Hospitals and miscarriages

I was reading somewhere that women going through miscarriages are treated the worst of any type of hospital patient.  Many women are told to "go home and wait it out"...which basically entails a lot of pain (it's basically labor) with no support and no medical person to ask questions of.  It can also be incredibly traumatic in and of itself, pain and confusion aside. 

I was relatively lucky in that I had a D&C immediately following my bad ultrasound day.  A D&C is, effectively, an abortion...but in this case it was done because my body hasn't recognized that the baby was dead, and I was far enough along that there was a serious risk of extra blood loss.  I only had some of the pain later on (that's part of the body not going back to normal, which I'll elaborate on later).

That being said, the admitting people at the hospital were absolutely horrid.  We stopped at the hospital on the way home from the ultrasound, to fill out all the required paperwork and to do my pre-op.  I had literally just found out that my child died two hours before hand.  Well, they were training someone new at the admitting desk, and here's how our conversation went:

Her: Can I have your ID?
I hand it to her.
Her: How do you say your name? LaPlanta?  LaPlata?  Lapple?
Me: It's LaPlant.
Her: Well that's a funny name.
Me: (silence)
Her: OK, I need to ask you a few questions.  Do you have a history of... (this took a few minutes)   
Me: No
Her: Are you allergic to anything?
Me: No
Her: Are you or could you be pregnant
Me: I don't even know how to answer that.
Her: I don't get it.
Me: Look at my paperwork; that's why I'm here.
Her: Oh yeah, it says "fetal demise".  That's an interesting term.  "Fetal demise".....What's a D&C?  I've never heard of that before?  Wow.  That's funny, I've never ever heard of that procedure before.  What's it for?
Me: ...seriously?

And it continued like this...until she messed up inputting it into the computer and had to start all over again.

OK, I know people in clerical  positions aren't required to be tactful or compassionate, but SERIOUSLY?

What would/could/should have been

I was due April 21.  It occurs to me that, if things had been different, I could have a baby right now.  Occasionally I find myself daydreaming about what my big, huge belly would look like, or what I would be feeling.  I pass infants in carseats on grocery carts at Wegmans, and I wonder which carseat I would have chosen.

When we were expecting, we started work on the nursery.  We removed furniture, painted, put up a border, and hung new curtains.  Since we're TTC, it doesn't make sense to take it down, but sometimes that empty room haunts me a little.  I walk past it and see the ghost of a crib.  I imagine it full of all the shower gifts I would have gotten.  I can't help but think of the joy I would feel looking at that room.  It's empty. 

Sometimes I feel like I'm empty too.  I'm surrounded by the ghosts of what would have/should have been.

Background

In August, 2009, my husband and I found out we were expecting our first child.  I may tell the story of HOW we found out later.  For now, I'll tell you that we had been on birth control at the time, and we had been planning on waiting to try to conceive for another two years. 

Well, when we found out, we were thrilled (once the shock wore off, that is).  We modified our plans.  We picked out names (Amelia Sophia or William Alexander).  We moved the guest bed out of what was to be the baby's room.  We picked a paint color and a border and repainted the room (I wanted to do it early so that we could have the windows open while we painted).

Everything was going fine.  We had our appointment at 10.5 weeks at which we were told everything was fine and we heard the heartbeat.  Life was good.  We started to tell people, since the first trimester was just about over and we were out of the woods...or so we thought.

So, on October 10, I started spotting.  I wasn't too worried about it.  I am obsessive about researching everything about what's going on in my life, and I knew that spotting often happened in the first trimester.  No worries.  On the morning of October 12, when I was exactly 13 weeks pregnant, the bleeding got worse.  I went to school (I'm a teacher), but I called my OB after my first class.  She set me up for an ultrasound for three hours later.  I went home, woke my husband up (he works nights), and off we went. 

I remember saying to Mike (my husband), "This will either be a really good day or a really bad day."  I had a feeling it was going to be bad, but I remained optimistic that maybe this was a blessing in disguise, and we'd get to enjoy an unexpected ultrasound viewing.

When we got called in the room, I remember staring at the screen WILLING it to show a flicker of life.  The tech was quiet for a while, then she said (I remember her exact words), "I should see some movement and a heartbeat at thirteen weeks, and, I'm sorry, but I don't see that."  Mike didn't speak again for about an hour.  I dealt with the call to my OB from the ultrasound clinic, I set up the D&C for the following morning(I may elaborate that in a future post), and I didn't break down until I got to the hospital for pre-op.

We decided that we wanted to try again as soon as possible.  Well, my body didn't get back to normal until the end of December (again, I may elaborate on that later), but we've been trying ever since.  It's been six months since we lost the baby, and trying to conceive again seems harder and harder to handle.  We're on our fifth cycle of trying, and no good news yet.

So that's where I am.