About two years ago I had my first miscarriage. I was 23 years old living with my boyfriend (now fiance) and the pregnancy was VERY unexpected. (I only took a test because he kept insisting I was pregnant. I was confident that I was not.) The positive test was absolutely devastating because I was just starting out career-wise and we were struggling to pay the bills. We dealt with it, and once we received support from both of our parents, things became a little better. I ate healthy, took the prenatal vitamins, went for walks, did my best to be healthy. I don't smoke/drink/do drugs or anything.
I miscarried at 14 weeks and was pretty distraught. It was a very depressing time for me and I still think about it a lot.
Back in March, I started having morning sickness. I didn't think much of it, I assumed it was from nerves because of my job/school/wedding. But it started happening very frequently. I felt tired constantly-but I attributed that to my horrific work and school schedule. I'm a full time student (was taking 15 credits at the time) and work between 48-60 hours a week (I'm a registered nurse and work 16 hour shifts). On top of that I'm planning a wedding in NJ from Pittsburgh that's now a month away. My fiance suggested that I take a test to be sure, and it came back positive. Saw my doctor, things were confirmed.
Last week I admitted a patient at work who was very pleasant during her assessment. I was given an order by her physician to use a straight catheter to check for urinary retention. I walked into the room and explained what I was going to do and why, she said okay. I was aware that she had periods of confusion, but was not expecting what happened next. Before I started to clean her, I told her what I was going to do and that it would feel cold. The second the swab touched her skin she swung her leg at me and kicked me in the stomach with what definitely felt like full strength. She started throwing punches and spitting and all that good stuff. I pretty much ducked and covered and called for help. Luckily a CNA was in the room across the hallway and heard the commotion. Employee incident report was filed.
Well, my abdomen was in rough shape after this encounter. She kicked me with full force just above my pelvis and another right underneath my ribcage on the left side. Nice big bruises to show for it.
Within a week I started feeling cramping and a lot of back pain. Then I began bleeding to the point where I thought I was hemorrhaging. Went to the ED, was checked out, determined that I was having a miscarriage.
I just feel so depressed about it. I feel angry, hurt, upset, sad.. and I feel like I can't do anything about it. I don't know if the beat down was the definitive cause, but I'm sure it didn't help. I just wish that I could've done something to prevent this. No where in her history did it say anything about violence and I was completely caught off guard with the attack. I just feel guilty, like there was something I could've done.
There's no real point to this post...I just wanted to let it out somewhere. No one knew I was pregnant except for my fiance and I because I wanted to wait until I was a little further along to tell people.
Re: Just need to let it out.
BFP #2 5/19/11, EDD 1/20/12, Natural miscarriage 6/2/11 @ 6w6d
Dx 2 copies of MTHFR reductase DNA mutation (C677T & A1298C) June 2011
I'm very sorry for your loss. I know this is little consolation, but a kick to the abdomen wouldn't have caused your miscarriage that early, and more likely than not it was chromosomal and 100% out of your control. I understand how you are feeling. I questioned every little thing from what soap I was using to the exercise I was doing. I've even had a healthy pregnancy that resulted in a beautiful child where I didn't know for weeks that I was expecting, and then aside from cutting out alcohol carried on with business as usual, and even so I still questioned every tiny little detail when I first learned my pregnancy would not be viable.
Please take care of yourself, physically and emotionally. I know it's rough with school, wedding planning, and what sounds like a high stress job, but your #1 priority should be YOU for a while. Lots of hugs.
I really thank you for your responses. It's been a rough week and I find myself questioning every action. I feel like I haven't really been able to talk about it with anyone or anything. Thank you for your support.