TRIGGER WARNING:Miscarriage Details. Empty Womb

Remember how in my last post I mentioned I wasn’t sure if the baby or placenta had made their appearance yet…

Well they hadn’t!!

Saturday, July 23rd (my little sister’s birthday to be exact and coincidentally the due date of our first baby) my baby made her (I say her from pure feeling not evidence) appearance.

Sitting on my bathroom toilet I felt a huge mass of tissue pass, immediately looked down and my heart dropped because I just knew.

So I used the wand to retrieve the mass.

I needed to know for sure what it was.

I needed to see if it was my baby with my own eyes.

I rinsed it off and examined it with awe. This mass of light colored tissue appeared to be my baby. Before it began to disintegrate in my hands I swear I could recognize a small hand with tiny little fingers resting on my own.

I wrapped her up and put her in the fridge for the night.

On July 24th, 2022 just before dark, my husband and I buried our daughter under the tall trees at the top of the hill behind our house.

Mild cramping followed the next few days with small amounts of tissue. I thought it was all coming to an end.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Wednesday July 27th around 11am I began cramping. The cramping became more intense as the night went on. I soon realized this wasn’t normal cramping, this was full blown labor contractions. I timed them as they became more intense and more frequent.

By midnight I was experiencing severely intense contractions 60-90 seconds in duration every 1-3 minutes. Between flopping around on my bed, lying on the floor of my shower with scalding water reaching my back, my husband pushing on my hips and a 2 hour phone call with my mom I made it to 2:30am. The contractions began to slow down (30 seconds in duration, 5-10 mins apart) and I collapsed into my pillow to get some sleep.

Waking up Thursday morning sore but not in too much pain I planned my day for teletherapy early intervention and take babe to James grandparents. By the time I made it home from their house only 10 mins away the contractions had started up again. Within 30 minutes the contractions were back to being so intense I couldn’t stand. We made the decision to head to the hospital. I was afraid of the unknown again.

Is everything out of my uterus?

Am I experiencing an infection?

Am I losing too much blood?

The ride to the hospital was a nightmare. Intense contractions 1-2 mins apart the entire 40 minute trip.

I sat in the ER waiting area for 25 minutes before someone was available to take me back.

Once in the emergency department I was given an IV, many vials of blood were collected, Zofran and Morphine were given to alleviate the nausea and pain. The morphine wasn’t even enough. I felt like “that person” requesting more but my pain had only gone from a 10 to a 6 with the first dose and I knew I’d be spending a while there as we were waiting for the bloodwork and an ultrasound. I would not have been able to sit through the ultrasound with the way my body contorted with each contraction.

The second round of morphine did the trick. I could relax enough to close my eyes for a little while as my body was sooo exhausted. My bloodwork came back okay and I was being wheeled off to the ultrasound room.

The trip to ultrasound I could feel pressure as contractions still continued. They asked me to use the restroom before starting so off to the bathroom I went. While sitting on yet another toilet I felt a huge mass start to pass so I reached down and caught it.

It was my placenta!!

A big, palm sized, grey in color placenta.

This wildly beautiful organ was in my hand… 30 seconds before completing the ultrasound to tell me if it was still in there!

Not sure of what to do, I wrap it in paper towels, wash my hands and exit the bathroom.

I am pretty sure I mortified the ultrasound staff as I told them I was holding my wrapped up placenta because no one was going to believe me.

They had me place it in the hazard trashcan and continue on with my ultrasound. Back in the ER room I tell the PA and nurse what happened and the PA went to ultrasound to dig my placenta out of the trash!!!! I’m sure it’ll be a hell of a story for everyone involved today. She collected the placenta for pathology after letting me take a photo of it saying “well it is yours” when I asked.

I had a pelvic exam completed, tissue sent off to path and a urine sample collected before being released from the hospital around 4:30pm.

I have follow up HCG bloodwork in 2 days and meet with the OB next week for a simple follow up.

But with the exception of a few doses of morphine by body took care of my miscarriage by itself, birthing a small little babe and a giant placenta at 20 weeks gestation.

No infection is present, my uterus is now empty yet again and the time for healing is officially upon me.

Here is to healing with an empty womb

and maybe someday getting my rainbow baby..