Miscarriage

*Warning: This is a very detailed account of my first and only miscarriage. Read at your own risk.

Today I miscarried what would have been our fifth child. Oh my, it has been a day! On Sunday night I started bleeding, which is concerning obviously because I was 10 weeks pregnant. The next morning I tried to set up an apt. with an OB/GYN to get an ultrasound and make sure everything was okay. But they were making it so difficult saying that first I had to go to a new patient orientation class which are on Wed. and Fri. and then they wouldn’t be able to get me in for a couple of weeks. I wanted to scream at the stupid lady on the phone “Did you hear me?!! I’m bleeding and I shouldn’t be!!” No common sense, I swear. So anyway I called my midwife who delivered Kelsey and told her what was going on. She immediately called and set up a sonogram for me an hour later. I called my friend Ann Reed, and dropped the kids off at her house, and went to my apt. The lady doing the ultrasound said, “I don’t see any baby”. And then diagnosed me with a “blighted ovum”. I had to come home and look it up online because she was extremely uninformative and left me with a, “I don’t really know how to explain it, maybe your doctor will call you later”. The news was very shocking and sad. I was by myself and wished Kenny was with me. I called him on the phone and cried to him and told him the news. We were no longer having a baby. I talked to my mom and told her, and put it on Facebook (in our private family group) so the rest of my family would know. We had announced our pregnancy to everyone a couple weeks ago when we were in Utah/Idaho. Now we had to un-announce it. Luckily, we had not told our children yet. We were actually planning on telling them on Mon. night at FHE, but that obviously didn't work out.

I wasn’t able to think much on it because we are moving this week and are super busy with packing and cleaning. Talk about bad timing! I mean, not that there is "good timing" to miscarry, but the week we are moving?! That night though I was finally able to kneel down and talk to Heavenly Father about it, and then to Kenny that night. Although we were sad, we knew it was going to be okay and it's not like we couldn’t ever try again. We’re both still young and we’ve had 4 perfectly healthy, beautiful children. I continued to bleed, just thinking it was my period. But then today, it started to get bad. I was sitting down because I was cramping really bad and not feeling well. I had put Kelsey and Madison down for a nap, and Ty and Bryn were outside playing with the puppy, Jake. I could feel like a big knot or something in my stomach, just like after I have a baby and they tell me to push on my uterus to get it to get all the blood out and help it shrink back down. Well I could feel something there and I pushed on it. When I stood up, all this blood came rushing out and down my leg, so I ran to the bathroom. For the next couple hours, my body was losing a lot of blood and tissue, huge clots/clumps of stuff. It was disgusting, and painful, and disturbing, and emotional. The older two kids were back inside at this point and I asked them to just watch a show on TV. Kelsey woke up, but was happy to wander around and hang out by me in the bathroom, doing whatever. She was a happy little girl and for that I was grateful. I was also feeling very grateful that this all happened at home. Earlier that morning we had been at Costco. I can’t imagine what I would’ve done if this happened in a store.

I couldn’t stand up without all the blood quickly rushing down and causing me to get blurred vision, and fall down on the ground. I was white as a ghost, and so light headed. I called my midwife and told her what was going on. She said I should probably go into the ER. So I called Kenny, and I was crying to him again. I felt so bad that he had to leave work, I knew he was really busy and had a lot to do. But things were getting worse, not better. So he came home and helped me to the hospital. They took me back immediately, which I was so glad because I always expect a wait in the ER.

I am what they call “a hard stick”, meaning that all nurses have a hard time getting an IV or any needles in my arms. This time it took 4 spots and 3 people before they were able to draw blood, and I told them to forget about the IV, that I would just drink a lot of water instead. So I’ll have some nice bruises to show for that.

The Dr. was super nice and I liked him a lot. He did a pelvic exam (which ended up being a big, bloody mess) and was able to use some forceps and pull out some big clots, including the placenta. He said I was most definitely pregnant. For some reason it wasn’t passing on its own, and I would have continued to bleed, as that is the body’s way of trying to expel it. That helped my cramping go away almost entirely once he had that out. They were going to do another ultrasound, but instead decided to give me this medicine that helps to clear everything out, so they don’t have to go in surgically and do a DNC.

Poor Kenny had the kids this whole time and because of miscommunications because the hospital had hardly any service in the room, we weren’t able to talk. He said he didn’t hear me when I told him to take the kids home, that it would be a while. So they were waiting around in the parking lot and at the nearby park for hours before we were finally able to connect. I told him to leave and go get the kids some dinner, which he did. Then they came back and got me when I was able to get discharged.

It completely ruined my plans of cleaning today. We have a lot to get done still, and have to be out by Saturday. I may have to swallow my pride and ask for some ladies to come over and help me clean. Normally I just like to do it all myself, since it’s my problem, but I don’t know how soon I’ll get my energy back. As of tonight, I still am super light-headed and can’t stand up to even take a shower. I’m praying tomorrow will be better. It is very hard to take care of 4 little kids when I don’t have my health. It sure makes me grateful for the health I do normally have. I was also desperately wishing we lived by family again today. It sure makes situations like this so much harder when we don’t have any family around. Maybe someday we’ll be fortunate enough to live by some of them.

Although this was a big deal for me and for our family, I was very humbled as I sat in the hospital room and thought about how small it really is. So many people deal with trials that are so much worse every day of their lives. I thought about Heavenly Father and all the millions of prayers that go up to Him each day, for help with one thing or another. There’s crap going on with Syria, and a lot of other major, horrible things happening around the world. And here I am in my little sheltered corner of the world praying for help through this miscarriage. And you know what? He hears me. Always. I have such a strong testimony of prayer and I’m incredibly grateful for the knowledge we have of a loving Father in Heaven that knows me individually and cares about how my trials and my triumphs, no matter how small or large they are.