The Loss 12/22/07 (17w+4d) and the Follow-Up 1/9/08

It was so sudden and unexpected. She would have been 18 weeks on Christmas.

Thursday she was fine, Friday in the ER I was terrified but they sent me home and said everything was okay. Early Saturday morning my water broke and I knew it was over. I have never been in so much pain and the entire thing was completely surreal. I labored for about 3 hours and then delivered her at around 8:00am in the hospital. While we waited for the placenta to be delivered, they brought her in all cleaned up and wrapped in a blanket for us to see. She was beautiful. We really do make cute babies. She had the cutest, most perfect nose, mouth, lips, fingers and toes. As time wore on I passed two very large blood clots - we thought each time that it was the placenta. When I was unable to pass it they took me into surgery for a D&C. They put pain medication int my IV and just as I was sitting there to get the spinal block I fell asleep. When I woke up they told me it was over and that they were wheeling me to recovery. I was VERY groggy and out of it, but I heard the anesthesiologist (or maybe the nurse) say that they didn't have to do the D&C. Apparently When they laid me down after the spinal I was in the process of passing the placenta, so they just pulled it out and that was it. YAY for me!

When I was admitted to the hospital (after the miscarriage) they were concerned because I had a fever. They took blood cultures (and about 25 other vials of blood to do all kinds of tests - all of which came back normal, by the way) and apparently I had an infection in my blood stream (sepsis). I stayed in the hospital for 5 days - through Christmas - on IV antibiotics.

Since this was a second trimester miscarriage, the doctors agreed to do an autopsy on the baby. They are also doing pathology on her and the placenta. Finally, they are doing chromosomal mapping on myself, my husband and the baby to rule out any abnormalities or genetic risks to future pregnancies. So far, the only thing that has come back is the pathology on the placenta and it showed signs of infection, supporting my doctor's belief that the infection caused the baby to die, which caused the miscarriage. Apparently my chromosomal tests are back and Jason's SHOULD be back today, so I will be getting a phone call this afternoon with the results. The doctor is confident that they will come back normal.

She told me at my follow-up today that the believes that everything will come back just fine. If this is so, it will be ruled that the miscarriage was caused by the infection I had contracted (Haemophilus Influenzae B, if you're wondering - most people born around or after 1987-88 have been vaccinated for it, so you MIGHT be immune). She tells me that this is actually good news for a couple of reasons: 1) I am now immune to the bacteria since I have had it already and recovered 2) The likelihood of this happening again is next to nothing because it's very rare that an infection like this during pregnancy even happens in the first place, plus I am now immune and 3) There appears to have been nothing wrong with the baby (so far), so we SHOULD have healthy pregnancies from here on out. Autopsy and pathology on the baby should be back in another two weeks and my husband and I should get our chromosomal results back today. So in a couple of weeks we will have as many answers as we're going to get.

To those of you who have lost your baby, I wish you peace and time to grieve so that you can move forward in life. To those who are pregnant I hope only the best for you, your baby and your family.