auntiedonut

[auntiedonut]

Our Natural Miscarriage

In January, 2017, Jasun and I had a miscarriage.  I know most of you don’t know, and I am sorry that this is how you are finding out, believe me, it is much easier to tell a computer than to actually say the words out loud, I hope you understand.  

I have decided to share my story for a few different reasons:

This is therapeutic for me. Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and I never imagined in my life that this would be a holiday that would affect me negatively (I am very lucky to have an awesome mommy). But I am here, mildly losing my shit and feel that its time to share.

Nobody talks about miscarriage.  I have been a childbirth doula for over 15 years now and I can honestly say I knew close to nothing about miscarriage.  About 15% - 20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, so I am not alone, although I felt that way, and I don’t want you to feel that way if this is what you are going through.  If I can say some words that can help someone else out going through this process then I would love to be able to offer that helping hand.

So here goes.

Jasun and I started trying for a baby shortly before Christmas 2015.  Having no luck whatsoever, we consulted with a fertility specialist around September 2016.  I am not known to be a patient person, some people may have waited, but I wanted to make sure everything was ok.  We were really excited to be parents, its something we both have wanted for a long time, and month after month of not becoming pregnant became emotional.  Then we’d pick ourselves up just to be let down again.  

It turns out everything was fine and we chose not to have any advanced treatments done as they seemed invasive, we just wanted to make sure we were both able to have children.

Christmas morning, 2016, I woke up sobbing.  After a year of trying, I really just wanted to spend Christmas morning with our baby. A few days earlier I started my period, and this morning it just hit me.  What is wrong, why isn’t this happening, what can I do differently.  Am I too stressed? Is it because I drink coffee? I pulled it together to go have Christmas day with my family, hanging out with my niece and nephew is one of my most favorite things to do but even that became emotional at times.  But I made it through the day.  

My period only lasted for a few days which I found was odd.  Jasun and I were home a few days after Christmas cuddled up on the couch watching White Christmas, and since my period didn’t last but two days, I decided to take another test.  I had been taking about 5 pregnancy tests a month (expensive habit) so we definitely had some in the drawer.  One line means no, two lines yes.  Remove cap, pee on stick, and wait.

That dark line that never fails to show up did, and right next to it the faintest line you had ever seen appeared.  I wasn’t sure if it was a shadow or not, and Jasun and I decided not to think too much about it.  

HAHAHAHAHAH WHO AM I KIDDING?!  That was our plan but yeah no, my brain doesn’t let things rest!  I got online, “blood in the urine can leave a false positive”.  Is there still blood in my urine from having my period? Is this just a lie?  Should I stop shopping for breastfeeding covers on Amazon?

We decided just to smile a lot and try our hardest not to believe we were pregnant.  We weren’t doing a great job. We kept taking pregnancy tests and that faint little line kept getting darker and darker.

I had been spotting a bit on and off since the start of my period but found that was pretty normal as the placenta attaches to the uterine wall.  We had blood work done that confirmed I was 4 weeks pregnant!

A few weeks had passed since we got our bloodwork back, and I was starting to notice changes in my body.  Things were more tender, things were bigger...  We were getting ready to tell our families. This entire year we didn’t tell anyone we were trying, I was really excited about surprising my mom with the news. We were headed to bed one night and I started having severe cramps and heavy bleeding.  We were lying in bed and I was breathing through what I assume a contraction would feel like.  I was extremely nervous but knew nothing could be done so Jasun and I decided to get some sleep after the pain died down and call the doctor tomorrow.  In the morning the bleeding was still pretty heavy. Jasun had left for work, and I called the doctor before the clinic was open.  She said she wanted to see me right away when they opened, so I got dressed, called Jasun and we met there.  

I remember the words like it was yesterday, “There’s nothing in there, you’re having a miscarriage”. I started sobbing uncontrollably and Jasun held me. The doctor left the room so we could feel our feelings without an onlooker.  When she came back in she said that she could give me medication to complete the miscarriage, and I declined.  I wanted things to happen naturally, and I just found out that my baby died two minutes earlier, I was not ready to let go.

Jasun followed me home, on my way home I called my mom, dad and sister, hysterical, they could barely understand me.  I told them we had been trying for a year and we were getting ready to tell them the great news.  Once we got home Jasun comforted me while I cried.  My body did not start the miscarriage process for about a week after. I didn’t know there was a “process”, from what I saw on to, you bled a little, cried a lot and then it was all over.

I decided to stay home that week from work and Jasun stayed home with me for quite a few days.  I filled my week with a mix of sadness and shopping for home décor: some side tables, a sideboard, coat rack, lots of things that could distract me from feeling these feelings 100% of the day. I’m sure if you ask Jasun I bought a lot more than just those three things.  

