The Longest Natural Miscarriage Ever

Here is the story of my miscarriage. The short version first:

When I was 10 weeks pregnant (4 June, 2015), I started bleeding. I went for a sonar that diagnosed a missed miscarriage and the doctor said the baby had stopped growing at 7 weeks.  16 weeks after the sonar, I had a complete natural miscarriage at home with no complications (24 September, 2015).

The long version is very long… I don’t really know what to include and to exclude… How vague or specific I should be. I just want this story to show other people (medical people, people going through a miscarriage, everyone really) what is possible. There is a medical side and a spiritual side to my story. I don’t feel I can separate them. I’ll add headings to help with navigation and for anyone to skip a section they’re not interested in. I also feel that I should add my thoughts that I have in hindsight. I’ll put those thoughts in brackets so that the flow of the story isn’t interrupted.

Before Pregnancy

Without doing much research or praying, I decided to use oral contraceptives when we got married as birth control. I used it non-stop for 2 years. It was the first time in my life that I used the pill and the one that I used was a very light dose.

I thought I didn’t have any side effects. Then after 2 years and some research into a side effect that I slowly realised I did have, I decided that for health reasons, I should stop using the pill. Around that time, my sister-in-law got pregnant and, for the first time since I’d been married, I got excited about having a baby. So it coincided nicely with me leaving the pill. I figured it would be easy. Not much effort. Just boom and we’re pregnant. But that didn’t happen at all.

After stopping the pill, I had the weirdest period. Before using the pill, I had a 28-day regular, good period. No pms, no cramps, no excessive bleeding. On the pill it was even better. But when I stopped using it, my first cycle was 33 days long, with a very short and light period (3 days of spotting). The next was 36 days long with the same short, light period. Then 32 days. Then 37 days. Then 31 days, then 35 days. No real period to mention. Just 2-3 days of spotting. I took pregnancy tests for the first 3 months, then stopped and just decided to wait for my period instead of testing every 28th day. (The pill was obviously the reason my period was so irregular; I don’t think I ovulated at all for the first six months after leaving the pill.)

Then one month I suddenly had a 28 day cycle. Not an impressive period. 3 days with light bleeding. 9 days after my period began, I had a light bleed again for one day.

29 days after my period I noticed my boobs looked bigger. On day 30, I took a pregnancy test which turned out positive! What a surprise!

Pregnancy

The Clearblue pregnancy test said 3+ weeks, which is weird because it was supposed to say 2 weeks, according to my period (Another thought I had in hindsight was that I could have released a defective ovum; this could be attributed to using the pill, if this was the case). Because of the confusion caused by my irregular period with the extra random day of bleeding, and the pregnancy test saying something other than what I expected, we went to have a sonar. The sonar couldn’t see anything, so we went with 2 weeks pregnant, according to my period (I regret going for that sonar; the miscarriage could also be attributed to having the damaging ultrasound waves pointed at the baby at such a vulnerable time).

Apart from having bigger boobs, I didn’t have any other pregnancy symptoms. I thought I was just having a very easy pregnancy; I didn’t have a moment of nausea. And I wasn’t “taking it easy” (which I still don’t believe in). At 7 weeks pregnant, we had a stall at the university’s open day. We had an extremely busy day, in the sun the whole time, not drinking anything… I got heat stroke, which I treated at home with lots of water. I was better after one day of rest and rehydration (This could also be the cause of the miscarriage, as the sonar said the baby stopped developing at 7 weeks. Those are my three possible causes for the miscarriage that are the result of my choices. Obviously, I know that there could be other reasons like chromosome abnormalities or whatever).

