D&C

Friday, October 3...I had a D&C this time. My doctor said that if I allowed the miscarriage to happen on its own, it would be very painful and there was no telling how long it would take. Possibly weeks. That didn't really sound like fun. She also said that if I had the procedure done, they may be able to save a sample of the tissue and have it tested to see if there was an obvious problem. She told me that they very rarely find an answer this way, but it doesn't hurt to try.

The D&C was the single most humiliating experience of my life. My mother, my husband and his mother came to the hospital with me. They had to schedule me during my doctor's lunch break, but unfortunately, she is a doctor, so they couldn't plan this easily. They took me to a little corner of the Same Day Surgery center that had a bed and drew the curtains around me while I changed. There were at least a dozen of these curtained sections all lined up next to each other. I laid on that bed in my silly little gown for HOURS waiting. About 8 different nurses came in to ask me the same questions. I could hear every conversation that every other patient was having. There was NO privacy, despite the silly curtains. I could hear the man next to me having to pee in a bedpan. I could hear the nurses refer to us as numbers, as in "Number 6 is waiting for a consultation."

I wanted to scream and run out of there and very nearly did. I just cried and fell asleep occasionally. I kept my husband with me as long as possible. He understood that I was grieving and terrified and just needed a hand to hold. I was so scared that with so many different patients here for different procedures with different doctors that they were somehow going to mix me up with someone who needed an appendectomy or something of the sort. The only time I had ever been "put under" was for having my wisdom teeth pulled the year before.

Finally, I got to see my doctor. Even though I knew the answer, I asked her the question that had been plaguing me since the day before. "Is there any possibility that there was some sort of equipment malfunction? Maybe we should do the sonogram again?" She looked at me with such pity as she slowly shook her head.