My Miscarriage Story (Part 2)
This is the second part of my miscarriage story. You can read the first part here,
*A quick disclosure: This is a miscarriage story. Not only is there mention of miscarriage, but there is also mention of blood and female reproductive organs. This part of the story is more graphic as it details a hemorrhage.
If you are currently pregnant, I encourage you not to read this post. The last thing I want is to scare expecting mothers. I share this story for the primary purpose of helping miscarriage mamas feel seen and known. And I pray this does just that.
Wednesday, July 19. I woke up to the same amount of blood as the day before, less than a moderate period. Now that I knew I was having a miscarriage, I saw no point in continuing bed rest, so I carried about my day as usual.
My sister-in-law, Jessica, offered to watch Levi in the afternoon to give me time to myself while Wesley worked in the next room. The problem was getting Levi to her as she wasn’t able to pick him up.
I remembered the midwife saying not to be alone, especially with a toddler. That stood out to me in our phone conversation because no one had mentioned it with my first miscarriage.
“I know the midwife said not to be alone, but are you okay if I just run Levi over to Jessica’s real quick? Nothing has changed. I’m still barely bleeding,” I said to Wesley.
He said that was fine since it was just 15 minutes away, so I got everything ready to go. I got Levi’s shoes on and was walking toward the front door when I felt a sudden gush of blood. I thought maybe this was it, that I was going to pass our baby, so I went to the bathroom to investigate.
I sat down on the same toilet where I lost my last baby and observed the blood in the bowl. It looked like a lot and it was such a bright red, but I could see that I was starting to pass more than just blood.
Because I began miscarrying Ira at six weeks, I was never able to find him in all the blood; he was too small. And since this baby stopped growing around that same point, I accepted that that might be the case once again.
Still, I had to try. That was my baby.
I began to pass something large and caught it on a pad. I couldn’t tell what it was, so I rinsed it in the bathroom sink to get a better look. I think it was just a large blood clot, but I honestly don’t know. I just knew it wasn’t my baby, so I returned to the toilet keeping a watchful eye on the sheer volume of blood being expelled from my body.
“Do you want me to get Levi in the car for you?” Wesley called through the bathroom door.
I hadn’t told him about the sudden gush of blood.
“I don’t think I can take him anymore. I think this is it. I started bleeding more and it’s kind of a lot,” I called back.
“Okay. I’m sorry. Do you need anything? I have some time if you want me to take him, but should you be alone?” he asked.
I hesitated, looking at the amount of blood in the toilet, but then flashed back to my last miscarriage when I started sobbing hysterically from that very spot as Wesley rushed in to check on me and I yelled through grief-stricken tears, “Don’t come in here!”
“I—I think I’ll be okay,” I decided, and he headed out.
Sitting there a little longer, I began questioning the amount of blood. I didn’t remember there being that much last time. I tried thinking what two cups of blood would look like—since that amount in an hour is what my midwife said would constitute a trip to the hospital—but with the addition of the toilet water, it was impossible to tell.
I called Wesley thinking he couldn’t have gotten far, but he didn’t answer.
Okay. It’s okay. You’ve done this before. It’s probably fine.
Thankfully, Wesley called me right back and I asked how far he was.
“I’m just about to back out of the driveway,” he said.
Thank God.
“I think I’d be more comfortable if you stayed,” I confessed, and he parked the car and came back into the house.
I exhaled knowing I wasn’t alone and thought maybe I just needed to lay down. I put a fresh pad on, stood up, and pulled up my underwear when there was another sudden gush. I immediately pulled my underwear back down to find a completely soaked pad.
The general rule of thumb is to go to the hospital if you bleed through a pad in an hour, and I bled through mine in one second flat.
I knew what that meant, but I hate hospitals, and the last time I was in a hospital was when my Dad died just six months prior. But I obviously wasn’t going to be stupid. I just needed someone else to tell me I needed to go, so I called my midwife.
“I don’t know what two cups of blood looks like, but this is a crazy ton,” I explained.
I told her about the pad I soaked through in one gush, and she affirmed I needed to go to the hospital.
“Hey, Wesley!” I hollered through the bathroom door. “I just called the midwife, and we need to go to the hospital.”
