Timeline of a Miscarriage

**Please don't copy any of this post. You can send readers to this link:

http://yayastuff.blogspot.com/2008/09/timeline-of-miscarriage.html

Thank you -Alicia**

I realize there are many misconceptions of miscarriage. It's one of those things that is unfortunately not understood unless you personally experience it. I've decided to timeline a miscarriage to help others understand what truly happens. This is not for the weak of heart. If you wanna read it, great, if not, no hard feelings.

1) (In some cases) months go by while trying to conceive. You spend each cycle counting days and charting ovulation for the hopes that you will successfully conceive. You get your hopes up toward the end of each month when you start having PMS symptoms that you are in fact pregnant and those must be pregnancy symptoms. You take pregnancy tests way too early to show up because you hope you are pregnant.  You then get your period and your hopes are crushed...you are once again, not pregnant.

2) One lucky month you finally are pregnant! You're elated! You're ecstatic! Finally! You and your husband are overjoyed!

 

3) You begin to create hopes and dreams for your baby that is growing inside of you. You start to think of potential names. You start to plan the nursery, or even have it painted. You have lists and lists of things that need to get done for the baby's arrival. You and your husband are bonding like you never have before.

4) You have your blood drawn several times during the first few weeks of pregnancy. They are testing your hormone levels to make sure they are rising appropriately. They are!

5) (In my case) You go to the first ultrasound appointment. There's the baby! There's the heartbeat! It's in the uterus (one of our obstacles because of my endo is that it will be a tubal pregnancy). But no, it's all good and it's all healthy! It's the cutest little heartbeat we've ever seen and heard. We have hopes, more hopes than we ever thought possible. We're on cloud nine.

6) You tell everyone you come across that you're pregnant. you can't contain it because you're so full of excitement.

7) (Some people experience cramping/spotting, many people experience no symptoms) You go to a follow-up ultrasound and *BAM*-you feel like you've been slapped in the face. The ultrasound technician can't find the heartbeat. She tells you the baby didn't make it. You don't understand. You can't fathom why she's lying to you. You're confused and frustrated. It doesn't make sense. There was just a heartbeat, where did it go? And, you still feel pregnant. You keep thinking you'll suddenly wake up from this nightmare. All those hopes and dreams you had for your baby are shattered with the blink of an eye.

8) You're devastated. You're mad at the world. Life's not fair. Life sucks. The world sucks. You turn into a hermit because you feel alone. No one understands. You are hating yourself, your body for failing you. You're an emotional wreck. You are hating all pregnant women in the world. You are hating all moms in the world. You don't understand why they are blessed to be pregnant and/or a mother and you're not. Life isn't fair that you had to be the one to have a miscarriage. Why couldn't it have been that person, or that other person, why did it have to be you? And that person is drinking while pregnant, why do they get their baby? And that girl is only 17, why does she deserve her baby more than me? And that person's on welfare, why did I lose my baby and she still has hers? Why me?

9) This is the kicker: I don't know what people think happens for the actual miscarriage, so here it is. You're hit with three options: surgery to remove it, medicine to induce the actual passing of the baby, or the natural method where you can wait weeks to pass the baby on your own.

10) Say you pick one of the latter two options. You bleed for weeks. Not normal bleeding, but a constant cramping bleeding, where you soak a huge pad every hour. You are taking double doses of motrin around the clock but it does nothing to dull the pain. You have to stick close to home because you don't know when the moment will be when the baby comes. You have to have someone home with you to witness this shamefulness because there is the possibility of bleeding too much and you have to go to the ER. You take a shower, blood is pouring out of you the whole time so you don't even feel clean. You're bleeding so much you ruin several pairs of pants and blankets. You need to eat to keep up your strength, but you're just not hungry. There seems to be no purpose in eating anymore now that there isn't a baby growing in you. Every time you pass a clot (which is often) you have to physically inspect it with your fingers to see if the baby is in it so that you can save the baby in a tupperware to put in the fridge to take to the Dr to get it genetic tested so that you can have some answers to why this happened.

11) You begin to have the most massive cramping in the world. Blood is literally gushing out of you. I've been told it's worse than actual labor. You have actual contractions to pass the baby. Your body is telling you to contract while your mind doesn't want to. You're doubled over in pain. Hot flashes. Cold flashes. Shaking. You pass the baby. The cramping and bleeding (which the Dr tells you will stop after the passing) continues for a good one to two more weeks while you continue to shed the lining that had been built up for the baby. Your body is completely weak from all of this for a good one to two more weeks. A type of weakness that is unexplainable. Your entire body feels like it's been hit by a truck.

