Subject: misc.kids FAQ on Miscarriage, Part 1/3
Supersedes: <misc-kids/miscarriage/part1_825451240@rtfm.mit.edu>
Date: 28 Mar 1996 22:02:31 GMT
Summary: The miscarriage FAQ is a compilation of people's
         experiences, words of sympathy, and some technical
         information.
X-Last-Updated: 1995/03/25

Posting-Frequency: monthly

                    Misc.kids Frequently Asked Questions
                            Miscarriage

                            Part 1 of 3

=====================================================================
Collection maintained by: Laura Brooks (brook006@mc.duke.edu)
Last updated: March 23, 1994

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=====================================================================
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=====================================================================
Many of the entries in this FAQL are just words of sympathy.  Even though
they were addressed to a specific person on the net, I think it is
appropriate to repeat them here.
=====================================================================

The question came up about bleeding during pregnancy and whether or
not that indicates miscarriage.  The summary of what I have to say is
that I have been told that more than half of the women who bleed
during pregnancy go on to deliver a full-term child, but pay attention
and don't take it lightly if you find yourself bleeding.

When I miscarried, I spotted for three days, lost the baby, and then
continued to bleed for another week.  I read like mad before I lost
the baby, so I found all sorts of information.  The three best books I
had were "The Well Pregnancy Book," "A midwifes Guide to Pregnancy and
Childbirth," and "Preventing Miscarriage: the Good News."  I also
talked to about 5 doctors in the course of being given 2 ultrasounds
and some phone advice in the face of various changes.  Things I
learned (this is graphic):

All vaginal bleeding *OF*ANY*KIND* should immediately be reported to
your doctor.  Don't wait until lunch, don't wait until morning, don't
wait to make the drive: call and report what you can to whoever is in
a position to advise you.

Heavy bleeding is more likely to indicate miscarriage than spotting,
but even women who bleed heavily do carry to term. One book said some
women shed the uterine lining that is not near the embryo's
implantation site.

Bleeding accompanied by cramping or any kind of abdominal pain is more
likely to indicate miscarriage.  It is also an indicator for an
ectopic pregnancy--especially if the pain is more on one side than the
other.  (Ectopic pregnancies will lose you a fallopian tube if you
don't catch them *very* early.)  Don't panic if you do have cramps,
because digestive distress and stretching of uterine ligaments can
cause abdominal pain too.

Bright red blood is much more likely to indicate miscarriage than dark
brown blood.  Anything gray or pink is a very, very bad sign, since it
usually indicates embryonic tissue or placenta. In my case, the fetal
sack itself was unmistakable and left me no room for doubt (or hope).

Bleeding that continues for three days or more is more likely to indicate
miscarriage than some spotting that stops.

Bleeding that occurs when you would have had your period is much less
worrisome than bleeding that occurs during what would have been mid-cycle.
Implantation bleeding is *very*common*, and it occurs around when your
first period would have been.  Many women will have bleeding at their
normal menstrual points for up to three months.

If you have a fever, faintness, or nausea markedly worse than it has
been until you started bleeding (especially if it is accompanied by
worsening abdominal pain), you may have an ectopic pregnancy that
needs emergency treatment: don't wait to make that call--you need to
receive further instructions based on your case.

Two of my books told me that women who bleed and can get an ultrasound
should be totally reassured once they see a strong regular fetal
heartbeat.  One book told me that 90% of the women who are bleeding
but have a fetal heartbeat shown with ultrasound will carry to term.
You have to be careful though, because those statistics are for
abdominal probe ultrasounds, and apparently seeing a heartbeat using
the trans-vaginal probe is not so reassuring.  (I only found that last
out because I lost my baby after seeing a strong heartbeat on the
ultrasound monitor.)  So I guess the amended rule is that if you are
far enough along to see the heartbeat with an abdominal probe (and you
see the heartbeat), stop worrying.

The last, and most depressing thing I have to say is that if you do
start losing anything gray or pink (or anything solid), you need
to save it and give it to your doctor.  What you lost can tell them if
you have miscarried, if you might need a D&C to make sure no tissue
is left behind, and (in very rare cases) clues to the cause of the
miscarriage.  Mostly, you will never know what caused it, but if you
are like me, you have a tremendous need to try to find out how this
happened.