The next week I decided to go back to work.  I didn’t have much pain during the week after we found out, just some light bleeding, so I was feeling ready to occupy my days.  I went back to work and that’s when my body started kicking into gear. It took awhile but my body started going through the ‘labor’ process.    Things got very painful, very quickly.  I had contractions for most of that day at home, and kept thinking that this was bullshit.  I didn’t know having a miscarriage was painful, aren’t I going through enough emotionally? This is bullshit. I passed a lot of blood and tissue that day, and it continued on for a long time after that.

My miscarriage lasted for about three weeks from the point we found out.  Miscarrying makes you extremely fatigued with all the blood loss and emotions and what not.  A few weeks of consistent bleeding and we were getting worried.  I called my doctor and he wanted me to come in for a D&C. I really did not want to put my body through more trauma so I talked to the doctor about some symptoms I should look for that would mean my health was in danger.  About half of those applied to me at this point (extreme fatigue, loss of breath, severe cramps, abdominal pain, weakness, etc.) so he told me that if things don’t subside in 3 days that I needed to come in.

At this point I contacted a good friend of mine in the wellness industry and told him what was going on. He recommended some herbs and natural remedies to complete the miscarriage at home.  Jasun went to the store to do some shopping:

·         Raspberry Leaf tea.  You can also drink Traditional Medicine Women’s Moon Cycle tea. I drank about 3 cups of tea per day.

·         Cinnamon.  I don’t really care for the taste of cinnamon so Jasun picked up some cinnamon capsules. There are plenty of tasty cinnamon recipes that you may like, you can even just make cinnamon rolls or cinnamon bread, but we were not in the mood to cook, so I took 2 capsules, twice a day.

·         Herbs.  I took Blue and Black Cohosh.  Black Cohosh is used to disrupt pregnancy.  It is called a helper herb, helping to prepare the cervix to release the contents of the uterus.  It is often used in natural childbirth, but I found that it was exactly the extra help my body needed to release that additional tissue it was holding on to. Blue Cohosh is usually used in the last few weeks of pregnancy to give the uterus a final toning and to jump start birth, and can be used after birth to deliver a retained placenta and stop bleeding by helping the uterus clamp down.  

·         Homeopathy.  I read that Sepia is good for completing miscarriage by helping expel the tissue, but can also help expel the grief.  I read that it wouldn’t be good to take this if I was going to be out in public and didn’t want anyone to witness me losing my shit, but I didn’t really have much of an emotional release when using this.  It could have been due to the fatigue at this point. The pellets are tiny, like the top of a sewing pin, and I took 5 pellets, 3 times a day.  They tasted like sugar.

·         Prenatal Vitamins.  I never stopped taking these.  My body was losing so much blood I felt it was necessary, and could feel a difference when I forgot to take this, so I just continued on.  The iron was essential.

·         Massage.  I am in the massage industry so I was able to get relief that way.  When you are having cramps for weeks on end your stomach muscles become extremely sore, like you have been working out for days on end. Luckily I had a great massage therapist that knew what I was going through and was comfortable doing abdominal work for me.  I was also having a ton of lower back pain so he was able to help with that when I happened to have a few really bad contractions at work.

·         Steak.  Why the hell not.  It’s delicious.

 I am sure there are other things that you can do but these are the ones that I stuck to.  I did all of these things consistently for about 10 days total.  I started noticing a difference around day 3 which got me out of the clear for the D&C I was so unexcited to receive. Over the next ten days I continued to have cramps and a lot of bleeding, but I hadn’t had any tissue pass for a while, and that is what needed to happen in order for my cervix to close and complete the process.   I do believe all of these things helped release that little bit of extra tissue my body was holding on to, then the bleeding finally slowed down.

 I believe I was bleeding for about five weeks straight once my miscarriage was complete.  There were times that I thought I was just going to bleed out and die. I was so sick of looking at blood. I was so tired of feeling so fatigued. I felt like I was literally being forced to emotionally deal with my miscarriage for weeks on end with all of these constant reminders and I was ready for some closure.  Once the bleeding stopped my energy started to come back slowly.  I started going back to work, working 4 hour days, working my way up to 6, then 8.  My body did take some time to fully recover even after the bleeding stopped, but all is back to normal now.  

 I am so glad I was able to do everything naturally and on my own at home.  Having a miscarriage was absolutely awful and the fact that I was able to stay home and deal with it meant I was able to be present in the emotional part of it the entire time.  I couldn’t imagine going through something as horrific as that with anyone but Jasun. That man knows me so well, knows exactly what to say, where to be, what to do, without me even having to ask.  I know a lot of men have a hard time dealing with sadness, but Jasun was right there with me, crying along the way.  I hate to see him cry, but it made me feel so connected.  He is truly an amazing man and would do anything for his family.

 If you are reading this and going through a miscarriage, my heart goes out to you.  It is an awful process full of raw emotion and a lot of maxi pads.  I hope you find comfort in some of these words and I pray that you will heal quickly.  I do want you to know that all miscarriages are different for everyone so some of my symptoms might not be true for you, but hopefully we will both have our rainbow babies someday.

[auntiedonut]

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