I wasn’t given any handouts on miscarriage

In 2010, I was pregnant with my second child. The timing was just when my husband and I had planned and we were excited to complete our family. My morning sickness had just started. Being a conscientious employee, I scheduled my first OB appointment in the last slot of the day so I didn’t miss work. This was a new doctor to me. I used midwives for my first pregnancy, but because it ended in a c-section and I’d had complications, I thought I’d go with a doctor for the second. It was a very thorough appointment with a pelvic exam, a lot of tests, and an ultrasound. The baby measured 8 weeks exactly, which lined up perfectly with my LMP. I was given papers about what to do if I experienced several common symptoms and when to call the office. Several hours later that evening, I suddenly had chills and body aches. I went to bed, and in the morning, continued to feel poorly and my temp was 100.2. The handout said to take Tylenol, and I didn’t need to call the office unless my fever got above 101. Oddly, I had no respiratory or GI symptoms, just fever and aches. I spent the day in bed and felt much better the next day. The day I was sick, I learned my cousin, who lived in the same town, had been in an accident and was in the hospital. The next month our spare bedroom was full every weekend and some weekdays with out of town family staying with us when in town to visit our cousin. It was a whirlwind, and sadly, my cousin died after three weeks in the hospital. There had been no time to be excited about the pregnancy. Weirdly, my morning sickness stopped. I told my husband the day before my 12 week appointment that I didn’t feel pregnant. The morning of the appointment, I had light pink discharge. I remembered from my first pregnancy that when I had bright red spotting that was not concerning to the midwife, but she said pink discharge was concerning. I told myself good thing the appointment was at the end of the day. At the appointment, the doctor said to lie back and she’d do an ultrasound to listen for the heartbeat. As soon as I started lying back, it washed over me that there wouldn’t be a heartbeat. Sure enough, no heartbeat. The baby measured 8 weeks 1 day. The fever coincided with the miscarriage. To this day, I suspect I contracted something during the pelvic exam at 8 weeks; there had been a whole days worth of germs built up in the exam room. I told the doctor I’d had a death in the family and the memorial service was the next day. She told me it could be with the spotting that my body was taking care of the miscarriage naturally. She scheduled a d&c a week out, but explained if it happened naturally before then there was no reason to go to the ER. She said it would be better for my body and future pregnancies if I let it happen naturally at home. When I asked if it would hurt, she said like a bad period. There was no mention of mental health resources. She said she was sorry I was going through that at the same time as the death in the family. I wasn’t given any handouts on miscarriage. I went home to relatives waiting to get into our spare bedroom and hosted dinner for 8 people. I whispered the news to my husband, the only one of the bunch who knew I was pregnant. The next day, bleeding picked up while I attended the memorial. I cried a lot, and to this day, memorial services take me back to the miscarriage. We said goodbye to our guests and then that evening, the pain increased. It was way more than a bad period, and I only had over the counter pain relievers. I left a message on a nurse advice line asking if I could get something for the pain, but I didn’t get a call back right away. I was up all night in agony. It was the most pain of my life. Every contraction made both my uterus and head throb. My husband had to go to work in the morning because he’d taken off for the memorial and couldn’t take another day. Finally about 8 AM with one big push, everything came out intact. I had pictured bits and pieces of tissue coming out over time, but no, for me it was the entire amniotic sac at once. I couldn’t let myself scream because I didn’t want to scare my daughter. Shortly after completing the miscarriage, the nurse advice line called me back to say if I was in that much pain, I should go to the ER. I let the nurse know it was done. I called in sick to work, and about an hour later, got my daughter ready for preschool and drove her in. I had heavy bleeding that day and probably shouldn’t have been driving. Over the next few days, we told those we’d told about the baby—our parents and my best friend. My friend remembered that I’d gotten RhoGAM shots with my first pregnancy and informed me I needed that with a miscarriage as well. I called the nurse advice line back to confirm and they told me to come in as soon as possible for it. I think it was the end of the day on a Friday when I got in. I am grateful to my friend, because otherwise that would have been missed. Some days later I went in for an ultrasound that confirmed all the tissue was out. I am writing this in hopes it can be a helpful account. I’m not a policy maker or medical professional, but I don’t think there is any reason for a woman to experience the full physical pain of a miscarriage when the emotional pain is already so much. Any woman who opts for a natural miscarriage at home should be given pain medicine, but I think if women were fully informed, fewer would opt for a natural miscarriage. I still deal with the trauma of the miscarriage itself as well as the trauma of the poor medical care. Because I was 35, that same doctor and my husband pushed me into trying again just a few months later, and I conceived and carried that pregnancy to term. It was a difficult pregnancy. I feel blessed about having two healthy children, but also a bit bullied into trying before I felt ready. About a decade later, I was diagnosed with a Chiari malformation, which may explain some of the pain I felt during the miscarriage. It wasn’t known at the time of my pregnancies, and had it been known, I think some medical advice may have differed. I suspect my brain condition worsened during the miscarriage. Cognitively, I’ve never felt the same since.