What to Expect (Part III) - What to expect during a D&C

Sorry, y'all, but I had to take a little hiatus from blogging because every time I would post I would have an anxiety attack, have to take Lorazepam and then pass out for several hours. Not so productive. So with the house clean, grocery shopping complete and a casserole in the oven - here goes...

We left off at Cytotec. Five days after that horrendous night puking and cramping, there was still pretty much NO BLOOD. A few swipes, nothing more. I went to my doctor, and my cervix was tight as a preschooler's fist wrapped around a marble (my teacher friends will understand just how very tight that is), so obviously the Cytotec DID NOTHING. At this point, my doctor asked us to consider a D&C because he felt that there was no way that the baby was going to come out on his own. The whole point of waiting, and acupuncture, and the meds were to AVOID a D&C and now that looked like our only option.

Here is why I didn't want a D&C. A week after Jason and I returned from our honeymoon several years ago, I had an emergency appendectomy. General anesthesia did not agree with me in the slightest - I stopped breathing three times in recovery, and I remember it ALL - not only the searing pain (no laparoscopic for me), but also the struggle to breathe, the understanding that I wasn't breathing but not knowing how, and being so panicked and freaked out that I was praying for God to TAKE ME NOW. Not good memories.

I am not sure that this is how all D&Cs are done, but my doctor traditionally does them in the hospital with the patient under general. Not going to happen. I told Dr. Farley that I would do it, but only under IV sedation - no intubation or any of that jazz. He struck a deal with an anesthesiologist at the hospital who agreed to do it my way, so the date was set.

Before the D&C, Dr. Farley did routine blood tests that were required for surgery. The Monday before I was scheduled to go in, his nurse called to say that they were concerned about my HCG levels not dropping or being as low as you would expect. They wanted me to take a second blood test to be sure. WTF? Are you joking me? I freaked out - full blown panic that Wild Thing wasn't really dead, that they had misread the ultrasound, that I had taken all those meds with a live baby inside me. I seriously could not believe it - when I say that this process was one thing after another - I mean it. The second blood test results came back two days later - my HCG levels were dropping, so I definitely was not carrying a live baby.

So onto the D&C. Physically, the surgery itself was not as bad as I thought. My nurse who did my IV was fabulous (best IV I've ever had - didn't feel a thing). It turned out that I was running a fever - which is indicative of infection - so it was good that we opted to do the surgery when we did. Once I was in surgery, I don't remember anything except being wheeled into the operating room and staring up at the bright light and my two new nurses. They kept commenting, "You have the most beautiful eyelashes..." I couldn't keep my eyes open after that. I just remember waking up in recovery and about an hour later being returned to my room, and then maybe an hour later we were sent home. Thank you, Jesus, for morphine and vicodin....

What was so horrible about the D&C was the emotional side of it. Thinking about having Wild Thing sucked out of me is still too traumatizing to really even acknowledge. I am not going to even discuss at this point my views on abortion (and it is an interesting subject for me because Jason and I have conflicting opinions) but getting a D&C, even though I KNEW Wild Thing was already dead, felt to me like I was having an abortion. It is, after all, the same procedure used in abortions, and they wrote on my paperwork "Spontaneous Abortion" (yet there was nothing spontaneous about it - Wild Thing had been dead for two weeks - nor was it an abortion as the procedure itself wouldn't be the cause of his death).

I think a D&C is huge in the shame factor of a miscarriage. First of all, my body couldn't keep a baby alive, nor could it do what it needed to do to get the baby out once he died. Also, I think any sort of reproductive/pelvic surgery is embarrassing. I know doctors and nurses see it all, but it is not fun to think about my body being exposed for long periods of time for all to see (and it was not like I was doing it for the noble cause of delivering a live baby, either).

