lost

Ich habe heute eine mail von meiner Hebamme bekommen, mit der Bitte, doch meine Erfahrungen ueber meine Fehlgeburt fuer andere aufzuschreiben. Ich denke, es schadet nicht, wenn ich das hier mal reinsetze.

I really do not know, if my miscarriage counts. I must have been pregnant just for about 8 weeks or so. On May 1st, I started bleeding. It was absolutely different from the monthly bleeding, I knew. The blood was fresh and running down my legs. It was very fluid; in fact, it was much more fluid than anything I had seen so far concerning blood.
I instantly called my midwife and my husband. He came home instantly. I was finally crying. I had wanted to cry from the beginning, but there had been somebody at our house that day who had been fixing something and I would not allow me to cry as long as he was there. Fortunately only stayed another half an hour. Then I cried and I felt so miserably.
In the morning on that day I had felt so good – today I think that was because my body already prepared the miscarriage. I had not been as tired as the weeks before. And the cramps I had had for weeks just had stopped. I did not have any cramps on that day. They came later – weeks later. I just had felt good – and then I felt something running down my leg. I bled in gushes. I do not think, it was very much, maybe about some tablespoons. And in the evening there were two pieces of tissue (one about one inch x one inch, the other one smaller) coming out. Unfortunately I did not save them as I probably should have. Even if we both looked at them. I must have stopped bleeding during the night. The next day there only were some smears.
I stopped feeling pregnant. I was not tired any more. I did not have any cramps. I painted a picture for my ‘Zwuckel’ as I had named the life inside of me.
My midwife draw blood and we had it tested, but she was not sure if the results really said I was not pregnant anymore because the HCG could have fallen anyway. She recommended an ultrasound to be sure. I did not want to do that. I was angry. I was sure not to be pregnant anymore. I wanted this to be terminated. And we were getting a visitor for two weeks. So I just bought the herbs for the tea my midwife had given the recipe of and prepared it.
I had already begun to bleed again, but that were only smears so that I thought I had my periods again. They had started on Mai 21st. The bleeding continued an got a bit more, but it was not dramatically. I was a bit worried because it did not stop after a week, but I was distracted by out visitor, so I had not much time to worry. I also had slight cramps, but not as heavy as I was used to. On June 2nd, I started to bleed more and the cramps got heavier. I did not know what it was. I thought, I had already miscarried. But obviously Zwuckel only had died but stayed inside – I only knew that afterwards.
On the evening of the 2nd, the cramps got heavier and heavier. (That might indeed have been labor, but i do not know how it feels as this was my first pregnancy.) I could not sleep. The cramps got every time heavier and at one point I begged my husband to take me to the hospital. I might have had heavy cramps for three hours then. Someone who knows me, knows that I am able to endure very high levels of pain, so, the cramps must have been very heavy. We arrived at the hospital – and the cramps stopped. I felt better. I decided to go home again. At home, after about half an hour, I needed to go to the bathroom. There was a need to push, too. That was when I gave birth to Zwuckel. My husband saved him out of the toilet and we put him in a plastic container in the fridge. You could not see much of him, the most which could be seen was a little amniotic sac (about two inches in diameter) and a little part of the placenta.
I did not look very properly at Zwuckel in this night. I did it two days later, when we buried him.
Our visitor left on June 4th and on the same day I crafted a special tiny box for Zwuckel in which we could bury him. As we own no yard here, we decided to bury him between some redwoods. I do know that that might not be allowed, but that was an important thing to do for us. In the morning of the 5th, we took the plastic container, which had been Zwuckel’s temporary home, out of the fridge. Now, I opened it to look closely and to touch. I asked myself if I maybe should open the amniotic sac, to take a really close look at Zwuckel. I decided not to do it, because it seemed so whole and I wanted to let it whole and leave Zwuckel his bit of protection in there. I do not exactly know, how tall he was.
So, we packed the plastic container and the box I had made and drove to a place where we wanted to bury Zwuckel. My husband dug a hole and I placed Zwuckel in his little box. Then we buried him.
I bled in whole for about four weeks (until June 16th). My next period then came on July 7th and was normal. I do not know, if my cycle is again regular, because it was just this year.
We now have a place to go, whenever we want to. I think I still am grieving. I did not cry anymore but i started again when I got the mail with the request for this text.