My Second Silent Miscarriage

       I have never experienced a miscarriage in which my body starts to cramp and bleed. I have never witnessed that moment of panic and pain. But I have experienced miscarriage, silent miscarriage. 

I don’t like to open up about this type of thing, because I feel like I have no right to. I have had 4 perfectly healthy pregnancies that resulted in 5 beautiful children. I can get pregnant easily, but that doesn’t always mean I keep the baby. Two out of my last three pregnancies have resulted in a 15 week loss. 

Typically, when people talk about miscarriage symptoms, they mention bleeding, cramping, (insert other symptoms), or that they just “knew.”

But what about when you don’t feel any symptoms, what about when your body thinks it is still pregnant, even though the baby has been dead for weeks?

I’m talking about what is called a Silent Miscarriage.

I am writing this after my second “silent miscarriage”. After carrying my baby for 15 weeks, I received the unexpected news. This was the same scenario I had experienced the first time. I don’t know why this happens, doctors don’t know why this happens. I have carried a dead baby in my body for the past 4 weeks without me realizing it. Last time I carried my dead baby for 3 weeks. My body doesn’t know how to tell me the baby is dead. So I just stress and sound crazy as I worry about my sweet baby inside of me. 

I am very sick when I am pregnant, which I’ve always been told is a good sign that everything is going well, and my baby is healthy. So when I start to feel better around 12-13 weeks, (that’s also suppose to be normal as you enter the second trimester) I stress that something is wrong. And I’m told not to panic and that it’s all in my head, until it’s not. 

I finally called the doctor and scheduled an appointment where they did an ultrasound that showed my baby, - and you know something is very wrong when the technician doesn’t say anything for a long time. I know what a moving healthy baby looks like, and all I saw was a small baby, not moving, no fluttering where the heart is, and I knew my baby was dead. Again. 

My question is, how long would the baby stay in my body before it finally decides to evacuate? Who knows? I had no signs for 4 weeks. 4 weeks in which I had been walking around with a smile on my face, thrilled to finally be pregnant with our last baby, and excited to complete our family. Now, instead I felt like a chump, that’s been walking around with a dead baby in her body.

 I then had to go to the doctor to schedule surgery to remove the baby. Then suffer with the knowledge that I had to continue carrying my dead baby inside of me for another week while I waited. 

Then after surgery all I had were the extra pounds and a small baby bump with nothing to show for it. I had already announced the pregnancy, so then I had to inform all my friends and family that I had lost the baby.

   Whenever we struggle with something I feel like we search google for resources or help, and I found there’s hardly anything on silent miscarriages, and I just wanted to put my thoughts to paper for anyone else out there struggling with this, and know you’re not alone. I want answers, and I’m hoping the blood work-up at my next appointment will give me some. 

     I love my little baby, and even though God and I will be the only ones that got to carry him, I’ll treasure the time we had together on this earth.