Our Missed Miscarriage Story

This story is meant to bring comfort to other would-be mothers who need to know they’re not alone.

This isn’t a happy story but I’m telling it because I didn’t have anyone who went through exactly what I went through – a missed miscarriage. No one in my family has ever had any type of miscarriage, and out of the countless women I know, only two have mentioned they have had a miscarriage. People have many reasons for not wanting to talking about this situation – and I get it. But I’m sharing my story for all the hopeful mothers, like myself, who need to know they’re not alone when things don’t work out.

Statistics will tell you that 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage. Doctors will tell you miscarriage is very common. Doctors will also tell you that missed miscarriages are less common but known to happen often. It’s all true, but to me, it feels as if I am meant to find comfort in being a statistic. “I am 1 in 4″…wear it like a badge. Sorry but screw that. I don’t want to be another number or statistic in a textbook.

July 20, 2021

I woke up and took a pregnancy test. I started suspecting I may be pregnant when I missed my period over the weekend. Usually these tests take forever to produce results, and I had become accustomed to seeing the words “not pregnant” on the display. Not today. Within seconds I saw “pregnant” and my heart fluttered. A huge smile grew on my face as I started thinking of how I wanted to tell Pat and my family.

I put the test in a little box and set up my phone to record in secret. Pat was so happy. He was hugging me, smiling. Then my sister…she cried tears of joy once she realized it wasn’t a prank. That evening, my parents came over and I did the same. They were so excited – crying, jumping, praising God.

August 11, 2021

It was our second OB/GYN appointment and we were scheduled to have our first ultrasound. I was 7 weeks and 6 days which meant we would get to hear its heartbeat for the first time. I’ve been taking my prenatals too, so I was feeling confident walking into the room. I shed a tear or two the second I saw my little bean and thought to myself – we made that.

That’s when the nurse said, “unfortunately there’s no heart beat.” I felt my stomach drop. I felt vulnerable, laying there with equipment between my legs, looking at a monitor, and praying she just didn’t know what she was doing. Praying between tears that she was wrong. She then said that the baby was too small for how far along I should have been. Nearly eight weeks…and Little Bean was measuring at 6 weeks and 2 days.

She said we’d have to meet with a doctor immediately and escorted us to a private room. The doctor was friendly and hugged me as he came in. He signaled that there were two outcomes.

Outcome 1) A late ovulation which means I was only 6 weeks and 2 days, not nearly 8 weeks, as we thought. At 6 weeks, it would be impossible to hear a heartbeat. He said to give it a week and there heartbeat should be detectable.

Outcome 2) The baby may have passed away at 6 weeks and 2 days, and my body still thinks it’s pregnant…this is known as a ‘missed miscarriage’. After a week, if the baby has shown no growth and no heartbeat, I would need to take medication or have surgery.

August 18, 2021

Waiting a week felt like an eternity. But my pregnancy symptoms were stronger than ever. The morning sickness was almost unbearable but it gave me hope that things were progressing as they should.

Within a minute or two into the ultrasound, it was all over. There was still no heartbeat. Through my tears, I asked the RN to print me the ultrasound photos. I knew I needed something to hold onto…a momento. This nurse ushered us into the furthest corner of the facility and asked us to wait in the room for the doctor. I clung onto my ultrasound photos hoping that maybe the doctor would say she was wrong, but he didn’t.

We were faced with three choices: 1) Let the miscarriage happen naturally, but this could several months before my body realizes that I’m not pregnant any more. 2) Take abortion medication to start the process…It would be over within 48-72 hours with light bleeding for 7-10 days. 3) Have a D and C procedure.

With the wedding coming up we didn’t think it would be good for me physically or mentally to let it happen on its own. And the surgery would be expensive – we’d be forced to use our wedding money to pay for it, which would mean, no more wedding. So Pat and I decided that taking Misoprostol medication was the best option for us.

Later That Night

Misoprostol isn’t a pill you can take orally in this situation. Four hexagon-shaped pills have to be inserted into the vagina, as deep as you can get them. Then you repeat 24 hours later with another four. The cramping kicked in within an hour of taking the first dose of the medication. After four more hours, I started cramping and bleeding so bad that I was making frequent trips to the toilet. I went through 6 pads at this point.

