A Chemical Pregnancy?

I'm so glad I switched doctors. I don't think my old OB/GYN would have cared to figure out why I miscarried.  In fact, last fall I got a positive home pregnancy test (HPT), but it was a Dollar Store cheapie, the kind with the two lines that make the plus sign... When I took it, the 2nd line was really faint - but my period was 3 days late and my boobs had gotten huge overnight and I was an emotional wreck - none of which are typical period symptoms for me. A couple of days later, I took a digital test and it said NOT PREGNANT. I was so confused. I just knew I was and now it said I wasn't. I looked on the Internet and thought maybe I'd had what's called a "chemical pregnancy" where the fertilized egg never latches on to the uterine wall and just flushes out so it appears to just be a late, heavy period.

I called my old Dr's office and the nurse told me she just thought my period was late and it was no big deal.  I cried on the phone with her.  I never cry.  Ever.  I told her that maybe I wasn't and that was fine, but something was wrong with me, that it wasn't normal for me to act or my body to act this way.  She said fine, come in for a HCG test.  That's all she checked - nothing else - who cares if my hormones are out of whack I guess.  When she called with the results, she actually said, "I was right, you're not pregnant."  I was floored.  I demanded to know the number and she said my HCG was 2. It was interesting to me that it wasn't 0. But any number under 5 is considered not pregnant.  Yet still, why was it 2?

When I changed doctors, the new doctor (based on what I just said) agreed with me and said that I probably had had a chemical pregnancy.  So now when she talks to me, she refers to my miscarriage as my 2nd miscarriage, which is really weird to hear.

Diary of a Miscarriage

It was my first real pregnancy. (We had a chemical pregnancy previously.)  I didn't know what to expect. I was supposed to start my period on Saturday, but starting the Thursday before, I started having lots of cramps and extremely sore nipples to the point if rolled over on them in my sleep it would wake me up. When I didnt start on Saturday, I took a hpt on Sunday and it said PREGNANT. I was floored. I kept thinking that NOT would pop up in front of the word PREGNANT eventually, but it didnt.


I didnt have any nausea, but they say not everyone does. I just had the sore nipples, fever blisters, and diarrhea. Kinda made me wish for nausea instead. By Tuesday, I could feel a tight ridge down low just above my pubic bone. It was so fun reading everything about the baby's development. I had so much to learn, too. No hot dogs, no deli meat, no coffee, the lists of things you can't do or eat is overwhelming. When I called the Dr's office as a new patient (hated my old OB/GYN and wanted a change), the nurse asked me lots of questions.


She worried my Progesterone was low because I have irregular and early periods - even when I was on BC. She told me to come in for blood work and she was right, my Progesterone was 17 and the Dr. wanted it to be 20. I started Prometrium orally that night. My HCG was 120. We didnt tell everyone we were pregnant - just our closest friends and our parents and siblings. I'm thankful for that.  I had lots of cramps, but no bleeding for several days. Being my first pregnancy, I didn't know what was normal.


Everyone talked about being tired, and I was once or twice, but not all the time or every day. If it weren't for my boobs feeling heavy and sore and the cramps with no period, I wouldnt have known I was pregnant. Around the 5 week mark though, my boobs stopped being so sore. They were still not normal, but they weren't as sore. And that little hard ridge I could feel? I couldnt feel it any longer. I just knew that something wasn't right. That was Saturday. I had my second blood test to check my Progesterone on Tuesday. Monday night, I went to the bathroom and just like I had 500 other times since I took that pregnancy test, I wiped and looked at the toilet paper just to be sure nothing was there - only this time, something was. It was pinkish brown. It wasnt much, but it was something. I freaked out.


By the next morning, every time I wiped there were brown specs on the toilet paper. Never red, just dark brown. I never had cramps. My back never hurt. I read all the miscarriage symptoms over and over, but I only had minimal brown spotting. I went for my blood work and when the nurse called, it confirmed what I already knew deep down. It was 6 days later and my HCG was only 212. She said the spotting and the low HCG were consistent with signs of a miscarriage. I stayed home from work that day and cried, sobbed...my husband came home and stayed with me. It was awful. I never expected it to be so gut wrenching. I cried for 2 days straight.


