It all started when I went to my gynecologist and got a confirmation that I was pregnant on Thursday, March 28th 2013. I was almost 9 weeks along. The nurse congratulated me, took my blood for blood test, urine test, etc.…My HCG levels were high, and the pregnancy was confirmed. My due date was November 2nd 2013. How exciting! I imagined telling my husband and my son.
I realized that I put my dream aside for wanting another baby when I met my current husband, as he didn’t see himself as being a father. He was already a step dad to my son, which was enough for him.
I always saw myself having 2-3 children. I was so excited. I understood that this was my truth. I imagined my husband being a dad for the first time, and how he’d experience feelings of love that he couldn’t have ever imagined, a new realization for him. His own flesh & blood, his creation! My son has wanted a baby brother or sister for years, and now I could make that happen for him. Wow, we’d be a family of four. How prefect! All these amazing emotions were running through me. Dreams coming true J
Then, I went to another room, got undressed, and put the paper covering on myself for when my doctor and nurse come in for the vaginal exam and vaginal ultrasound. The doctor walks in with the nurse and congratulates me on my pregnancy. He did a pap smear, put his hand in my vagina making sure everything is right, which is what he does at a routine check up.
He gets the transvaginal device, rolls down the big condom looking cover and puts the gel on it. He asks the nurse to turn off the lights, and he inserts the device inside of me and we’re all looking at the monitor to see the baby. He kept moving the device inside of me and had a worried look on his face. He looked closer at the monitor. I didn’t say a word. After what seemed like forever, I asked him “what do you see?” He pulled the transvaginal device out of me and asked the nurse to turn the light back on. He said, and looking sad and upset “According to the measurements of your sac, you’re 6 ½ weeks pregnant, you’re definitely pregnant, but I don’t see a fetus in there.” I asked, “What does that mean? How can I be pregnant and not have a fetus? Doesn’t it mean that when you’re pregnant, you have a fetus inside? How can I be 9 weeks and you’re saying 6 ½ weeks?” I was so confused, and in shock.
He explained that this could be something that’s called a Blighted Ovum, which 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. So the sac keeps getting bigger, but nothing develops inside the sac. The doctor told me to go get a blood test every 48 hours to check that my HCG levels are going up and to come back in a week for another transvaginal ultrasound to see if there’s any change, and if there wasn’t a change that I can do a D&C which is: Dilation (D) widening of the cervix to allow instruments into the uterus. Curettage (C) is the scraping of the walls of the uterus. Or, wait till is all passes naturally – a miscarriage.
I went home and told my husband the news, of how excited I was and how confused I became with the news. He never heard of anything like it either. How can you be pregnant and not have a fetus? Am I almost 9 weeks or am I 6 ½ weeks along? So, as most of us do, we Googled this information. I read that many times women have gotten the same results as I did, that there’s a sac but no fetus and that the number of weeks of pregnancy was off by about two weeks, just like in my situation and when they come back after a week, they see the fetus. The only difference between them and me was that I was further along in my pregnancy. I saw a light of hope.
Not knowing if you’re going to have a baby or not, you’re pregnant and have pregnancy symptoms, but there’s no fetus… This was so emotionally & physically draining. A week seemed like forever!
Monday, April 1st 2013, I was still spotting some brown stuff, which the doctor said might happen after the pap smear. I called the doctor’s office, Tuesday April 2nd and was told to come in just to check what’s going on. The nurse told me that my HCG levels are going up from the blood tests, which for me interpreted as a chance of hope. If there wasn’t a fetus how would my HCG levels go up? I didn’t know anything.
I went into the room, got undressed and the doctor did the transvaginal ultrasound. This time he saw something in the sac. I saw it too. I had a second chance of hope. This time I was told it’s a Missed Abortion, which is a non-viable pregnancy that is destined to miscarry, if there is a fetus it has no heart beat. Some will grow for a while, with HCG in the urine and serum, but eventually will stop growing normally, and then will stop growing at all. Most of these (two-thirds) will have abnormal chromosomes.
So now the latest news is that I’m pregnant but the embryo/fetus stopped growing. My choice was to wait till it leaves my body naturally, which could be in three days or three to six weeks, while still feeling pregnant, or to have the D&C. I scheduled the D&C for Friday, April 5th 2013. Even though I scheduled this, it’s still an emotional roller coaster.
Thursday, April 4th I went in to see my doctor for the pre op blood test and questionnaire. I hate surgeries. All kinds of weird thoughts, such as, what if I don’t wake up? What if something goes wrong? All go through my mind.
