My Story

My feelings of regret eventually turned into sadness. I am totally frustrated with the world at this point and feel like any signs of my old life are gone.  I had gotten a job at Talbots a few months prior to get out of the house. I went back to work the same week of the miscarriage. I loved working for Talbots it was a very fun environment. Some of the customers were a bit snooty as a lot of them were the professor’s wives from the nearby college but it was fun to dress them.

On the other hand within a week I couldn’t stand their personalities anymore. I remember thinking about the baby while some lady was having a hissy over a small pull in the sweater she had purchased. I remember wanting to smack her because you practically had to get the magnifying glass out to see it.

After everything I had been through I couldn’t listen to the pointless complaining anymore. Ladies there are worse things that could happen in this world. I quit a month later.

I’m also back in the Neurologist office during this time to get the results from the lab work he had done. Dr. Gaffney was a breath of fresh air after the last Neuro. He is old and doesn’t have much of a personality but somehow we connect well. I wish I could ship him to California so that I have him back.

He tells me that I tested positive for Lupus Anticoagulant but he thinks that it has something to deal with the missed miscarriage. On the other hand this clotting disorder could be why I had such a nasty miscarriage. I will need to be retested to see if he is right. The problem with a Lupus Anticoagulant positive is I could only focus on the first part LUPUS. He assured me that all would be ok but I didn’t trust what he was saying.

Lupus Anticoagulant is an Antiphospholipid syndrome which is a condition that can cause clotting within your arteries or veins and various other problems.

Dr. Gaffney told me this and even after reading about the condition on Google all I could focus on was the Lupus part, mainly because Lupus Anticoagulant turns into Lupus 50% of the time.

I didn’t have my positive thinking cap on then so all I could focus on was that chance that this syndrome could turn into a bigger monster. Not the fact that it could stay the way that it was.

I joined Lupus forums and told my story. I had many wonderful responses and guidance from ladies that are living with Lupus. I met a few who were suffering through my worst fears. Their anticoagulant turned into Lupus.

These women were wonderful and so caring but there is no way that I wanted to end up like this. Some would post photos of hair loss which had happened to me already and rashes. These images scared me into changing my life.

I learned everything that I could about Lupus over the next month. I spoke to as many women as I could to hear their story and see if there was any way to stop Lupus before it strikes. I found a few things I could change to help myself were diet and stress.

This period in my life is where I look back and say this is the time of Gods bigger plan at work. Having this fear of getting full blown Lupus kicked me in the butt to change my ways and I strongly feel that this is why I am doing so well today.

More reading

Regret

Learning to say No

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6/25/10

I have been blogging for a little over a year now. When I came up with this blog I tried hard to think of a good name that would go with the issues that I was going through. In picking Post Partum Illness I never thought about the fact that people would immediately assume this blog was all about depression, it’s not. I just knew that I became ill after giving birth.

In fact I was never depressed after having children. I loved the fact that I had babies. Before things actually started showing up in my blood work the docs did keep telling me that it was anxiety and depression. When I started this blog I was wondering how many women were going through what I went through? When starting this blog the symptoms had finally surfaced into a problem that was obvious. How many women have been diagnosed with depression and they really do have something physically wrong?

I’ve come to find with a few doctors that when they don’t know what is wrong with a patient they tell a woman that she is depressed or stressed. In fact these doctors are really confident about the diagnosis. When you head back with results from another doctor or they screw you up with depression pills suddenly medicine is all practice. I wish these doctors would retire and just let the good ones who actually care do the work.

Here is the link to my updated about page.

5/21/10

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I don’t really remember the drive home from the hospital or the days that followed. I just remember a feeling of shock and what the heck was going on with me. I was as healthy as a horse for years then my life turns into constant unexplainable health issues.

I was also filled with regret. The things that had happened to me over the past year some people don’t even experience in their life time. I had all these rare things happening to me and some people were questioning how much was really true. Some people were frustrated because they guided me to be patient on getting pregnant and I didn’t listen.

