Our Story, page 3

The Miscarriage

Fast forward two years later. Harold and I were ready to have another child. Julian was growing well. He was a healthy, plump 2 year-old attending a lovely pre-school with wonderful little friends. After a few tries, we happily discovered that I was pregnant. We were scheduled to go to Hawaii for a vacation, so at my next visit to the doctor I asked her if I should go, considering my previous birth history. With a smile she assured me that everything was just fine, to go have a good time and relax.

One week into the vacation, just shy of 14 weeks into the pregnancy, I woke up and discovered I was bleeding. Harold and I left Julian with family and we went to the emergency room closest to where we were staying. At the emergency room, the doctor quickly found the little baby’s good strong heartbeat. This was reassuring. We had to wait four hours until a sonogram machine and technician were available. After the sonogram results were looked over by a radiologist, the emergency room doctor assured us that everything was all right.

A week later, on the day we were departing for home, I started to bleed again. We got on the airplane and made it through the five hour flight to San Francisco, hired a taxi, and managed to finally get home at 1 a.m. After putting Julian to bed, Harold and I went to bed. However, I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t feel right. At around 4 a.m. my legs started to shake and my abdomen started to hurt. Harold and I called a sitter and went to the hospital at 6 a.m. After 10 minutes in the emergency room, the doctor there announced that I was having a miscarriage. A few minutes later, our tiny 14 week-old girl emerged.

She was so little. How could this have happened? As you can probably imagine, Harold and I were heartbroken and terribly distraught. (I am weeping as I type this.)

After recovering physically from the miscarriage, we went to see the doctor to find out what had gone wrong. (This was the same doctor who had presided over Julian’s disorganized and frenetic birth.) With a few flippant waves of her hand, she dismissed our concerns. “Oh,” she said, “maybe it’s an incompetent cervix; maybe we should do a cerclage next time.”

Harold and I looked at each other in shock and something like horror. This was the woman who was going to take care of our unborn children? Then, the doctor dropped her final bomb. She told us that it is “standard procedure” to let a woman have three miscarriages before trying to diagnose a cause.

Harold and I left in a hurry. There was no way we were going to see that doctor again. Ever.

Continued