Broken

Baby G was never growing hands and feet or developing a brain or any of the things I wrote about in my 7w post, because on Sunday (7w3d, or 7w5d by LMP) when I went for my 2nd ultrasound, we received the horrible news that Baby G had no heartbeat. In the end, that slight brown spotting from last week was an ominous foreshadowing of what lay ahead. My cervix was still closed, my uterus measured 7w0d, and there was no active bleeding, so my body was essentially staying pregnant even though the pregnancy wasn't viable. This meant we had to make the horrible decision of how to complete the miscarriage.

The two choices were either a D&C or Cytotec. With the Cytotec, they place the medication in the cervix and contractions are induced. Since the process can take days to be complete and can be extremely painful and since there is only an 80% chance of "success", I decided I wanted the D&C, which would be over quickly and give definite closure.

Unfortunately, there was a 12 day wait for a D&C and I didn't want to remain pregnant carrying around a non-viable pregnancy for that long. That is how we came to choose the Cytotec. I was admitted to the hospital yesterday morning and had the drug administered. Just before the doctor put the Cytotec in, I saw 2 little drops of blood. I know this sounds silly, but seeing those two drops made me feel much more at peace, like my body was perhaps beginning to realize that this was not a viable pregnancy.

I felt nothing but mild menstrual cramps for about 3 hours. Then the cramps steadily worsened until they became full-on contractions with 5-10 second breaks in between. The pain was absolutely excruciating -- well beyond anything I had ever experienced before. I was in a room with 3 other women (two of whom were pregnant), and at first I felt really self-conscious about my moaning. Later on, this gave way to full-out screaming and wailing, which I had really no self-control over. I just remember screaming "Oh my G-d" over and over again. Y held me and rubbed my back and squeezed my hands. He was so brave for me. He was and is my rock.

The doctors and nurses kept referring to "performing my abortion" and "you're now in the middle of the abortion" etc., which really upset me. I know it is the medically correct term, but since they also perform elective abortions in the department, I really wondered how many of them looked at my chart and history closely enough to know that I was an infertile who lost her baby, not someone trying to undo a bad choice. It also upset me to think that the other women with whom I was sharing a room may have thought I was having an elective abortion if they overheard the doctors and nurses talking to Y and me.

Eventually, the worst of the pain subsided and I waited to bleed. It took a while for the bleeding to start, though it did pick up around 12am. By morning, I was still too nauseous to eat or drink so I got IV fluids and IV Zofran, which made me feel a whole lot better. They sent me for an ultrasound, which showed that the miscarriage was still in process. However, the gestational sac was no longer intact and we were told that the Cytotec was likely a success. Finally, I was discharged around noon.

Now we wait and go back for an ultrasound and a follow-up appointment in 2 weeks and we hope that I won't need a D&C. The doctor said that we can return to fertility treatments after I have one normal menstrual period. Hopefully, this will happen by the start of the new year. Speaking of the new year, it upsets me to think that we were 25 and 33 when we started TTC. In January, we turn 27 and 35, and still no baby or even viable pregnancy to our name. I have faith that some day we will have our healthy, take-home baby, I just spend a lot of time questioning how much pain and suffering it will take us to get there.