In my case, the fetal sack was a good clue because it was much too
small for my stage of pregnancy.  Even though I had a baby with a
beating heart, something was wrong.  Two doctors suggested that even
though the cardiovascular system of my little one was showing signs of
working well, the baby was not getting enough in the way of nutrients.
They suggested that it might be an implantation problem.  This is all
conjecture, but even having a plausible scenario helped me.  I needed
an explanation of how I managed to violate the maxim about no longer
worrying about the bleeding once you see the heartbeat.

Tracy Larrabee (larrabee@cse.ucsc.edu)

=====================================================================

I was very sorry to hear that you have lost your baby. I can't imagine
what it must be like for you and your husband. You had a little being
that was growing closer than anything had ever been to you before, and
now you mourn because it is no longer there. You will probably be
blessed with another child in the future. It will not be the same as
this first one that you have lost; no other child will be the same.
Time and the closeness you have with your husband will probably help
to reduce the hurt. I'm sorry.

=====================================================================

I know the combination of pregnancy and miscarriage and finally my
daughter has changed me, deepened me, more than I ever thought
possible.  I can't say that I'm glad that I lost a child, but I can
say that I believe that people who experience life intensely, both the
good and the bad, are luckier than those who just drift through.  And
in that sense we women are lucky, far luckier than men.  Men will
grieve, and will sorrow, but it's not the same.

When I had my miscarriage I think I was most worried about whether
there was something "wrong", about whether I would ever be able to
carry a child to term.  I thought about the IUD I had in for my wilder
years.  I thought about the years I was too serious about swimming and
didn't have periods.  I thought about the stretch where I was too
thin.  I thought about everything I'd ever done that was less than
healthy.  I suppose the bottom line was that I haven't failed at many
things in my life and I didn't like it very much.  But then along came
my daughter and the misery drifted away, with only a little bruise to
show for it.  And for some reason I wasn't worried at all during the
second pregnancy.  I guess the statistics about miscarriages and first
babies really don't lie.

But in some sick way, it has all helped.  When my brother's baby died
this year, I knew what to do.  And that ability to empathize, to
experience all the ups and downs, is what life is all about.  Really
and truly.

=====================================================================

People say the strangest things when they are trying to comfort me.  I
suppose you got that too.  Why would people tell me it is for the best?
How can this possibly help me? Why would they go out of their way to say
it isn't so bad for me since I hadn't been pregnant a long time?  I know
I will get better; I hope I will get pregnant again soon, but I think
these things are for me to say, not for them.  I know they are trying to
be nice, but I don't care if my baby wasn't viable: it hurts just as much
either way.  I don't care to have my pain minimized or swept away.

Someone helped me yesterday: I talked to a wonderful doctor right after
I lost the baby (she just happened to be on call).  I told her it was quite
ironic, but though I had never met her, I was scheduled to talk with her on
Tuesday because I was interviewing doctors for OB care.  She told me to come
on in anyway, even though I lost the baby.  I did.  She was great.  She spent
half the time talking to me about this loss, and half the time telling me
about her philosophy of labor and delivery and preparation for birth.  After
I left, I realized that she got me back to concentrating on the future in a
very gentle but practical way.  She told me I would probably be nervous and
antsy when I first get pregnant again and she encouraged me to come in early
just to get confirmation and a feeling that someone knew I was nervous and was
going to watch me and be aware of my concerns.

Don't get me wrong: I am not saying this woman magically fixed everything, but
she did help some.  I still cried last night, but I feel positive potential
in my future.  I worry.  I will worry.  But I hope too.

=====================================================================

I talked a lot to my sister-in-law when I had my miscarriage.
She kept telling me the same thing over and over:

    "Remember, it's nothing you did.  If lifting heavy things could
    cause a miscarriage then there would be an epidemic of 14-year-old
    female weightlifters in New York City."

It's true.  If there were anything at all that could cause a
miscarriage, desperate people would have found it.  And if any sort
of bad health habits could set you up for this kind of thing, then
the birth rate in inner cities wouldn't be so astronomical.  Your
body's fine, and you'll be pregnant again before you know it.

