My Missed Miscarriage Story – One Miscarriage at Home and One Surgically Managed Miscarriage
Although this story has a good ending, I want to make it clear I am very open with how my natural miscarriage at home went. Please only continue reading if you’re able to handle full details of what a natural miscarriage looks like.
Years of Waiting For a Baby
My husband and I knew we wanted children from a very young age. So when we got married it was a perfect match when we joked about the 12 children we’d eventually have.
We got married shortly after I started nursing school so we followed the “standard path” of going on hormonal birth control (BC) and waited a few years before having children. But pretty quickly, it was clear that hormonal BC was not right for my body and we decided to stop it and let God decide when our family would start. Yes, even in the middle of nursing school.
We were both shocked when I didn’t get pregnant right away. And of course, knowing what I know now, it’s because I was extremely stressed and didn’t have a healthy cycle. Duh. But, in those years my heart yearned for the baby that was not given to us.
How I healed my cycle and finally started to ovulate again, is a story for another time, but it took about 9 months of being off BC to finally ovulate. But still, I didn’t get pregnant.
After nursing school, we moved across the country to attend seminary. Our first weekend in Pennsylvania we attended St. Tikhon's Monastery and were blessed to see the Hawaiian Iveron Icon of the Mother of God.
The whole service felt heavenly. When I went to venerate the icon, I was overwhelmed by the fragrance of the icon and prayed, with tears in my eyes, to finally conceive a baby. (This was about 18 months since stopping BC.) I swear, in that moment of veneration, I felt my womb open. It had been about 5 months of regular cycles and I walked away from that encounter very hopeful.
Shortly thereafter, I started working as a nurse and as I dove into training I was met with exhaustion on a whole new level. But simply thought it was life as a young nurse.
We were approaching Father’s Day, 2016, when I started to have the wildest dreams of my life. I jokingly told some coworkers about it and all the women asked, “Have you taken a pregnancy test?? Sounds like you’re pregnant!” I couldn’t believe it. They had no clue how long I had wanted that to be true. But I suspected that I ovulated about two weeks prior so it was possible.
My husband wasn't home, he had gone to his parents for the holiday weekend, and I was going to meet him there. I took the dogs for a walk, the whole time wondering if I could be pregnant. When I got home I couldn’t wait any longer – yes, I know you’re “supposed” to test first thing in the morning – but, I couldn’t wait.
I got home, took the test, and walked away. I had taken so many tests prior to this moment praying that I would see a second line and I never did. When my alarm went off, I scooped up the test and to my utter surprise and astonishment, there were two clear lines. I was pregnant.
I shook with sobs and fell to my knees in front of my Prayer corner and cried tears of thanksgiving. I didn’t want to tell Colin over the phone and I had to wait a full 24 hours before I would see him. So instead I called my dearest girlfriend and we cried on the phone together.
The next day I drove out to my in-laws and surprised him with a Father’s Day card from the poppyseed side baby growing in my womb. We were elated and immediately told our families and began preparing.
A Turn For The Worst – A Missed Miscarriage
At my first prenatal appointment, around 6ish weeks pregnant, my OB set us up for an early ultrasound (u/s) to check on baby. At the time I knew nothing about asking more questions and simply went along with everything my OB suggested. At the first u/s which should have showed a baby with a beating heart – around 7 weeks along – we only saw an empty sack no fetal pull. They set us up for another u/s 2 weeks later to see if anything changed and assured us we might just be too early and baby will be growing next u/s.
I tried not to worry, but something inside me knew something was wrong. I woke up from dreams about miscarrying, my every thought and prayer was centered around the baby, and I counted every minute till the next u/s.
After two weeks, we went for a check up. I was hopeful because I was feeling tired and nauseous so I assumed and prayed baby was doing well. But once the u/s tech put the wand in and scanned for baby I knew something was wrong, though she wouldn’t tell us. We were shooed out to the doctors waiting room while the dread built inside and tears silently came down.
Once in the doctors office, we waited together, but I knew what was coming. The doctor came, a different one from my first appointment, and simply said, “I’m sorry, but your baby has no heartbeat. You’re having a missed miscarriage. Do you want a D&C?”
There was no empathy, no consolation, no kind words to move forward from. He just took my heart and smashed it and expected us to move forward. We were told we could wait for the miscarriage to happen naturally or we could schedule a dilation and curettage (D&C) to remove the “products of conception”.
We decided to go to the only place we knew to run to, the monastery. We cried the whole way not knowing what to say or do. There the Abbot gave us the sweet comfort we needed. He spoke of hope in the Resurrection and the Truth about our baby’s life.
We decided to miscarry naturally – though we had no idea what to expect – and not-so-patiently waited for what was to come.
By God’s providence, there was a woman in our community who had experienced a similar situation a few months prior and I was able to talk to her about what happened. And on a Sunday night in August, I experienced my frist ever contraction.
