“Even when you know your child is in heaven,
it still hurts like hell.”

Yesterday was Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. In honor of our angel baby and my personal experience with miscarriage, I wanted to share this post with you in hopes of shedding more light on the topic of miscarriage, and ultimately, to spread awareness.

I’ll be honest, before having my miscarriage I never took the time to learn much about it.

Obviously I knew miscarrying meant losing your baby, but I had no idea what kind of pain and suffering that terrible word truly represented – until now. I wanted to share these things to help others better understand, and to expose THE REALITY of miscarriage.

 

7 Things I Never Knew About Miscarriage – Until I Had One:

1. It’s a process

I used to think that when a woman miscarried it meant she started bleeding, went to the doctor, found out she lost the baby and that was that. Boy! Was I naive! There is SO much more to it than that. It’s painful, heart shattering, and traumatizing. The bleeding and cramping lasts at least a week. About 8 or 9 days in my case – but that’s not all. It isn’t over when the bleeding stops, and the pain isn’t gone when the cramps fade. A mother’s heart will continue to ache for that baby, and she’ll long to know who that little person would have been.

Did I mention your body will still think it’s pregnant? Yep, your body will be fooled by the flood of hormones flowing through your veins and pregnancy symptoms can drag on for as long as that HCG (pregnancy hormone) remains in the body. You might find yourself taking pregnancy test after pregnancy test praying for a negative result, praying for confirmation that the HCG is gone and the nightmare is finally over.

There’s a follow up appointment too. At which your OB will surely mention how incredibly common miscarriage is…. as he preforms yet another vaginal ultrasound to confirm there are no remains of the pregnancy left in your uterus. If there are, a surgery called dilatation and curettage (D&C) would likely be the next step. This involves scraping out the remains with a surgical instrument or by suction. Prescription medication is also a possibility.

Miscarriage is a process. An absolutely dreadful process.

 

2. Miscarriage is NOT like a period

Miscarriage is most definitely NOT like a period, so please don’t think that.

In fact, it’s a lot more like going through labor…. minus the insane pressure in your birth canal. I even experienced nausea the same way I did during the first few hours of labor with my son (although not as severe). Your body has painful contractions. Yes, actual contractions – and the blood, there’s so much of it. Far, FAR more than a period. I remember being shocked at the size of the blood clots and the pieces of tissue I passed. Each and every trip to the bathroom is a heartbreaking reminder of your empty womb. Soaking through pad after pad, quick access to the bathroom at all times is a must – at least for a few days.

 

3. Two words…. vaginal ultrasounds

Ugggghh! The vaginal ultrasounds.

I’m not typically a sissy when it comes to uncomfortable things like this – but yikes! These sucked. The ultrasound that I had at my doctor’s office wasn’t all that terrible (physically), you know, aside from the devastating news that my baby had stopped growing. It was the Emergency Room vaginal ultrasound that really left me feeling…….. I can’t even pick a word to describe it. Horrified? Violated? Broken?

I was gushing blood at the time of the ultrasound. As the ultrasound tech twirled the wand around inside of me, I swore she was on a mission to tear me apart from the inside out. *Beep,* *beep,* *beep,* she took photo after photo on the ultrasound machine. Between my cries, I wanted to tell her, “Please stop! I don’t think my vagina stretches that way!” or “If you shove that thing any higher, it’s going to come out of my throat.” It was painful, and it took forever! I squeezed Aaron’s hand with every move the wand made. I’ll never forget the look of sheer horror on his face as he watched me squirm in pain. I didn’t think it was ever going to end – and then it did.

Did you know, when you get an ultrasound in the emergency room it’s far different from your routine ultrasounds? During an emergency room ultrasound, you’re not allowed to watch the screen. You’re not allowed to see your baby or see what’s going on at all. The ultrasound tech remains silent through the entire procedure. She isn’t allowed to tell you what she sees, or give you any information for that matter.

It’s completely and utterly awful.

 

4. It’s possible to miscarry without any symptoms

My baby stopped growing at 6 weeks, however, my baby’s heart continued to beat for three additional weeks. I never had any symptoms that told me my baby had stopped growing. I walked into my first ultrasound excited and hopeful that my baby was healthy and measuring perfectly. It wasn’t until that ultrasound that I knew something was wrong. My body did, however, recognize when my baby’s heart stopped beating at 9 weeks, and that’s when my miscarriage began.

For some woman, they have what’s called a “missed miscarriage” or a “silent miscarriage.” This occurs when the baby dies but the body does not recognize the pregnancy loss or begin to bleed and expel the tissue. In the case of a missed miscarriage, your doctor may give you the option to wait and miscarry naturally, take medication to help the process begin, or the D&C procedure to remove the tissues from your uterus.

Regardless of which route your miscarriage goes, they’re all incredibly heart-rending.

 

5. Miscarriage can bring a whole mess of feelings

For women who have gone through miscarriage it can be common to experience some, if not all, of the 5 stages of grief. The same way anyone would mourn a lost loved one, a mother needs time to mourn her unborn baby.

Along with grief can come many other emotions.

BEWARE of beautiful baby bumps, pregnancy announcements, and perfect little newborns. It’s very common for these things to be a trigger post miscarriage. You may be happily strolling down the shampoo aisle of Target one moment, and find yourself in tears the next. You may feel a sense of jealousy…. or ask yourself, “why not me?” You might even then feel guilty for feeling jealous. It’s an endless stampede of emotions.

 

6. I never expected to see my baby

This one was BY FAR the hardest part for me.

I’m not exactly sure what I expected, but I know I wasn’t expecting to see what I saw – my tiny underdeveloped baby. It’s an image that will forever be imprinted in my brain.

I guess I must have assumed that when a woman miscarries, the baby is just “somewhere in all of the blood.” I definitely didn’t think I’d be passing large pieces of tissue with my actual itty bitty baby amongst it all. Again, I suppose that sounds pretty naive of me now.

I also expected it to happen on the toilet! “I probably won’t even know when I pass the baby,” I thought to myself – WRONG! I passed my baby in the shower, and it was unmistakably 100% my baby. In a moment like that, with your little lifeless baby right there in front of your eyes, it raises a whole new question that no one should ever have to ask themselves….

What do I do with my tiny dead baby?

There’s no right or wrong answer. Ultimately, you should just choose whatever feels right to you.

For many woman, the decision may have been made for them if their baby was passed on the toilet. But for others, when given the choice…. flushing the baby like a dead goldfish or throwing them away with the garbage might not feel like the right thing to do.

Other options are:

• Bringing “the remains” to your doctor’s office to send in for testing (in which, afterward they dispose of your baby as “medical waste”)
• Taking “the remains” to the hospital for the medical staff to dispose of your baby for you
• Personal burial in your yard, garden, or a potted plant (there’s even a website for miscarriage caskets, linked here)
• Cremation (depending on how far along your pregnancy was, or how much tissue you passed)

 

7. No doubt about it, miscarriage will change you

With all of this said, I’m sure you can imagine how experiencing these things can have the power to change you.

Psychologically, miscarriage is devastating. From the initial shock and worry, to the crippling sadness, It’s impossible to not feel a whole flood of emotions. Although statistics show that 15-20% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage, it’s an entirely different story when you are amongst those statistics.

For me, getting pregnant has always been viewed as such a joyful moment. I’d never want to let miscarriage rob me of that joy in future pregnancies, however, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that miscarriage changed me. Post-miscarriage-me is definitely fearful of this nightmare recurring. I can only imagine how long those weeks will feel. Just the thought of it is stressful, and the nervousness can be consuming….. but I know that in my next pregnancy, the best thing that I can do, is to leave it in God’s hands.

 

“I grieve for all the tomorrows that will never be.
I grieve because God now holds you, instead of me.”

 

Thank you so much for reading ♡

 

Until next time!
XO,