=====================================================================

**The following is from an actual M.D. on the net, but he did not
give permission to use his name**:

First let me express my condolences at your loss.  It makes
no difference what the gestational age is, there is still the loss of
a pregnancy, and this will result in grief and the need to work that
through.  Trying to find out 'why' is part of the grief work.
    Let me reassure you that your experience is VERY common.  I see
similar cases every month in my practice. The problem is that
experience with the vaginal probe ultrasound is very limited, and to
extrapolate the presence of fetal cardiac activity on vaginal probe
ultrasound to previous reassuring statistics about discenment of
cardiac activity by abdominal ultrasound (doppler) or earlier auditory
auscultation (stethescope) are not valid.  Most spontaneous abs occur
prior to the 12th week, and a very short time ago, cardiac activity
was not discernable prior to the 12th week with any degree of
regularity, so the common statement was "Once we hear the fetal heart
we don't worry about miscarriage."

But now we are using a more sensitive technology and this trueism will
not hold up.

So I can only encourage you to work thru the loss of this one, and
have confidence that you will conceive again with success.  And
another bit of advice is to wait at least 4 months before trying
again.  We have good studies that indicate the risk of repeated SAB is
much greater in the first three months after a previous miscarriage.

=====================================================================
I don't know if this will help you or not, but something you may want
 to add to the list.

I have had several family members and friends who have had problems with
 pregnancies.  One thing that seems to be common is that when a child
 was lost (still born, cord accidents, etc.), the woman had a miscarriage
 less than a year later.  In some ways, I've always wondered if it was
 a way of her body just "making sure" since all these women went on to
 have a healthy child about a year later.

It is hard and tragic to lose 2 children in under a year.  Support groups
 and counseling have been what kept some of my friends & family going.
 The things that were most valuable to them were: a) take time to grieve.
 You lost a child.  It doesn't matter if it was born or not, YOU STILL
 LOST A CHILD.  b) Remember life goes on.  If the doctor says there are
 no problems, wait and try again.  Almost everyone who has had a miscarriage
 hears from women who had one (or more) or knows someone else who had
 one.  An example I use a lot in comforting friends is my mom.  There
 are 6 kids in my family.  In 1946 (or 47) my mom had a tubular pregnancy
 and lost her right fallopian tubes.  The doctor told her she'd be lucky
 if she ever got pregnant again.  Eight pregnancies later (6 kids, 2
 miscarriages), she asked the doctor to put her on the pill since she
 felt she was "too old to deal with baby shit." ;)  When my youngest
 sister was born, they brought a bunch of med students/interns in to
 marvel at the two of them.

In my family alone was my mom & her problems.  My brother Steve & his
 wife had a blue baby who died the day after he was born.  Mari miscarried
 6 months later.  They adopted a boy and she gave birth to their second
 son 1 year to the day after Adam came home with them.  They currently
 have 4 kids ranging from 5 to 13.  My brother Gerry's wife miscarried
 and later had a wonderful and healthy boy (Nicky the human noodle).  I
 contracted rubella in the first trimester of my pregnancy and lost that
 baby.  I now have a healthy 2 year old and I am due in February.
 My husband's sister miscarried 3 times before they had their first
 son.  They currently have 3 kids (ages 2 to 6) who are healthy and normal.

One of my good friends describes herself as "not built for pregnancy."  She
 had several miscarriages and had to have an abortion once when the fetus
 was literally killing her.  Her pregnancy with her daughter left her
 hospitalized several times in her first trimester, but her daughter is
 a thriving 3 year old now.  Last year, she gave birth to her son and
 had a hysterectemy immediately after.  She claimed it was an easy pregnancy
 since she was only hospitalized once before her due date.

My best friend from college lost her first son.  He died as the result of
 massive birth defects 2 weeks after he was born.  She miscarried 9 months
 later and a year after that had a beautiful baby girl.

I could go on, but I won't.  I just want to pass on examples of encouragement.
 I hope they are useful.  They seem to have been for some friends.  ("Please
 tell me you know someone who survived this and has children," tends to be
 the biggest request from them.)  One thing that helps too (at least
 with my friends) is breaking things.  Buy a bunch of "yard sale china" and
 smash it.  Take out your anger and frustration on something like that instead
 of your husband & family.

MOST IMPORTANT:  The man is grieving too.  Many people make sure the woman
 is fine and forget about the man.  My brother Gerry said the best thing
 that happened to him was receiving flowers from me to him.  Everyone seemed
 to have left him "outside" when it came to comforting.  I remembered how
 much he helped me when I lost my first and wanted to do something for him.
 When one of my friends had an ectopic pregnancy recently, I sent her husband
 a plastic fish full of goodies.  She said it made a big difference to him.