My Miscarriage At Home
I was supposed to go into work that night but something in me told me to call-out. I laid on the couch with my head in my husbands lap as I cried. It was 4 weeks since finding out our baby had passed away. I should have been almost 12 weeks along, but instead was starting labor.
As the contractions began, I quickly realized they were nothing like period cramps my doctor had told me to expect. They were waves of pain that were made worse by my grief. We went to bed with the Paraklesis playing, while I worked through one contraction after another.
After about 5 hours of contracting every 15-20 minutes I felt a pop and was present of mind enough to run to the bathroom. The moment I sat on the toilet a huge gush of blood poured out. I yelled for Colin to come, though there was nothing he could do.
I was so shocked by the amount of blood and pain but the Holy Spirit came over me and whispered that I could do this, “I was strong and my body was wise.” I reached inside me and felt a small bulge, which I assumed was the baby or placenta, but again I had no reference for what it might be. I sat in the bathtub, laid on the bathroom floor, and finally after a few more hours I had one more strong contraction which pushed out the remains of my baby and the placenta.
I was able to retrieve these from the toilet and held what remained in my hands. I wept and marveled. And in that moment my life was forever changed after seeing a glimpse into what our bodies are capable of.
I was not prepared for the labor that I had with this miscarriage. Even though my baby had stopped growing, 4 weeks earlier, I still had a placenta the size of my palm. I couldn’t clearly see a baby though. I’m thankful I knew enough about the labor process to understand that I had just had a small labor but I can’t imagine going through a miscarriage at home with no frame of reference.
The Recovery of My Natural Miscarriage
As you can imagine, I was extremely week after a night of laboring and then losing so much blood. I couldn’t even walk to my bedroom without blacking out. After I talked to my OB, she told me that this was within normal limits as long as I was not bleeding through two pads an hour and it got better after rest and hydration. She also told me that as long as the bleeding decreased over the next week I could expect that the process was complete.
She saw me in the office a few weeks later for blood work and then gave me the ok to start trying to conceive again, when it felt right for us.
And just like that, my baby’s life was over. I was expected to just move on and try again. Like I fell off a horse and just needed to get back on again. But healing from this loss was no small feat, especially after having tried to conceive for so long. But little by little I healed. We were able to burry the baby at St. Tikhon’s Monastery and that was extremely helpful. We named the baby Gabriel, after the Archangel of Good News.
Over the next few months, I focused on working and prayed we’d be able to conceive again. I can’t remember how quickly I started ovulating again or how many cycles I had but by October, just three months later we were pregnant again.
Round Two… Our Second Loss
I was just hired as a nurse on Labor and Delivery and I was over the moon to be expecting again. I tried not to get my hopes up but still, how could I not? I ended up switching providers and saw a doctor that was well known in the Monastery/Seminary community so I prayed that we would be treated better this time around.
As soon as I was pregnant, I called the office and told them my history and that I wanted an early u/s to confirm viability. The earliest they could get me in was when I would be 7 weeks along. At that u/s though, the baby was only measuring 5.5 weeks but had a very slow heartbeat. So on the one hand, we felt hopeful but on the other my nurse brain kicked in and said, “a slow heartbeat at this point almost always ends up as a loss…”
He told us what we had heard before, “come back in two weeks and we will reassess.” Two weeks passed and that u/s showed us the same catastrophic news. Our baby had stopped growing, pretty shortly after we checked in on him.
I was numb.
I couldn’t breath and in that moment I knew I couldn’t do this again. It was December and I couldn’t walk around and wait for my body to realize my baby had died. We scheduled a D&C, went through the procedure, and buried the baby next to his brother. We named this baby Raphael, also after an Archangel.
That night we watched a movie and talked about our plans for Christmas. I tried to brush it under the rug and just move on with life, like so many people told me to do. But over the next few months, the grief would come out in very unexpected moments: a Christmas play with family, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t stop thinking about my babies and was lost in grief and panic, or when other friends told me they were expecting, and Holy Week when the Theotokos was weeping for Jesus on the cross.
Moving Forward From Miscarriage
I tried to lose myself in my work and help mothers give birth to their babies while I clung to a thread of hope that one day I would hold my baby too. And as easy as it is to look back now and see how God worked it all out, I won’t lie and say that it was easy. It was very hard to feel God’s presence in those months. I felt alone and unsure of why this was all happening.
But, this story does have a good ending. Both of my babies are in Heaven basking in the warm love of our Lord. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, I will see them and hold them one day. I also know, that my body still holds onto their cells, known as fetal microchimerism, which means I have two saints relics in me.
And now, 8 years later, I have 4 beautiful and healthy children to look after. They all know they have brothers’ in heaven and one day we will meet them!
If you have experienced pregnancy loss or may be experiencing a missed miscarriage my heart is with you. I am so very sorry for your loss. I know the pain and I won’t tell you to let it go but, I will tell you to give it to God. That’s the only way I made it through those dark days. I gave my pain to our Lord and the Mother of God and they were with me in the mire.
Don’t lose hope, dear sister. God is with us.
