Things I wish I understood before MC

I am by no means a writer so those who read this please be mindful that I’m just a woman who wants to tell her story in the only way that currently seems possible. Don’t get me wrong I have a very supportive group of friends and family; but I keep repeating myself to them so much I know many are getting tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. I thought that maybe if I wrote it down and shared it, maybe it will help my healing.

Things I wish I knew or understood before I started to miscarry.

1. Time, a miscarriage has its own schedule. If a D&C isn’t preformed and you chose natural (like I did) it can take weeks for a miscarriage to even start. My doctor told me it could take a couple of weeks, but that wasn’t even true for me. One month after finding out my baby had no growth, or heartbeat I still hadn’t started miscarrying. I know from reading others posts that this isn’t that uncommon, but I didn’t understand that in the beginning. I had to read and do my own research to figure this out. At my appointment (one month, after my initial finding out) my doctor decided it was time to intervene, so she prescribed me misoprostol. I was told to take 2 pills vaginally every 6 hours for 4 doses and that my miscarriage should start within 48 hours of last dosage. She also sent me home with a prescription for pain medications telling me that it would be like a “period from hell”. Since I didn’t expect anything to start, until after my last dosage I didn’t take any pain pills with my first dosage, which I found out to be a mistake. Which leads me to point 2.

2. Pain, I was expecting cramping and hurting worse than a period but OMG I didn’t expect what I actually got. Within 2 hours of taking my first dosage of misoprostol I started cramping, but no blood. This was expected and wasn’t that bad, but I got up to make my boyfriend’s lunch for the next day and I ended up on the couch curled up in so much pain I couldn’t even move to get my dogs to quit jumping on me. My boyfriend got out of the shower to find me on the couch, asking me what happened I was fine just a few minutes ago. Which I was, I was sitting on the couch talking with my mom showing her some of the jewelry I just finished. But fine was no longer in my vocabulary, feeling horrible just doesn’t even seem to cut it. The pain was much more than a period from hell, it was the worse pain I had ever felt in my life. I took a pain pill, but couldn’t find any relief, so boyfriend gave me another pain pill to try to get the pain to go away or at least lessen enough for me to make it to bed.

I had talked to a couple of friends who had miscarriages and they warned me the pain was terrible, but I still had NO CLUE. One of my friends who has had a miscarriage and a full-term labor said the miscarriage hurt almost as badly as the labor, more if you count the emotional pain that accompanies the miscarriage (which I won’t even try to go into that here).

3. Time, yeah I know I already said time but it bears repeating at least in my case I feel it does. I thought after the miscarriage started it would take a couple of days at the most. But now over a week later I’m still having horrible cramps, shedding tissue, and losing blood clots. After reading I see that it can take weeks as well, just to clear out the body and I know there is no guarantee that my body will clean out everything and I may still have to have a D&C. So if I go by what my friend says that it feels a lot like labor I have been having labor pains for over a week; with no baby to hold afterwards.

I go into the doctor’s office tomorrow for another blood test, one each week until my numbers are back to zero. Which is another painful experience, not because of the blood test which isn’t pleasant but because I sit in the waiting room with women who look to be ready to go into labor any second, and I can’t help the jealousy I feel. Sitting there wondering if I will ever get to be a mommy and have my own baby to hold.