Pregnancy Journey - Part 2

Continued from previous post.  Please go to the link below to read Part 1 of the story.

**Part 1**

Ricidulously quick recap: Trying for a long time to get pregnant, got pregnant finally when not expecting it, no-one knew we were trying or that I was pregnant.

We had to wait what seemed like an eternity for my first doctor's appointment.  They don't see you until you're about 8 weeks along.  I hadn't been having any morning sickness and it was too early to have gained a bunch of weight so it was really easy to keep hiding it.  Finally we went in at the end of August.  We sat down with the doctor, answered a bunch of questions, asked some questions of our own, and then it was time to go have an ultrasound to see how the baby was growing and to get an estimated due date.  Up until the point the picture came on the screen all three of us had been laughing and having a great time.  As soon as the picture flashed up, the doctor's demeanor changed immediately.  John said he didn't notice but it was totally obvious to me.  It turns out that while the baby was the correct size and we saw a little heartbeat flickering, it was beating very slowly.  The doctor said that it could be that maybe it was just early and it wouldn't be an issue, or it could be that the pregnancy wasn't healthy.  This is not what we were hoping to hear!!  She said we'd know for sure in two weeks so we made another appointment and had to wait to out. 

The waiting was hard.  Over that time though, I sort of came to terms with the fact that the pregnancy wasn't viable.  I just felt like it wasn't going to happen this time.  I was hopeful of course and trying to stay positive, but it just didn't feel the same.  When we went back for the second ultrasound we saw that the little "blob" that had been in my uterus had disappeared.  It sort of looked like wispy white clouds in there.  Both John and I took the news pretty well.  We were very disappointed of course, but having the two weeks to sort of prepare ourselves softened the blow.  At that point, since we knew the baby was gone, I was most interested in getting on with things so we could hurry up and start trying again.

The doctor said that I had three options:  (1) wait for the miscarriage to happen naturally, (2) have surgery to remove everything in there, or (3) take a medication to start having contractions to remove everything.  I decided I'd rather not have surgery, and waiting for things to just happen at some point in time wasn't ideal.  Taking pills and getting done on my own "terms" seemed like the best option.  The doctor explained how it worked and wrote me a prescription.  She also told me that this use of the medication was not FDA approved (although it's been used for many years and is safe) so some pharmacies give you a hard time when trying to fill it.  I was instructed to steer clear of CVS!  Already being a bit nervous about this whole process anyways, this bit of information did nothing to make me feel better.  Luckily RiteAid filled it for me with no problems.

I'm not going to go into the details of the actual miscarriage here, but it was crappy.  Luckily it wasn't as awful as I expected, but it hurt a lot and I was glad when it was over.  Two weeks after taking the pills we had to go back to the doctor so I could get one last ultrasound to ensure everything was clear.  If not, I'd have to have surgery.  Thank goodness we got the "all clear" from the doctor!  She told us to wait two cycles before trying again.  She said that was mostly for our mental health and not my physical health.  Being the good folks that we are, we followed doctor's orders and spent the rest of the fall focusing on the holidays and the other events you've read about here on our blog.  We were so glad we hadn't told anyone about the pregnancy!  It would have been awful to have to share the miscarriage with everyone at that point.

I have to say that my doctor was amazing through this whole process.  She was so supportive and took time to chat with us and answer all of our questions.  I knew I had liked her before, but this really showed me that I had found right doctor for us.  (John and I also like her because she's funny.  She's very quick on her feet and doesn't miss a beat.)

To be continued shortly ...