ALWAYS Listen To What Your Body Is Telling You…

On Monday, I had a D&E performed because I had suffered a missed miscarriage the week before.  Wednesday night I began having chills around 8pm, which quickly progressed to full body aches and a fever of over 101 degrees.  If it wasn’t for my sister’s insistence, I would have simply ‘toughed it out’.  Instead, I listened to my sister and called my doctor’s office around 9:30pm, leaving a message for the on-call doctor.  When the doctor called back, I explained my symptoms (chills, fever, aches, and sharp pains in my abdomen).  The doctor said that she had looked at the pathology report from Monday’s procedure, and that no fetal tissue had been located; she thought that, due to my bicornuate uterus, the fetus was still inside one of the horns of my uterus and that I was beginning an infection.  The doctor instructed me to go to the ER.

We arrived at the ER a little after 10pm, and I was taken back to a exam room around 12:30am, covered in blankets because I was freezing.  I was then greeted with a barrage of tests over the next 8 hours – two lengthy blood draws, urinalyses, was given and IV of fluids, and went through the most painful, and humiliating ultrasound in my life (had an external and internal ultrasound, and the tech had me disrobe without ever giving me privacy).

After 8 1/2 hours, the ER doctor had finally been able to speak with my doctor and tell me what we had already been told at 10pm — the fetus had been retained and infection was setting in.  I was told that I would be given medication to expel the ‘excess tissue’, and sent on my way.  The nurse that came in to give me my meds was ‘nice’ enough to tell me that I was going to be going through hell with this process, would likely get really sick, be in a great deal of pain, and that if it became too much after the 2nd or 3rd dose, to come back to the ER and insist on another D&E.  She also thought it would be a great idea to tell me that she had had 2 D&Cs, and that I would likely miscarry the next time I got pregnant because of scarring from the D&C [that I never had].  Comforting, eh?  It was the perfect ending to a nightmarish ER experience, in which the few people I did encounter (we spent 6 hours without ever really being checked-on – I had an empty IV bag for over 3 hours) took notes when asking about my condition, so I had to retell my experience and condition to every. single. person.  I left the ER in tears, as my worst fears had been realized – I would have to miscarry my baby.  The main reason I chose to have a D&E was so that I wouldn’t have to experience miscarriage.

I headed home, and spent all of yesterday in bed with a fever and abdominal pain.  I took my first dose of misoprostal at 6:30 yesterday morning, and my last dose of at 12:30 this morning.  I didn’t start expelling tissue until 7:30am this morning, and thanfully, I’ve not been experiencing continual labor pain – the only pain I’ve had is severe cramping just before and during expelling tissue.  I can not wait for this nightmarish process to be over, and to begin healing, both physically and emotionally.

Infection is a serious thing, and can easily progress to sepsis (as I was beginning to show symptoms of).  Sepsis can be deadly if left untreated, so always listen to what your body is telling you…