Friday, April 5th 3:00AM – 7:00AM I kept waking up with bad cramps and running to the bathroom. Clots of blood were coming out of me. Took my son to school in pain, it was a difficult five minute drive. Came back home. I laid down from 7:45-9:30AM. Kept having pain and running to the bathroom, more clots and blood came out. The pain was intensifying. I called my doctor’s office and was told to come in so the doctor could take a look. I thought maybe I miscarried on my own and won’t need the D&C. At around 9:30AM I felt nauseous, and the pain got worse. I woke up my husband and told him he needs to take me to my doctor now!
The pain was so intense, I couldn’t bare it. I was screaming and crying in the car, God please make this stop. I was in so much pain. We got to my doctor’s office, I could barely walk. I was nauseous and had to throw up, but there was nothing to throw up as I haven’t eaten in preparation for the surgery. I threw up yellow liquidy stuff. I couldn’t stand. The nurse couldn’t take my blood pressure. I was screaming and crying in my doctor’s office. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do; I said, “I don’t know, just make this pain go away.”
He called the hospital next door and told them to take me to the Operating Room right away. To skip admission, and to get me a bed, an IV and meds for the pain right away. We got there, went to the second floor and about four nurses came to aid me, as they have received my doctors orders on what was going on. My husband went to park the car.
Meanwhile all the nurses helped me to the bathroom in case I was to pass something out of me. They sat me on the toilet. One nurse stayed with me, and helped me take off my underwear while I was sitting on the toilet and gave me hospital underwear, pad, and helped me get undressed and into a hospital gown. Got out of the bathroom and the nurses showed me to my bed. I was screaming and crying on the bed. I was sweating too so they gave me a wet washcloth to help me. They tried to put an IV in me but couldn’t get it right. Four nurses, four IV tries. Finally they got it in right. I was dehydrated. They got some fluids in me. I could feel something going through my whole body. It was a weird sensation. They injected something in the IV for me to stop being nauseous. They brought a paper of consent for me to sign for pain medication. I signed it while crying.
They added the morphine to the IV. It didn’t help. I’m still screaming and crying in pain. This went on for a while. They added medication 3 more times to the IV but nothing seemed to help. What kind of meds were they giving me? I’m in agonizing pain, someone please help me! I was having contractions about every five minutes. I’d be calm and then crying. Why didn’t the pain meds help? They couldn’t give me any more pain medication.
Throughout this time I was apologizing to the nurses for screaming and crying in pain. I was embarrassed, as I don’t like to get that kind of attention. I just couldn’t take this agonizing pain from the contractions anymore and the medication wasn’t working.
They moved my bed to the “Freedom” room where I could scream and cry and it wouldn’t bother all the other patients. I hated the fact that I was screaming and crying, but it felt as if I was being tortured.
1:00PM they told my husband they are taking me in for the procedure, he gave me a kiss good bye. They left me there for about 15 minutes. Then someone came, and I was asked more questions before the procedure. I’m still in pain. In the actual operating room, I told the nurse that my IV was burning me. She took a look at it and said it was because the tube wasn’t inserted in there correctly (Hmm, maybe that’s why the pain meds didn’t work), she took the IV out and I saw that my hand had a swelling the size of a golf ball. The meds they gave me were inside my skin in this swelling of my hand. It never went through my body.
That didn’t look too good. The anesthesiologist got another IV going in my other hand. One try/needle poke and it didn’t hurt. He connected the IV tubes and my doctor came in and I told him that the pain medication that the nurses gave me earlier didn’t work that I was still in pain. He rolled his eyes, and I saw he wasn’t happy about that, and someone was going to get in trouble. He was ready for the procedure. The anesthesiologist told me he was putting the “happy” medicine in the IV. I closed my eyes and went bye bye.
I woke up in another room. Saw my doctor writing notes, the nurse checked on me to make sure I was OK. They called my husband to let him know I was out of surgery. I said thank you and good-bye to my doctor. The nurse gave me some water. I also had to go to the bathroom before they could release me. The room was spinning. I was so lightheaded. I went to the bathroom, and back to my bed. My husband went to get the car. During that time, the nurse took my vital signs before releasing me. I got dressed and they got a wheelchair for me and took me to the car.
It is now Saturday, April 6th 2013 in the afternoon as I’m writing this. I didn’t sleep well last night. The last 24 hours seem like a nightmare. So much pain, so much crying. Was this real? Did this really happen? A week of an emotional and physical roller coaster. Having contractions for about 11 hours is extremely painful.
Being 10 weeks pregnant, which is 2 weeks away from the end of the first trimester, having an extremely agonizing miscarriage and then a D&C. Having hope, losing hope a few times. What a roller-coaster ride this has been.
I don’t wish this on anyone, but I know that there are other women who have been through a similar situation as mine.
Now is the time to heal and make sense of all this. Why did this happen? What do I need to learn from this experience?
