When Life Gives You Lemons – Part III

You can read Part One and Part Two here.

(The following post involves some graphic topics)

The next day I woke up feeling as if I was getting “period cramps”. It was Tuesday and I had already decided to take off the entire week of work to deal with all the emotions I would be feeling along with not truly knowing when the full blown miscarriage would happen. All I knew was the Doctor said there would be a lot of blood, more than what a period would be. At this point I just felt like I was experiencing a regular period. How long would this go on for until “it happened”? Would this be days of changing pads or would this happen tomorrow? The unknown was starting to make myself second guess my decision to carry this on at home. I also live 13 hours from my family and close friends, my husband had to go to work, and I was alone…. so alone.

I called home (Delaware) to my mom and talked to her about how I wasn’t sure if I had made the right decision. She affirmed with me that it was okay to go through the procedure and at least that way this would be behind us and I could begin to heal, rather then the constant waiting game I was in. So I did just that. I called OB and they scheduled a D&C procedure for me at 1pm on Wednesday. After I made the decision I felt a weight lifted, this would all be over tomorrow. There was also that other cloud hanging over me of what was going on in my right fallopian tube. During the procedure that would also check on what was so fuzzy on the ultrasound. It was the right decision.

I went about the day sitting on the couch sobbing. I just couldn’t believe I was actually going through this. My superwoman cape was striped from my spine, I do not have superpowers, I can be broken, I am no longer invisible. Hours passed on and my cramps increasingly got worse. {G} was awesome, he called around 5 to say he would pick up pizza for dinner so I didn’t have to worry about cooking. He got home around 6pm and I was thrilled to have him there with me to hug and talk to. He was strong through this all but I could tell he was also broken too.

Around 7pm I went to the bathroom and realized what the doctor meant by “more than a period”. I was horrified to see the pool of red beneath me and I realized in that moment that I wasn’t going to make it to 1pm tomorrow. I told {G} to watch the clock. If I am still bleeding this bad in an hour we need to head to the emergency room. Now my cramps seemed to come every 6 minutes… where these contractions? They hurt more than any cramp I had every experienced and with every cycle of them I would end up in the bathroom with another bowl filled.

After about 6 times I started to feel “off”. Something was wrong. I walked into the living room where {G} was sitting on the couch and I said to him, “We need to leave for the ER right now, something is wrong, I just don’t feel right.” He got up and went immediately to the truck. I went to the bathroom one last time and by the time I walked to the kitchen I felt like I was going to faint so I laid on the kitchen floor. The floor felt nice and cold, I could feel it instantly relieve the hot flash that accompanied the fainting feeling. I knew {G} was waiting and thought to myself, this is going to get worse, get up and get in the truck. And so I did.

We live 20 minutes from the nearest hospital and there was no way we would make it to Ames (40 minutes) to the hospital I had been seeking pre-natal care through. Our house is located on a gravel room about a third from the paved road. I remembered pulling out of the drive way and all of the sudden I felt so tired and shut my eyes. The next thing I realize is that I am in a dream and I hear {G} yelling for me to wake up, and so I do. I awaken to see that we are sitting at the stop sign at the end of our gravel road. I had passed out and {G} was now scared shitless.

I told him to keep driving and that I would stay awake. I fought so hard to stay awake. I focused on a sticker on the lining of the roof of the truck, reading it over and over to myself. {G} kept holding my hand saying its okay, we’re almost there. 10 minutes into the ride I felt nauseated to the point that I knew I would be sick. We grabbed a box in the backseat and dumped out everything in it. A moment later I had thrown up everything in me. Poor box. Poor truck. Poor G.

After I vomited I felt a little more alert and aware of my surroundings. By now we were on the outskirts of the town with the hospital and I could tell we were well above the speed limit. A little after 8pm we pulled into the ER and {G} ran in to tell them what was happening. They brought me a wheelchair and took me to a small examination room in the ER. By now my cramps were every three minutes and they hurt like hell. They asked me to go to the bathroom and pull their cover on and give them a urine sample. I was so confused and embarrassed when I handed them the cup of red. Is that what you wanted? The nurse took some blood and then started an IV which didn’t go over well. They tried both arms and still couldn’t get a vein mean while my insides were ripping apart. After what felt like forever they got the IV in and placed me in an ER room with a curtain that separated us from whoever else would be coming in that night.

Time lapsed on and {G} and I were left speechless. Here I was laying in a bed with a “Pad” under me, bleeding so pad I could feel it soaking through my gown, and feeling the kind of pain that took my breath away and no one would tell us what was next. When we asked all they would say is, We are waiting for your test.” My test? What will that prove? The proof is here in this bed. Such confusion! Such pain. Such humiliation every time a nurse came in and lifted my gown to check my progression. This went on for almost an hour when I was in such pain that {G} ran into the hallway yelling to them that his wife was in pain and would someone do something to help me. It was then that they gave me morphine.

Oh morphine. It was magical. I could tell I was still bleeding lots of fluid but and that the cramps were there pushing and pulling but there was no longer any physical pain.

Sometime around 9:30pm the ER Doctor came in and told us the OB on call was on the phone with my OB in Ames. They were discussing all that had happened up until that point and she would be down shortly.

When she arrived it was like an angel has arrived. She said how sorry she was that I was going through this and that she would take care of me. She asked if I knew that I had a UTI. I was shocked. How would I know? Aren’t pregnant woman supposed to pee every 5 minutes? She then asked if she could examine me inside of just going in for it. And from her reaction I could tell how upset she was that the ER nurses had just left me there to bleed and never once changed out the pad underneath of me. “Brittany, I can tell that you have passed something and I am going to remove it by hand and then we are going to clean you up and get you up to my nurses that can take much better care of you.” She removed what was the amniotic sack and the placenta and examined it on the other side of the curtain. As the other doctor had said, there was no fetus.

She told the ER staff that she wanted me cleaned up and sent up to the birthing wing right away, but not before telling me that there was a newborn on the floor and asking if I would be okay with hearing the little guy through out the night. Just her asking me made is all okay. By this time it was 11pm and I was physically and emotionally drained. I just want to go to sleep.

As I lay in bed throughout the night the nurse came in to check vitals and my bleeding, she also helped me to the restroom when needed. I sent {G} home to sleep in our bed instead of in the recliner next to the bed. Winston would need to be let out in the morning and we weren’t sure how long we would be at the hospital so I’d rather him gone while I was asleep and there for me when I awoke from this nightmare.

I thought it would be hard to be in the birthing wing… heck I was in a birthing room. Photos of smiling babies around me and quotes on the walls about family. I was numb. I felt nothing.

The doctor came in to speak with us about after care. I had a pretty bad UTI that I needed to take a prescription for, I had lost a lot of blood so I needed to take an Iron supplement, the bleeding would continue to occur but should be like a period that could continue for weeks, and I would need to come in weekly for a labs to make sure my HcG levels were going back to zero. She had also asked at this point if I would like to continue my follow up with her or with the doctor in Ames? If I got anything from this I had found a doctor who I trusted and that I felt actually cared about my emotional health just has much as my physical. I was sticking with her.

When I got home on Wednesday I called my parents and told them about our night. It was easier than I thought to talk about it.

At this point in all of this I had gone through a few stages of loss:

1. Denial – This isn’t really happening.
2. Anger – Why Us?
3. Bargaining – If I would’ve done this then we wouldn’t be where we are now.

I was all dried up and not a tear dropped that day. I was numb.

*I will be sharing my final post about this experience soon. In all of the post its what I want people to read the most. It’s focused around the emotional state that I (and many others) have gone through once the “physical miscarriage” is over and our lives continue.