In addition, my hospital experience left much to be desired. I had about eight different nurses. Each time, each one of them would ask me, "Why are you here?" And I had to answer, each time, "For a D&C." God, it INFURIATES me just thinking about it. The lack of consistent nurses meant that I never felt comfortable with any one of them, so even though I was dying inside, wanting to cry and wail and express how awful this was - I never did. I spent the whole time I was at the hospital literally biting the inside of my cheek to keep myself from losing it.

In addition, they switched anesthesiologists on me last minute. So the doctor who had agreed to do my IV sedation was no longer my anesthesiologist. I was the one who ended up telling Dr. Farley this pre-op ("Uh, I think that they just gave me a new anesthesiologist....") and when Dr. Farley informed the new doc that the procedure would not be done under general, he was none too pleased. I am thankful Dr. Farley held his ground and insisted, but after he left, the doctor spent a good five to ten minutes LECTURING me on general anesthesia and how I was wrong to be afraid of it. Are you joking me? I am doing all in my power to not freak-the-hell-out over a surgery that will suck my dead baby out of me, and you are wasting your time basically berating me for my medical choices and reminding me that if something goes wrong, that you'll have to intubate and switch to general. Shocking.

What is interesting with this whole miscarriage experience is that only once did anyone on the Western medicine side of things even ask how I was doing emotionally. A dear, sweet nurse at Dr. Farley's took time with me, as she had three recurrent losses before carrying her healthy baby girl to term. She was so kind, and asked how I was doing, and shared her experiences and hope with me. Besides her, not one nurse or doctor at the doctor's office or hospital even bothered to ask me how I was handling it emotionally. It was always, "How's your pain?" not "How are YOU?" It gave both Jason and I a new perspective on health care, and in another future post I'll share not only those realizations but others that came of this whole experience.

My acupuncturist was smack-dab on when she said, "You have experienced not one, but TWO deep traumas. The first being the death of a baby, the second being a D&C." When we got home from the hospital, all of the emotional progress I had been making was essentially undone. I don't remember much of the two days following the procedure, but I know that I completely shut down and was unable to care for myself in any way. I didn't eat, barely got out of bed... At one point I remember somehow being in the shower crying - Jason put me in there, washed my hair and body, then lotion-ed me up, dried my hair (God bless a man trying to manipulate a brush and hairdryer) and put me in new pajamas back to bed. What a good husband. I love him.

What snapped me out of it was that McBossy (Hazel) started breathing really weird, and we had to take an emergency vet visit. That is what finally forced me outside of myself - my ratty girl was sick and needed me and I had to pull it together to take care of her. After that night, I started to slowly take care of myself and get up out of bed for longer, but I would still have random set-offs that would send me into despair and sobbing. I guess that should be present tense - I am okay most of the time, and then small things will absolutely freak me out (an infant in Starbucks, a Fit Pregnancy magazine, nursery items, etc.)

So, with the D&C, all was supposedly finished physically. Not my luck. I developed an infection - including severe prolonged pain (as in walking bent at a 90 degree angle) and intense bleeding (as in soaking through pads, waking up in blood with the whole bed covered sort of bleeding). Two weeks later, after a good round of antibiotics, the infection is cleared and hopefully I really am done...

Here is one thing I want to leave people with who might be facing a D&C. Your experience might be different than mine physically and emotionally, but I was not told anything about the procedure or what exactly would be going on. Being the stellar researcher that I am, I googled my heart out and found the following links helpful when trying to prepare myself...

eMedicineHealth
Medicinenet.com
Americanpregnancy.org
Justmommies.com - this link helped me THE MOST because it is real-life accounts of LOTS of women's experiences.

My next post will focus not on what NOT to do if someone close to you experiences the loss of a pregnancy, but WHAT to do. For every insensitive comment, I had three more wonderful, caring experiences from friends and family who stood by me, supported me in very specific ways, and listened with compassion and love.

I'll leave you with the best quote that I have ever heard regarding pregnancy loss (from a card my parents sent me a few days after Wild Thing went to Heaven) -

"What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose."