A Summary

I sat down and began to type out everything that happened the weekend of our miscarriage.  I hoped it would be cathartic and a way to channel my thoughts, and hopefully turn off my mind.  So I begin typing all the details.... and quickly realized it was raw, graphic, and even if sharing my story helped heal my heart, it wasn't something I wanted to have typed up for all time.  That weekend is forever etched in my mind, why would I want to relive it in print?

But, I know I have a lot of people who care about us, so I thought I'd give a summary instead.

On that Thursday, I had my first OB appointment, we were able to hear the heartbeat on the Doppler.  On Friday I had a warm pulling feeling in my lower abdomen, but assumed it was partly my body reacting the the internal/external exam I had the previous day, and partly due normal ute growing pains.  Saturday we worked a festival at our church.  Throughout the day I had more intense cramping with some watery brown discharge.  I was a bit concerned, but assumed I had simply overdone it at the festival.  Sunday I spent being a bum on the couch.  The cramping was coming more often, but lessened throughout the day with rest.  I put a call into my OB practice's on-call doctor, but didn't hear anything back (guess I wasn't considered urgent?).  Sunday night (early Monday morning?) I was woken up by severe cramping.  I woke my H and we decided it was time to head to the ER.  While at the ER everything intensified and I begin passing tissue.  They ran a few tests, gave me an IV, but I knew it was over.  Later that day we confirmed the loss at the OB's.

This is singularly the most physically and emotionally painful thing I have ever gone through.  I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone.  I know a loss at any point is extremely painful, but being a mere three days from going public with this pregnancy, a pregnancy that had been confirmed four times by heartbeat (the last three days before the miscarriage) is beyond words.  I know the statistics of first-trimester losses.  But I also know the statistics of loss after a heartbeat.  We just got unlucky.

However, even through this horrible experience, I am grateful for several things:
- I was able to have a natural miscarriage rather than a D&C.  I am grateful a surgery recovery wasn't part of this process.
- The OB at the practice who saw us to confirm our loss was amazing.  We had never met him before and even through that horrible moment he was kind, talked to both of us, didn't try to minimize or patronize our loss.  He made a horrendous moment as easy as possible.  I will definitely request him in the future.
- My H.  He was by my side the entire time.  He is simply an amazing man.

So, that's that.  Now we're still waiting for my body to heal and reset.  We'll see where we go when we get there.