The Heartbreak of Missed Miscarriage
By Laura D. Kimball
Background: It took 3.5 years, one early miscarriage in 2015, and failed fertility treatments (IUI failed 4 times) before my husband Sam and I conceived our 3 year old daughter Hannah the cycle after the 4th IUI attempt failed. We are currently trying to conceive a second child and have had two first trimester losses, one in 2021 and one in January of 2023. I have been working as a preschool teacher since 2019, and I have specifically been an infant teacher since November of 2021. I love caring for babies and watching them reach all the milestones in their first year.
My Story:
My daughter Hannah was born October 27, 2019. My pregnancy with her ended up going extremely smoothly despite the difficult road we had to conceiving her. Once we’d had a successful pregnancy my husband and I were hopeful that our difficulties conceiving were behind us, and we officially started trying again when Hannah was 11 months old, with the hope that we would conceive our second child within a year. We didn’t “try” in terms of tracking anything at this point, but I was already starting to get anxious about 6 months into trying about how long it was going to take. Then 2 months later (April of 2021) I found out that I was pregnant. I was shocked because it was right after my grandma died, and I felt like my heart wasn’t even in trying that month, we just happened to have sex a couple times during the fertile window because it was his birthday.
When I found out, I immediately felt uneasy because I felt like I had gotten pregnant too easily. I told a few people so that I could be supported, but I was cautious about sharing my news too much because I had a bad feeling. We did tell our family members who we hadn’t shared with yet at Mother’s Day when I was 7 weeks pregnant, but I still felt nervous. I spent weeks feeling anxious but was finally starting to relax a bit around the 8 week mark when I started seeing some brown spotting. I called my OBGYN’s office, and they reassured me that spotting is common in the first trimester but offered to move up my first ultrasound a bit. I was super stressed out that week and obsessing over what the spotting meant and of course, looking up all the possibilities on the internet.
Finally I went with my husband for an ultrasound on May 24, 2021 when I should have been 9 weeks, 2 days pregnant. As soon as the picture was on the screen, I knew it wasn’t good news though I couldn’t necessarily tell exactly what had happened. All I could see was a thickened lining- there was no embryo that I could see. Sure enough, the doctor told us that we had likely had a missed miscarriage and there was no way that our pregnancy was viable. When I got blood work, my HcG levels came back at like 19000, so at least I understood why I still felt pregnant. My bleeding began in earnest the next day, so I decided to choose expectant management as my option for waiting to see if my miscarriage would resolve without needing medication or a D&C.
My HcG levels were still very high that Wednesday, so I was told to come back to get more labs on Friday since Memorial Day Weekend was coming up. Instead of just getting lab work though, I ended up waking up Friday morning with hemorrhaging. It was early in the morning before anyone else was awake. I realized I had bled through everything in the 2 hours that had passed since I changed my pad and when I went to the bathroom I had huge clots. I called the emergency line and was told to go to the ER. My mother-in-law took our daughter to daycare for us that day and my husband drove me to the hospital.
The Friday before Memorial Day was an extremely busy time at the ER, and even though I was bleeding so much and felt like I was about to pass out we waited for probably 2 hours before being admitted. This was 2021, so I was supposed to be wearing my mask in the waiting room, but because I felt like I was going to throw up, I had taken it off, and a CNA yelled at me for not doing what I was supposed to do. Once we were admitted, my care greatly improved- the nurse and everyone involved in my care that day were great. I did end up passing out when we went to the bathroom, but my husband caught me before I hit the floor. After that I received 2 rounds of IV fluids and eventually the OBGYN removed some of the clots and it slowed my bleeding to a stable level. We were able to go home to our daughter that night, and although I was anemic and felt weak, I returned to work that Tuesday and ultimately kept to my usual routine.
My miscarriage went on for weeks though. I continued bleeding off and on until the week of July 4th when I finally was told my HcG levels were back to normal. My primary feeling was not sadness at what I was going through, it was annoyance. I was frustrated how long it was taking my body to recover, and I was frustrated because I knew it was putting off when we would be able to try again. But my period ended up coming back 2 weeks after my levels had returned to normal, and we did start trying to conceive again immediately. It took about a year and a half to conceive again, but that pregnancy ended in an early loss, so we are continuing to try for our second child. The missed miscarriage was much more painful both physically and emotionally than my other 2 miscarriages. The fact that I wasn’t even sure anything was wrong made me feel blindsided when I found out the pregnancy wasn’t viable. The physical aspect of what I went through was upsetting and nothing that I could’ve been prepared for adequately. I hope that by sharing what I went through other people who experienced something similar will feel less isolated.
