On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
I've been processing a lot of information the last couple of weeks. Spotting has been on and off since April 29 (the day after the first ultrasound). As of now, I'm still spotting and the color has changed from the tan-pinkish color to pink to red to dark brown to bright red and now red & dark brown.
I had a follow-up ultrasound on May 11. This was also a viability scan. The technician Kim was very nice and I had a much better ultrasound scan experience with her than the first scan with someone else. While Kim couldn't give any diagnosis, she made statements like "this is your right ovary" "here are the sacs" while performing the scan. She even lightened up my mood by saying things like "wow look at that bladder" "your bladder is huge!" "I'm surprised you can still hold it while being pregnant, good job!" It wasn't just pure silence for half an hour like my first scan appointment.
I didn't hear anything from anyone about the scan results on May 11. The same evening, however, I experienced bleeding. It was around 6pm. It wasn't just spotting. It was real bleeding. It was period-like. I had just walked down the stairs and was standing in the kitchen getting water, and felt a gush of warmth coming from down there. I went to the bathroom immediately and checked. I saw bright red liquid on my underwear. For a second my mind went blank. I wiped and there was more blood. I peed and there was no pain. I felt a slight cramp earlier that day but nothing so uncomfortable that I would call pain. No sharp pain, no stabbing pain, no severe cramps. I wiped again and again there was still more blood. My hands went cold and my heart was racing and I thought "I'm wiping my babies' blood." I could hear W's voice coming from upstairs as he laughed about something; he was still in a work meeting. I thought about calling him for help but all of his coworkers might hear me. I thought about walking to the room where he was at but I worried he might've had the webcam turned on and they could see my clothes and hands with blood. I thought about going to the ER but since there's no pain, plus the general philosophy with early pregnancy here is wait & see (some places prescribe progesterone but it's case by case and I was never offered with it), I knew the chances of being seen right away & receiving acute care were slim. A million thoughts ran through my head in just a few minutes while I was wiping in the bathroom.
What I did next was - I walked fast to another bathroom upstairs to switch from a liner pad to an actual pad that I normally used for period. I washed my hands and then went to the room W was in. He was still laughing about something and was still in a work meeting. Luckily, his webcam was off. The moment he saw my face, he knew something was off. He muted his laptop and asked, "what's wrong?" I said "blood, I'm bleeding" and somehow every possible negative emotion crashed in at once and I lost my voice. Tears rushed down. He unmuted his computer and told his boss he had to go and we walked out of the room. We hugged as I cried on his shoulder while standing in the hallway. Beibei and Duke stood in the hallway watching us as this was happening. I think they knew too and have been extra clingy from days before.
We called the ob office but it was closed already. I called the hotline but I kept getting transferred and redirected. By the time I spoke with someone, it was about 20 minutes after the gush happened. After describing about the gush and my ongoing spotting, the nurse on the hotline told me "I know it's hard to believe, but everything is likely to be fine." She said call back if "bleeding increases to the point where a maxi pad is saturated every 15 minutes for an hour." I asked her if I should go to a hospital. My voice was still cracking when I asked that. She said, "No, dear." She said the general recommendation for going to a hospital to seek care is when there is severe bleeding (saturating a maxi pad every 15 minutes for an hour), shoulder pain, severe cramps or pain, non-stop throw ups, and/or when feeling like about to faint. She also said of course if I'm ever worried about something, then go get checked out is perfectly fine. Since I experienced zero pain, the nurse suggested that I just monitor at home. So we didn't go to the hospital. I checked the pad every hour to monitor bleeding. Surprisingly, the bleeding had stopped before the 1-hour mark. I was nervous each time I had to use the bathroom that night. I still saw some red and dark brown when I wiped, but there was absolutely zero, not a drop of, blood on the pad.
Then the next morning, I woke up to a call from nurse Elizabeth. It was close to 8am when she called. She said she saw I reported bleeding last night and wanted to check-in and see how I was feeling. I really appreciate her kind words and positive attitude. She's also very proactive in helping me get the info I need or whenever I requested for something. She was aware that I had ultrasound scans but haven't heard anything yet, so she offered to make a same-day appointment with a doctor to discuss my ultrasound results. I said yes. We scheduled with Dr. Stanek for 9:30am (my preferred ob is also Dr. Stanek but is a different person). It was a virtual appointment. Dr. Stanek was 15 minutes late and a nurse from her office had called while we were waiting and informed us her last appointment was running late. Dr. Stanek seemed very nice. She was informative and a very good listener. She asked me to describe the spotting and bleeding I had. Reviewed my scans and blood test results. Then she told us straight up that it's 98% a miscarriage. She said she couldn't be 100% positive because technically scans needed to be 14 days apart and show little to no progression. My scans were 1 week and 6 days apart so she couldn't make that clinical diagnosis. Based on my last period, I should be in my 9th week of pregnancy. Based on my own ovulation tracking, I should be in my 8th week. However, the ultrasound scans showed the twins at around 5 weeks. They also grew only about 5 days of measurement within 13 days. My last blood draw showed my hcg was still increasing but even slower than before (from 7438 to 8431, 48 hours apart). Everything is pointing to miscarriage.
During the appointment, we also talked about possible options for moving forward. I have 3 choices. Option 1 is to wait for it to happen naturally. Option 2 is to take medicine to help speed up the process. Option 3 is to have a procedure, often called a d&c to surgically remove the sacs. For Option 3, I can choose to have local anesthesia or be put out; either way, I'll be able to eat and move around normally the next day. Dr. Stanek said options 1&2 sometimes result in some tissue still being left behind inside the uterus and could require a d&c to remove the remains. A natural miscarriage can take a long time to begin. It can begin tomorrow or next month. It's very unpredictable. While I'm afraid of all surgeries, my fear of going through a miscarriage at home is far greater than being put under on an operation bed. My biggest fear is for the miscarriage to happen at home and I can no longer step into our own bathroom because of the trauma. Since a natural miscarriage is unpredictable, it means it can happen when I'm in bed, on the couch, in the car, or just about anywhere at any time. I told the doctor I prefer to move forward with d&c. I also requested to have one more ultrasound appointment for confirmation before going with the d&c route. Dr. Stanek understood and said she rarely said no to any pregnant woman on having an ultrasound and completely understood the need for confirmation and closure. So that's what we are planning for.
As stated above, spotting has been non-stop and the color has gone from tan-ish to all shades of red. Here are some pictures. Eventually, I became numb upon seeing colored tissue. I stopped taking pictures of it. They became a lot heavier toward mid-May.
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| May 3 |
May 4
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| May 5 |
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| May 6 |
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| May 7 |
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| May 8 |
May 10
As of now, May 14, I'm still spotting. The color is mostly dark brown and the texture is slimy. The spotting has made me numb. I no longer stare at the color or wonder about the texture and try to make sense of the spotting. I rationalized the spotting as my body's way of doing what it's naturally prepped for. I haven't seen bright red blood like the gush on Wednesday. That gush of blood came without warning. Physically I felt absolutely no pain before, during, and afterward. Mentally, it was devastating. It still is devastating just to think about that day when the gush happened and typing it down here. I want all the pregnant women out there who are worried, who have experienced a loss, and anyone who is currently experiencing a miscarriage to know they're not alone. I'm still carrying the twins. I think. I don't know what next week will bring. Regardless of the results, I know I won't be the same ever again, but I know I have a great support system and a fantastic husband and 3 clingy furry babies to lean on so I'll be ok. I hope you will too.
💗CM
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