Our loss.

I don't even know where to start this story, but I feel I have to get it out. Maybe it will help me process all that has happened. Maybe it won't. But I need to write this story out, to stop the loop playing over and over in my head, so here it is. I think a lot of people don't talk about miscarriage, keep it very close to their chest. I can understand that. It's one of the most upsetting things, one of those things you just never want to happen to you. It happened to me. It happens to lots of women, but maybe not often in the circumstances I faced. In times past perhaps, my story may have been more common.

I was a touch over 12 weeks pregnant, and I had a miscarriage. Please, if you are pregnant, if you want to be pregnant or are planning on becoming pregnant, please don't read this. I just feel that sometimes, someone else's story can cause fears which are just not necessary. I don't want to give anyone unnecessary fears. But I do want to tell my story. It's very much just 'as it happened' but as I said, I just need to get it out. And I warn you, it is detailed and it is upsetting. And I think questions need to be asked about the medical care I received during this ordeal.

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I had a feeling something was not right with this pregnancy. I was concerned, and made an appointment for a 12 week scan at Maryborough District Health Radiology (our nearest centre). The scan was recommended to check for signs of down syndrome. Honestly, this was not an issue for us, as we wouldn't have changed anything even if it did seem likely. I just wanted to see that everything was ok. I guess my instinct was telling me that it wasn't. My referral was written by an Eligible Midwife who I had contacted to undertake my prenatal care (I had previously got a referral to her from my doctor). She was perfectly entitled to write this referral under the terms of her registration.

My appointment at Maryborough was to be on Friday morning. When I arrived, everything was fine but after a short wait the receptionist came into the public waiting area and advised me that I couldn't have the scan as the referral needed to be from a doctor. I had a perfectly legitimate referral and I was turned away. I was distraught, as the previous evening I had been feeling very 'periody' for want of a better word, a sign that the pregnancy was not ok. I was desperate to have the scan to see if everything was ok, with a gut feeling that it wasn't. Back in the carpark, I phoned Castlemaine Health to see if they would make an appointment for me and accept my referral. They did and the soonest they could get me in was the following Tuesday.

On Saturday evening, about 6pm, I started having light bleeding. Being already concerned about the pregnancy, we went to Bendigo Hospital (myself, my husband, our 20 month old son). It is roughly a 50 minute drive to the hospital for us and it was almost 9pm when we got there. During my wait in the emergency department the bleeding increased a bit and I started to feel very crampy, both signs of miscarriage. I notified the staff and I was seen to very shortly after. An Ob/Gyn doctor arrived some time later, Dr Wendy, who examined me and did an ultrasound (using a portable machine). She was not entirely sure whether there was a miscarriage or a threatened miscarriage, and was suggesting a full ultrasound at Radiology on the Sunday. She called her boss, Dr Eric, the Ob/Gyn Registrar, who arrived a while later. He brought with him a different and seemingly more powerful ultrasound machine, which showed the baby not moving and with no discernable heartbeat. He said it was a miscarriage, but that the full ultrasound at Radiology was still required. He decided against Sunday and instead made an appointment for me on the Monday at 11am. I was then told to go home. It was about 3:40am.

So at this stage I was experiencing light bleeding and cramping, I was 12 weeks along in the pregnancy, and was confirmed to have a foetus with no heartbeat. Why I was sent home, under those circumstances, I do not know. But I do think the question needs to be asked. With the instructions for going home, I was advised to come back to emergency if the bleeding was heavy - if I was soaking a pad every 2 hours. I was told to take paracetamol for the pain. These were the only things that were said to me about the process from that point on.

We went home and had a very quiet day on Sunday. I experienced some light bleeding in the morning but very little, almost nothing during the afternoon. I was feeling crampy during the day. Feeling these things, knowing that the baby had no heartbeat and feeling my body starting to respond, I felt a sense of closure, of knowing that it was real, not just something seen on a screen. From around 6pm onwards the cramps started to increase in intensity, becoming really very painful, but they were still not accompanied by bleeding. So with the instructions I had been given, I was not overly concerned. I thought the bleeding might start in the night and we might have to go back to the hospital. Having said that, I was scared within myself, and had said to my husband that I just didn't want to be alone.

At about 10pm, I had a shower to help myself feel a bit better, and was planning to just go to bed and wait it out. During my shower some heavier bleeding started to occur. A few minutes later, I miscarried the whole sac and the foetus, it all came right out just like that. I was absolutely distraught, terrified, in shock. The sac disappeared down the drain and the foetus was caught in the drain. I screamed and screamed and screamed, my husband came rushing in with our son in his arms (who he had been trying to settle to sleep), and was equally distraught. My son saw me screaming and with blood all about the place. It was horrific. Worse than a nightmare, because it was real. 

This was the most distressing thing I have ever experienced. I couldn't bring myself to pick it up, the foetus, my little dead tiny baby. I was so scared that I would break it, or that I would somehow make it go down the drain. I had to get my husband to do it. I never, never, in a million years, expected that to happen. I just wasn't prepared to deal with it. On the one hand, my instinctive brain knew exactly what was happening. Those cramps, there were spaced pretty evenly apart and were very consistent. They hurt like hell. I have been in labour once before, and I know what it's about. But my thinking brain had never considered that this could actually happen. My thinking brain was not functioning. It was horrible. I would never, ever want anyone to experience what I experienced.