Miscarriage

On 2 June 2015, when I was 10 weeks pregnant, I started bleeding. The day before, I mentioned to my husband that my boobs look smaller again. I didn’t think much of the bleeding, because sometimes women bleed in pregnancy. And I didn’t see miscarriage as a possibility for me, so I just left it. I wasn’t bleeding a lot, and I wasn’t having any cramps. The bleeding carried on for three days (the “normal” early pregnancy bleeding usually only lasts one day), and on the third day, I was at work (I worked as a midwife at a government hospital’s maternity ward). I started having lower back pain and cramps, and my bleeding increased. That’s when I decided to go for a sonar at GOPD (Gynaecology and Obstetrics Out-Patient Department), and that’s when I knew that I was having a miscarriage.

The doctor started the sonar and saw that the gestational sac was abnormally shaped and that there wasn’t a heartbeat. She said it was a missed miscarriage when she was talking over the phone to the gynaecologist that I was going to see to confirm the diagnosis. I phoned my husband to come pick me up from the hospital. We went to the other doctor who did a sonar and said the baby stopped developing at 7 weeks and that there was no heartbeat. We phoned our family and went home, both of us in tears and shock.

I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me. It never crossed my mind as a possibility.

I remembered that the previous week at our cell group, I was asked what I struggle with… My friends wanted to know what to pray for with me. And I confessed that my faith struggles when I deal with the death of babies at work. When a woman loses her baby – especially when I pray for her and with all the faith we have believe in God for a miracle – my faith gets dealt a hard blow… And now here I am in the same situation…

When the second doctor confirmed the miscarriage he said he recommends I go for a procedure called evacuation of the uterus (evac). I immediately said no, I am going to have the miscarriage naturally (At that stage I had been working as a midwife in the government sector for 3 years and I had just started with my home birth practice; natural birth was very important to me).

The moment we got home I started researching natural miscarriage. I felt ready to have one; except, it just didn’t happen. The bleeding became less and totally stopped after 10 days. I never really got any cramps showing that something was happening. I went for sonars every 3 or so days while bleeding (I also regret these regular sonars; I wasn’t aware of the danger of ultrasound at that stage of my research into natural pregnancy and birth). A later sonar apparently showed that the baby had been absorbed. So now there was just a gestational sac and placenta left inside. That made it much less personal and easier to want it to get out.

But now I had the problem of a miscarriage that started and didn’t want to finish. I read that 80% of women can miscarry naturally. So now I had to be one of the (known) 20% who have a miscarriage with a first pregnancy and one of the 20% who don’t miscarry naturally. The internet didn’t have any information that said how long a miscarriage can take before you are declared unable to have a natural miscarriage and are obliged to go for an evac.

I thought that the internet must have a solution. From that first day I found out about the miscarriage, I turned to google and found many ways to help complete a miscarriage naturally. That included things like ascorbic acid overdose and drinking horrible tasting herbs like blue and black cohosh… I tried all of that and many other methods. Even waking up 4 times at night to stick to my times to drink the herbs. And nothing happened…

After about 3 weeks of trying all this, I became convicted. I turned nearly everywhere except to God. What was His plan in all this? What was I supposed to learn? I decided to turn to seeking God, to learning Who He is, and to not do anything until He says what I should do.

In this time of waiting I was able to identify a deep fear for going to theatre. I realised that I had put the “natural” way ahead of God’s way. I needed to be willing to do God’s will even if it meant having an evac. That was very difficult. But I decided ok. If God tells me to have an evac (I didn’t know how He would do that), I will. If God tells me to use medication, I will. Till then, I wait.

The wait was hard. Falling asleep during this time was very difficult for me. Music was the only thing that helped me get relaxed enough to fall asleep. My husband knew exactly which songs to play at night to help me sleep.

I didn’t want to talk to a lot of people about the fact that I was still having a miscarriage. Over the entire internet, I couldn’t find a case like mine. I don’t think many people could wait as long as I did; maybe that’s why I couldn’t find a similar story. I especially didn’t talk to any of the doctors and nurses I worked with. They would all think I was crazy. What about sepsis, what about calcification, haemorrhaging…

I felt very qualified to allow myself to be in this situation. I felt like I was covered in terms of safety because of my medical background. I knew that I could identify any dangerous signs and symptoms as soon as they appear and that I would get help immediately if needed.