Men grieve too.  While the wife goes through medical and emotional trauma,
 the man feels the sense of loss and helplessness as well.  Make sure they
 don't get ignored.

karla Shapiro (karla@shiva.com)

=====================================================================


I have been pregnant five times; twice I miscarried, and the other
three pregnancies ended with the birth of a living child. The kids are
now 9 1/2, 7, and 4 1/2. The miscarriages occurred before boy number
one, and between boys two and three.

Both miscarriages occurred during the first trimester.  Both times, I
started to bleed (spot). The first time I miscarried was with my first
pregnancy.  I had told a lot of people I was pregnant.  I found the
whole experience fairly devastating.  I miscarried in January, and
became pregnant again 5 months later. It seemed like forever.  It was
very hard for me to be with pregnant friends during this time. It
seems like I spoke to either my mother or my sister (or both) on the
phone every day for months.  The second time was between the second
and third boys ( pregnancy number 4). I had become pregnant with an
IUD in place (a surprise), so I wasn't as surprised as the first time.
Also, I already had two children.  I became pregnant again right away,
as soon as the doctor allowed us to try.  My miscarriages were not
from any special cause (as far as I know), they just didn't develop
right.  I went through the ultrasounds, HCG, etc.  After it became
clear that I was miscarrying, my obstetrician gave me the choice of a
D & C or just waiting it out.  I opted for the D & C, as I wanted to
get the whole thing over with.

Physically, I recovered pretty fast. Emotionally, it was much slower
the first time than the second.  I did manage to collect a number of
miscarriage stories after the first one; before that no-one had said a
thing to me. All of a sudden, it was "Oh, yes, Aunt Helen had a
miscarriage, but she didn't want another baby, so she didn't try to
get pregnant again; and Cousin Lenore had a miscarriage, but then she
had another baby and it was fine...". I went ahead and told everyone I
had told I was pregnant that I had miscarried. I believe that my
obstetrician told me it was all right to try to become pregnant again
after the second menstrual cycle. I was much more circumspect about
telling people I was pregnant the second time; therefore I had fewer
strangers to tell I had miscarried.  I WANTED to talk about the
miscarriages, so I pretty much told all of my close friends and
relatives the whole story, both times.  My mom and my sister were
great, especially the first time, when I basically talked their ears
off about the whole thing.  I was lucky in that I didn't have any
trouble becoming pregnant again and I never had two miscarriages in a
row.

Peggy (Margaret_Fieland@vos.stratus.com)

=====================================================================

I miscarriaged my first pregnancy at 12 weeks.  I had started to spot a few
days before the miscarriage.  I had a regular scheduled doctor's appointment.
Dr. Levin could not hear that heart beat but said that not hearing the
heartbeat was not too unusual.  He also stated that spotting is a sign of
immenant miscarriage.  But he told me his philosphy.  He said I should
continue doing my normal activities.  If I miscarriaged this earlier, it
was meant to be, ie the fetus was not growing.  I miscarriaged that weekend
while at Yosemite.  It was still difficult to accept.  Time does help to
heal if you let it.

I became pregnant again six months later and gave birth to a healthy 7lb 2oz
boy.  My second pregnancy had no surprises.  I enjoyed biking up to the day
I gave birth.  I do still wonder about my first pregnancy.  But I know in my
head it must have been for the best.  But my heart still needs to be reminded.
Give yourself time to grieve.

=====================================================================
I had an early miscarriage (7 weeks) which was complete, so it
didn't require a D&C (luckily).  But at the time, it was still very
sad and upsetting.  I had experienced quite a bit of bleeding, which
everyone tried to pass off as "normal."  My obstetrician scheduled a
sonogram to see if everything was OK, and I just felt something
wasn't right during the procedure.  Since it was early in the
pregnancy, the technician used a vaginal probe (I don't know the
technical term for it).  It was very uncomfortable and I remember
lying there thinking that the whole thing was taking a long time.
When she told me to empty my bladder (I had emptied it before the
procedure--that's how long it took!), I still didn't think too much
about it.  But when I returned to the room, my obstetrician was
there.  That's when I knew something was wrong.  In short, he told
me that there was absolutely no sign of pregnancy in my uterus.  The
miscarriage was very complete.  But, I still had to have blood drawn
so they could check the hormone levels to make absolutely sure that
a D&C wouldn't be necessary.

