The Day I Was Told I Miscarried

It's taken me a while to write this post, because it was a crummy experience. But this is the last of the "what happened before I started blogging" posts, so I might as well just get it over with.

Recap: I took a home pregnancy test on Tuesday, July 21st and it was positive. I went to the doctor on Wednesday, July 22nd and she confirmed my pregnancy.

Thursday morning (July 23rd) around 9:00 am, I went to the bathroom at work. There was bright red blood. I freaked out. I called Husband, who works at the same company that I do, told him there was a problem and to meet me in our car. I ran to the car and tried to call my doctor on my cell phone, but no one was answering. Husband met me in the car where I told him what was happening. By that time I was crying, so he called the emergency clinic that is part of our insurance company. The lady on the phone said "Well, I have a 2:00 opening... or you can go to the emergency room." I realize now that it would have been better just to wait for the 2:00 appointment. Or to wait and get in touch with my regular doctor. But I didn't know what to do at the time and I thought that what was happening was surely an emergency.

One thing that people kept asking as we were making phone calls and getting checked in to the emergency room was, "How much blood was there? A lot?" To me, any amount at that time seemed like a lot. Nobody asked me, "Was it heavier than a period?" or "Were there cramps?" or any of the other questions that would have indicated a real problem. They just asked me "was it a lot?" and I had no way of knowing what that meant.

Husband took me to the emergency room. They checked me in and had me pee into a cup. I called my doctor again and asked for the results of the quantitative blood test that I had taken the day before. My hormone level was at 82. Basically, this means that I was definitely pregnant, but VERY early in my pregnancy. I told them in the emergency room that I had just found out the day before that I was pregnant. I called my doctor and asked for that number because I figured that they would give me another blood test at the emergency room, to see if my hormone levels were going up or down.

Eventually they gave me a little room in the emergency room. People trooped in and out, not providing me much information and all of them giving me sad puppy eyes, like they were very sorry for me. Eventually a nurse came in a told me that they would be taking blood. "Can you use the butterfly needle thing on me? I bruise really easily and sometimes that helps," I said. (I don't know if it really helps or not, but I honestly believe that once I've said that and requested a special needle, they at least pay more attention to how they stick me.) "Oh, we're going to give you an IV," the nurse said. "Why? What will be in it?" I asked. "Oh, well when women have miscarriages they usually loose a lot of blood. It's to keep you hydrated." "But we don't know if I've had one yet." "It's just a precaution. It can't hurt." I refused the IV. The nurse looked annoyed and wrote very hard on my paperwork that I would not have an IV. A different nurse came in a took my blood.

After a little while the first nurse came back. "Well, your pregnancy test was negative." "From the blood?" I asked. "From the urine sample." "What does that mean? I'm not pregnant anymore? I had a miscarriage?" "Yes. I'm sorry." I cried and cried. Too sad to talk about it, Husband and I texted our families the news. Mine said something like: At the emergency room. Miscarriage. So long little guy. :(

The nurse told me that they were diagnosing the situation as a "complete miscarriage," meaning that the baby is gone and they do not have to do a "dilation and curettage" where they scrape your insides out to make sure that no baby parts are left behind. (If they had done the "d&c" they would have aborted my healthy baby!)

One of the nice male orderlies went to another building and got me a bereavement package. They sent me home from the emergency room.

Husband and I were so sad.

On the way home, I said to Husband, "Its not that I don't trust them. But I've taken a couple of pregnancy tests at home and seen the positive result with my own eyes. I think it would be closure for me to take another test and see the negative result with my own eyes. Can we stop and get another test?" Husband understood and stopped and got a digital pregnancy test. We figured that the test at the hospital must be very fancy and so we should get a fancy test, too.

When we got home I took the test. It said "pregnant."

I was upset. This was not the closure that I was hoping for. Husband called the emergency room nurse. First she implied that we did the test wrong. Husband explained that we took a digital one and that you can't read it too soon or too late. It just tells you the result. Then the nurse said that my hormone levels might be right on the borderline of what would read pregnant or not pregnant. She said that the levels will keep going down and within a day or two a pregnancy test will read negative for sure. Husband asked if they could just check the hormone levels in the blood that they took so we could compare them to the hormone levels the day before. The nurse said the blood was not put into the "correct color vial" and so they could not check my hormone levels with that blood sample. She said I could come back to the ER and have more blood drawn, if I wanted, and they could check my levels then. I declined. I was not about to go back there.

I went out and bought the cheapest, crappiest, least sensitive tests I could find. I figured that the less sensitive ones would show negative sooner. I took another pregnancy test that night, right before bed and after drinking a lot of water (so as to dilute my urine). It still said positive. Husband and I agreed that if my tests were still positive by Monday morning, I would go to my doctor. I went to bed very confused.

The next morning I got up and took another pregnancy test. Instead of having to wait 3 minutes for a faint line to appear, a bright pink line showed up almost instantly. I woke Husband up. "I think I might still be pregnant. Or something weird is going on. It was positive right away. I think I should go to the doctor. I can't wait until Monday." We were very hopeful.

I called my doctor's office, told a nurse what had happened, and asked if she could give me the paperwork I need to go get my blood drawn again and have my hormone levels checked. She said she could. I raced to my doctors office. When I got there, there were only two nurses on duty. "Why don't you go ahead and give us a urine sample, before we send you down there?" one of the nurses said. "Okay, but I've already had, like, 3 glasses of water this morning. I don't know if my urine will be too diluted." "We'll try it anyway," she said.

I gave them the urine sample and since no one else was in the office, the nurses invited me back to watch the test with them. They dropped the urine on the test strip and it instantly turned positive. "Girl! You go get that bloodwork done right away. You're pregnant. I'm so sorry that happened to you at the ER. You were probably just having break-through bleeding." They gave me the paperwork for my blood test and I went straight to the lab.

All day long, my family kept calling and texting me, asking if I was okay. I kept telling them that I was fine, and they didn't believe me. "Its okay to be sad, you know." I was pretty sure that I was still pregnant, but until I had absolute confirmation, I didn't want to let them know that anything was going on. They had already been told one day that I was pregnant, then the next day that I was not. I didn't want to keep going back and forth with the pregnancy news. One of my sisters said afterward, "I thought you were in some kind of total denial. You sounded so normal on the phone. I told Mom and Dad that something was wrong with you."

The results came back later that day, and my hormone levels were up to 134. "You are still pregnant. Everything is fine," the nurse told me over the phone.

Husband and I were so happy! We got to call everyone again and tell them for the second time that I'm pregnant.