If you read my last post, you know that I was wondering if I might miscarry on my own before my scheduled D & C.
Yeah. That happened. And people, it was not pretty. It was like I was starring in my own personal horror movie…and I was not one of the lucky ones who survived.
I started miscarrying in one of the stalls in the bathroom at work. That was obviously awesome. As I was losing ridiculous amounts of blood and God knows what else, I could hear the click-clack of heels on the lobby floor and the sounds of women talking about absolutely nothing.
I texted Tim and he hopped in a cab to pick me up. When we got home, it got worse. I started feeling lightheaded, so I called the on-call midwife and she told us to head to the ER.
By the time I actually got into the ER triage, the front and back of my shorts, and the bottom of my shirt were soaked in blood. My shirt? Seriously? As we walked in the nurse said, “What are you here for?” Then she took one good look at me and said, “Oh.”
All told, we were in the ER for seven hours. They did an ultrasound at some point, which revealed that the miscarriage was incomplete. They suggested I keep my scheduled D & C appointment the next morning. I was crushed. After all that, I still needed surgery? No. Just no. Honestly, I think I ended up completing the miscarriage after I got home from the ER, but I got the procedure anyway because I wanted to be sure.
The D & C went smoothly. That was a week ago. Sometime in that week, I noticed my perspective on the whole I-can’t-believe-that-happened-and-then-I-still-needed-surgery-holy-shit thing was changing. Because here’s the deal: when I first found out that my baby had died and my body didn’t realize it for weeks, I felt duped. I felt like I couldn’t trust my body. How could the life inside of me have passed on without my body recognizing it? I remember thinking I just want to be able to trust my body.
I think the fact that I ended up miscarrying on my own was my body’s way of saying, Hey dude, you can trust me. I asked and my body listened. I’m taking that as a win. And yeah, I still needed the D & C. But you know what? That’s ok, too. It was closure. I don’t ever have to wonder if there was something left over that might have caused an infection down the line.
I’m not going to lie: I’m devastated. I wish none of this happened. But it did. And I made it through a week. If I made it through one week, I can make it through another.
Now my heartbroken mind and my trustworthy body are going the only place we can go: onward.