Meet Mindee

May 02, 2022 3 min read

@lipsticktolunges

Mama who has suffered a miscarriage.

Hi mamas like me,

I am Mindee, a mama of 3 young kids named Peyton (5), Greyson (3) and Mila (1). I recently suffered a miscarriage and would love to be an open ear for anyone who is suffering the same heartbreak.

Because of a rare disease my son was born with, we opted to do IVF to prevent passing the condition down to anymore children. We did our transfer on January 29th, 2022 and found out we were pregnant 2 weeks later.

Everything seemed to be starting out great but at 5 weeks pregnant I experienced some heavy bleeding and was sure I had miscarried. Since it was so early in my pregnancy - my fertility clinic had me wait until my 6 week appointment to see if they could find the source of bleeding and see if there was a heartbeat.

At my 6 week appointment, the nurse found a strong healthy heartbeat of a baby boy but also a large subchorionic hematoma/hemmorage. These are more common with IVF but can occur in any pregnancy. My nurse assured me that she had never seen one of these end badly and to just be on pelvic rest for the next few weeks until it resolves itself.

I was closely monitored for the next several weeks and the hematoma caused no issues. But when I was 9 weeks pregnant I woke up in the middle of the night soaked in blood. I ran to the toilet and continued to pass very large clots and bleed. I was so weak I could barely stand but my husband eventually came out and found me.

We drove to my fertility clinic to check on the baby as soon as it opened, I had no doubt in my mind that I had miscarried but to my surprise the baby was moving around like crazy and fine. The nurse did mention his heartrate was a little high and to do another scan in a few days.

The bleeding slowed down and a few days later I packed my two older kids up and headed off to my 10 week graduation appt from my fertility clinic. I explained to my nurse what had happened over the weekend and she started the ultrasound…but this time I could tell the look on her face wasn’t good.

She was silent for what felt like hours. She then went on to say “I’m so sorry but there is no heartbeat”. My poor kids were with me to witness that and it’s something I will always regret. The next few days feel like a blur but I had to schedule a D&C because the baby was too big to miscarry at home and honestly I didn’t want to do that anyway. I’m now 4 weeks out from my D&C and it’s been ROUGH, I have just taken a really long time to recover mentally and physically.

If I have any advice for someone going through the same thing is to be easy on yourself. Don’t expect that you can jump back into your normal routine and block out what happened. It’s okay to grieve.