What happened?

**Major warning. This is going to be a gruesome play by play to help me process and for anyone who really wants to know what happened. Please don't read if you're squeamish!**



We first learned that there was no heartbeat at our ultrasound on Thursday, Feb. 10. At this point I was 8weeks, 5 days along, and baby was measuring 8 weeks, 4 days.

The weekend of February 11-13 we hosted the Mills clan, threw a party Saturday and celebrated Kate's birthday. It was such a sweet party! We also gathered around at church on Sunday and prayed for a miracle. That God would breathe life into baby Mills #3. And that the next ultrasound we had, there would be a heartbeat.

I got the stomach flu, combined with aches and fever on Tuesday the 15th and the dr wanted to see me the next morning. Worst case scenario was that I had an infection that was connected with the miscarriage.

Went in to the dr on Wednesday the 16th and felt fine that day. No fever or vomiting. Just really mixed emotions. Hoping to see a heartbeat (an understatement) but knowing the reality. And actually not even knowing if they'd do an ultrasound since I was being seen for the vomiting, aches and fever. They had me wait in an exam room and I said to Jason "I think this must be the miscarriage room. There is no baby paraphernalia in here at all. And it's in the very back corner of the office."

We saw the nurse practitioner, went over our options with the miscarriage before she even took a look- which was good. She was so gracious. Let us see the screen- told us there was no heartbeat, and baby was measuring 8 weeks, 2 days. I would have been 9 weeks, 4 days at that point. We scheduled the d&c for Friday morning- signed the wavers, and left. But not before having her print out a picture of the baby. I regretted not taking one the last time.

I didn't cry. I called my Mom and very matter-of-factly told her that I scheduled the d&c. Got off the phone, drove home and prayed. On the drive home I started having major regrets about planning that d&c so soon. We hadn't even prayed or talked over it at all. And Jason had expressed concern in the exam room about not wanting to do the d&c. I got home, called the office and cancelled it. I wanted to miscarry at home- or at least let my body start the process on it's own.

Wednesday night the Silvas hosted life group. Thank you Silvas! I didn't want to pass on whatever stomach bug I'd had the day before.
Wednesday afternoon I either held having to go to the bathroom or took one of the kids with me every time I went. I was so scared about how I'd handle the first blood, cramping- no idea how big the baby would be when it came out. What if it just "fell" out, etc? The first blood came at about 4pm and I had Kate in the bathroom with me. Didn't feel as distressing as I'd thought. Slept through the night just fine, very light blood into Thursday morning. Thursday during the kids' naps I started having some cramping. "Ok, good." I thought. "Let's just get this over with." I didn't want to take any pain meds because I wanted to be able to gauge how much pain there actually was.
4:00- "ok. These are actually contractions. Like, sharp ones. Ow."
5:30- put Kate to bed. What a relief. Handling her through the contractions was really hard.
6:00- got Christian set up on our bed with a game on my phone and me set up with some Bible reading. Was breathing through the contractions and really looking forward to when Jason would get home. Took 600mg motrin.
7:00- got a card, a printed out blog on how to deal with miscarriage and a gift card for dinner from a friend in the mail. Jason handed it to me on his way in from work and I cried. Like really had a good cry. I hadn't cried in 4-5 days and needed a good cry. I couldn't believe the thoughtfulness of this good friend."
7:10- Jason knew I wanted to be alone. He turned on some worship music and took Christian in the living room.
7:30- passed what I thought was the baby. It didn't hurt, and I was relieved. Dug it out of the toilet with a slotted spoon and saved it in a styrofoam cup. The dr wanted us to save what we could and frankly I was kind of curious. Jason got an ice chest and we kept it in there.
8:00- passed a ton more tissue. Jason put Christian to bed. I came out and told him the contractions were getting...bad. And there was a lot of blood.
8:30- a lot more blood. Every time I'd get up or move there was another huge gush. I put towels on our bed for fear of messing anything up.
9:00- passed more tissue and more blood. Decided to just sit on the toilet there was so much. There was no way a pad would hold this much. Sat on the toilet for a long time, gushes coming and going. Started feeling light-headed and concerned. Called Jason and started getting frantic. Got in the shower so I could wash off and see how much blood was actually coming.
9:30- In the shower- blood gushing, like, not slowly. A lot. Too much. Feeling light-headed and not sure I trusted my judgement or that I would be able to do this at home. Had a flashback to what the mid-wife told me about how much blood I lost during my labor with Christian: "If you would have done this at home, you would have bled out."
"Jason, I think we need to call 911. I am losing so much blood. Call the Silvas. Call 911. Call someone."
I started ordering him around to get me panties, etc-at that point I couldn't get out of the shower because I knew I'd bleed all over our light gray carpet in our bathroom, but I just simply wasn't going to have the paramedics find me naked in the shower. Noooooo no way.
I got dressed, and went outside to wait. My main concern was blood all over everything in the house. I'd just gotten out of the shower, put a pad on, and by the time I made my way to the front door had already bled through all that again. I sat on the bumper of our van in the garage and within a minute or 2 I could hear the sirens from the ambulance and got nervous.
"should we really have called? Am I blowing this out of proportion?" I also texted my Mom at this point.
At the same time Frank showed up to watch our kids, who's a firefighter. I knew he'd be able to discern any huge red flags on how I was looking, etc. He agreed I should go with the paramedics and I did.
No sirens- it was a slow trip. They knew I wasn't in distress, but also that I was losing a great deal of blood. So it was good to be safe incase anything went bad on the way to the hospital. Jason followed us in the van.
Right away he put on iv in- when I saw him doing so I complained- it's one of my least favorite things about having a baby. But he did amazing. Barely even felt it and thank goodness it was in my elbow instead of my hand. So much less painful.
It all started to feel real when I heard him calling the hospital to let them know of my arrival- telling them around the 9 week miscarriage- extreme blood loss, "tachycardia."