I remember going out into the reception area, looking for my
husband, and to get the paperwork for the lab work.  That was really
difficult to go out to a room full of people, crying and sort of
confused.  My husband immediately knew that I had miscarried, and he
tried to be comforting.  We went to talk to the doctor, who told us
that the odds of first trimester miscarriage are quite high (much
higher than I had ever suspected).  When he told me that the
miscarriage probably indicated that something was wrong with the
embryo, I took some comfort in that.  It was nature's way of telling
you that this wasn't a healthy baby.  In fact, a few days later, I
was talking to people and remarking on how the miscarriage saved us
from having a two-headed baby or something.  When I was given the
facts on miscarriage, I felt much, much better about it all.  I was
still very upset, due in part to the hormonal imbalances caused by
both the pregnancy and the miscarriage, but after a day, I was
pretty much back to normal.

I think the hardest part in dealing with the miscarriage was in
telling our families and friends.  (The next time I got pregnant, we
waited until after the first trimester to tell anyone.)  All in all,
I consider myself very lucky.  My next pregnancy resulted in a
beautifully healthy bundle of joy.  And, the grieving process over
the miscarriage was pretty quick and relatively painless, perhaps
because it happened so early in the pregnancy.  I sometimes think
that I appreciated my second pregnancy much more because of the
mishap of the first.

Diane Lin (dlin@weber.ucsd.edu)

=====================================================================



Here's my saga -- no reference books mentioned.  Yes, you can
include my email address.  Thanks for doing this.  When my father
died, it helped me to read about other people's experiences.
So this may help someone too.

My first pregnancy was a tubal pregnancy, and the tube had to be removed.
I'll tell my story chronologically.  Maybe this will help someone who
has also had a tubal pregnancy.

I had been trying to get pregnant for over a year, (during which time
my father died of cancer).  I was taking my temperature
every morning before getting up, and having intercourse on appropriate days.
In July 83, my period was 2 weeks late, I had a urine test done at my
doctor's office -- the result: not pregnant.  Then I had an odd period,
with much more cramping than usual.  Then I spotted for a month.
I had a D&C done because the doctor thought I might have had an incomplete
spontaneous abortion.  No signs of that were found.

BTW the hospital treated the D&C as an abortion -- I had to fill out the
NY state abortion records form.  That came as an unpleasant surprise just
before I went into the operating room...

[In the meantime, some jerk at work took it upon himself to tell me that
I should have children, that it's the most important thing in the world.
I didn't choose the share with him that that was what I WAS trying to do
and that something had gone wrong...]

I continued to spot so a laporoscopy was done (which would have been
done to check if my tubes were clear anyways as a first step fertility
check).  The doctor immediately noticed that the fetus had started to
grow at the end of a tube, and that tube and the dead fetus were
removed.  They never did test if the other tube was open -- they had
more important things to do.  BTW I had no pain during all this time,
unlike a lot of tubal pregnancies where the pain indicates that the
tube is about to burst and profuse bleeding may start.  I painted our
living room the weekend before the operation.

I was very upset that not only wasn't I pregnant, I now had a 30%
reduced chance of getting pregnant. (Surprisingly an egg from the
ovary without the tube sometimes makes it over to the existing tube.)
Luckily since I had flunked the urine test, I didn't feel I had lost a
baby.  But I did feel as if my body had failed me, and that I was an
incomplete woman.  It was the first time I'd felt estranged from my
body...  I vowed, before I left the hospital, that I'd be back and
leave with my baby the next time.

It was a very lonely, unhappy 9 months before I got pregnant again.  I had
a 6 weeks convalescence at home (tubal pregnancy = major surgery).  Then the
daily temperatures again (and mine jumped all over the place).  And then
each period would start.  Lots of people told me of their miscarriages and/or
tubal pregnancies and how they subsequently had babies.  And I tried to
believe that that would happen for me too.  But someone was on the losing
end of the statistics (I think 20% never had children), and I often
thought it COULD be me.  I think I wrote lonely because I thought about it
a lot but didn't want to talk about it.

I also found myself in this Catch-22 situation:  if my second pregnancy
was also a tubal pregnancy, I could lose my last tube and never give
birth.  But if I 'saved' my tube by not getting pregnant, I'd still
never give birth.  So of course, I had to go for it, but I did feel
that it was a risky thing to do.

