IPL Story - Colleen

I always thought becoming pregnant was an easy thing to do. After I got married in February, I became pregnant right away this past summer after just our first time trying. A lot of my friends and family were also pregnant at this time so we were even more excited to announce our news!

I went to my first appointment around 4 weeks and got the confirmation that I was indeed pregnant. I felt great. I continued to play soccer, go for long runs, and live my normal life. I arrived to my 2nd appointment around week 9-10 thinking this is when I’d get my ultrasound. Little did I know, I was supposed to have scheduled my own ultrasound at the hospital weeks ago, soon after that first appointment. My doctor told me I needed to go and schedule that as soon as possible. Within the following week, I was on my way to hear my baby’s heart beat. When I arrived, I was a little nervous but then quickly talked myself out of it telling myself that this is a time I’m supposed to be excited, not worried. The tech began to do what she does and the baby was found right away. I looked up and saw it on the screen and said to her, “omg there’s actually a baby in there?” She laughed saying, “yes, there it is!” and I felt SO relieved. A few seconds had passed and I watched her smile quickly vanish. After a few more minutes, she told me she’d be right back. At this point I knew what was happening. Luckily, I had my mom there with me because my husband was at work. I looked at my mom and said, “Something is wrong. I know something is wrong.” My mom thought I was being dramatic and told me to stop worrying. The tech peeked in to tell me she was trying to get hold of the doctor but was having trouble. After waiting even longer, the tech came into the room apologizing for the wait and saying that the doctor usually would deliver the news but my baby’s heart beat could not be found. I didn’t know how to react. I was in complete shock. I didn’t believe that this was actually happening to me. After that, it was all sort of a blur.

I called my husband to tell him what happened and that my mom was going to take me to her house so that I wasn’t home alone. The whole car ride home I cried. When I got to her house, I continued to cry. All I could do was cry. A few days later my husband and I met with the doctor and decided that I would complete the medical miscarriage using misoprostol. I thought that this would work best for me and I just wanted this to all be over with so that I could try again as soon as possible. The experience was bad but it actually wasn’t as painful or horrible as I had imagined it to be, especially after reading about other people’s experiences. Days later I was starting to feel back to normal again. I began my weekly blood work to measure the HCG levels and monitor them back to negative. The numbers were decreasing slowly but I was okay with it because at least they were dropping. A few weeks later I got home from work and had really bad stomach pains. As the night went on my cramps began to grow more intense. They became so bad that I called the doctor to ask what I should do. She told me if medicine doesn’t help ease the pain to go to the ER. At 2am I could no longer tolerate the pain and asked my mom to drive me to the ER and stay with me. After getting blood drawn, an ultrasound, an internal examination, and a transvaginal ultrasound, I was told the sac and leftover product was still inside. The cramps that I was experiencing were a symptom of naturally passing it along.

Having to experience the miscarriage initially was bad enough but having to have to go through the experience once more 2 weeks after thinking it was all over with, was way worse. This whole nightmare felt like it really was never going to end. I wanted my normal routine back. I’m a teacher who just had 2 summer months off and I know that taking off the first week of school is not usually allowed and is frowned upon. So, I sucked it up and I went to work the next day. However, mentally I was so checked out that I don’t even remember being there. I wanted to believe that the faster I went back to my normal schedule that I would begin to feel normal again. I was wrong. I needed time. I thought I had cried away all my tears but they kept coming back. I broke down in between classes, during my prep period, during my lunch break (where I stayed in the bathroom stall), on my car ride home, and the rest of the night. It was so hard to put on a “happy beginning of the school year face” when all I wanted to do was hide from everyone and cry.

It took a total of 8 weeks of blood draws for my levels to be read as negative and get the clear to try again. Every week that I went I would pray that this would be the last. Fifty-six days may not sound like a long time but I can tell you that it felt like an eternity. Around the last blood draw, I started to become crampy and bleed again. I didn’t know what to think this was. Was I still miscarrying? How is this happening? I later realized that this bleeding was my body’s way of telling me “and here is the last of it.” A nurse from the practice called me back after a few days to inform me that my levels finally came back negative. When I found out the news, I remember smiling so big. This was the first smile since finding out I miscarried that I didn’t have to force. It was the best feeling to be able to put the last 4 months behind me and to finally begin to look forward to starting new.

Although this was a terrible thing to have to go through, I definitely learned a lot from it. When people started to find out what had happened, I quickly realized that I was not alone. Unfortunately, miscarriage is pretty common and knowing that helped. Reading other people’s stories also helped. I appreciate the opportunity to share my own story in hopes that this helps someone else just as other people’s stories have helped me. I’m continuously praying for all the women that are going through this heart breaking experience.