. Today is my 12th day of bleeding. It's getting heavier, and I'm suffering from some pretty significant cramps (they were happening off-and-on the last couple of days, but they've been constant today). I just called my doctor to give her an update. Since I haven't passed all the tissue yet, she wants me to come in tomorrow for a blood test and then Monday for an appointment if I haven't passed everything. I have a feeling Monday's conversation will include a discussion of a possible D&C (dilation & curretage). Basically, they dilate your cervix and then use a spoon-type instrument to scoop out whatever's still in your uterus. That's a really crass description, but I just read it and even the non-crass version sounds kind of shocking. I think they can also give you meds to speed the process along instead of the D&C. From what I've read, natural miscarriage can hurt a lot. But some people say D&C increases your chances of future miscarriage. And I certainly don't want to go through all this again. I have a few days to think about it. Hopefully, everything will come out this weekend and I won't have to consider any options at all.

Miscarriage

It should be obvious from the title of this post that I got some bad news last week. The second ultrasound revealed that the fetus never fully latched on and failed to develop normally. My hormone levels are dropping, so that confirmed what the ultrasound showed. I haven't miscarried yet, but the doctor says I will soon. I had a long weekend at home to deal with the news, and now I'm at the point where I just want to hurry up and miscarry so we can move on and try again. I cried a lot in the first few days. I'm still sad, just not overwhelmingly so. The doctor tells me that it wasn't our fault: we didn't do anything wrong. And we should be able to try again after a couple of good, normal cycles. So there is still hope. I'll try to write another post after the miscarriage in case anyone wants to know what that's like.

Week Twelve

At my appointment on Friday, the doctor was unable to find the baby's heartbeat using doppler. She decided to do an ultrasound with her supervising doctor. They did a normal ultrasound and then a intravaginal ultrasound (yep, it's just what it sounds like). The supervising doctor said that he wasn't able to see a fetal pole. Well, I had to look that one up. Wikipedia says, "The fetal pole is a thickening on the margin of the yolk sac of a fetus during pregnancy. It is usually identified at 6.5 weeks with abdominal ultrasound imaging, and 6 weeks with vaginal ultrasound imaging. The fetal pole may be seen at 2-4 mm crown-rump length (CRL), and heart motion is often detected when it is seen. In the embryo, the heartbeat is seen as a regular flutter, which should be first evident at 5 mm CRL. If the embryo is less than 5 mm CRL, it is possible for it to be healthy without showing a heartbeat, though a follow up study in 5-7 days will almost always demonstrate the heartbeat."

So the supervising doctor thinks that I'm wrong about how far along I am. I don't see how that's possible at all. I was trying to conceive at the time, and I was pretty anal about my record keeping. My last period started on April 9. That's 12 weeks ago today (the 40 weeks of pregnancy are counted starting at the first day of your last period). And this supervising doctor thinks I'm at less than 6 weeks? I know that's not the case, so I'm afraid the baby has latched on somewhere other than my uterus. I certainly can't carry it to term if it's in a fallopian tube or ovary.

My doctor is having me take two blood tests a few days apart to see how far along my hormone levels say I am. And on Thursday, I go to another facility to see if their ultrasound operators can find what the doctors at my clinic can't. I hope to God that everything's ok.