The physical aspect • surgeries, complications and more

Most of the posts here will probably be centered around feelings. I mean, let’s be for real. Miscarriage and loss in general is a huge emotional ordeal. There’s so much involved in this-the emotional upheaval, yes, but I don’t think the physical aspect is discussed enough. This post is being written more on the physical toll it takes on your body. When I was going through it, I remember googling what was normal and what wasn’t. I’m someone with a medically inclined mind, so it helped me heal to understand the process of what was happening. Now, every single story will be different because this experience is so unique….but this is mine. This is rather long but I’d rather just get all the surgical stuff out of the way in one post, so y’all bear with me. 

I had a second trimester loss. Second trimester loss is considered “rare” as the chances of loss drop pretty significantly after 12 weeks, most sources citing less than 10%. Some sources even suggest an occurrence rate as low as 3-5%. There is differentiation between terminology depending when pregnancy loss occurs. Since my loss was just prior to 20 weeks it is classified as a miscarriage rather than stillbirth. In my particular case, it was a completely Missed Miscarriage. Meaning, my body showed no signs or symptoms like you’d imagine a traditional miscarriage. No cramping. No bleeding. Pregnancy symptoms were still present. There was not a single thing amiss. Until the heartbeat wasn’t detectable on ultrasound. I’m told the occurrence rate of a missed miscarriage that far along is a rather low number but it can happen. It happened to me. I don’t say all that to scare anyone. But to just share my personal experience. I always felt this sense of comfort in making it past that first 12 weeks and with every passing week felt reassured and thought “if something was wrong, I’d know.” Friends, unfortunately that isn’t always the case. 

Because of the fact that I had a missed miscarriage and my body wasn’t realizing I wasn’t pregnant anymore, I had to undergo surgery. The initial surgery (D&E) was more emotionally painful than anything. I remember waking up sore and uncomfortable but more devastated that I knew my baby was really gone now. It made it so real. I remember being heavily drugged in recovery and weeping uncontrollably holding my stomach. Thank God for caring staff at the hospital who made this horrid time bearable. I experienced quite a bit of cramping afterwards. Honestly, it felt like I had been punched in the stomach multiple times. Just an internal soreness. But then the pain started getting worse and it felt so intense like spasms. I tried going back to work and made it through the day and collapsed in tears. I knew something was wrong. 

I went back to the doctor for Ultrasound and discovered that apparently my cervix closed back off immediately after surgery and led to complications including a large blood clot in the uterus and a bladder infection. This also put me at risk for uterine infection and after taking Methergine (helps you contract to pass the clots) and it being unsuccessful, I had to be taken back to surgery for a (D&C) about a week and half after the first. This surgery was much the same except I believe I recovered a little easier. Again, no bleeding afterwards. Just soreness and crampy pain that never seemed to go away. I wrote the following excerpt in my journal during that time. 

I probably won’t ever know for sure what went wrong. Dr. B seems to think it was a placental issue since there weren’t signs of chromosomal abnormalities or other obvious reasons for fetal death. This makes sense I suppose since if the placenta wasn’t implanted correctly, it wasn’t able to get blood flow to keep up with the growth of the baby. So baby stopped growing and died. Thanks placenta. 😞

I also discovered my cervix is abnormal. It closes off like immediately so after the procedures I had so much pain and lower abdomen and pelvic pressure it was unbearable. That landed me back in surgery. 

I mean, 1 in 4 chance of miscarriage. Ok. Like 1 in 1000 chance of miscarriage after 14 weeks AND a completely missed miscarriage…I don’t even know the stats on that but my luck is awful. My body is a traitor and I don’t think I’ll ever trust it again. My back still feels like back labor. Why does it hurt so bad? Is this normal? What is normal anymore? 

This point of pain is basically where I stayed for months. I honestly just learned to live with the discomfort. I kept waiting for periods to return. They never did. I tried rounds of hormones to stimulate a period. It didn’t work. Finally, 6 months to the day after the first surgery, I went into surgery for a third time to find the cause of the constant pain and lack of periods. My doctor is a rockstar and somehow managed to not have to cut me open, but did a hysteroscopy instead. I’m fuzzy on the details but from what I understand, he encountered so much scar tissue my uterus was inaccessible. It was surrounding my tubes and cervix. I’m told this is Asherman’s Syndrome. http://www.ashermans.org/home/

Guys, this is a rare thing but it’s REAL. And it hurts. This surgery was very carefully done and took longer and ultimately he had to clear my uterus of as many adhesions as possible. He had to apply estrogen intrauterine to heal the walls of the uterus but also put an inflated balloon in to hold my cervix open to promote proper healing.  He told my husband he got most of them and I should be able to get pregnant again eventually. Maybe. When I say it was painful…there aren’t words to express how painful. I remember waking up in recovery crying and begging for pain medicine and Morphine not touching it. I’ve never felt pain like that before. It required an overnight stay at the hospital and I writhed in pain for a majority of the day after surgery. I finally got a little relief with some Toradol and a sweet nurse that gave me baby heel warmers to make a makeshift heating pad on my belly. I did get to go home the next day but kept that lovely balloon catheter in my cervix for a week. That is not fun at all. But it was rather successful, and seems to have gotten my body back on track….for the most part. But that’s another post, for another time. 

For anyone out there wondering if what you’re experiencing is normal, talk to your doctor. Get it checked. Don’t let it keep going and going like I did. But also, understand that this can be a long process. It’s not always a quick procedure and it’s over. If anyone has any more in depth questions, feel free to message me! My Facebook page is www.facebook.com/wherefearmeetsfaith