I am now a miscarriage survivor CD2

So it happened.



On Wednesday night.



After nothing much happening Wednesday afternoon, Wednesday from 4pm onwards I started having the occasional cramp, by 8pm we were ensconed in front to the TV and the cramping intensified to the level it had been the previous evening. At about 9:30pm we watched an episode of Girls of the Playboy Mansion. I was imitating their fake laughs. Maybe a bit too hard. After the show finished at about 10pm I stood up to go to the restroom and all of a sudden I felt a large clot come out of me. Up till this point I had not had much bleeding at all. I ran to the bathroom. I did not think my pad would be able to contain it. I bled the clot out into a bucket. I had heard that you should bleed into a bucket rather than the toilet (so that you can see how much blood you are losing and so that you know when you have lost the gestational sack and placenta).



I knew it had started for real this time.



The active part of the miscarriage lasted from about 10pm until 1am. During this time I would sit in front of the TV breathing through the contractions, then rush to bleed into the bucket when i felt the clots were about to come out. It was like going into labour. The contractions were painful. Very painful. But it was no worse than the worst period pain I've ever had. For me it wasn't anywhere close to the pain of giving birth. I had an epidural for Izzy's birth and I still felt intense pain. He was posterior, maybe that's why his birth was so painful.



I refrained from taking any painkillers (thanks dbkate for this advice!) during the active part of the miscarriage. At about midnight I passed the gestational sack. It wasn't painful to pass, it just felt like I was passing another blood clot. It didn't look at all like what I expected. It looked and felt exactly like a small perfectly clear transparent jelly fish. It was about 5cm in diameter, but a disc rather than a sphere, perfectly round, but with the stalk (umbilical cord?) still attached where it would have been attached to the placenta. Being a blighted ovum there was no embryo inside (probably a mercy). I showed it to M.



I thought things would subside after I passed the sack but they didn't. I was still having the intense cramping. Then about 30 minutes later I passed something else which was clearly tissue rather than just a clot. It looked kind of like a small sausage. I guessed it was the placenta. After passing that the contractions continued for a while, and I passed some more large blood clots.



At about 1am the contractions died down a bit and I seemed to have stopped passing large clots.



I took 2 panadols so I could get some sleep.



I had survived.



I had not haemmhoraged. I did lose a lot of blood, but it was mostly clots so I wasn't too worried.



I slept until morning.



I got up and cooked M his birthday breakfast and took my son to school.



Then I went back to bed slept for the rest of the day.



I really slept all of the next day (Thursday). I was exhausted. I was not expecting that.



Now it is Friday. Day 2 after the miscarriage. I am at work. I still feel a little dizzy and tired and I am still cramping. Some times painfully, sometimes mildly and I am bleeding like a very heavy period. I have to go back to my OB a week after the miscarriage to check that I have no retained products of conception. I feel like I expelled it all. I really hope I have. That would be the final insult to have to have a D&C for retained products after waiting this long and going through the natural miscarriage.



My recovery plan is to take it easy physically. I am taking prenatal vitamins and bio iron supplements as well as drinking liquid chlorophyll (about 2 tblsp a day) to aid in my recovery.

The physical miscarriage was gruelling, as was waiting for it to happen, but in the end I am glad that I did it this way rather than opting straight for the D&C. While waiting to miscarry I have had time to grieve the loss of my pregnancy. I thought I would feel relieved now that the miscarriage is over, but I don't. I just feel sad. I'm sure the relief will come in time, because it's not really all over yet. I still have to get the all-clear from my OB and the bleeding and cramping has to stop. I am thinking of TTC again, but M and I have not yet discussed "when", I will leave that until I am a little more healed.



I will continue to post updates on this blog until the miscarriage is totally over.



Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.