Today I decided to sit down, and document our story for you, so that you are completely caught up to speed on our journey to parenthood. Be advised, it is a long story, and may be triggering or upsetting. This post is divided into two parts, the first section details the majority of our journey, and second part details our most recent miscarriage. If miscarriage topics upset you, don't read passed the warning!!
In 2017, I made a blog post about Endometriosis, if you would like to read about that, check out the other blog post that I attached in the Facebook group. Endometriosis became a part of my life in 2015 when I was rushed to the hospital due to severe pain. The hospital checked everything from kidney stones to appendicitis, and couldn't explain my pain, so they sent me home. After about a year of grueling pain every other month like clockwork, I went to my OB-GYN and explained my symptoms. She determined I had Endometriosis, but couldn't be 100% sure until I had a laparoscopic surgery, so I was scheduled for surgery the following week.
I had surgery #1, and it was confirmed. Endometriosis. My OB-GYN (Doctor #1) explained it might be difficult to get pregnant. My surgeon (Doctor #2 ) explained my options: 1. Get Pregnant; 2. Have the same surgery again and again as a "maintenance" measure; or 3. Take a Depo Provera shot every three months until we felt ready to have a baby. We decided to take the Depo Provera, and it didn't go well. After a year of taking it, we observed that I was angry a lot, gaining weight like crazy, but the strangest and most alarming symptom: BITS OF MY TEETH BEGAN FALLING OUT. When I went to the dentist he explained my teeth were forming holes, and it was linked to the Depo shot. We decided I should stop taking it immediately. As soon as I stopped, I began feeling like myself again!
Fast forward to September of 2017, we decided we wanted to try to have a baby, being newly graduated from college, it felt like the right time. We also remembered what my first doctor had said about difficulty getting pregnant, so we anxiously started trying, and to our delight, we found out I was able to get pregnant very quickly! At 6 weeks, I began to bleed, and my Rexburg OB-GYN (Doctor #3) did an ultrasound to confirm I was having a miscarriage. Our hearts were so broken, we couldn't believe that this had happened. We decided in December to move to Spokane, Washington (for Cameron to attend graduate school), and in January we made the move.
I made an appointment in February 2018 with an OB-GYN (Doctor #4) and she recommended I have the laparoscopic surgery AGAIN before trying to to make sure everything inside my body was in ship shape. During Cameron's spring break from school, we flew home to St. George where I could have surgery in network for my insurance. Doctor #5 was my surgeon for surgery #2, and he said things went really well. We flew home, and I was given clearance by Doctor #4 to start trying.
I got pregnant again, quickly, but the day before Mother's Day, I lost our second baby. When I went for a followup visit, doctor #4 encouraged us to try again on my next cycle. She assured me that many women have success when they try to have a baby directly after a miscarriage. So, we followed her advice, and tried again on my next cycle. I got pregnant quickly, but had another early miscarriage. When she did an ultrasound on me during that followup appointment she said "you shouldn't be too worked up over this. This clump of cells was so small, the miscarriage was early, I recommend that you try again immediately". I walked out of her office, and never looked back. This wasn't a clump of cells, this was by baby that I had lost. That summer was so hard, losing two babies one right after the other (and being so far away from our family) just about broke us. That's when I found Doctor #5 in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
She was more specialized in recurrent pregnancy loss than a regular OB-GYN, and when you hit 3 miscarriages in a row, doctors begin to really worry about you, and take you more seriously. Doctor #5 was very optimistic, and had a game plan. She recommended we go and get our genes tested, so Doctor #6 tested our genes and discovered no genetic abnormalities, Cam and I are both genetically NORMAL, which was a huge victory. So then, Doctor #5 proposed that I have a "Mega Surgery" in which I have a few different surgeries done all at the same. This mega surgery included: another laparoscopic surgery, a dilation and curettage (D/C) (to scrape out the inner lining of my uterus to be sure I passed all of the miscarried tissues), to help the baby "stick better"; a hysteroscopy to make sure everything "structurally" was as it should be inside me; a hysterosalpingography (HSG)where they shoot dye into my body and use an X-ray to see my uterus shape, and to see if my Fallopian tubes were open and developed properly.
After my mega surgery, we determined that everything was in "pristine" condition, and we got pregnant in December 2018 with our fourth baby. I found out on my birthday that we were expecting, and we couldn't be happier. I was taking progesterone every day (to help my lining in my uterus be full, optimal for having a baby). Doctor #5 instructed me to make an 8-week appointment, but I ended up making it around week 10 since she was in high demand, and I couldn't make an appointment sooner.
