It started with cramps, awful cramps when my son was 10 months old. I was still nursing him and my period hadn’t returned – I hadn’t had one since 2016! – so I laughed to myself and figured, “here we go again!” I had two kids two years apart, so had only experienced a handful of periods over the last four years. The cramping got worse as the day wore on. I took some Tylenol and rummaged around in a cupboard to see if I even had any pads or tampons in the house. I felt like I had to re-learn how to do this whole period thing!
A few days later, the cramps were worse and I was camped out on the couch with a heating pad over my aching abdomen. Before I went to bed that night, I was spotting – it was back! I assumed this was my period, back after an almost two-year hiatus.
But the next morning – nothing. Total standstill. I shrugged, thought nothing of it. These first periods postpartum were so weird, anyway – it’s like getting a lawnmower started at the beginning of summer. Spluttering and puttering is expected while your uterus revs back up, right? Not that I really wanted anything “revved”, as I was running around with an almost-three-year-old daughter and baby son. Growing babies and feeding babies were hard on my body, but I truthfully loved not getting a period for months on end.
A few more days went by and I was thinking about this non-period I had just had when a thought made me freeze – what if that hadn’t been a micro period at all, but implantation bleeding? I had gotten that with my previous pregnancy, after all. My thoughts raced over the last few weeks and realized that it was totally possible. Since I hadn’t gotten my period back yet my husband and I were being pretty lackadaisical with birth control. I knew friends who had gotten pregnant without ever having a period in between kids. I told my husband my suspicions that night and we stared at each other in half-excited disbelief. Were we really pregnant?
The next day I took a test – negative.
I didn’t let up in my suspicion, however, because with Baby #2 I remembered not getting a positive test for a full 14 days after I had implantation bleeding.
7 days later, another test – negative.
I told myself to act like I was pregnant until a full month went by, just to be on the safe side. My husband and I kept talking about what life would be like with three kids under the age of four, and honestly, after about a week or so, I was getting excited. I had been looking forward to weaning my son around 12 months and treating myself to a couple of months “off” – not nursing or growing a human – for the first time since 2014, but excitement about a possible baby started to eclipse that.
My 5th wedding anniversary arrived, and I planned to take a test that morning as my husband and I had a date planned for the next day and I wanted to know if I could have a drink while I was out of not. To my surprise, as I wiped that morning there was bright red blood on the toilet paper.
My emotions were a slurry mix – a touch of sadness, dread at an oncoming period, a hint of joy that my dream of a “break” was still possible. I suited up with a pad and tampon and went about my day.
Except – I was bleeding like crazy. I had taken my kids out for an hour of errands, and I realized at the grocery store that I was bleeding through my pants. In an hour. I had to sit on a diaper on the car ride home to make sure I didn’t get blood on the seat.
Things were going faster and faster. Soon I was soaking a pad and a tampon in 20 minutes. I had never bled before like that in my life, even immediately postpartum.
I called my OB and they told me to go to the ER immediately. I found an emergency babysitter for the kids and flew to the hospital, crying and shaking the whole way there. What was wrong with me?
I told admitting that I thought I was having a miscarriage, but I had no idea how far along I was. They gave me a pregnancy test but it was also negative. After six hours and an ultrasound, the ER said it was just a terrible period and that I should take Tylenol and get ready for an unpleasant week.
On one hand, I felt foolish for rushing to the ER for “just a period,” but my gut was telling me a different story. I knew what my body was doing wasn’t normal.
The bleeding didn’t let up. I had to sleep on a towel to avoid wrecking our mattress. I went through give super-size tampons before noon.
On day three, I wiped something out of me that was about the size of a raspberry and just looked different. I sat on the toilet and analyzed it, and my breath caught when I saw what looked like a tiny, twirly umbilical cord attached to a dense, bumpy mound of tissue that had a definite pale line down the back. I held it for a while. This felt so significant. This little berry of tissue – was it just a clot, or was this my almost-baby?
I will never know for certain, but I believe I had a very early miscarriage. I was sadder than I thought when I came to this realization. Since I had two healthy children, I subconsciously thought a miscarriage would never touch me. Maybe it hasn’t! I’ll never know.
What I do know is that I will think about that tiny clump every year at the end of July. I know this brief experience will forever make me more sympathetic to women who deal with miscarriage. Ultimately, for me, I take a great deal of comfort from knowing that God has redeemed. It is my belief that He knows and loves each and every child, even if they never showed up as a positive on a pregnancy test, and that He has a plan for each and every life.
Have you ever thought you might have miscarried but it was to early to know for certain?
