My Miscarriage story
On Wednesday the 26th October my life shifted in a way that I never imagined. I was about 6 weeks pregnant when I got some brown discharge. I wasn’t too worried at first because it's pretty normal at that stage of pregnancy. The next day I woke up feeling a little run down and tired. I had not had any more discharge but I stayed home from work anyway. Later that day I started bleeding, not overly heavy, just enough that I needed to wear a panty liner. Then came 3pm and I started cramping… the picture displayed below is me the moment that I knew exactly what was happening to my body.
I went to the hospital at around 5pm, after waiting in Emergency for a few hours they finally took me in for an assessment and took my blood, then things escalated. The room started to spin and I fainted. Next thing I knew I was being picked up, placed into a hospital gown and put on a bed. They stuck an IV in me and negotiated amongst themselves where they were going to put me because they were running out of room in Emergency and had more patients on the way. They were worried that I had an ectopic pregnancy because apparently fainting can be a sign of this (something I did not know until that moment). They eventually sent me to maternity, by this stage it was about 8pm. Here, I was very well looked after, cared for and checked over by the midwife and the obstetrician. Though, they still didn’t have any idea what was happening to me… either that or no one wanted to be that person to say “hey I think you are having a miscarriage”. I was told that I wouldn't know anything until I got an ultrasound the next day. They wouldn't let me drive home, it was 9:30pm by this stage. Thankfully, our neighbours were able to keep an eye on the house while Paige slept so Josh could come and get me.
The next day things really ramped up and got pretty shitty. The bleeding increased and so did the cramps, they had gone from being a little niggle to feeling more period-like. I was told that the hospital would call to inform me when to come in for my ultrasound. 10am came along and I had heard nothing. I called the hospital, they informed me that they did not have a sonographer on today therefore no one was able to do my ultrasound. I then called maternity who suggested I try to see if I could get in somewhere else. So I rang around, told the story of what was happening what felt like 1000 times to 1000 different people. I was told that I needed a referral, so I had to call maternity back and have a referral drawn up, called radiology again to tell them that maternity would fax it over, waited until they received the referral and then I finally got a call saying I could get my ultrasound at 4pm. The whole process of having to tell the story over and over again was so overwhelming, I started crying on the phone to multiple people, this was the hardest part of the whole process. Everyone was lovely and very understanding but there was no synchronicity and it made the whole experience so much harder.
Mum came over to look after Paige while Josh and I went to the ultrasound. The sonographer didn't say much other than it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy and the embryo wasn't sitting in the correct spot; it was too close to my cervix. By this stage it was 4:30pm on Friday afternoon, the sonographer had my results sent to my doctor and told me to call my doctor and say I needed an emergency appointment on Monday, so I did, and told the story for the 1020th time. They told me to call back Monday morning. We spent the whole weekend deep down knowing what was happening but at the same time having no real idea what the hell was going on.
Come Saturday morning and the cramps were excruciating. I spent all day in agony, it felt like a combination of period cramps but also like the waves of labour contractions! The blood had also increased, until this time there was no significant bleeding and only required a panty liner, but now I needed to wear a proper period pad, which needed to be changed every 2-3 hours. Josh was at work so I was just trying to get through the day with Paige.
That night in the shower I pushed down to see if I could push some more blood out when a purple shrivelled grape type ‘thing’ came out. I stood staring down at it, not really sure what to do. Do I pick it up and bury it? Do I need to take a photo of it? Do I show josh? I picked it up, had a good look, it actually made me feel queasy, and let it go down the drain. That was it, that was my baby being washed down a shower drain… WTF! Looking back now I actually wish that I had buried it in the backyard.
Come 8:30 Monday morning I called the doctor's surgery, told the story again! I was so over having to explain it by this stage. The doctor was booked for the day and was not in until 11am, I was told that they would get him to call me to discuss my next steps. 1pm came along and I had still not heard anything. I called the doctor's surgery and told the story AGAIN!!! The doctor called me an hour later. I was asked if I had passed a ‘grape’ type thing and essentially yes I had had a miscarriage, there was noting I could do, it was very common and that there was no reason why I couldn’t start trying to conceive again straight away once the bleeding stopped…
This hit me harder than anything else he said. Like, umm, what? Are we actually telling women to just get back in the sack and make another baby like nothing happened? No talk of nutrition and the fact that I've just lost a tone of blood, been physically drained of nutrients, had no appetite for days, had little sleep and was mentally and emotionally processing the fact that I had just washed my baby down the shower drain… Don’t I need to physically heal and replenish my lost nutrients? What about my mental and emotional state? Yes miscarriages are common but that does not mean that we just blow them off or that women don’t require nutritional or holistic support! This pissed me off!!
I went on to bleed for 11 days, the cramps were the worst from Saturday to Tuesday, I was tired and extremely drained for about 2 weeks and definitely didn’t feel like having sex. I then got my period back for the first time 18 days after the miscarriage bleeding stopped. Further adding to my exhaustion and need for nutritional replenishment.
It’s best practice to start preparing your body nutritionally at least 3 months before conception, at the very least this should include a prenatal supplement, but there is also so much more nutrition that goes into making a healthy baby. Next week's blog post I will share exactly what I did, and am still doing, to replenish lost nutrients, heal my mind and soul, reconnect with myself and my husband and how we are preparing for future pregnancies.