“Okay,” he said with surprise as he had no clue what was really happening in that bathroom other than our brief interaction through the door.
“I don’t want to stand longer than I have to, so just get Levi in the car and tell me when you’re ready,” I instructed.
I sent a quick text to my siblings to ask for their prayers and then hurried to the car as soon as Wesley gave me the all-clear.
Thankfully, the hospital is only five minutes from our house. Wesley was already making phone calls to arrange for someone to pick up Levi as it started to sink in where we were going.
“I hate hospitals. I really hate hospitals. I’m so scared,” I said repeatedly as we made our way.
We followed the signs for the Emergency Room entrance and pulled right up to the front door. Wesley immediately jumped out. I opened my car door, stood up, and… GUSH!
“Oh my gosh,” I said wide-eyed as I looked down to find that I had instantly bled through my pad, underwear, and jeans.
“Get back in the car!” Wesley yelled as he rushed to get someone with a wheelchair.
Levi was still in the back seat. By that point, my blood was all over the passenger side of our car.
“Where is she bleeding?” asked a woman rolling up with a wheelchair.
“It’s a miscarriage,” I said.
And as soon as those words left my lips, I began to see the unfortunate reality of a friend’s words when she told me:
The ER doesn’t take miscarriages seriously.
• • •
My friend happened to be a former labor and delivery nurse at that very hospital. I called her during my last miscarriage with some questions. That’s when she told me that I really wouldn’t want to go to the hospital unless it was truly needed because most ER staff are not kind to women who are miscarrying.
Since there really is no stopping a miscarriage once it starts, the general attitude of ER doctors and nurses—as I was told—toward miscarrying mothers is, “There’s nothing I can do.” While I’m sure there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, I felt the sting of its painful truth as soon as I pulled up to the front doors.
A man wheeled me inside so slowly I began to question if it was the emergency room entrance we had pulled up to. He stopped at the front desk to collect some of my information.
Okay? They need my name, date of birth, and reason for being here. Fine.
I scribbled my information down so quickly it was almost illegible. The woman from outside then took over.
“I’m going to take you to a restroom where you can change into these disposable underwear and pants and put your clothes in this bag,” she said, holding up the garments and the bag.
Okay…Why aren’t they taking me straight back? Did she not just see me outside instantly bleed through my jeans and the seat of my car?
She made it less than two steps before some random woman in the waiting room stopped her to ask an administrative question… And the lady pushing my wheelchair actually stopped to answer her freaking question!
There’s literally an administration desk right there!
I was screaming in my head. Bleeding profusely through what was left of my jeans, I sat there both fuming and immensely confused.
When homegirl finally ended her little powwow, she took me to the public restroom right off the waiting room. I thought she’d at least take me to a private restroom, but instead, I got a stall a few doors down from a mother and her little girl.
I made my way into the stall and got blood everywhere as I changed. The toilet seat was dripping in blood, the floor was a mess, and the toilet paper holder had blood handprints smeared all over. It looked like a crime scene. I tried cleaning up after myself but stopped because I didn’t need to be standing longer than I had to.
“You’re going to need to send someone to clean up that stall. I tried, but there’s blood everywhere,” I told the woman with a tinge of attitude, but hopeful she’d take my condition more seriously at the mention of the amount of blood.
“That’s okay. You don’t need to worry about that,” she responded as she wheeled me at a glacial pace toward the bathroom exit.
She opened the door and to my delight, I was greeted by Wesley and Levi. Finally, people I cared about and who cared about me.
They walked beside me as the woman wheeled me to the waiting area where she parked me in the corner of a group of chairs filled with waiting family members.
“We just need you to wait here for a bit,” she said and then walked away.
It was a random Wednesday in July. The ER was far from full, and yet I was left to wait in that spot for over 20 minutes.
“Why aren’t they taking me right back?” I whispered to Wesley, but he didn’t know either.
Just then, he got a phone call from his sister who was parked outside.
“Are you okay if I run Levi out to Jessica real quick? She’s just outside and it’ll only take me a minute,” he explained.
“Yes, of course. He doesn’t need to be here,” I responded.
