A real life misdiagnosed miscarriage

Usually, when a woman begins bleeding heavily, and the doctor sees what looks like a blighted ovum (an empty gestational sac) on an ultrasound, the gig is up.

But here's a case where two weeks later, the woman found out that the baby was still there, and even had a heartbeat:

“What exactly is that?” I asked, propping up on my elbows on the examining table, scrutinizing the ultrasound monitor.

“That is a seven-week-old embryo with a heartbeat,” my doctor said.

“No, wait, is it human?” I asked, gasping for air, staring at the flickering heartbeat pulsing through the little body.

I couldn’t believe it. Two weeks before, I’d been diagnosed with a miscarriage—specifically, a chemical pregnancy. I’d raced to the doctor’s office after experiencing heavy cramping and bleeding, and an ultrasound seemed to confirm my gut feeling that my pregnancy was ending. There wasn’t an embryo where there should have been one. And yet, here I was, two weeks later, finding out that I was still pregnant.

I had spent the past two weeks saying goodbye to this pregnancy. My friends had taken me out and gotten me properly sauced. I purposely did everything a pregnant lady is not supposed to do—sucked down soft cheeses, exercised strenuously, and drowned my sorrow in wine and beer.

I’d even yearned for a D&C to end this “lost” pregnancy and clear the way for our next attempt at getting pregnant. Thank God I’d scheduled this second ultrasound before booking the surgery.

Because there was our embryo, with its tiny leg buds and that unmistakable heartbeat, alive and, apparently, human.

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Recurrent miscarriage is really, really hard

LINK:

I found out I was pregnant again at the beginning of November. I was so happy. No, I was ecstatic. I was over the freakin' moon. I felt pregnant--unlike my last two unpregnancies. You have never seen a woman so happy to puke every morning. I made a doctor's appointment. I ceased drinking coffee (for the most part), exercising, eating anything artificial, anything that I might have done wrong the other two times. I worried at every twinge, but I told myself: no blood, no panic. I went to the first prenatal appointment bracing to be lectured about the nine pounds I had gained.

He didn't find a heartbeat. The doctor was nonchalant about it; I was in instant panic attack mode. When he was listening to--whatever they listen to on your back, your heart or lungs or both--he told me to breath normally. This is as normal as it gets.

Because no doctor likes hyperventilating maybe-pregnant-maybe-not women in their office, he offered to do a quick ultrasound. He found a water sac, a pregnant-ish uterus, but no baby. It's called a missed abortion. I lost the baby, and I never even knew it. 'No blood, no panic'? Apparently not a medically sound policy. I was almost ten weeks pregnant, but not really.

That is the biggest shock I have ever experienced. I felt bad for Dr. Davenport, because I knew he was counting seconds until this entire not-really-prenatal visit was over. Sheesh, he's like my baby brother's age. Just had his own first child. Such a nice guy, but he has to be thinking please, please, please, don't freak out. I started to cry, but stopped myself long enough to get out.

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"And now, I shall have a margarita"

Alice at Finslippy on the experience of suddenly finding oneself UNpregnant:

So as I said. Yesterday, I was pregnant. Scott went to work, Henry went to school, and I… well, I went to the bathroom, where I noticed some spotting. It was spotting so tiny that I could have ignored it. I could have not seen it at all. It was an eensy brown smudge. Nonetheless, I promptly began hyperventilating. This is what I do. Because if I worry hard enough I can ward off any bad news. If I'm neurotic enough, the universe will laugh, pat me on the head, and rain disaster down on some unsuspecting sane person. I called my doctor, who was as unconcerned as any normal human being would be, but suggested that I come in, just for peace of mind. I made an appointment for the afternoon, and after that, there was absolutely no spotting. Nothing at all. I laughed at myself, at what a big deal I had made over this tiny one-time smudgy nothing.

Everything was casual and light at the OB/GYN, until the ultrasound. The first thing I noticed was the absence of movement. Maybe it's the angle? I thought. She was moving all around my abdomen, so it was hard to say. Then she began pointing things out to me. "Here, you see, here is where I should see a heartbeat." I'm so sorry, she kept saying, I'm so sorry. She began measuring. I'm so sorry, she repeated, it looks like growth ended at about eight and a half weeks.

Everything that follows is a blur. I believe the first thought I had was, "And now I shall have a margarita."




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A father's experience of miscarriage

I usually read (and have even written for) the NYT "Modern Love" column, but I somehow missed this one from earlier in the fall. It's a father's account of pregnancy loss:

At 20 weeks, we went in together for the second ultrasound. The technician made small talk and popped his gum as he dimmed the lights. Lisa lay back on the table. I shifted in my seat, jammed my hands into my pockets, and stretched out my legs like a teenager settling in to watch a movie. As the technician slid the paddle around on Lisa’s belly, the image on the computer screen wheeled, dipped and blurred.

Finally my son’s image popped into focus. Arms and legs folded, he seemed to be resting on his back, as if lying on the bottom of a pool, waiting to spring to the surface.
I said, “Cool.”

The technician muttered something, hit a button to freeze the image and walked briskly out of the room.

A few minutes later, in walked a small man wearing a rumpled white coat and steel-rimmed glasses, his bow tie askew. He shut the door behind him.

I don’t remember exactly what he said; he looked as if someone had left him out in the rain. What we had taken for a frozen image, he explained, was in fact absolute stillness.

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