The Adventure Continues...

Well, the adventure of miscarrying continued this weekend and I hope it will now finally begin to wrap up. I thought I'd write a summarized version just to let you all know we're doing well and the worst is now over. Last Tuesday I had passed lots of tissue, thinking I had fully miscarried, and by Saturday (our anniversary) the bleeding had almost totally stopped. However Sunday after church I began to hemorrhage and bleed like a faucet, so Ben drove me to the hospital.

Because of insurance reasons I didn't get to go to the ER where I work (bummer), but the ER where I went took great care of me. It was hard to be the patient and not the nurse, but everything went really smoothly. When my lab work came back, my hematocrit was only 27, which means I had lost a lot of blood. The ultrasound showed large amounts of retained products and placenta (which was facilitating the bleeding), so the doctor called the OB and I was prepped for surgery. I had to have a D&C (not the gospel D&C of course, but dilation and curettage) of my uterus. Basically they were going to go in and clean me out so that the bleeding would stop.

In the ER with two IV's due to my heavy bleeding.

The tender mercies of the Lord were everywhere. The nurse who originally oriented me as an ER nurse, Ron, was working and when he saw me he immediately triaged me and put me in a room. That may have also been because I was already starting to bleed through my pants, but we'll give him points for hospitality :) There were other nurses who I used to work with who came and said hi, and the nurse who took care of me was phenomenal. Even the ultrasound tech did a great job and told me, "If you tried to pass all this at home, you'd probably bleed to death". Good thing I'm not afraid of hospitals :)

Another tender mercy was that the on-call doctor for my office was also the doctor on-call for the ER. When I spoke with him I was already at the hospital, but he told me I'd made the right decision and he'd be ready to come in if I needed surgery. After the ER doctor called him, he was there within 15 minutes, even with it being Easter. Surgery went well, although I lost about a liter of blood and they had to transfuse me 2 units mid-procedure. Even after he finished, the doctor put a balloon in to decrease the bleeding. I was under anesthesia so I don't remember anything, although I guess I said some pretty memorable things after that Ben wrote down and is planning on putting in a future blog post. Stay tuned...

After they moved me to my room for the night, my mom and dad stopped by. It was my Dad's 70th birthday and we had missed his party. We were bummed, but of course he understood. Ben was so exhausted but he stayed the whole night by my side on a cot they brought in. It was so comforting to have him there. He's such a wonderful husband.

Ben on his cot

Both Ben and I barely slept that night. Even after surgery and the transfusion my hematocrit was still only 28 and all night my blood pressures were between 80-90/50. In the morning they redrew my blood and the hematocrit had dropped to 27, plus I had a low grade fever. I thought they were going to make me stay another day. However when the doctor came for his morning rounds, he told me I could go home if:
1. My vital signs were good
2. I could walk around the nurses' station without getting dizzy
3. I could go to the bathroom without the catheter

I was so excited! After breakfast I made Ben walk around the nurses' station with me three times, I proudly peed, and by noon my vital signs looked great.

Here we are right before discharge. This picture makes me laugh out loud. Don't we look like two people who've just had the worst night of their life? Not to mention the 10 pounds I gained from all the fluid. But on the bright side, Ben brought me the beautiful flowers in the back. Did I mention what a stellar husband I have?

So now we're home. I'm weak and sometimes dizzy, but feeling much better. Better than I have for months actually. My skin is slowly getting back it's color and I've lost six pounds in the past 2 days. Of course that's because I go to the bathroom every 30 minutes :) For those of you who knew about all this, thanks for your thoughts and prayers. Our testimony from this experience is that Heavenly Father stands by his children when we are going through a difficult time and he will never, ever, make us go through anything alone. If we don't abandon him, he will never abandon us.