My main thought on the way to the hospital- "I had nooooo idea a miscarriage would be this big of a deal."

Showed up at the hospital and realized as they wheeled my down the hallway that I had blood all over my feet and had a little plastic baggy with what I thought was our baby in my lap.

The paramedics were annoyed with the hospital staff. They didn't have a place for me in the ER (it was a rainy, late night) and complained about everywhere I was wheeled. "um, can you move her? She's right in front of the door, etc." Nurses were having to scootch me over every time they needed to get by. Paramedics found some towels and water and spent some time cleaning my feet off. Jason wasn't there yet.

They got me into a shared room and I met the nurse who'd be taking care of me. Did not like her. Her pina colada lotion was way too strong, and my list of annoyances at her that night range from comments like, "Do you have a pad on? You know that soaks up some of the blood." "Miscarriage is very common. I've had one." "You call ambulance? Woooow." On to the disgusted, sour look on her face as she helped collect tissue during my pelvic exam. Was so glad to be out of her care. Soooo glad. Oh, also whatever painful procedure is done to extract urine without me actually peeing- no warning that that would hurt or be uncomfortable.

At this point Jason was there, I'd texted a few times with my Mom and Emily and knew they were on their way. They'd dropped everything and come to be with the kids. Later I'd learn that they, upon arrival at 1am cleaned out the blood and tissue in our bathroom and shower. And all the blood I'd dripped all over our light gray bedroom carpet. Meanwhile, Frank was graciously offering to stay with the kids overnight and was there until 1am. I texted with Jessi too, and Jason talked to his Mom and prayed with his Dad over the phone.

I was in that shared room for about 2 hours waiting for the OB who was caring for other miscarriage patients. I used the bathroom a few more times- passed about 10 times as much tissue as I did at home. At one point about as much as a grapefruit. I could not believe how much was in there. I destroyed the entire bathroom and pathway to the bathroom with blood, and wanted to save whatever tissue I did pass, so some poor nurse had that job to do (fishing out again what I thought was baby in the toilet).

A nurse came and took 5 small vials of blood, and after more blood and more tissue passed, I all of a sudden felt like I was going to pass out. Like, clammy, couldn't hear- everything started looking marbly and weird. I got frantic and demanded attention. Jason ran out into the hallway to find someone. They immediately gave me a bag of fluids and I felt better. Blood pressure was low. OB came in and went through all the tissue I'd passed and confirmed we still didn't have baby or placenta and wanted to do a full pelvic to see where my cervix was at.

1am- They moved me into a private room and about an hour later- I had that same "I'm gonna pass out" feeling, panicked- got angry and ticked at our nurse, as if it was her fault. A different nurse brought more fluids and I felt immediately better. I complained about pain and she'd given me something I apparantly didn't react well to.

1:15am- OB did full pelvic. Very uncomfortable. I was still contracting and he used that duck thing to open everything up, and the forcepts to pull as much tissue out as he could. I was squeezing Jason's hand and again- could not even believe how much worse this night was getting. The dr was silent and kept asking for more gauze. "I can't even see your cervix. I'm sorry. I know this is uncomfortable. I need to just see...let me reposition (OWWWW)- yeah. Can't even see your cervix. There is so much blood pooling. Losing this much blood is not normal. I think you're going to need a d&c." He later explained the placenta was what was causing so much bleeding- and they really did need to get that out so all the bleeding would stop. He called my dr and returned, confirming that she agreed and they'd get me into surgery right away."

1:45am- I kind of lost it, honestly. I was sooooo mad. I told Jason. "We're not even getting a BABY out of this!!!!" I just couldn't believe it. This was even more traumatic than my labor with Christian. So painful. So scary. And ending in tragedy. I mean, ahhhhhhh!!!!" And I was in pain. Contracting. And looked down at literally another pool of blood in my lap after that exam. Like, a puddle.

2am- waiting for surgery. Really started praying. I was feeling a ton of anxiety about going under, having the surgery, all the blood loss, just the whole night. Soon after, a really nice woman with a white coat on that said "hospital supervisor" came in and assured me they would get me in asap. They were getting together their on-call night surgery crew, apparantly.

2:30am- "Raquel!" I heard someone call (my nurse). "We're ready for her!" 2 short young guys came and got me and wheeled me up to the next floor. One of them was super nervous- his first day on the job. Looked at the blood on my feet (more, from after the paramedics wiped it off prior) and looked away. He was uncomfortable.

3am- met a very nice anasthesiologist- explained what they would do. Met the dr. Met the nurse. They were all great. The dr was so tired though and could tell he didn't want to be there. The nurse was sooooo sweet. Probably 25? 30? She was on top of things and very accomodating.

4am- woke up in a very happy place. Very relieved.

5:18am- texted Mom and Emily to let them know we were on our way. Went home in the hospital gown- the amazing, amazing recovery nurse (boy, did I LOVE her) gave me the hospital blanket too insisting it was just too cold to go home without it. "You can return it if you're ever in the hood again." she insisted.

5:30- crawled into bed with Christian. He woke up and asked about my hospital bracelet. "I'll tell you about it in the morning buddy. Night night, love you."

5:35am- Mom and Emily are awake and out of our bedroom, insisting we get in our own bed and that they'll watch the kids when they get up. Cannot even believe them. They'd slept what, a max of 4 hours??

5:35-9:30am. Jason and I had sweet sleep. Woke up to Mom and Emily- Emily had taken the kids on a walk- Jason took the kids to the store (sweet sweet Jason) and I got to process through the whole thing with them. So tired. So groggy. So fresh.