Even when I passed the urine test (and finally my temperature
resembled a pregnant woman's), I still didn't let myself believe that
everything was OK.  My husband, on the other hand, told everyone he
met that I was pregnant.  At 8 weeks I had an ultrasound to confirm
that the fetus was in the uterus this time.  I cried when the
technician said it was just fine, during somersaults.  And I cried
when I first saw our son 7 months later.  And I no longer feel like an
incomplete woman.

BTW I subsequently gave blood and was asked how many times I'd been pregnant.
I said twice but that one had been a tubal pregnancy.  So the Red Cross
worker said, "But the baby was alright?"  I said, "No, it died."  I was
shocked that the RC worker didn't know what a tubal pregnancy was -- maybe
she didn't hear what I said.  But it hurt to have to explain it.  Now I
can talk about it easily.

Kate Dudding                                   dudding@crd.ge.com
GE Corporate Research and Development
Bldg. KW, Room C315
PO Box 8, Schenectady, NY 12301                (518) 387-7164

=====================================================================
I had a miscarriage with my first pregnancy when I was 2 1/2 months along.

The main reason I am responding to your post is that before I got pregnant
I was on the pill for 6 years.  We waited 7 monthes after I went off the
pill before we started trying to get pregnant.  A friend of mine who also
stopped taking the pill at the same time and got pregnant a month before me
also miscarried.  I was wondering how many of the people who respond to
your post were on the pill before getting pregnant and how long they were
off before they got pregnant.

I got pregnant 3 months after the miscarriage and AJ was born 1 year minus
a day from the date of my miscarriage.  There were no problems with my
second pregnancy so the miscarriage was either due to problems with the
baby or due to the fact that I had been on the pill so long and there
may have been problems with the fetus emplanting.

mona@scubed.scubed.com

=====================================================================

Hi, my first two pregnancies ended unexpectedly.  The first was called a
mid-trimester fetal demise.  The fetus died, but I did not expel it.  The
second was a more traditional miscarriage.  Here are my experiences (you
may use my name and e-mail address if you wish).

My husband and I had been invited to join my father for the Indianapolis 500.
Unfortunately, this is the one year that is was "Not the Indianapolis 500"
for it was rained out.  I was 16 weeks pregnant when we went.  We did a lot
of hiking and standing around and I found that it was quite difficult to keep
up alot of the time.  The morning after we got back to town I discovered a
little spotting so I called my midwife (I had planned a home birth).  She
came over immediately.  I was 17 weeks pregnant at the time.  She couldn't
find the heartbeat with the Doppler device.  I was laughing about the baby
swimming away more than usual (it had a tendency to swim off whenever the
device was applied to my stomach, but we had always heard it before - 3
times).  She wasn't laughing.

The midwife called her support doctor and made an appointment for an immediate
ultrasound and off we went.  I was trying hard to keep my spirits up, but
my husband was driving with white knuckles.  He smashed a tire into the
curb when he parked and ended up with a flat.  He was that nervous.

The doctor performed the ultrasound and there were no heart tones and no
fetal movement.  It was the most devastating announcement I have ever heard.
The fetus was dead.  According to him the baby had died at least two weeks
earlier because of the size of the head and because my body had started
reabsorbing the fetus.  The one thing I remember is that no one called it
a baby.  It was always "the fetus".  Well, it was a baby to me.

I was given the choice of waiting until my body expelled the fetus, which
could have meant waiting the whole 9 months, or having surgery to remove it.
The choice was obvious to me, so he dilated my cervix that night and surgery
was scheduled for early the next morning.  My mom flew in from out of town
and waited with my husband while I was in surgery.  Mom had never really
liked Ron that much when she first met him, but she fell in love with him
at this time.  He was so worried and upset and disturbed and he allowed her
to soothe and comfort him.  I think she saw how very much he loved me.
That was the first good thing to come of the loss.

She went back home that night and offered us her hotel room since she thought
we might prefer staying there (a luxury hotel with room service) to going home
and facing the house with all the baby clothes and stuff laid out.  I had
even hung the mobile up in the living room.  And while the hotel room was
delightful, I think it was a mistake.  I got very restless and would have
preferred being home and dealing with the loss.  I needed to grieve and really
didn't until I had to put all those baby things away.  (I didn't grieve the
night before the surgery because I was still mostly in shock.  In fact, this
is disgusting, but we told the most lurid dead baby jokes all night.  I
don't remember any of them, only that they were terrible and I felt guilty, yet
this was the only way I could cope with the situation.  I was in a very
macabre frame of mind).

