AF is here

Well, it looks like Aunt Flo has arrived.  On the one hand, I'm relieved -- I guess this means my body is hopefully OK and trying to get back to "normal".  On the other hand, experiencing menstruation after being pregnant is a harsh reminder that I'm no longer pregnant, in addition to being a very vivid reminder of the phsyical miscarriage process.  I've never been fond of having my period {I'm sure many women feel this way} but this time it's much worse than a mere inconvenience.  It feels as if I'm physically reliving my experience all over again.  Will it always be like this?

And just in case getting my period isn't reminder enough that I no longer have a baby growing inside of me, I was posed a really difficult question to answer during a routing dental cleaning today.  "You're not pregnant, are you?!" my dental hygienist exclaimed while she worked. Apparently my gums are puffy, which can be caused by hormones.  I silently shook my head and somehow managed to hold in my tears until I left the office.

Nope, I'm not.

Superstitions

While visiting my favorite family with twin girls in CT this weekend, I had some more stomach cramps, bleeding and headaches. Sunday morning I was laying on the couch and something happened to prompt my husband to refer to me as a baby (not in a mean way).  Natalie’s response was: "no she's not a baby, she's a mom. and you're a dad." She didn't know any better. She was probably mixing the words mom and dad with adult in her head. But it hurt really bad nonetheless, to hear her and know she was wrong. Oh how I wish she was right... Tonight while walking home from dinner, a black cat appeared on the opposite side of the street. Hubby pointed it out to me right before the cat decided to cross the street to the side we were walking on. Not needing any more bad luck in my life (e.g., a black cat crosses your path), I ran forward a few yards to avoid letting the cat cross my path, while yelling "don't you dare you mother F-er". Yeah, I know I’m crazy.

Officially a Miscarriage

Monday morning when I woke to urinate there was a lot of red blood but still no pain. I was able to shower and get dressed before calling my OB as soon as they opened to schedule an 11am appointment. I was still bleeding, but mostly only during urination. But, as soon as my husband left for work -- a little over an hour before my appointment I started having mild-moderate cramping. To me, it felt like constipation. I sat on the toilet eating a whole wheat English muffin, using all the mind power I could muster to try to remain calm and try to have a bowel movement, but nothing was coming out. The pain didn’t ease up, so I took a cab from home to the doctor’s office. The 30 minute ride was unbearable and as we got closer I knew something didn’t feel right. By the time I arrived at the dr's office I could feel that I was bleeding heavily. I can picture vividly my husband's face as I exited the elevator and told him that I could feel the bleeding. I burst into tears and was ushered in to provide a urine sample. As expected, it was full of blood. The nurse took my BP and weight (I still don’t understand why that was important) and left me in an exam room waiting for the doctor. The examination was incredibly painful -- I remember crying out that it hurt while the doctor tried to check to see if my cervix was still closed. I’m not sure she ever felt it, and she didn’t say much except to instruct us to go into the sonogram room. At this point, I still don’t think I knew what was about to happen.

I can’t remember what happened next -- the day turned into a blur. I’m not sure if the sono tech checked me before or after speaking, but I do remember her saying it was obvious my body was trying to get rid of the baby... I was having a miscarriage. This statement shocked me and broke my heart at the same time. I remember crying out and my husband holding my hand. He held my hand a lot over the next few days, and thinking back I’m honestly not sure how we was so strong when I was such a mess.

The OB sent me home with 4 methotrexate pills to take every 6 hours and orders to come back the following day for an ultrasound to check on progress.

The Beginning of the End

Of course I didn’t know it, but today was the beginning of the end. After a lazy morning having breakfast with my hubby, I decided I’d show Aunt B. a photo of our first ultrasound while doing a video chat via Facetime. The plan was to call her up and ask her to try Facetime out on my new mac, and then I’d randomly hold the ultrasound photo over the camera and record her reaction. Great idea, right?! Only things didn’t turn out that way. After getting out of the shower, I felt the urge to pee. I didn’t have any pains, but there was a certain discomfort in my pelvic area that made me pee before even getting my robe on.

Looking down, I saw bright red blood come out in my urine stream and immediately my heart sank. I threw my robe on, screamed for my husband, hopped into bed and propped my feet up on pillows. The time was 2:30pm. I called my OBGYN’s emergency service line and anxiously awaited areturn call. The on-call doctor happened to be the one I saw at my recent visits, and she returned the call within a few minutes. She asked whether I had fallen or had any cramps or pain (which I didn’t) and advised that unless I was soaking a pad an hour (which I wasn't -- the blood was really only coming out when I urinated) to wait until Monday morning to come in. For several hours after that call I laid in bed, scared to death. I knew bright red blood could be bad, but I didn’t have any pains and the blood only seemed to be coming out when I urinated. After doing some online research, I slept with my legs up on a pillow and hardly bled on my pad at all at night.