It’s been a terribly difficult time for me, and I’m quite scared- and sad- to go thru this, I’m thankful for the community who rallied around me as soon as I got the diagnosis.

I’ve felt every emotion. This is extremely unfair, but biology never is.

I found the lump over Christmas, two weeks after my miscarriage. I had scans and a biopsy.

In the 3 weeks since being diagnosed, I’ve had close to 2 dozen appointments for surgery, fertility, reconstruction, and genetic testing.

I don’t have all the answers yet, but we think I caught it early.

Wait I want to do this, there’s a free mini library across the street from me!

Love it

I won’t respond to any arguments to this thread. My post is to highlight how miscarriage is awful enough without religious zealots inserting themselves into something they know nothing about. A national abortion can could kill me. It will be the fault of pro-lifers.

Mind your own fucking business.

If you don’t like abortions, don’t have them. If you think the problem is doctors misinterpreting the law and not that lawmakers have no medical knowledge, you are the problem. Access to medical care is private, and it’s a civil right. 14/n

Miscarriage is one of those weird underbellies of society. It’s so common, yet rarely talked about. We can’t legislate medicine and then blame folks who experience the consequences of a problem -created by someone else -for not finding a solution. The solution is always access to care. 13/n

Making doctors verify a patient is an exception to a rule wastes critical time that has resulted in trauma, permanent damage, and death of patients. Telling me I’m the exception does no good if my doctor has to wait for confirmation that we won’t go to jail if they save my life via surgery. 12/n

Abortion bans criminalize pregnancy complications as much as they criminalize the right to choose. Unless you assume a patient is a criminal, and act accordingly, there really isn’t an easy way to know if someone is having a miscarriage, or has attempted to abort themselves. 11/n

I wasn’t made to wait for care. I didn’t have to wait for sepsis, I wasn’t asked if I’d taken anything to stop fetal development. Had this been the case, I could have become very ill. The simple point is that not legislating my body allowed me to help my body during a difficult time. 10/n

I don’t need to explain the trauma of this. A miscarriage alone is a profoundly awful experience, but mine felt especially horrible, if that’s even possible. It was no one’s fault. I had access to prompt medical care that didn’t require ruling out criminal activity. I was treated with respect. 9/n

My doctor immediately scheduled me for a second D&C and confirmed via camera the surgery was successful (camera-led is not standard, this was not the result of poor care). Having retained products of conception is not common, but it happens. Why is this important info to share? 8/n

I took the medication the next night. Misoprostol causes uterine contractions to expel pregnancy tissue. It sort of mimics early labor regardless of how far along you are. I had about 12 hours of contractions, but the medication did not work. 7/n

I could wait to see if my body expelled it naturally, try the medication route, or repeat the D&C. The idea of a second surgery horrified me, and I was so overwhelmed with the trauma and decision paralysis that I decided to try the medication. I wish I hadn’t. 6/n

Two weeks later, I knew something was wrong. I was having a lot of pelvic pain, I was still bleeding, so my doc brought me in for an ultrasound. I had retained pregnancy tissue, meaning some of it was still adhered to my uterus. That’s a problem. I had 3 options. 5/n

Plus, because of my endometriosis, my doctor was concerned the medication route would be more painful than it already is. So, I had a D&C. I had a great medical team. I love my doctor. It was still horrible. Recovery time varies, but I bled a lot. 4/n

The news was horrific, and it happened so fast. I chose surgery because after ~8 weeks gestation, medication to expel pregnancy tissue isn’t always 100% effective, and many women require surgery anyway. The medication-induced process can also be very long. I didnt want that. 3/n

A missed miscarriage is when the fetus dies, but the body doesn’t realize it. You can carry a fetus that has stopped developing for MANY weeks before the body realizes and tries to expel it. As a result, I opted to have surgery to remove the tissue. 2/n