But as he walked away, I was left alone in a waiting room of people losing a ton of blood per minute with cramps that had intensified to the point of labor contractions as I was losing my precious baby. And as reality set in, I suddenly felt the loneliest I’ve ever felt in my life.
I tried to keep it together, but I was in so much pain, physical and emotional. Silent tears streamed down my face as I would occasionally grimace with each contraction. I looked around the circle of chairs to see people looking back at me.
Are they wondering why an ER patient is sitting in the waiting room as much as I am? They probably have no idea that my baby is dead and I may be delivering her as I sit in their presence.
My tears turned hot with frustration as more time passed. Wesley returned and again I whispered to him,
“I just don’t understand why I’m still sitting here. This is an emergency room. I wouldn’t be here if this wasn’t an emergency.”
He got up to ask someone at the front desk, but all he got was that they were waiting for a room to become available. He sat down beside me again and held my hand. I squeezed with each contraction.
Finally, the woman returned and wheeled me to triage just in time.
They began checking my vitals when I asked, “Do you have something I can throw up in? I’m going to be sick.”
She hurriedly handed me a plastic barf bag and I held it up to my face, but nothing came out.
Just then, a ringing invaded my ears and my vision began to blur. I looked to my left to see my blood pressure on the screen. 89/42. Even I knew that was crazy low.
The man checking my BP got wide-eyed and I faintly said, “I’m about to pass out.”
“Yep. You’re in the right place to do that,” he replied as he and the woman rushed to get an IV in my arm.
At that point, I had tunnel vision. I could only see out of a tiny dot as they finally wheeled me back to an ER room.
Now they take me seriously.
My neck felt like spaghetti and all I could hear was the loud ringing in my ears as I was making my way to a total blackout. But just as they pushed me through the doors of the ER unit, my IV kicked in and the tiny dot I was seeing out of slowly began to expand as I felt the life coming back to my veins.
If only I could say the same for my baby.
• • •
They took me to the first door on the right and helped me get settled into the hospital bed. The nurse came in and started hooking me up with all kinds of cords and tubes for my IV and to monitor my vitals.
Eventually, the doctor entered the scene. He asked me questions and the nurse took notes. I told him how my bleeding had begun last Thursday and an ultrasound yesterday showed that I had had a missed miscarriage and my baby was only measuring five weeks and six days.
“Did your midwife give you any medication to help the miscarriage along?” he asked.
“No, I wanted to let my body pass the baby naturally,” I responded, “but then today I had a sudden gush of blood and I knew it was too much, so I came here.”
He said they’d need to do an ultrasound and then we could go from there. He and the nurse stepped out and my contractions got significantly worse. Everything about them resembled labor.
You can do this. You’ve had a natural labor before.
I tried all the natural childbirth techniques I could think of without actually standing up. But it was impossible to remain calm in these circumstances. At the end of this labor, I didn’t have a healthy baby waiting for me.
I continued to labor for a while until a woman walked in and said they’d need to transfer me to the ultrasound room.
I knew they’d have to do a transvaginal scan and I said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. I’m bleeding a ton and I’m in horrible pain.”
At that, the nurse came in and asked if I wanted anything to help the pain. I had only ever had a natural, out-of-hospital birth and miscarriage, so it didn’t even occur to me that I could ask for drugs. Thinking for a moment, I weighed the pros and cons. I didn’t want to do that to my gut, but at the same time, not being in physical pain sounded worth it amidst an already traumatic miscarriage.
Screw it. Give me the drugs.
“Yeah, but I don’t like drugs. Can I just have the lightest dose?” I asked.
She smiled and said, “We have liquid Tylenol I can give you.”
I agreed and she started the drip. The ultrasound techs returned to perform the ultrasound in my room instead of transferring me. They wheeled in their ultrasound equipment and began the scan, not saying a word the entire time.
Good. I’ve had enough false information from ultrasound techs.
Thankfully, my pain meds kicked in shortly after they began and my body began to relax.
“The doctor will be in shortly to review the ultrasound results with you, but now would be a good time to change your bed sheets and disposable underwear,” the nurse said as they finished the scan. “Do you think you can stand long enough for us to do that?”
I nodded and slowly stood up, but as soon as I did… GUSH!
