It was a Tuesday - my miscarriage

**This blog post is the detailed story of my physical miscarriage; the details and descriptions can be quite sad and even disturbing for some readers. Please be mindful before continuing that this post has many triggers.**

It was a Tuesday.

A week from the day we found out. Travis gently kissed me goodbye and squeezed me, signaling the fact he wished he didn’t have to leave. It was early. I remember him saying goodbye before his trip, but I remember being so sleepy and also in pain. I was scared to wake up, or to get up. I wanted to fade back into my sleep so it wouldn’t happen. But I could tell it was happening. I just knew. I was starting to miscarry naturally.

I couldn’t have done this alone, and I’m glad my mom was there.

Monday night after dinner, I went to the bathroom and realized I had started bleeding. Earlier that day, we went to the doctor to schedule my D&C because my miscarriage wasn’t happening naturally. Frankly, I didn’t want it to. I was scared. I had no idea what to expect and the stories on the Facebook group I joined just terrified me even more. I wanted the surgery so I could just be done with the waiting, be done with the physical part of the miscarriage. We were awaiting news to hear when my surgery would be. We had dinner and stayed home. Then I realized my body WAS starting to naturally miscarry. I was mad, frustrated, scared, and sad. I didn’t want it to happen like that.

Travis left that morning for a regatta in Florida. As he said goodbye to me, I glanced at my phone to see the time which read 4:57a. I was too tired to get up and too afraid. Even though I was sleepy, I could tell something was different. I was in pain.

Travis wouldn’t have been able to stay and help, so what was the point of telling him that early? So, I stayed in bed. I dozed back off to sleep for just a little longer.

Around 6am I awoke with pain in my abdomen. It felt like cramping, but different than a period. I felt like I was starting to bleed more heavily and had an urge to go to the bathroom.

This was the worst part.

** from here, this story gets detailed and might be a trigger for some of those reading. There is mention of bodily fluids, body parts, and intense emotions shared**

I knew I needed to go the bathroom, but it didn’t feel like I had to pee. It just felt like I needed to release. I ran into my mom in the hallway, who heard me getting up and wanted to check on me. She asked, “Are you okay? Do you need me?” and before I could truly answer, I felt this “plop” in my underpants and ran into the bathroom. I had lined my panties with one of those jumbo diaper pads the night prior just in case. It was a good thing I did. In my pad was so much blood. The doctors told me to “expect bleeding and passing of tissue” but I had no idea what that REALLY meant. Well now I do. It was more than a period. More bleeding, more cramping, more thick(tissue), more depressing, more painful.

I carefully pulled my pants down avoiding the mess in my pad from getting everywhere. I decided to just take them off all the way and leave them on the ground. I proceeded to sit on the toilet and have my morning pee. With the urine, came out more blood, more tissue, and more cramping. I was confused honestly. I didn’t know what to do. I looked over to my pants and decided to take out the “dirty” pad. After getting it unstuck from my panties, I placed it on the sink counter. I stared at it. I wasn’t even sure if the bloody tissue I was looking at was in fact my baby. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t.

My baby stopped growing at 5 weeks and 3 days, meaning baby was teeny tiny. I’m not sure if I knew which part of the process was truly my baby’s fetus. I wish I did, but it was so early, it was hard to tell. Either way, I just sat on the toilet, staring at the pad, wondering what to do. My mom talked to me through the bathroom door. I began to feel numb, unsure of what was really going on, and just wanting to go lay down and cry. I cleaned up the pad, cleaned up myself, wiped, flushed, and went to bed.

Did I flush my baby down the toilet?

Yes. I hated myself. Some days, I still do hate myself for that. For days, I cried and even screamed that I’m a terrible mother and I flushed my baby down the toilet. I didn’t know what else to do. Everything seemed like blood and thicker blood(tissue). I had heard stories of women who keep the small teeny tiny fetus and get it cremated, buried, or encapsulated in resin even. To be honest, these all seemed weird to me. It just wasn’t what I wanted. I don’t think it would have helped me grieve. I lost my baby early. Maybe if I was further along, it’d be different. I sat and stared and cried to the pad full of blood and wished I could have held my baby when they were a big beautiful healthy baby. I said goodbye. I cried. I slumped to the floor of the bathroom and I flushed. Angry and sad and confused, my mom coaxing me out of the bathroom.

