Our First Miscarriage ~ June 2017
Miscarriage, something most people don’t like to talk about. Yet 1 in 4 couples go through it.
Kory and I had just completed our first round of IVF the end of May 2017. We did a fresh transfer (not frozen) of 1 beautiful embryo. June 8th was our quant beta hcg blood test. The wait to hear from the nurse felt like forever. We got the call that afternoon, our hcg level came back at a 2. Anything below a 3 is considered negative. Our hearts were crushed. We thought this was it, you do IVF and you get pregnant, right? It didn’t work for us, we were told to stop all meds and I would get my period. We stopped taking the Progesterone In Oil injections and the Estrogen pills. When you do IVF you have to take added hormones to sustain a pregnancy. Your body doesn’t create the progesterone and estrogen like it would if you got pregnant “naturally”. (More on our IVF journey in a different blog to come).
The nurse was right, I got my period a couple days after I stopped taking all the medication. That moment you realize it really truly did not work. We were grieving, we were angry, we cried and we were coping with everything we had just gone through.
12 days later, June 20th I woke up with a bad stomach ache. Thinking to myself maybe it’s just my body still healing from our IVF cycle. Still healing from the transfer not working. I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding. This was different, I was bleeding a lot. I texted Kory, and let him know, but I didn’t hear back from him because he was at work. I texted my mom and asked her if she thought it was normal that I was getting what I thought was another period. We had no idea, could it be just my body healing? Could it be another period?
I was in pain I was curled in the fetal position and that’s when I knew something really was NOT right. I called Korys work and asked him to come home because I think something is wrong. I called the fertility clinic and left a message explaining that I was bleeding a lot. They called me back and told me it was normal, that I was getting my period. I was not convinced that this was normal. I was “peeing out blood clots”. I called up to my obgyn and left a message for the nurse to call me back. Somebody finally called me back a couple hours later and told me if the bleeding was not stopping that I could go to the Emergency Room and get checked.
Kory and I finally decided to go into the ER when the pain just got to be too much. We had no idea what to expect. I explained to them that we had just done IVF and we were not pregnant. The doctor who was there at that time was so wonderful. She did an exam and had a blood panel sent in to see what was going on. She came back in the room with the results and said “Haylee your beta-hcg came back POSITIVE, you are pregnant”. My hcg quantitative was at 535. I am pretty sure Kory and my jaw hit the floor and said there was no way I was pregnant. We were told by the fertility clinic our transfer didn’t work and we stopped all medication. We were rushed from the ER to radiology to get an ultrasound right away. My mind went into shock and the only thing I could do was cry. I kept saying “but I stopped all my meds, I was told it was negative 12 days ago”. The ultrasound tech was showing us as he was doing the ultrasound. There was no baby that they could see. Maybe it was just too early. We were having a threatened miscarriage.
Heres the thing, we had already been told our IVF transfer failed. We grieved 12 days earlier. Now we were being told well maybe there is a chance this baby could still stick. Let’s try doing a double dose of the progesterone in oil injection and having another blood draw in a couple days. So then there is hope. Maybe some miracle will happen and this baby will somehow stay with us. Talk about an emotional roller coaster.
Two days later we were headed to get our blood draw done. I was having intense stomach cramping, so right back to the ER we went. This time they did a blood draw and gave me something for the pain. The doctor came in and sat next to Kory and I. He said “I’m sorry you are having a miscarriage”. This couldn’t be happening. How did this happen? Why did this happen? So many questions and no answers. We lost our first baby. Our first miracle baby that we didn’t even have a chance to celebrate.
We met with our obgyn to get some answers. He honestly was angry. He could NOT believe that this had happened. He had spoken with the fertility clinic to see what they had to say. They didn’t have any answers either. Somebody should have had us repeat our blood work after the first negative beta. Nobody did. Was there an error in the lab? Did somebody write in the wrong number when our blood-work came back the first time? Who messed up? We will never know what happened, or have the answers.
We lost our baby. We will be forever grateful for that little embryo who tried so hard to stay with us. Our embryo who made us parents for the first time. Happy 3rd Angel Day sweet little baby.