(This is where it gets a little gruesome.) It was during one of these bathroom visits that I felt everything slip out into the toilet bowl. I panicked…Pat and I knew we wanted to bury it…and I didn’t want to flush my baby. I grabbed an old glass jar and gloves and rescued it. As soon as it was all over, the horror of what just happened swept over me and I started wailing. My wonderful husband Pat never left my side. We cried and held each other until we were able to calm down.

Feeling better physically made me feel more guilty and more sad. The medication still made my cramping and bleeding extremely painful, and that carried on into the next day, but it was like I didn’t feel sick anymore. The morning sickness was gone and my stomach didn’t feel bloated.

Starting To Heal

On August 19th, the day before my birthday, we took Little Bean to my parents house for a funeral. While on the highway, we drove right into a storm. At first, it was sunny but we saw lightning striking all around us, then the sky quickly grew black. Wind picked up and the rain was so bad that we could barely see the cars ahead of us. We drove for a while in those conditions…it felt like forever.

Then suddenly, the sky seemed to split and directly in front of us was the brightest, warmest sun that shone through the clouds. It looked pure white but you could look directly at it. Within minutes of the Sun appearing, the storm completely dissipated. As we reached the stop light at the end of the off-ramp, we saw a giant, vibrant rainbow stretching for miles. As we kept driving, we saw another rainbow, then another. And as we pulled up to my childhood home, there was a fourth rainbow arching over my parents house. I took a picture of Little Bean’s burial box with the rainbow just before we place our little angel inside.

Pat and I felt like that storm mirrored our pain and healing. We found peace and comfort doing the funeral after such a beautiful and poetic rain storm. The rainbows felt like hope for future children and symbolized the peace and endless love Little Bean has found. It all felt like a sign that Little Bean’s final resting place was blessed and our little one got its wings and crossed over the rainbow into Heaven.

We buried Little Bean in a beautiful garden filled with all sorts of flowers. We said some prayers and sprinkled holy water over the box and laid a beautiful bouquet brought from the Best flower delivery Mississauga. Everyone grieves in their own way, and I’m sure there will be plenty of people who judge us for our choice, or have opinions, but we are happy with our decision and that’s all that matters at the end of the day. Heal how you need to heal. This was something Pat and I wanted to do to honor the life that was once inside me and it helped us both.

A Week Later

I find myself ricocheting between guilt, anger, and depression still. I know there’s nothing I could have done to stop the miscarriage, but it doesn’t mean I don’t feel shame that I couldn’t save my baby. The shame lives in the helplessness. I feel anger towards my body because it continued carrying on as if it were pregnant, growing and changing, when it should have let go.

And I found myself getting angry about the “comforting” words people share with me. Things like:

- Everything happens for a reason
- 1 in 4 pregnancies end in miscarriage
- It was just a cleansing – The next one will take
- It’s God’s plan – Stop crying about it

But then I realized that people say these things because this is what they find comfort in. Whether they’ve experienced a miscarriage or not, they find comfort in knowing WHY these terrible things happen. I understood their intent after that realization and appreciated them sharing their words of comfort.

But I realized that I never cared to know why it happened. It already did, and for me, knowing a reason won’t change anything. I find comfort it knowing that Pat and I will move forward together with our angel baby forever in our hearts. We plan to honor our little one every Christmas with a miscarriage ornament, and I purchased a necklace that I intend to wear majority of my days. I find comfort in sharing my story because someone out there might need to hear that we went through the same, if not similar, experiences. And if you are experiencing something like this, please know that you are absolutely not alone and I would be more than happy to chat with you about it all.

I know that I will never be the same as I once was. Maybe a bit sadder, yet somehow stronger. As of right now, I feel like I’ve lost more than just my baby. I feel as if I’ve lost my ability to be excited about pregnancy and lost faith in the future. But then I remember those rainbows and small feelings of hopefulness creep in. I know that over time, my soul will find a way to make enough room for the grief, the pain, the joy and all the love. There will be family and friends who will never understand, or know this pain, or understand why we do what we do, but I’m blessed to have Pat. We are in this together and we have been mindful of each other throughout the process.