WARNING ***Miscarriage story***
Saturday came around, and the bleed began to worsen, but we held out hope that it would all be okay. We prayed so hard. At this point, I was roughly 9.5 weeks along, and no one in our family knew about this baby. We intended to keep it a surprise, since we really felt like this was going to work out this time. By Sunday, things were getting steadily worse, the bleeding was heavier, and we stayed home from church. I began to pass some small clots, and I was nervous, but that evening around 7pm was when the cramping started. It was getting worse, very rapidly. I passed a blood clot into the toilet that was the size of a golf ball. Shortly after that, I began to hemorrhage blood like I'd never experienced before. Instead of filling a pad and tampon in an hour, I was filling them in less than 10 minutes. We raced to the ER.
When we arrived, my pain was so intense I couldn't walk. So Cameron carried me in the doors. No one was in line, so they were able to get me into a room immediately. This part is hazy for me to recount as I was half out of it, and half crazed with pain. They put me in an adult diaper, but had to keep changing the bedding and my gowns because of how much blood I was passing. They reassigned me to a room with a bathroom.
They got me settled, and then they were gone...
Cam was dragging me to and from the bathroom as I began to pass larger and larger clots. At one point, I passed a clot the size of my fist. No nurses or doctors were monitoring me, no one came in to weigh the clots or observe just HOW MUCH blood I was losing. Because I was pretty out of it, I didn't realize at the time I was in labor. But Cameron did. He was amazing, he did breathing exercises with me, as I pushed for 3 hours. He cradled my head, and kept telling me to let my body do what it needed to do - I was trying not to push because I knew that pushing was another bad sign. The pain was the worst pain I had ever experienced. A nurse finally came in to ask me if I was in pain, but I hurt so bad I couldn't speak. So she brought me a painkiller (but it didn't go in my IV, it was a giant horse pill that she had me swallow, I could barely swallow it, and it didn't kick in for a couple of hours).
A doctor in the ER ordered an ultrasound, but I was writhing in pain so violently, that they couldn't put the device on my stomach, so he ordered a vaginal ultrasound where they had to hold me down to get an accurate read. I continued to bleed all over everything. Then we waited another hour for the results. This doctor came in and closed the door, and with tears running down his face, he said "I know what you have been through, and I am so sorry to tell you, but we didn't find a heartbeat, and your baby has fallen out of your uterus and is sitting on top of your cervix waiting to come out. It won't be long now".
I could hardly speak. The only words I could bring myself to say were "thank you". I couldn't imagine how difficult it was for him to deliver that news to us, and I was grateful to him for it. Right after that, a nurse came in to discharge me. I was unbelievably dizzy from the blood loss, and they kicked me out as quickly as they could. The hospital staff didn't ask if I needed anything, they didn't prepare us for what was to come, they just let me go. I had blood all over my pants, and shirt, and before we could go home, we had to go to Walmart so I could get myself adult diapers as the bleeding was still considered a hemorrhage, and I wasn't equipped to deal with that with what I had at home.
When we got home, Cameron fell into a deep sleep, he was so overcome with grief. He didn't realize that I hadn't passed the baby. The hospital didn't tell him! As he slept, I got up every 15 minutes to change my diaper, and then I was hit with the worst wave of cramping yet. I laid on the bathroom floor, and tried to focus on my breathing because I knew what we coming, the only thing that was left to come. No one tells you what to do in this situation, there isn't a pamphlet you can read about it. I stared down at my tiny, precious baby at 4 o'clock in the morning, unable to even comprehend what had just happened.
They say when you are traumatized you don't think clearly or rationally. That perfectly describes my actions that night. In my head, I didn't want to wake up Cameron because I didn't want to bother him. I didn't want to expose him to any more pain. I didn't want him to see the baby in the toilet because I didn't want that image burned in his memory, so I made the unfathomable decision to flush the tiny body away. I didn't know what else to do, and it never crossed my mind that there were other options besides what I chose, (and the hospital certainly didn't instruct us what to do). It is a decision I deeply, deeply regret. I lay awake even still (over a year later) wondering why I did that, and why I didn't wake Cameron up.
The details of this miscarriage have only been shared by a private few. We could barely speak about this night for the first 6 months, and didn't detail it to many of our family members until much later than that. Today, over a year later, I still struggle with physical, emotional, and mental affects from this miscarriage.
I am currently working with Dr. # 7 who is a fertility specialist of the highest order. People come from all over America (and some internationally) to be seen by him - and here he is, right in our backyard! He works with the University of Utah, and I am convinced that if he can't help us, no one can!
I decided to share our story because I want those wonderful people who are praying for us to know how important every single prayer is to us. Every good vibe you can send our way, and every temple trip means so much to us. Going through a miscarriage utterly alone was isolating and destructive, and we knew we couldn't do it again, so we have decided to be more transparent with our story so that people can support us, help us to have the courage to try again, and to be with us to carry this burden. We thank you for your love and support, and can't wait to share more details as we start the process of becoming pregnant for the 5th time.
