So my daughter…we very much planned and wanted a birth, and she was my third pregnancy. The first two were miscarriages. It’s another thing I did not know at the time how common it was to miscarry. So I was freaking out, and I’d miscarried the first one, which was, you know, disappointing, but we try again, get pregnant again. I miscarry the second one, and the same thing was happening…I would start spotting and my HCG levels were not increasing the way they should.
I miscarried the second one at work. And nobody ever told me that it could happen this way, that the nurses and midwives always just said, uh, it’ll be like a period. There’s gonna be some, um, clotting.” I passed, like a… It was like a grape. It was a see-through grape, and it was about the size of my fingernail. It was an embryo. The whole thing was intact. I saw it. I was in the bathroom. I wiped, and it came out on the tissue and there’s a whole intact amniotic sac. And I didn’t know what to do. I just went back to work. What?
Then I get pregnant a third time. Same thing happens all over again. I start spotting. I’m, like, two months pregnant. I go to the doctor. Uh, my HCG levels are not increasing, and I just said, “I don’t wanna go through another miscarriage at home. It’s really hard.” They’re painful, and it takes time for that to happen. And I asked the doctor, “Is this a viable pregnancy?” And he said, “No. Given your history and what’s happening now, no.” And I said, “I wanna get this over with. Can I have a D&C tomorrow?” And he said, “Yes.”
And the next day, we come back, we’re filling out all the paperwork, the disclosures. We’re signing everything, and the nurse said, “I heard that you guys are planning this family, and there’s still a heartbeat. I would not do this today.” She said, “Can you wait just another week? Since you’re planning this family, why don’t you just wait?” And within a week, my levels started going up, and the pregnancy was fine.
And you better believe I wrote that nurse. I mean…I was there in the office signing, and I called that doctor and I just read him the riot act for not being a little more conservative with somebody that was trying to have a baby. And that told me it was not a viable pregnancy when there was still a heartbeat anyway.
Why did he think it wasn’t viable?
Because, because my HCG levels were not increasing the way they should. And given my history, that this is the third time this is happening. But he should’ve been, obviously, a little more conservative. And I’m forever grateful to that nurse for saying, “Hold on. Let’s not make this decision today.”