After about 8 weeks from the sonar confirming the miscarriage, I came across this: When the darkness forces us to the deepest recesses of our souls, it is there that we are able to decide if God is good.

I knew this journey was also spiritual. It was not just physical. Maybe that was why my body had none of the typical reactions. God gave me time to use this situation to learn something essential about Him. Maybe He spared me from dangerous situations like sepsis and excessive bleeding. My case was unlike all others because my journey was unlike all others. I knew that with all my heart. I knew my solution would come when I got to the heart of God. I gave up my right to have a natural miscarriage. I gave up my right to have children. If this miscarriage just never happened, I decided I was ok. I just wanted to be in God’s will.

While all this was happening, life still had to carry on. There was still work, church, friends, meals, other challenges wanting attention... I just wished life could pause. That would have made everything easier.

And then one day, out of the blue, not a really significant day as far as I know, with no relevant spiritual revelations or milestones, 16 weeks after finding out about the miscarriage (23 September), I started bleeding again. That night around 9pm, I started getting strong cramps and lower back pain. This continued through the night until about 4am and then stopped totally. I was ready. I wanted it to happen so badly. I actually wanted to feel physical pain. The next afternoon it started up again. It was so intense, but I welcomed the pain.  I needed the physical pain to balance out the emotional pain. The pain was cathartic. It was so therapeutic. It was the most difficult thing I had ever done. I had never experienced anything like it. 

When it started up again, my husband and I were at his mother’s house. The contractions were so strong that I was immobilised during them. When we got into the car to go home, the contractions intensified. I couldn’t sit in the passenger seat, so I climbed to the backseat and went through the contractions lying on my side. At one stage, I felt like I couldn’t take it anymore and thought to tell my husband to just take me to the hospital. But I didn’t say anything. When we got home I went to the bathroom and lay down on my stomach on the floor. The cold from the tiles felt good. I thought to myself at that stage that I would definitely be able to give birth to a term baby if it was anything like what I was going through. I got into a squat position and felt that my cervix was about 3 cm dilated and there was something on the way out. I was so proud of my cervix for dilating and my uterus for contracting so well. Without any extra effort, a placenta came out. It was about 6cmx2cm big and had a lot of calcifications. There was a very small gestational sac with about a teaspoon of murky amniotic fluid. There wasn’t anything else inside the gestational sac. When it was over, we cried together for a short time, and then we had new hope. It was over (24 September). 20 weeks after the baby had stopped growing. I was so proud of my body. I was so happy that I waited and trusted God to do something for me. It finally happened.

Important Thought

Something that I thought about for the first time was how insensitive this question is: So when are you gonna have children? I used to ask it to people all the time. Most people don’t think twice to ask it. And I was one of them. I’ve even asked a dear friend how many children she has. Because everyone assumes a middle-aged married couple will have children. And then she went on to tell me about how she has lost all her babies… We are not mad at anyone for asking us when we’re going to have children. We just realised that it’s not such a straightforward question. I didn’t go around telling every new person I met that I was busy having a 4-month long miscarriage. But nearly every new person I met asked me when we’re gonna start having children.

If you are reading this and you were one of the people who happened to ask us that, don’t feel bad. We are not angry. We just think that the question needs to be approached differently. What I thought we could rather ask people is how they feel about children. That leaves it open for them to say, we love our children, we wish we had children but we can’t, we don’t want children. Or whatever other answer can come from that.

Current Pregnancy

So one year on from that experience, I am now 27 weeks into our second pregnancy. Only at around 16 weeks did I stop expecting to see blood in my panty every time I went to the bathroom. My previous pregnancy obviously strongly influenced my mind-set in this pregnancy, but I have really enjoyed this pregnancy thoroughly. After our baby is born, I will write about how amazing this experience was and share about our planned unassisted home birth.