I spotted the brown stuff when I wiped (it was never to the point of needing a pad or tampon) from Monday night until Friday afternoon. On Thursday night, I started having this horrible pressure down low - right above my pelvic bone. When I walked around or bent over, it felt like something was going to fall out. I called the Dr's office and the nurse said it sounded like the "products of conception" getting ready to come out.  Doesn't that sound pleasant?


She had me come in for another Beta test to be sure and ordered the results to be rushed. I failed to mention that even though I was spotting, my next appt wasnt for 5 more days. Can you imagine spotting for 7 days before you can see the Dr. or get more blood work? But because I had the pressure, this nurse had me come in and rushed my results. I'm so glad she did - just for the answers.


She called me back within the next few hours and confirmed what I already knew - my HCG had dropped to 26 - a sure sign of miscarriage. That afternoon, I started spotting red. By late Friday afternoon, I was cramping and hurting so bad I went home early from work.  By Friday night, the cramps were miserable. I barely slept at all because I had to keep going to the bathroom and because I was hurting so much. Saturday I laid around on the couch, but the pain was radiating through my back and my cramps were so severe that I felt no effects from Tylenol every 4 hours. It was horrific.


No one warned me about how painful a miscarriage would be. By mid-day Saturday, I had passed a ton of clots. And then, I passed something that looked like a deflated balloon that was shredded some. It was a grayish-red. I can't explain it, but to say that it looked like tissue and not like anything I'd ever seen in a lifetime of periods. After I passed that, the cramps went from being horrific to normal bad period cramps. They were still awful, but they were typical awful - if that makes sense. And by Saturday night and Sunday, it was like having a normal period. I don't know how long I'll bleed for, but its manageable now. Its just like having my period and I can handle that. I think the worst is behind me.
I have so many unanswered questions like will this happen if I get pregnant again? Was it something I ate or drank? Could I have done something differently? When did it actually stop developing?


So many people around me don't know. They probably think I've lost it by the way I've looked and acted over the past few weeks. I'm glad we hadn't told lots of people. But on the other hand, because no one really knows, I don't really have a support network of people or their sympathy. Its weird. I don't want that and I do.


And I started to not write this because I didnt want to give other girls like me fuel for the worry fires, but at the same time, I needed to talk about it -to voice all this stuff and not keep it bottled up - and I think if I'd given more credence to my diminishing symptoms and hadn't been so stuck on the typical signs of miscarriage, I might have called the Dr. sooner - before we'd even told our parents. And because we told our parents, I now have all these videos of happy, screaming, crying people finding out our happy news - videos I'll never watch again or ever know what to do with.


I never knew that miscarriage would be so hard psychologically and physically. It's a hard, hard road that I wish no one ever had to go down.

Miscarriage: You Might Lose It

People always say when you get pregnant that you shouldn't tell anyone cause you might lose it.

To tell you the truth, I did and I didn't and I did - and I don't know that it was the right answer. I don't know that there is a right answer.  On one hand, I’m glad that not many people know because I wouldn’t want to be asked about it constantly – and then on the other – I feel alone with this burden to carry.  We told just our immediate family we were pregnant and just a couple of friends.  And it’s strange because you think these people who were SO excited for us would be by our sides through the loss.  I can’t say that was the case.  Our parents and siblings, yes; but our close friends and grandparents, no.  Crazy enough, we feel more disconnected from the few people who know we suffered a loss than the ones that had no idea we were pregnant because the ones that know have failed us over and over.  They haven’t asked how we’re doing, they’ve made comments that are hurtful or unsupportive or have just avoided us altogether.  It’s hard.  When I dwell on that, I wish no one knew, but at the same time, it’s such a lonely, desperate feeling to know you have a broken heart and no one knows.

It’s also hard because my husband and I have grieved differently and that difference makes me feel less close to him.  I think (and this is my perspective – maybe not reality) that I’d classify the loss for him as a disappointment.  For me, it was a gut blow.  I felt guilty like I’d done something to cause it.  Anguish for the loss of something I wanted so bad.  Pain because no one tells you miscarriage physically hurts so much.  Jealous of skinnier, happier, multiple children mothers.  Judged as a failure by my friends and by his family and the few people who knew.  Broken.  And because he’s moved on, I feel guilty to bring it up, but I need to talk about it and I worry I annoy him by talking about it so I don’t.