A waterfall of blood burst from my body and I could hear it splatter as it reached the ground. I looked down and four or five nurses plus my husband were on their hands and knees wiping blood up off the floor—and Wesley hates blood. I made the slightest motion to sit down and my right foot came out from under me as I slipped in my own blood. Two nurses caught me by the arms and I threw my head back, closed my eyes, and thought for just a second,
This has to be my lowest low.
I sat down and carefully pulled on a new pair of disposable underwear while a nurse helped wipe the blood that was running down my legs and on the bottoms of my feet.
After I was cleaned up and things calmed down, I got resituated in my bed and it was just Wesley and me again until the doctor came.
Wide-eyed and in shock, Wesley looked off into the distance and said, “That was the most blood I’ve ever seen.”
• • •
The ultrasound showed a ruptured gestational sac in my uterus, but my baby was gone.
My mind tried to think of all the possible places her body would be. She could have been flushed down the toilet at home, in one of the many pads I had changed that was now in the trash, or on the floor of the public restroom in the waiting area. There was no telling, but none of them were good options.
Still, the news that our baby was no longer in my womb brought me surprising relief. Though I knew she was no longer alive, I didn’t want her to have to go through any more of the mess or pain that that day brought.
The doctor gave me two options:
Take medication, Misoprostol (aka Cytotec), to promote contractions and help my body pass the remaining tissue (which can be painful and isn’t always effective).
Have a dilation and curettage (D&C), an outpatient surgery that involves anesthesia and either scraping or suctioning the remaining tissue out of the uterus.
Even after all I had been through, I still wanted to take the natural route and just give my body more time, but I agreed to the medication after the doctor informed me it could help control the bleeding to some degree, which gave me more peace with being discharged and finishing the miscarriage at home.
But just after agreeing to the meds, the doctor looked at my hemoglobin levels, which had dropped considerably, and decided to admit me overnight for observation.
As much as I didn’t want a hospital bill for an overnight stay, I was actually relieved at his suggestion. That day was scary enough as it was, but the thought of going home with the potential of my bleeding picking back up again was terrifying. We agreed and he told us we’d just have to wait for them to get a room ready and they would transfer me.
The doctor left and it was just Wesley and I once again.
“Do you want to hear the verse of the day?” Wesley asked, breaking the silence.
“Yes, please,” I responded, settling back into my pillow.
“Psalm 16:1. ‘Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.’”
I considered these words for a moment and finally said, “You know, even as things unfolded today, I could clearly see how God kept me safe. Imagine if I had been driving when this all started, especially with Levi. God protected me from getting into that car, and then again when He gave me the discernment to ask you to stay home, and again when I made the decision to come to the hospital.”
By God’s grace, I managed to find space for gratitude amidst pain and grief.
“Two babies in heaven,” I said after a pause. “Never thought I’d say that.”
“Yeah…” Wesley responded, his voice trailing off.
We chatted for over an hour waiting to be transferred into my new room. Somehow we landed on the topic of our love story which I always love hearing Wesley retell the part where he just couldn’t handle being around me at one point because my smile made him crazy about me.
I smiled, grateful for my husband, how far we’ve come, and that whatever life has thrown our way, we’ve tackled it together.
• • •
We began getting antsy waiting for my new room to become available, asking nurses for updates any chance we could. But since they were not moving me in the foreseeable future, Wesley decided to run home to grab some things for our overnight stay and try to get the blood out of the seat of our car.
Again, I was left alone. But I didn’t feel lonely like in the waiting room bleeding out. I felt well taken care of once they finally took me back.
The room was quiet now, only the beeping of the monitor and the occasional sound of my blood pressure cuff going off. I looked over at my vitals and was immediately reminded of my Dad. In his last days in the hospital, only a few short months before that very moment, I would sit in the room with him, holding his hand and stroking his short hair as I’d listen to his blood pressure cuff and look at his vitals on the monitor.
I missed him.
Two babies and my Dad within eight months. It didn’t seem fair. I just wanted to breathe before the next wave hit, but instead, I was drowning in grief at that point.
