As of this coming Tuesday I have been technically pregnant for 12 weeks. With a healthy pregnancy, I would be coming to the end of the first trimester. It has been 4 weeks since our 8 week ultrasound where we found out our baby(ies) did not have a heartbeat. I have been praying and hoping that God would just induce this miscarriage on His own without help from any medication. Unfortunately it appears that I have a "missed miscarriage".
DEFINITION: 'missed miscarriage' is when the baby dies, but the woman's cervix stays closed, there is no bleeding and the baby continues to stay inside the uterus. Some people also refer to this as a 'silent miscarriage'. A missed miscarriage is not usually discovered until several days or weeks after the baby has died. The baby does not grow and the size of the woman's uterus does not increase. Some women will notice that their pregnancy signs (tender breasts, nausea, tiredness etc.) disappear, but others will continue to 'feel pregnant' if the placental tissue continues to release hormones into their system (including the hormone that makes a pregnancy test turn 'positive'). A few women will not experience as many early pregnancy discomforts (which can be normal) making their physical changes harder to detect. In many cases, the woman will believe that her pregnancy is progressing, as her body continues to carry the baby, not recognizing or reacting to the loss.
I have had no bleeding whatsoever and in my opinion some of my pregnancy symptoms continued and others diminished. The doctor has been seeing me once a week for the last 4 weeks to do a vaginal ultrasound (did I mention how sick of these I am getting) and has suggested to do a D&C or have me take Misoprostol, a drug used to help along a miscarriage. It is scary stuff too, because it is also used for women who want to have an abortion. It is suppose to soften the cervix and cause heavy bleeding to expel the contents of the uterus. Not to mention the long list of scary side effects – diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, cramping. My nurse told me that it would be extremely painful and cause me to cramp and expel the pregnancy. I was suppose to take it about a week ago and chickened out. Part of me was holding onto false hope that maybe this week I would finally see something different on the ultrasound. I didn't want to be too hasty and terminate a perfectly good pregnancy. My doctor is really good and felt the same way; that is why we have waited so long to move this missed miscarriage along.
At my last appointment this past Thursday, I had my beta redone and it has declined from 16,000 two weeks ago to 3,000 this past week. I have now fully accepted the fact that this pregnancy is over and I am ready to finally finish it and let the healing process – both physically and emotionally begin.
The choices are sad... It is really picking the lesser of 2 evils and I was so scared to pick one. The pills cost $4.40 and the D&C is going to be $2500 deductible. The risks with both are about equal. This was one of the hardest decisions of my life and for the first time I have not been handling it too well. I tend to withdraw when I am dealing emotionally. Also, I am mad! I am mad that I have to pick one. I wish God could have just taken care of this for me. And I am mad that we actually have money in cash to use on this surgery, yet I would rather spend it on a nice relaxing vacation instead of surgery. On the other hand, God once again has provided the money to take care of this problem too, like He always does.
4/26/12, THURSDAY NIGHT after my dr. appt that morning: I decided to go ahead and induce the miscarry by taking these vaginal suppositories instead of opting for the D&C surgery. I took the pills to speed it along b/c I can't take it anymore. The annoying thing about it is I took the darn pills and I haven't even messed up a pad in 3 days. I have only had light pink spotting when I wipe so it looks like I am going to have to have the surgery anyway. It will prob. be scheduled for this coming week. I have another appt. on Monday 4/30/12. At least it will be all over with in a few days and I can try to go back to normal.
I have been in an especially bad mood the last few days. I feel bad for John b/c he prob. has no idea what to do with me. I just want to be left alone. I was dealing with this well in the beginning and he was suffering and now that all the physical pain part is happening, I am the one to not deal as well both emotionally and physically.
Infertility sucks the life out of you. Trying on our own was frustrating when we kept on getting negative results. But the true frustrations began when trying through treatment began. We have been at treatment since Feb. 2011. So only a little over a yr. for us and I am ready to quit after every unsuccessful try. It's exhausting. I want to keep trying, but at times it is just too hard to do so. I change my mind almost every other day about it.
BIG SIGH....
The choices are sad... It is really picking the lesser of 2 evils and I was so scared to pick one. The pills cost $4.40 and the D&C is going to be $2500 deductible. The risks with both are about equal. This was one of the hardest decisions of my life and for the first time I have not been handling it too well. I tend to withdraw when I am dealing emotionally. Also, I am mad! I am mad that I have to pick one. I wish God could have just taken care of this for me. And I am mad that we actually have money in cash to use on this surgery, yet I would rather spend it on a nice relaxing vacation instead of surgery. On the other hand, God once again has provided the money to take care of this problem too, like He always does.
4/26/12, THURSDAY NIGHT after my dr. appt that morning: I decided to go ahead and induce the miscarry by taking these vaginal suppositories instead of opting for the D&C surgery. I took the pills to speed it along b/c I can't take it anymore. The annoying thing about it is I took the darn pills and I haven't even messed up a pad in 3 days. I have only had light pink spotting when I wipe so it looks like I am going to have to have the surgery anyway. It will prob. be scheduled for this coming week. I have another appt. on Monday 4/30/12. At least it will be all over with in a few days and I can try to go back to normal.
I have been in an especially bad mood the last few days. I feel bad for John b/c he prob. has no idea what to do with me. I just want to be left alone. I was dealing with this well in the beginning and he was suffering and now that all the physical pain part is happening, I am the one to not deal as well both emotionally and physically.
Infertility sucks the life out of you. Trying on our own was frustrating when we kept on getting negative results. But the true frustrations began when trying through treatment began. We have been at treatment since Feb. 2011. So only a little over a yr. for us and I am ready to quit after every unsuccessful try. It's exhausting. I want to keep trying, but at times it is just too hard to do so. I change my mind almost every other day about it.
BIG SIGH....
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