Body Image and Miscarriage - My Experience Part I

This is a topic that I wanted to cover shortly after I had my miscarriage and when I started the Body Image series (which, to be perfectly honest, I still have to finish... I have about 3 or 4 other body image posts just waiting in my drafts)

I think that body image is a tough topic to tackle on it's own. I think it's especially difficult to discuss when body image is combined with a loss that is as deep reaching as a miscarriage. And in truth, people don't openly discuss miscarriage. Sure, we talk about it with our close family members and friends or maybe even more distant family members or friends you don't see or talk to as often if they bring it up, but it's not widely discussed beyond those boundaries. Even doing a web search of miscarriage and body image, I found very little.

And with good reason. You feel betrayed by your body; some women feel guilty and it's easy to feel like there is something wrong with you or that you're defective.

My experience, was a roller coaster ride to say the least. For those who know me personally or have read my blog previously will know that in March I had to go to the hospital. I didn't know I was having a miscarriage for sure, but I wanted to be safe and be checked out. In the pregnancy books they tell you that with a miscarriage you feel severe pain and may have severe bleeding. I didn't have anywhere near severe pain, and there wasn't plenty of blood either. So I was hopeful that things would be okay and at most I would have to quit my job and take it easy at home.

That was the start of my miscarriage.

They found that my pregnancy hormone hCG wasn't nearly as high as it should have been. I was at the hospital for hours, had blood tests done and had an ultrasound. They told me I had to go home for two days and then come back to see if there was an improvement or if my hormones continued to decline. (I think we know what ended up happening) These two days were the most stressful I can think of in my short life, and it was full of worry, crying and not knowing what might happen. The doctor who had been taking care of me gave me some pills to help my body clear out what it needed to in a bit shorter of a time frame. I was sad, but I found a little comfort in the fact that there was nothing I could have done to change things. I went home and back to work. I was doing okay.

At a two week check up, they did more blood tests and another ultrasound - I was still pregnant. Oh-FUCK! The pills they gave me didn't work, and they didn't have much hope that they would work after a second dosage. They gave me some time to think about what I wanted to do. I decided that rather than take another course of the meds and possibly be disappointed again in another two weeks to go the day surgery route. I scheduled a D&C that took place in April. The recovery time was a week.

By the end of April, I had been dealing with the same miscarriage for a month, had day surgery - the exact thing they refused to discuss in the first place (Not that I would have chosen the day surgery at that point anyway)

I remember coming out of my snooze after the surgery, there was a woman talking to me saying that I was in the hospital and I was doing really well and that we were done. She asked how I felt, and (with closed eyes, since I was groggy) I felt a single tear roll down my cheek as I said "That was supposed to be my first baby..." I guess she already had a tissue on hand, because she wiped away my tear and put the tissue in my hand.

Pretty much as soon as I was coherent, I looked down at my belly. It was big, swollen and empty. It felt a lot like pizza dough. I've never seen my belly that big and it was strange.
Afterward, I felt A LOT better than I expected mentally. I remember talking to my sister on the phone saying the exact same thing to her. And I remember her saying something like, "Ohhhh honey, it hasn't hit you yet." She knew what she was talking about through her own experiences.

And little did I know, she was exactly right. It hadn't hit me yet, and it was just the beginning.