A knock arrived at the door and the OB who would be taking care of me from thereon out came in to introduce herself and perform a quick and painful pelvic exam. She reiterated what I already knew from my ultrasound, that the gestational sac was still there, but no “fetal pole” was detected. Confused, I asked what a “pole” was, and then I realized she was referring to my baby. My human baby.
Shortly after she left, the nurse returned. “Your room is ready and there’s someone outside with a wheelchair to transfer you. Are you ready?”
I looked down at the lower half of my body covered by nothing but a thin hospital blanket and said, “I need pants.”
“That would be important,” she chuckled.
She grabbed a hospital gown and I thanked her for taking care of me. After the nightmare that the waiting room had been, she was the exception to the “the ER doesn’t take miscarriages seriously” sentiment.
After I changed into the hospital gown, a young man—a nursing student—entered with a wheelchair.
“I’ll be taking you to the OB floor. Honestly, that’s probably the best place to be in this hospital,” he said with a smile.
But I knew what the OB floor was… It was the baby floor.
• • •
The young man wheeled me through the maze of the hospital and up the elevator to the OB unit. We were just steps away from my new room when I heard it… the sound of a newborn cry.
Praise God. Praise God they got their baby. Praise God that baby didn’t die, too. Praise God they didn’t have to go through this hell. Praise God babies are still being born. What hope. Praise God.
My mental response surprised me. It was like a reflex. I thought I’d be a wreck at the sound of that cry, but instead, I found myself happy for perfect strangers. And yet, my response wasn’t all that surprising after all. I knew exactly where it came from. It was the fruit of sufferings past.
In my three years of infertility, the temptation to envy and compare other people’s answered prayers to my disappointment was great. But with a lot of practice and the Holy Spirit, I learned to separate other people’s stories from my own as I discovered the depths of rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn. It’s not easy, and sometimes I still struggle with it, but I’ve realized empathy is something that is learned, not gifted.
I got settled into my new bed and Wesley finally found the room. I took my first dose of Cytotec and intercomed the night shift nurse when I was finished so she could check my vitals one last time before bed.
Once she left, Wesley and I kissed goodnight and he curled up on his creaky little cot in the corner, whereas I was pleasantly surprised by how comfortable the hospital bed was. It actually brought me a little comfort to think that at least my Dad’s bed was comfy in his last days on earth.
We turned out the light and the room fell still, but the stillness brought with it the painful reminder of why I was there. The past several hours had been so focused on taking care of me, that I almost lost sight of the fact that I lost another child that day.
I silently cried myself to sleep as I replayed that day, that week, and those last seven weeks since I found out I was pregnant in my mind.
• • •
My levels and bleeding remained stable overnight and I was discharged the next morning. The cramps they warned me would come from the medication never came. I took it as a sign that my body was almost done passing everything. We scheduled a follow-up ultrasound with the same OB for a week later just to be sure.
We arrived home to a quiet house just a few minutes later. I showered, climbed into bed, and immediately asked Wesley when Levi would be home.
“There’s no rush,” he said. “You need rest. Besides, he’s probably having a better time somewhere where there are other kids.”
His words stung more than he realized.
“Well, I’ve tried twice now to give him a sibling,” I said with frustration.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” Wesley replied.
I shook my head and looked away. I just wanted to hold my only living baby safe in my arms.
I lay in bed as I read through the discharge paperwork. Boldened on several pages were the words, “You will have mood swings.” Not may, will. Reading that I thought, I wish someone would have told me that after my first miscarriage.
I remember being left alone with Levi the day after my first miscarriage was confirmed and yelling at him because he was crying incessantly all day long. I then collapsed and started sobbing and apologizing to my one-year-old. No one told me to expect mood swings. There’s no manual on how to mother through miscarriage.
Levi returned home later that morning and I just scooped my sweet baby in my arms and cuddled with him in bed, giving him a thousand kisses and reminding him what an answered prayer he is.
• • •
I arrived at my follow-up appointment a week later and stepped up to the front desk to check-in.
“Are you an OB patient?” the woman at the desk asked.
“Uh…?”
“Are you pregnant?” she clarified.
“Well, no…” I replied.
“So you’re a GYN patient?” she asked again.
“I had a miscarriage,” I said, unsure how to answer her questions.