12) You have to tell people who were so happy for you to be pregnant that you are now not pregnant. People are easy to celebrate happiness with you, but often don't know how to share in sorrow. All you want is for people to simply say, "I'm so sorry. I'm here for you if you need me, and I'll be here for you when you're ready", or my mom said a beautiful line, "I'm so sad for you." But instead people offer platitudes, trying to fix things: "It's God's way" (This one kills me-really, I did something so awful in God's eyes that I don't deserve a baby?) "It wasn't meant to be" "You can try again" (really? Did you think I just didn't want that baby I just lost??) "It'll happen when it's meant to happen" "Everything happens for a reason". OR, the rare few people actually make you feel bad about your own miscarriage. They aren't used to not being able to fix things, or not being the center of attention, so they make your miscarriage about them. They tell you they are 'so hurt' that you didn't want to confide in them in your time of need. They tell you that they are hurting over this loss too and that no one is thinking of their feelings here. You are irate. For once in your life you put yourself first and others fault you for it. You have to weed out the negative people in your life, and quickly, because at this point in life you just cannot have any of that. There's too much on your mind to deal with selfish people anymore. You suddenly reevaluate who you associate with. This isn't about you, it's about me.

13) Your body still thinks it's pregnant. It's still full of hormones. Your boobs still hurt like they did when you were pregnant. You're confused. Are you still pregnant? Wait, no, that's not possible. Then why does my body think it's still pregnant? Maybe the ultrasound was wrong. Maybe I am still pregnant. Your mind is playing tricks on you now because you're so drained emotionally, mentally, physically. You're undernourished and probably anemic from the massive amounts of blood loss. You go to put your hand on your belly like you did when the baby was growing and you remember all over again that you are no longer pregnant even though you should be. Oh, and did I mention that all the things you had bought for the baby are now just sitting there?

14) Your belly that was growing beautifully for the sake of the baby has instantly turned into fat. Fat sits where your baby should be growing. You can't get rid of the fat because you can't exercise because you are too worn out from the effects of the miscarriage. 

15) You get your period. But you're not supposed to have your period because you're supposed to be pregnant.

16) You are slowly coping. Some friends/family tell you that you need to just "Move on with life" already. They tell you to stop being a hermit, stop being depressed, and to just deal with it. Or they say the dreaded line, "a miscarriage is just a miscarriage, it's not a big deal." This pushes you further into your hermit shell, into your cave, into the hole you've been digging for yourself; not wanting to talk to anyone because they just don't understand. It's not a big deal? When a miscarriage happens, life stops. You then rebuild your life day by day, but you're never the same. You wake up each day wondering what emotional state you'll be in that day.

17) You get baby shower invitations, birth announcements, pictures of your friend's baby or belly-bumb and your heart aches. You cry. Oh, the crying is constant. From the moment you find out about your baby not making it, for weeks and months. Everyday crying. One day you're fine, the next you walk into a store and see a pregnant woman and have to leave because you're suddenly crying. 

18) You feel empty. You feel like your purpose in life has been taken from you. A week ago you held so much purpose. Everything you ate was for the baby. Every thought you had was about the baby. And now it's gone and you feel alone.

19) Your marriage is on shaky grounds. You are both trying to grieve, but not sure how. You end up continually snapping at each other out of depression and sadness and not knowing how to cope. You are both so sad over this and you should be banding together, but instead it is easier to push each other away. Your husband was pampering you because you were pregnant last week and suddenly now that you're not pregnant all the pampering is taken away.

20) You begin to slowly regain "normal" life which will never ever again be the "normal" that it was before the miscarriage. You will always have a cynical side to you now that you never had. You look at life differently; it's not all rainbows and sunshine; it's bitter. 

21) Weeks/months go by. You're feeling pretty good. Not a day goes by that you don't think of your baby, but you do have days where you can actually be happy again.

22) *BAM* You go to a party/BBQ/event and there's pregnant women everywhere. You realize you SHOULD be pregnant, but you're not. You try to guess how far along they are in their pregnancies, and then you size up how big your own belly should be at that time in your pregnancy. People tell you you're looking so good (meaning you've lost weight) and you think in your head, but I'm not supposed to have lost weight, I was supposed to have gained weight because I'm still supposed to be pregnant.

23) You're doing okay again.

24) *BAM* You get the medical bills in the mail from your miscarriage. Don't even get me started on doctor's visits following a miscarriage. They're the worst. Sitting in a room full of pregnant women while you're waiting to be seen to make sure the entire lining was shed so that you don't have an infection from the miscarriage that would mean you would have to have surgery. And have you ever noticed every single magazine in that waiting room is about pregnancy or parenting? And then you go back with the nurse and she stupidly asks you the routine question of when was your last period and you have to explain that you had a miscarriage. And then you stand in line to pay your copay and you happen to be behind a pregnant women gushing about her pregnancy.

25) *BAM* Friends/family seem to be getting pregnant left and right. You can't bring yourself to attend their baby showers. Or if you do attend you leave early and cry the whole way home.

26) *BAM* "Mother's Day" comes. You remember you are still not a mother. Or *BAM* your birthday comes and you realize another year is gone and you still don't have a baby.

27) You're doing okay again.

28) You go to places and see the "Mommy cult". You know-that group of moms always doting over their children. You are jealous, you wish you could be part of the club, but as hard as you try you just can't get in, while other people seem to be able to attain membership with the snap of their fingers, and you're still trying, still hoping, still waiting to be inducted.

29) *BAM* the baby's estimated due date comes and you're hit with the sadness over the loss of your baby that should have been all over again.

It's ongoing, never-ending. You will always mourn your baby and others will never understand.