Ron took a whole week off from work to stay with me.  He ran his own
business and this week cost him a lot of money, but he didn't care.  I will
always love him for that.  I had wanted to convert our front entry hall into
an office and he spent the week building the office for me.  This loss brought
us closer together in our marriage than we had ever been.  We wept together.
This was the first time that something really bad had happened to me.  Until
this, bad things happened to other people.  I grew up a lot.

I was smart in dealing with this loss as a real loss.  I grieved and mourned
and experienced all the pain fully.  I wrote a short story about it and
submitted it to a short story contest.  It was rejected.  I went to UCLA
extension and took a writing course.  The course was taught in the medical
building.  Right outside the classroom was a display case of fetal skeletons
and fetii.  It was ironic, and I spent all my breaks just staring at
the display case.  In some ways, I think it was helpful because I looked
at these scientifically instead of emotionally.  And so I got through some
more of my pain.

Then I got pregnant again and started feeling really hopeful.  It had only
been 3 months since my loss and I was sure that this pregnancy would put
the loss out of my mind.  I went home for Christmas and made the announcement
to my family.  The day after my return, I started spotting.  I called the
doctor (no more home births for me) who said to go to bed and rest for the
weekend.  The spotting continued, but very slight.  I read and re-read every
pregnancy book in existance.  On Monday the doctor said to get up and go
about my normal life.  It was my first night in a new comedy class and it
was during this class that I suddenly felt a gush.  I knew that was it.  I
was terribly stoic about it.  I even finished the class.  I then called the
doctor when I got home and he wanted me to come in the next day.  He did
an ultrasound and the embryo was stillt here, but with no heart tones.  He
did a D&C in his office.  It was painless (physically) since he gave me an
injection of Valium.  And I was only 3 months along so I took this more
casually.  After all, I'd hardly had time to adjust to being pregnant.  I
hadn't bonded. Etc.

This was a BIG MISTAKE!  About 6 months later I got hit with the most horrible
depression and it took me along time to realize why.  I hadn't dealt with
the loss of this baby.

The most insidious thing about the second miscarriage was that it got into
the core of my being.  It hit me deep within and assailed my sense of value
as a woman.  It made me begin really hating myself.  I was useless.  I couldn't
even carry a child to term.  And because it was so much later, the support I
would have gotten immediately after the miscarriage wasn't there.  I was
surprised at how much my ability to have children affected my sense of being
a whole person.

I lost the second baby in January.  I am pleased to say that the following
Halloween I conceived my son Mitchell, now 3.  Because I'd had so much
trouble, we ran every test in the book.  We did genetic counseling, we had
lots of ultrasounds and non-stress tests.  And, of course, it was an eventless
pregnancy (other than gaining 60 pounds and being miserable for a good part
of it - but that's me and pregnancy).  And since both of my losses had taken
place after flying, I refused to get on an airplane the entire duration of
my pregnancy.  The doctors didn't think there was any connection, but I sure
did.

And then, 14 months later, on the beautiful island of Kauai, I conceived my
daughter Erin, now 14 months.  Again, I didn't fly once I knew I was pregnant.
And, again, it was an eventless pregnancy (other than the normal misery).

I learned a lot about life from both of these losses.  I learned that I
bond with an embryo as strongly as with a fetus.  I learned that I am mortal.
I learned how very much my husband loves me.  And I learned that intense
emotional pain does heal with time, but only if it is faced and dealt with.
I could not bury it.  I could not hide from it.  Now matter how much I tried
to pretend it didn't matter, it did.  And the running from the pain and feeling
of inadequacy just made it that much harder.

A miscarriage is the loss of hope, it is the loss of potential, it is the loss
of a dream.  It matters and deserves full grief and mourning.  Don't let anyone
negate your right to grieve with "it's probably better this way" or "you can
always have another".  Grieve fully and totally, for your unborn child deserves
this.  It deserves to have its loss felt.  And the tears you shed will be tears
of healing.



Judy Leedom Tyrer (judy@devnet.la.locus.com)



