The Miscarriage - Part 1

Some of you may not know that my very first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. If I had had a blog at that point, of course I would’ve blogged about it. But, I didn’t. I always think it interesting though how different people’s experiences are...even when going through the same (relatively...i.e. miscarriage) life events. And, I thought that I would blog about mine with this particular topic.

A blog serves as basically an online journal sometimes, so what better way to relay this event than to go back to my journal entry about it. I’ve been doing that a lot I know, but it’s the best way to remember and convey accurately what happened.
So, from my journal entry dated 12-11-02 (we had found out we were pregnant Nov. 4th, 2002...the unitalicized parts are my add-ins of today):

We found out we were pregnant and oh, the excitement…what I’ve always wanted. But, at the same time I became a worrier...ugh! I remember when Mama found out she was carrying Tucker. I was excited, but I wouldn’t let myself expect a baby at the end of those 9 months. It’s good to be cautious, but sometimes I take it a little far.

When I was 6 weeks along I had a pain in my left side (it was a dull, constant pain that lasted for at least 24 hours). My 1st thought was “I have a tubal pregnancy.” I called Judy (she is a nurse friend of mine...was actually my preceptor when I first started to work...she is in fact my “Dr.” basically, my first run-to person when I have a health question...she’s a walking encyclopedia and I’m sure could function as a Dr., even without medical school or a license, if she were interested and if given the chance) and she just laughed at me and said “us nurses are so dangerous with our information.” I had already mourned the loss of our baby (seriously, I had cried and cried that night, trying to accept that this pregnancy wasn’t viable). I had an appt. and actually saw a nurse practitioner. She assured me that my uterus felt pregnant and she felt no abnormalities of my tubes. Joel was with me. We were relieved. I had an ultrasound the next morning, just to confirm. The tech couldn’t find the baby with the abdominal “picture-taker,” she had to go trans-vaginally. Of course, me in my freak state thought “Oh no, I have a molar pregnancy” (I had done lots of googling…as of today I don’t even remember what a “molar pregnancy” is). Craziness. She found my little baby though...just a little glob with a big heartbeat...beating 111 beats per minute. We got pictures.

A week later the nurse practitioner ordered for me to have another ultrasound at 8 weeks. I wondered why and they told me “just to check growth.” Later I found out that I also had some chorionic fluid pocket showing on the ultrasound (and a cyst on my right ovary, which is pretty insignificant though). At 8 weeks, on December 4th, I had my initial exam with the Dr. She pulled out her little ultrasound machine and couldn’t see a heartbeat. Joel was with me and we weren’t really terribly worried...the machine didn’t give a very good, clear picture and seemed pretty antique. We just figured we’d go back over to the radiology office, they’d do a trans-vaginal again if needed, and everything would be fine. So, I dropped Joel off at his work. I went for the ultrasound and...no heartbeat. I asked her to do a trans-vaginal, just to make sure (praying for a miracle)...nothing. It was horrible...everything was in slow motion, like being in a bad dream.

After the ultrasound I tried to call Joel. I went to his work and couldn’t reach him (where he worked had security and I couldn’t just go in and get him). I went to Wal-Mart near his work and tried to just hang out while trying to reach him there...couldn’t reach him. I decided I’d just go back to our apartment and was finally able to reach him from there. I went to get him. It was horrible not having Joel with me at the ultrasound and having to tell him there in the parking lot.

I got Joel and we headed over to the doctor’s office. We decided to have a D&C the next day. I probably would’ve passed everything and had your “typical” miscarriage at some point a few days later (I had never bled at all), but from the opinions we got at the time, we were better off just going ahead with the procedure to make sure everything was removed from my uterus. We grabbed some lunch at my favorite Mexican restaurant there in Phoenix and just talked about everything.

Again from my journal:

We started listing all of the positive things and the way God had prepared us...AWESOME...it brought such peace and reminded us that He so knows best and is in control.

It was a very interesting experience and in so many ways, in my case, a needed one. Let me explain…

I had worried. I had done nothing but worry since I found out I was pregnant. O.K., yes...I’d had moments of joy and peace, but nothing like I had expected a pregnancy to be like. I had wanted to be full of joy during pregnancy, but that wasn’t the case. It just proved once again that “what good is it to worry?...Does it add anything to your life?” (Matthew 6) No, it doesn’t. It just takes away and steals joy. I mean, I had worried and what did it get me...my baby still died. So, from then on I knew that I would not let worry take over (I esp. knew that within the context of pregnancy) and ruin something that is supposed to be joyful.

The rest of the story tomorrow.