It wasn’t over yet.

I laid in bed all day, crying on and off, feeling numb, barely eating, and just miserable. I was cramping all day, my back was sore, and my head hurt from crying so much. I wanted to go to sleep. So off to bed I went. I think it was early. My body was exhausted, I slept.

At 3:33a I awoke with a startle and terrible pain.

It wasn’t over yet. I awoke at 3:33am with a startle and terrible pain. I hurried into the bathroom, only to find another pad full of blood, and this immense pressure on my abdomen and bladder. I was experiencing extreme cramping, but it was different than what I’m used to. It just wasn’t the same as a period, it was worse. It was in my lower abdomen, but also spasms in my back, and painful pressure on my bladder. The energy was downward. All the energy just felt like it was pushing down on the insides of my body. I sat down and released a lot of tissue and blood. You know when you have really runny diarrhea, and it feels like you’re peeing out of your butt? Well, it felt kind of like that but thicker and out of my vagina rather than my anus or urethra. It came in waves. I felt like I was fine, I would clean up, wipe, flush, and then sit down.

I remember trying to go back to bed, but as soon as I laid down, I felt the same pain and pressure all over again and an urge to go sit on the toilet. I think the position was more comfortable. I’d wipe and sit back down on the bathroom floor. Crying the entire time, there were moments that the pain took over, causing me to whine and moan in pain. At some point, my mom came in to help and be with me. I don’t remember when she checked on me, but I know it was my painful moans that awoke her.

I went from sitting on the toilet, to squatting on the ground of the bathroom floor, to leaning over the counter. No matter where I was, I was in pain. The pain was terrible. I kept feeling like I needed to push, but I didn’t know what that really meant. It was all instincts. I had to just listen to my body, trust my intuition, and follow my instincts. I think I blacked out, or maybe my body was protecting me from remembering in full detail. I just remember having chills and shaking, then being hot and sweaty. My mom helped wrap me in a blanket and take it off when I’d get hot again. She patted my forehead with a damp cloth, brought me water, held me, and cried with me. It was the most vulnerable I had ever been with anyone. I was naked and scared and in pain, trying to “push” and “labor” through the miscarriage. Confused and uncertain of what was really even happening, I wasn’t alone. I had my mom.

At some point, it stopped.

I don’t remember exactly when, but at one point, it all just stopped. The cramping and pain just stopped. All of sudden, out of nowhere, I just knew I was done. The pain subsided and my body told me what I needed to know. I told my mom, “I think I’m done.” and she helped walk me back to my bedroom. I laid there as she held me, and I was able to fall back asleep. I didn’t sleep well but I did sleep.

The following days were extremely hard. There was light bleeding and some occasional cramping, but nothing like the 36 hours of my actual physical miscarriage. I was in pain emotionally. I felt broken. I was just sad. I was sad to have lost our baby. I was sad I had to do it naturally. I was sad Travis wasn’t there. I was just sad.

I’ve had time to reflect.

I’m writing this blog post weeks and weeks later. This part of our story is more mine. This part of my miscarriage is the dark, scary, terrible, sad reality of what actually happened. This is the sad reality that many women go through. I never found something like this to read… a story that would make me feel like I knew what was going on, what happens during a miscarriage. I felt underprepared. How are you supposed to prepare? Some women don’t and can’t. Some women wake up in the middle of the night to realize they miscarried their baby. Some women find out much later, much further along. Some women have felt just as lost and confused and scared and sad as I have. Many women, sadly.

So maybe, hopefully, my sharing of this part of my story can provide clarity. Clarity to those who have been in my shoes and walked this same path, clarity to our partners who are a part of this but can’t relate the same way, clarity to those who care and wish they could understand what we’ve been through, or clarity to a woman going through a miscarriage herself.

By sharing this part of my story, it makes it more real. It makes it less of this secret and burden that I felt I had to carry alone. It makes things vulnerable and uncomfortable. It makes me feel a little bit better about moving forward.

Hope is with you. Hope is with me. Hope is all around us.