It’s sad when you can see disbelief in people eyes as you are telling a story. I mean I guess it’s hard to believe that your body can hold onto a baby for 3 months and then decide to miscarry. I wished that I could carry a paper around with me proving my blood work and doctors diagnosis on it to show that I wasn’t crazy.

It’s my fault that I have to suffer from people opinions. After all I am a person who is usually an open book with my life. If I kept my mouth shut then my personal issues wouldn’t be up for debate.

This is something that I am still working on today. I don’t care if the world knows my health issues but there are other personal things that I wish I had never thrown out there. I get sucked into these heart to heart conversations with women and end up regretting it.

Looking back on things I wish that I would have had the strength to only share my personal health journey with my family and best friends until I had more concrete information from the doctors. I was so distraught and impatient that I was talking to everyone to try and find answers. People were receiving information in jumbled parts instead of the whole story and I imagine it got confusing.

I still was figuring out my relationship with God too. If I would have had the understanding of how God works back then I know I would have made totally different decisions.

This happened almost 4 years ago. During that time I was filled with regret of pushing my body to far and opening my mouth to people that I shouldn’t. Interestingly today as I write this I am filled with regret. It’s on another situation that is totally different but I again opened my mouth on a personal issue with people that I thought I could trust and I regret it. Hmmm when will I learn?

2/28/10

At some point I am back at the doctors getting blood work done. We discussed D&C and decided to wait until the blood work came back. I was very fearful of getting this procedure as I heard that it was painful.

The blood work comes back with the results being a little high. Huge errors on both the doctor’s part and mine were made at this moment. I argued getting the D&C and wanted to see if the blood work result would lower before doing this procedure. The doctor said ok and never examined me after the miscarriage. She based all decisions off of blood work.

What is D&C, the surgical treatment option for a missed miscarriage is a D&C (dilatation & curettage). A D&C entails a women going into the hospital and having anesthesia while an obstetrician dilates her cervix and curettes (scrapes) the uterine lining to ensure complete removal of all products of conception. This is done for a missed miscarriage to prevent infections, severe bleeding and other associated complications.

A benefit of this type of treatment is that the products of conception are sent to a pathologist for evaluation and genetic testing can be performed if so desired.

Another treatment option for a missed miscarriage is medication. A physician will place prostaglandins inside the vagina next to the cervix to allow the cervix to soften, dialate, and contract. After a certain amount of time if there are no uterine contractions then the physician can start pitocin.

Once the contractions begin the woman's body will deliver the products of conception. Again this treatment option requires the woman to go into the hospital for her care. Another follow-up test that should be performed is serial HCG levels to ensure that they are decreasing.

I experienced short lived happiness over the next few months. Every two weeks I would go to the hospital for blood work and each time my HCG levels had decreased, therefore no painful D&C. My doctor still never examined me the whole time.

I think it was the end of August when I started to see spots all the time and this thundercloud type thing formed in my vision. I had eye issues before but these symptoms were new. If I looked up at the blue sky a stormy gray cloud pillowing into itself blocked my vision. I could see through it but it was annoying.

During September thoughts of the miscarriage were mentally deleted by me. The HCG levels continued to fall making moving forward easy. Sometime during this month my body started to itch all over and little rashes would breakout around my torso and belly. I started to get sores in my mouth and just didn’t feel well. I was sent to a Neurologist who I must add was awesome. Due to my visual symptoms and rashes he immediately checked my blood for diseases like Lupus.

It was October/November when all hell broke loose. I just remember being happy because the day before my HCG levels were almost 0. Finally my body was finishing up what it was doing. Finishing it up is not the words to describe it.

I remember decorating the house for the holidays. During that day I had felt some pains in my lower abdomen but they would come and go. By evening the pains were getting stronger but it felt like I was going to get my period. At this point I was not charting my period.

By late evening the pain would drop me into a ball on the floor. My husband and son standing over me were wondering what the heck is happening to her now. The pain would last a few minutes and then stop. I was in this awful cycle of lying where I stood every few minutes because the pain was so bad.

