As a lady does

AKA miscarriage

I was nine and a half weeks pregnant when my miscarriage began. It was Mother’s Day. I was about to settle into a new episode of Game of Thrones, cocktail on ice for my man ready and waiting. But first, a quick pee. I wiped (as a lady does) and saw a faint pink color. Awash in dread, I knew.

As I watched Game of Thrones, trying desperately to be distracted, my mind kept thinking about a dream I had the night before. I dreamt I miscarried. In the dream I looked down into my underwear and they were RED. As red as red gets. Would that faint pink color evolve into this red one? Was I just temporarily spotting? The next day I had a flight to Chicago for work. Would I be miscarrying on my flight? Would I even be able to take my flight? The show went on. My mind raced. I should really re-watch that episode.

Still only spotting, I decided I was fine to travel, especially to the land of my former home and, very importantly, doctor still within my insurance network (how pitiful we Americans have to think about that). I read short stories on the flight to take my mind off myself. Why did all the characters have to be moms? I chose an aisle seat in case I needed to run to the bathroom, but I didn’t dare get up. I had been resisting the urge to pee all day because peeing meant wiping and seeing more pink, more brown, and possibly, red.

I get off the plane at Midway and rush to a toilet. I squint as I pull down my pants and peer at my pad. Please don’t be red! Please don’t be red! Apparently I had grown rather attached to the idea of this future baby. My pad was white. Thank you, Jesus! I then sat down on the toilet, did my business (as a lady does), looked down and noticed a thick, uninterrupted stream of blood pouring from my vagina into the toilet.

Mother-effing-fucker. I enter that private hell where you are walking around looking fit as a fiddle but on the inside, well, mother-effing-fucker.

Something tells me to eat meat. I’d been eating mostly vegetarian fare and I had this feeling that I was about to lose a lot of blood. I know that animal protein is some of the easiest to absorb iron we can get, so on the way to get the rental car, I procure a meatball sub. I finally get into the car and once I’m on the familiar highway, I begin to cry the first of my tears for this non-baby. I’m heading to the main scene of my miscarriage, a La Quinta Inn.

Let’s do this.

I sit down on the floor of my room and eat a few bites of the sub before I throw it away. Even my life is too short for that shit. I call the other half of the DNA I’m eager to protect but it takes me forever to talk. I’m now crying again and half mute. He knows I’m there so he waits. I’m finally able to tell him that things are not good and I’m actively miscarrying for sure. I tell him I’m experiencing low and deep periodic contractions (and I had been on the whole plane ride), and small blood clots keep passing. The pain comes in waves and is intensifying. It’s happening.

He’s not surprised. He’s done some research. He’s learned what those low cramps mean.

It’s now late into the night and I’d like to go to bed and just ignore this small problem, but I can’t. It hurts too much. My doctor once told me that if I filled three pads in an hour (while pregnant) to go to an Emergency room. Most of my blood is going directly into the toilet, making keeping track difficult. Also, how would I get to the ER? I could drive myself, I think. I could call a taxi, but that’s sad. I could call an ambulance, but that’s mortifying. I could call a friend, but they are sleeping. Reality check time - human females have been doing this for millions of years. Sure, some died, but most lived. I can do this by myself. I’m miscarrying, not having a baby! I’m about to deliver a lentil or a kidney bean or some other tiny shape and miscarriage pain is normal for this late in the first trimester. How hard can it be?

Around 3:30 am the contractions ratchet up to 11 and nothing makes them feel any better. Not sitting, not laying, not walking, nothing. It was a pain I'd never experienced before, never needed to experience before. The moments in between the contractions feel strangely blissful by comparison. Having seen plenty of red by now and getting accustomed to this pain level, I decide to take myself to the ER. I really don’t want to go because I like being in the dark, writhing on the carpeted floor, away from strangers, near a toilet all my own, and talking to my partner at will. But I decide to go because I don’t want to regret not going. It’s close-by on a well-known route and the roads are empty. I pack my bag.

Hello, stingray.

I’m about to put on my shoes but decide to sit on the toilet one last time to ride out a contraction (as a lady does), and into the toilet plops something heavy. I reach down into the pink water and fish out what looks like a dark red stingray, about four inches wide. It’s flappy and has structure, like a very soft, silky ear. I lay it on a used pad (I’ve collected several bright red pads by this point) and am poking it when a hot flash hits me. I get off the toilet, lie on the ground, and sweat hard for about 30 seconds. I experience an intense wave of nausea and then it’s gone. I feel pretty great (relativity is a heck of a thing). The contractions continue but they aren’t as intense as they were before the stingray. I take pictures of it and send them to my partner. He does some digging and convinces us that I’ve passed the sac. But where’s the bean? Where’s my never-formed baby? Will that come out later? Did it die long ago while it was smaller? Is it that tiny whitish thing in the sac? I lose the ability to care. The contractions are milder now and allow me two hours of sleep. Emergency room be damned.

In the morning the contractions are still rolling through me and blood is still rolling out, but I’m light years better than I was hours before. I get ready for work and at 8 am sharp I call the office of my former OB/GYN. Before the call I debate heavily how to explain myself. Uh, I’m a former patient who moved to California but I’m in town right now and I’m actively miscarrying and I’d like to see a doctor or at least talk to an advice nurse. I say something along these lines and get transferred to a triage line where I’m to leave a detailed message, so I say it all over again, this time with my name and birth date and call back number.