I hate the confusion that comes with pregnancy loss, such simple questions become so complicated to answer.
Was I pregnant at that point or not? How far along did my pregnancy get? 5 weeks and 6 days when the baby stopped growing, 11 weeks and 2 days when she left my body, or 14 weeks and 2 days when I finally stopped bleeding? How many children do I have? 1 or 3?
She checked me in and I took a seat in the lobby. I was still bleeding though it had been two weeks since the miscarriage began. With my first miscarriage, I bled for exactly one week and everything was just like a period. This time, since I was still bleeding lightly after two weeks, I was nervous that my body hadn’t finished passing the remaining tissue the medication was supposed to help pass.
I texted my sister-in-law the day before for advice. Knowing she values natural health as much as I do, I wondered if I should cancel my appointment until I stopped bleeding because I knew they would suggest a D&C if I hadn’t.
She told it to me straight.
She said if it were her, she’d do the D&C because my baby had passed away a long time ago from that point and I had already been bleeding for a couple weeks. She told me leaving the remaining tissue in for too long could cause infection or problems down the road with my health and any future pregnancies.
I trusted her advice and went to my appointment accepting that I would likely need surgery, but praying I wouldn’t.
Please God, at the very least, have mercy on me now. Please help my body pass any remaining tissue so I don’t have to have surgery. In Jesus’ name, amen.
• • •
“There’s still tissue,” the doctor stated. “Your options are pretty much the same as what you received in the ER. We could either try another dose of Cytotec or perform a D&C.”
I agreed to give the medication one last try and if nothing changed over the weekend, I’d go ahead with the D&C.
The weekend passed and nothing changed. I felt defeated.
“I’m sorry,” Wesley said helplessly.
“I just feel like none of my prayers are being answered,” I confessed.
Natural childbirth communities constantly preach that women’s bodies were “made” to birth their babies. I guess I believed that was true for miscarriage, too. But as I lay in yet another hospital bed in a gown and a hair net before being rolled away to surgery, I realized no, our bodies weren’t actually made to do this. Sometimes we need help, and that’s okay.
In a weird way, I was grateful I ended up needing the D&C. In my own little proud, crunchy mind, I didn’t see medication and D&Cs as necessary interventions. I thought they were just for women who didn’t know they could do it naturally.
Oh how wrong I was.
Humbled, a new grace and compassion filled my heart for women who have to make these tough medical decisions in the face of miscarriage and question the morality of their choice. My polar opposite miscarriage experiences have taught me how different each miscarriage can be and how to love women through theirs.
• • •
I share this story six months later on my due date. Since I named our first two babies, I left it up to Wesley to name our third. We never got to the point of finding out the gender, but I just knew in my heart she was a girl. Wesley believed the baby was a boy. Either way, he named the baby Lenny Ray. Lenny was his dad’s name, who passed away just before Wesley’s first birthday, and Ray was my Dad’s middle name who passed away six months before our baby (it’s also the middle name we gave to our first miscarried baby, Ira, two months before my Dad passed).
Ray of Light Co. is named after them.
In retrospect, there’s a lot I would do differently. I would trust my “mother’s intuition” (i.e., the discernment of the Holy Spirit) more. I would probably tell some trusted friends and family sooner so they could be praying. I’ll probably ask for an ultrasound rather than relying on a Doppler in the first trimester from here on out. I would rest, even if I knew I was miscarrying. I’d probably say the word “hemorrhage” instead of “miscarriage” if I had to go to the ER, or I’d pretend I was passing out so they’d take me more seriously (Kidding!… Kind of). And I’d hold my natural health values more loosely for the sake of my safety and that of my child (more on this in my post, Crunchy Mom Law).
There’s a lot more I could say about miscarriage and its unique grief. My two losses have taught me so much… About God, about myself, about empathy. What comforts me is knowing my babies’ short lives carried great purpose. They’re making me a better person, they’re drawing me closer to Christ, and they’re helping me love others more. I look forward to meeting them in heaven.
If you have suffered a miscarriage, you are so deeply in my heart already. I am with you, sister. More than anything, I share this story so you know you are not alone. Feel free to email me anytime, and please check out more posts from my miscarriage series below.