Then the bleeding started, and there was so much bleeding. I  was still distraught, sitting on the edge of the bath as the blood just kept coming. I asked my husband to call an ambulance, I heard him on the phone giving details and it felt like an eternity. I just wanted to scream 'NOW! NOW!' but what good would it have done. I tried to get myself into some clothes and waited on the lounge room floor for the ambulance to arrive, soaking my clothes with blood while I was lying there. I was terrified I was going to die from blood loss. I was terrified my son would lose his mother. I was trying not to move in the pathetic hope that  the bleeding would slow down.

As I lay on the floor, Charles was running around the house trying to organise things - lock the dogs in so they wouldn't disappear, pack a bag, get William's bag ready. William was in bed awake. I kept asking Charles if he was ok. My poor little boy, such a horrific night for him. Charles had told him that he had to stay in bed, that some people were coming to help mummy. I kept asking how long had it been, he would say 5 minutes and I couldn't believe it had been such a short time. I spoke to my guardian angels, said I was not ready to leave here yet. I was not ready. My son needed me. Needs me. I was terrified.

The paramedics arrived after what felt like an eternity. They got me into the ambulance and did all their things - blood pressure, canula in my arm, drip going - and eventually took me back to Bendigo Hospital. I say eventually as it just felt like such a long time for me. They did a wonderful job but the drive still felt like an eternity, I was still bleeding, still having painful cramping and very scared. At the hospital I was put into an isolation room (where I had been the previous night), blood samples were taken, I was hooked up to a blood pressure/heart rate monitor and to a large extent, left to my own devices for a long time. I was still terrified, as I was bleeding, cramping and there was so little checking in on me by the nursing staff. I had to call them to change a drip bag when it was empty, I was monitoring my own blood pressure, which was very low, as no-one else seemed to be monitoring it.

A doctor on duty came, and eventually Dr Wendy appeared again. I finally felt a sense of relief when she arrived. She did another ultrasound and examination, confirmed everything and comforted me. Dr Eric eventually came in as well. His first words to us were a joke about the fact that we had arrived early for our appointment. I was disgusted. He knew what had happened. He fucked up by sending me home to wait until Monday - I'm guessing it was too inconvenient for him to have to deal with it on a Sunday - and he had the nerve to turn up and make a joke to us. This coming from the Registrar of the Ob/Gym department of a large hospital. Disgusted. I have no other words.

From there it was a case of managing my situation, mainly very low blood pressure from the blood loss.   I had my ultrasound at 11am, and the doctors felt it necessary to still perform a D&C procedure. I was made to fast from 6am, so with all the blood loss I experienced, what I needed was something to nourish me, but all I managed were two hot milo's and some cold hospital sandwiches. All of which I was entirely grateful for. That was sometime around 4am, I suppose. I barely slept, I tried to avoid moving, the cramps and bleeding continued for some time but did eventually start to subside. And then I was off to theatre around 1.30pm on the Monday.

I was finally able to leave the hospital about 6pm feeling very shaky, with my blood pressure still low but stable. And now I'm home, we're all home. The ordeal is over. I am trying to recover physically, I'm exhausted, emotional, shaky and doing all I can to eat nourishing foods to build blood. And now we have to process everything that has happened, and somehow come to terms with it. I think the shock, the numb, is only just starting to lift. I hate going into the bathroom. I'm ok during the day but at night, it all starts to come back. 

I am distraught.

Losing a baby is extremely upsetting. It is something that I thought happened to other people, not to me. At some point a few months ago, I must have already been pregnant, I read Katie's blog about losing her baby, about finding at her 12 week scan that the baby had no heartbeat. It struck a cord with me I guess, and it somehow was my biggest fear. And it happened to me. Perhaps somewhere deep in my being I knew what was coming. I know it is common, I know it happens. And to a large extent I was prepared, as I had the feeling that things weren't right. But none of that makes it any less upsetting.

To experience the situation as I did, after I presented to hospital early on, has added so much distress on top of losing the baby. To be turned away from my ultrasound appointment on the Friday before, which I know, know would have showed a baby with no heartbeat, was distressing. Is distressing. It's not that I thought having the ultrasound would be able to prevent losing the baby, it's that I know it would have shown our loss earlier. Surely someone would have helped me earlier? Surely the doctors at the hospital should have known the risks of sending me home to wait, for over 24 hours, when I was clearly miscarrying? Especially given we live almost an hour away? And given how far along with the pregnancy I was? On top of our loss, I am trying to process these questions and I just don't have the answers.

We will bury our tiny baby. If there is one positive thing to come out of this whole ordeal, it is that we can bury our baby. In the garden, outside the dining room window. We will plant a tree in the place to honour our little lost soul. It doesn't make it better, or easier, but at least we can do something. In a way I am dreading it. I know it will be the most painful thing but I can't yet comprehend just how painful. 

I'm taking a break from this space. We need to be still, to take stock, and heal our broken hearts. And  somehow work out where life goes for us, from here.