I didn’t want to go to the ER again. I was so sick of doctors and hospitals. I don’t know what I was thinking but for some reason in my head I thought that this just would go away like everything else. By my sons bedtime I was crying in pain, back in the car and on the way to the ER.

Halfway there it finally hit me that my pains were like contractions. I was screaming and scaring the crap out of my husband. By the time we got to the ER which was a 20 minute ride I couldn’t even walk. The nurses wheeled me into the room. When I stood up I could feel it. My pain was horrific but I could feel my insides shaped like a funnel and something was coming out.

The doctor ran out to go get something and as I undressed I could feel something in my underwear. In that instant all the pain was gone and as I carefully slid my underwear off we both gasped as there were the remains of my baby. I had to turn away I just couldn’t look.

The doctor walked in talking and just stopped cold as he saw what we were looking at. Without asking he quickly got gloves, scooped up the remains and left. My husband and I sat there in shock. Was this really happening? How was all of this possible?

The doctor came back in and asked lots of questions. He checked all the blood work that I had done at the hospital. The bay before the HCG levels were .9, today the level probably hit zero causing me to finally abort a baby that I was told had died 3 months before.

Info found at http://www.ourmiscarriage.com/missed_miscarriage.html

1/2/10

The screen pulls up and there lays my baby who had died. It was so visible a tiny little blob on the screen not floating but laying at the bottom of my uterus. My husband and I started to tear and I asked the tech what was next. She snapped at me and said that she couldn’t tell me anything and hustled out.

My husband and I were so confused. If the baby had died why was he or she still inside my belly? The doctor entered the room and held my hand. She told us about a thing called missed miscarriage. Here is the definition.

A missed miscarriage occurs when the fetus dies, however the woman's body continues as if the fetus is still viable. The diagnosis of a missed miscarriage is usually considered after fetal heart tones are not heard or the size of the uterus has not grown. Then an ultrasound will be performed which will show a fetus that stopped growing several weeks prior to the ultrasound and there will be no fetal heart tones.

We left the doctors, sat in the car and I lost it. Seeing my deceased baby on the screen was one of the hardest things that I ever went through. Even though I already knew before we arrived at the doctor actually seeing things and still knowing that the situation was not over was upsetting.

The doctor said now we will have to wait. At some point over the next few weeks my body will recognize the situation and miscarry. What an awful few weeks it was as you mentally wait for your body to let go of your baby. I can’t even explain how this messes with your head, it’s awful.

I woke one morning I think it was the end of July. I didn’t feel well but I couldn’t explain to my husband what was wrong. I asked him if he could stay at home that day but he just couldn’t miss anymore time that month due to all the doctor’s appointments at the beginning of the month. As he left I cried because I felt terrible.

He wasn’t gone an hour when it hit. The worst part is that I was home alone with my 2 year old and he was awake. I had to run in the bathroom and lock the door so that he wouldn’t come in. All I remember from those moments is being in the bathroom finally having a miscarriage and my two year old is outside the door crying hysterically because he can’t come in.

I’m crying and upset over losing a baby and I’m getting so upset that I can’t help my other baby outside the door. He doesn’t understand why he can’t come in and his cries are ripping me apart. There was so much blood but I had to try to rush through this situation so that I could help my son. It’s been a bit and he is still screaming at the door.

I am able to pull myself together and get out to help him. Why couldn’t a cartoon have been on at that moment? I scoop up my son, calm him down and head back to the bathroom with the phone. My doctor is now irritated with me because I instinctively flushed the toiled. I described to her what came out but she said I should have kept the remains so I could bring it in.

This mistake would cost me more time and heartache in the months to come. For those of you who have never been through a miscarriage, I know it’s mentally painful but keep whatever comes out of your body. The doctor seeing this is critical to your health.

This mistake makes this a three part story. My error will make my body do things that I just didn’t even know were possible. That is why I share my story.

Here is a link to a site that expains more about missed miscarriage. http://www.ourmiscarriage.com/missed_miscarriage.html

1/10/09