The Second Miscarriage is Worse than the First

Sharing is caring!

The words are not coming easily this week. Not for blogging, not for speaking, not for sorting my thoughts.

What I can say is that dealing with a 2nd miscarriage is harder than the first.

I’m not sure why this is. Maybe because you hope one is just a freak thing; it happens. When it happens a second time, it’s hard to avoid the questions, rational or not, that don’t really have answers: Why two? What didn’t I learn with the first one that I needed to have a second one? Why is it so much harder the second time, even though I’ve been through this before? Why am I angrier at every pregnant person this time? Why is this hole harder to climb out of than the other one?

Physically, the last miscarriage was a dream compared to this one.

Last time, I started spotting, then bleeding like I had my period, I had maybe an hour of cramping, everything passed, a few more days of period-like bleeding – then done.

This time, the heart stopped beating around 8 weeks. By week 11, nothing was happening. On Friday, the doctor gave misoprostol (cytotec) to naturally force the miscarriage. I did a little reading to prepare myself, and I couldn’t miss the bitter irony: this is the same drug that girls take when they want to abort their babies. The whole idea just made me ill. How was it that I, who so badly wanted a baby, ended up needing to take the same drug as the girl who wants to abort hers?

It just isn’t right.

And the stories I read about misoprostol had me terrified. Some women bled so badly they had to go to the ER; they passed out from loss of blood; the pain was so bad that they had to take vicoden. I was petrified.

But on Friday, I followed the doctor’s orders and took 2 pills around 7pm. An hour later, I took the other two. And I just waited.

The cramping started…I kept cramping…

Then, nothing. Not a thing. Not a drop. Nothing Friday night. Nothing Saturday. Cramps, a little nausea – but that’s it.

It definitely should have done something within 24 hours.

Fail.

I went in again on Tuesday. The doctor was going to have me go another round. If nothing happened, it would be a D&C on Friday.

Again, my mind is all over the place. “I have to try this again? A D&C? I have a field trip to NYC on Monday to march in the Veteran’s Day parade – is this going to resolved by then??? Why can’t think just take care of itself??”

I’m so grateful that my doctor is the kind and caring individual that he is. He just squeezed my knee and patted my shoulder and told me everything would be fine.

So yesterday, I did another round of misoprostol. I left work early to get a head-start, and I started around 2:45. Took another dose at 3:45.

4 o’clock, 5 o’clock, 6 o’clock…The cramping started, but nothing else. I was beginning to think this would be another fail.

Around 8 o’clock, the cramping got more severe, like someone had two fists around my uterus and was twisting it. Then the bleeding started. And it kept going for about another 6 hours. Just about straight through.

I could sit or lay down for about 10-20 minutes at a time – and then I would be running to the bathroom. After each time, I would think, ‘That must have been it. I think the worst is over.’

It wasn’t. It just kept going until I was just exhausted. I didn’t even have energy to cry. I just wanted to be able to sleep.

Around 2 am, I was finally able to fall asleep uninterrupted until about 5 am. Then that was pretty much the last of it.

This was 100 times worse than the first miscarriage. Last time, I bled gradually over the course of about 12-14 days. Imagine all of that blood loss in a matter for 5-6 hours.

Horrible. Horrifying. Traumatic.

It was awful. And it only intensifies when you think of why you are bleeding…because you lost your baby.

I woke up today weak, tired, light-headed, a racing heart and almost passing out in the kitchen. I slept for a few more hours after my husband left the house for work…. and I still feel like I am in a fog.

The words, the thoughts…not coming easily. I can describe events, I can describe what went on in my body…but I can’t find words for my thoughts, my soul, my heart.

I can identify emotions: sad. angry. disappointed. tired. confused. lost. But I can’t put words or thoughts behind them.

I know God is with me, but I don’t even have words yet to talk to Him about this. I can get out some questions, but not any connected thoughts.

I don’t like to be so melancholy. So down. This isn’t me.

But I think I need to just be OK with where I am at today. It’s hard – because I am afraid that if I let myself ‘into’ the sadness, I’ll never get out. But I also fear that if I try to rush this or push to the other side – which is my knee-jerk reaction – that this will come back to haunt me in some other way, at some other time.

But somehow, I’ll get through this. I know that I’ll make it to the other side. I know there is more ahead for me, for my husband, for our future family. I know God has more ahead for us.

I’m just not there yet.