Saturday
I started spotting on Saturday. At first I told myself that it was normal, and spotting can happen in pregnancy (again with my power of positive thinking campaign). But, the truth is I had lost my cool. My husband and I had been arguing, and it turned into a screaming match. Unfortunately, this is not unusual for us, but this was a bad one. We disagree on some key elements of where our life is heading. In the end, he drove off in his truck, and I threw myself on the bed, crying and feeling very stressed out. Within an hour, I started spotting.
It was time for me to go to work. Before I left, I told my husband (who was back and had calmed down and apologized) that I was spotting. He asked if this was an emergency, and if I should stay home from work. I said that it could be normal, but if I was miscarrying there was nothing I could do to stop it. My job is not strenuous at all, instead it takes a still, calm concentration. At work I went to the bathroom every hour to check on what was happening. No change. Just the slightest bit of pink discharge.
When I got home I looked up spotting in early pregnancy. I learned that 20% of pregnancies experience spotting early on, and that it's not necessarily a bad thing. There are a few reasons why this could happen. First, the uterine wall (endometrium) builds up a think layer of red blood cells, and as the blastocyst implants, some blood is released. (The blastocyst is what the growing collection of cells is called at this stage. It is comprised of a bunch of cells which become the fetus inside a layer of cells which become the placenta. It is about the size of a lentil) So, apparently this can come with some crampy pain in the abdomen or lower back. But, I read that spotting is also how miscarriage starts. If the show is pink or brown, that is a good thing, but if it turns bright red or gets very heavy or you pass clots, that is cause for concern.
Sunday
Nothing had changed by morning, still the same light pink show. By Sunday afternoon it had started to turn a bright red, so I called my friend Natalie, a traditional birth attendant who at been present at my younger daughter's home birth. I told her about the spotting, and about how it was starting to turn bright red. I asked her if there was anything I could do to stop it, if I was miscarrying. She said "You shouldn't." She said trust your body, your body knows what to do. I asked her if bed rest would help. She said not unless I had been doing something particularly strenuous (I hadn't). She said if it turns out to be a miscarriage, then I should drink some strong red raspberry leaf tea, to help my uterus flush out what it needs to and return to it's pre-pregnancy state. After our chat, I felt fairly at peace, but by that evening, my calm, centered, positive thinking self had flown out the window. The bleeding was increasing , and I started passing small clots. I called my good friend Jo, and told her everything. I cried on the phone about how unfair it all was. We talked for a long time, about miscarriages, and how many women we knew that had had one, about pregnancy and giving birth and what we want for our lives. A few days earlier, I could sense the presence of another soul within me, the air was charged with a kind of energy, there was an excitement about the baby, and everything felt very magical. Now, I could no longer sense that presence. I wasn't sure if my mind was playing tricks on me, if fear was taking over, but I could feel that my baby was gone. I fell asleep in a deep state of despair.
Monday
When I woke up, my stomach felt squishy, where before it was hard. I stayed in bed all day. There was plenty more bleeding, and I passed a fairly large bit of tissue. All day I had intermittent cramping and pain. I spent a lot of time crying. My husband, Brian, spent some time with me, we just laid there in silence for a good long time. Sometimes I would cry, and other times he just rubbed my back, and sometimes I would get that pain coming again, and I was glad to have someone there with me. My mom came to visit. We thoroughly disagree on how a miscarriage should be dealt with, because she kept saying that I should "go in", or call the doctor or something. I just told her there's nothing they can do, and told her what my midwife had said. "Your body knows what to do. Just trust your body and let it happen." Brian told the kids I lost the baby. Ocean, my four year old daughter, was asking me questions about it last night. Ocean asked "You lost the baby at work, mom?" I said no, that the baby wasn't growing right, and my body flushed it out. "So, was the baby's head small and the body big?" I said no, the baby didn't attach properly to the womb. "So it got flushed out when you peed?" No, I said. The blood came and the baby got washed out in the blood. "The blood?" (She looked horrified) I said it's the same blood women get when they have their period. She said she didn't know what a period was (even though I know I've told her). So, I said the blood comes every month and washes out the uterus if there's no baby growing there. I had to explain (again) that the blood comes out the vagina, and not the belly button. Ocean was very grown up about the whole thing. She said she was sorry that happened, and that she could tell I was sad. She said she had wanted to see the baby. I said "Me too." She gave me plenty of hugs.
One of the things I really wanted to experience in this pregnancy is a connection to women, past and present, a bonding through shared experience. Throughout history, women get pregnant, women give birth, women breast feed. This is our ancient connection to the earth. The experience of loss is something we share as well. We hurt. Physically. Emotionally. Spiritually. And through that we can be connected as well.
I am left with a feeling of not knowing what happens now. Will my body go back to the way it was before? Will my cycles align themselves with the full moon, as they were before I got pregnant? How long will I hurt? How long will I mourn? Will the same soul come to me again, should we decide to try again? Or has that soul moved on from me forever? I have so many unanswered questions. I guess this, too, is the experience of motherhood. I knew that motherhood would burn an imprint deep into my heart, but I never thought it would feel like this.
