I remember the short, spotty period, and then the crampier, heavier period that followed two weeks later. I remember the nausea that swept over me as I stood in the bathroom, clutching the sink for balance.
I remember proclaiming to my husband, “I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve always had the most regular periods in the world.”
I remember my nursing toddler telling me that my milk was gone. Was that a sign? I remember thinking the broccoli tasted spoiled, just as I had when I was first pregnant with my toddler.
I remember the heartbreak and anguish of not knowing what was going on
I remember the profound grief of realizing that a piece of life that my husband and I had made had likely died inside me.
But when I think about my early miscarriage, even all these years later, the thing I remember most is the OB-GYN I visited in my attempts to understand what was happening in my body.
I had gotten a negative pregnancy test at home, but the weird, staggered period, the nausea, the foods tasting bitter, the low milk supply – all made me think that perhaps I was in the middle of having a miscarriage.
And I wanted to know what happened
I remember how clinical and calculated this doctor was, how little concern he had for the intense emotions and questions that were bubbling up inside me.
When I went in initially to see him, he was completely cold and matter-of-fact as he examined me. He did a pelvic exam and an ultrasound. These revealed nothing.
I had told him that I thought maybe I was having a miscarriage, and I even poured my heart out to him about all my conflicted feelings.
He looked at me with absolutely no feeling
“We’ll order blood work,” he said.
After I got my bloodwork done, I waited. And waited. Finally, I called the office. Yes, they had the results, but they couldn’t give them to me without the doctor signing off on them. I told them that I wanted to know if what I was experiencing was a miscarriage or something else. I asked that the doctor call me as soon as possible.
He didn’t. More days passed. Days where the bleeding continued. Where the nausea swept over me. Where I fretted and worried and fretted some more.
Finally, I decided to just go right to the doctor’s office and demand to see my results
I remember shaking as I clutched the steering wheel, driving to his office. I went straight to the front desk.
With luck, at that very moment, the doctor appeared. He barely seemed to recognize me. The front desk person had the results in hand, so the doctor could officially read them, in my presence, and tell me what was happening.
“Well, he said, the blood results show that you have a very small amount of pregnancy hormone in you.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“Either you’re miscarrying, or you are newly pregnant,” he said.
I stood there, dumbfounded
The idea that I could be pregnant, and that the pregnancy might progress, never even occurred to me.
“Since it’s been a few days since the test, we’ll take more blood and see where your numbers are now,” he said, walking away before I even got the chance to ask him any follow-up questions.
Long story short, I got another blood test that day. This time, the results came in quickly. There was no pregnancy hormone now, a receptionist told me over the phone.
I had to put two and two together, and figure out that I must have had a miscarriage. No one told me that. No one counseled me on what comes next. If it was a miscarriage, it was an early miscarriage. So my thought was that no one really cared.
I had to process what happened, completely alone
I had to process it without anyone really explaining what had happened. Without anyone exuding any amount of warmth toward me as I processed the loss.
Because of this, I spent weeks feeling like the waves of grief I was feeling didn’t really matter. “Come on, Wendy,” I told myself. “It’s an early miscarriage, no one cares.”
But I cared. And I suffered. I began having anxiety attacks around this time— not just because of the miscarriage, but the miscarriage experience sure didn’t help.
I know that doctors are busy, and that they can experience compassion fatigue after dealing with so many people coming to them with intense experiences. But I also think a little bit of warmth would have gone a long way for me as I processed what was happening.
Losing a baby — even if it’s early — is a big deal
It’s a part of your reproductive history, a part of your parenting journey. And for someone in a position of power to act as though it’s a nothing experience can really hurt.
That hurt can have strong and lasting impacts. It can leave scars. It most certainly did for me.
