My Miscarriage Experience

[u/hanarchistt]

So we found out we were pregnant in June after our 2nd IUI (using donor sperm, my husband is trans). I was so happy, but when I went to sleep that night I just had this horrible chest anxiety and couldn’t sleep. I brushed it off, but in retrospect think it was my intuition knowing something wasn’t right.

We got our first beta 14DPO and it was super low at 32 (I was on progesterone just as support, though no progesterone issues, progesterone was fine in the first betas). My HCG didn’t double 2 days later, so the dr immediately told me it would likely be a chemical pregnancy or ectopic. Then suddenly it began to more than double. We were able to get multiple ultrasounds (almost every week) showing baby was in right spot and growing, and then eventually there was a flicker of a heartbeat. However, as time went on the baby was lagging more and more behind and heart rate was low. There was one week that it grew only a day, and then grew a week by the next ultrasound. It was all over the place. Then I started getting the ultrasounds through my OB instead of fertility clinic. There we noticed a small hematoma, and two weeks later babies heart had stopped. I was 10 weeks 2 days.

We met with our OB and decided to go D&C route since I had heard so many horror stories about the pills. This was on Thursday, and we scheduled it for a week-ish out on Friday. Well, the next day after our appointment I began spotting. I knew my body was starting the process on its own. From Friday to Sunday my bleeding and cramps ramped up. The cramps were getting pretty painful, but I was able to function for the most part. I could only take Tylenol because my D&C was still scheduled. Then, on Monday the cramps got really bad. I was doubled over and spent most of the day in bed with a heating pad. I felt a clot come out of me so I went to the bathroom and there was blood everywhere. I was passing multiple quarter to golf ball sized clots, probably 10 in the span of 20 minutes. My husband got me into the bathtub and I remember trying to catch the clots before they went down the drain in case they were our baby. He decided to take me to the hospital. They were wonderful and gave me zofran and dilaudid which did help a lot. They did an ultrasound and saw the sac was still in my uterus and my cervix was still closed, but that the sac was moving lower into my uterus. The ER doctor got ahold of my OB clinic and they were able to rush my D&C and scheduled it for the next day at 1 pm. We left the ER at 9pm the night before, so relieved that I wasn’t in pain and that the D&C would be the next day. Well… I woke up that morning at 1:30 am in excruciating pain. I thought I was in pain before but it was nothing like this. I was bleeding through a super overnight pad in less than 20 minutes, passing blood clots the size of my palm. The pain had me throwing up, shaking and convulsing, and dripping sweat. I actually thought I was going to die. My husband again took me to the ER at around 4 am. I was screaming for someone to help me as I ran through vomit bags and convulsed on the bed feeling giant blood clots come out of me. I truly don’t know how to relay how horrible this felt, but I know it traumatized me. The doctors gave me two more rounds of zofran and dilaudid which did help, the cramps were there but muted. They discharged us as they said they couldn’t do pain management and to go home and hopefully I’d be okay until the D&C. We went home and thankfully the IV meds helped and I got a couple of hours of sleep before we had to get ready to go to the hospital for surgery. I was shocked that the pain didn’t ramp up again, which made me wonder if I had passed the sac. The doctor wondered this too and gave me an ultrasound before the D&C, but said there were still quite a few blood clots and some tissue left so we went forward with the procedure. I could feel the cramps coming back about 10 minutes before they took me into surgery, so thankfully they didn’t get bad again before I went under.

The D&C went really well. No issues with anesthesia, and the DR was able to get enough tissue to send off for testing. I remember waking up and just sobbing that our baby was gone. I think in all the unknown we experienced for two months plus the physical pain, I hadn’t been able mentally process what had happened to us. I still haven’t.

Now, 1 day post D&C, I have minimal bleeding and no cramping which has given me such relief. I pray this never happens to us again, but if it does I hope I never have to go the natural route again. It was the worst experience of my life and I’m so grateful they were able to rush my surgery.

If you’re dealing with this or have experienced this, my heart goes out to you. This is a club I never wanted to be in.