At work I’m strangely relieved to be alive and well and in less pain than I was before passing the stingray. I look people in the eye. I actively participate in the meeting. What a dirty little secret I have. I worry the entire time that I’m bleeding through my pad (would it have killed me to wear black pants instead of gray?) but working feels good.

Around 10 am the triage nurse calls and I tell her my story. She responds with something I was not expecting – sympathy. I guess I didn’t expect a medical professional to ever express concern for my emotional well-being. I was expecting a level of sympathy that topped out at, “this happens all the time so don’t feel bad,” (i.e. you aren’t special so get over this). Disoriented, I accept a lunchtime walk-in appointment.

I see a colleague of my former doctor. She performs a vaginal ultrasound that shows there is still a lot of debris (not like, baby fingers, more like blood clots) still needing to exit my uterus. At this stage in a pregnancy they almost always suggest a D&C procedure, which is a shorthand way of saying they shop-vac your uterus. I ask if this can wait three days when I’ll be back in CA, but she says no. I am not to get back on a plane until this is resolved. My surgery is scheduled for later that night.

I’m surprised to learn I need to be put under for the surgery. Aren’t D&C’s what they do for abortions? Do abortion patients go all the way under? This bugs me because it means I can’t drive myself. I have to burden someone or take taxis to and from the hospital (my phone and I are not feeling Uber and Lyft). I call my friend who lives nearby and is on maternity leave. She was the first or second friend I made when I moved to Illinois eight years ago. In fact, she’s the same friend who took me to the ER when I slipped on ice and sustained a bad concussion. Once again, I call her for something unpleasant. Being amazing, she scoops me up and takes me to the hospital later that night.

We’ll skip over the part where I go back to work before the surgery. I know I did that. It’s simply unremarkable.

After checking in for surgery I beg my friend to leave the hospital and do her own thing for the next 4-5 hours until I’m discharged. She obliges and I’m left to a team of entirely female nurses, admins, and doctors. Everyone is so nice and expresses kind condolences. I feel as if I’m supposed to look more shattered. I’m not happy, but I’m not sad either. I’m determined to get through this, get back to work tomorrow, get home, and try again. I must get through this to eventually have a baby. Yes, determined is the word.

Except for the joy of badly placed IV attempts, the procedure goes off as planned. Oh how strange it is to come up from anesthesia. Not having eaten or had water in over 8 hours, I eagerly suck down foil-lidded apple juice. I’m told I need to rest for about an hour and that I can watch TV. Fixer Upper will forever be tainted. I ask to leave.

Long ago I was a hospital “volunteen” (less derogatory name for candy striper, same uniform). One of my jobs, during my out-patient care rotation, was to wheel discharged patients outside for their rides home. No patient was allowed to walk those 200 feet. Embarrassingly, this is now me. My friend picks me up and instead of delivering me to my hotel, where I want to go, she takes me to her home. After going under, as with having a concussion, people are supposed to check in on you as you sleep. I say this is unnecessary as I’m the lowest risk imaginable, but I oblige. She’s in the driver’s seat, after all, and has this no-nonsense look about her. It was never my decision.

At her house I learn my surgeon called her after the D&C to tell her everything went well but that I really should not work tomorrow. My friend kept my partner updated and even got her husband to buy me fresh fruit and soup. I could kiss her! Physically I feel fine but in my head I’m loopy from the drugs and near elated that the main event is over. I no longer need to question if I’m going to miscarry. Sure, I wanted my partner to be there and sure, I didn’t want any of that to happen, but having the miscarriage over with was such a huge relief, the weight of the loss seemed small. And was it a loss? It was a loss of precious time, sure, but not the loss of a viable embryo. This was never going to be my child. Not even close. It was nine and a half weeks of sore boobs and not drinking. A tricked body. It was the loss of a single, giant hope, but not the death of hope. 

The next day I sneakily drive myself to work (I felt fine!!!) and do my job. It’s a sit-down job that day and once again I’m grateful to be distracted. The following day I feel the aftershock of the surgery and the anesthesia and it makes me sorely wish I rested the day before. Live and learn, they say. On the flight home I check my luggage because I’m not to lift heavy things – a move I deeply regretted as I waited thirty minutes at the baggage carousel. Definitely still learning.

Two months removed from this miscarriage, what I reflect on most is the power of friendship. There I was without my partner, without my sisters or mother, but with a friend. She cared for me like she would her own sister and I’m brought to tears every time I think about it. She enabled that experience to be less than totally terrible. Her loving actions cemented in me the importance of friendship, and reminded me that we can make friends at any stage of life. She and I became friends in our late 20’s. We never went to school together, or were in the same club. We were neighbors who, over years, kept casually hanging out because we liked it. And when I needed someone and felt like she was the only or best option, she came through. Twice! I hope to never call her for a ride to the hospital again.

So, sans the medical bills, there you have it. Pain, a stingray, unexpected sympathy, determination that shielded sadness, and friendship that turned into sisterhood – that's my miscarriage story. Please feel free to add your story to the comments. Words, releasing them or reading them, can sometimes help.