Unlike many of the posts I have read here (which are all really helpful so thank-you!), I had a miscarriage from what they call a 'blighted ovum' or an 'anembryonic pregnancy'. Basically, when I started to bleed but specifically didn't miscarry, after nearly TWO WEEKS over the xmas holiday I finally was able to get in for the ultrasound. Amniotic sac intact, partially-formed placenta. I was nearly 12 weeks. But there was no embryo whatsoever. Apparently this happens when a fertilized egg implants but then just never develops into anything. In my case, the pregnancy had stopped forming due to the lack of embryo around 8 weeks, but I had no idea. My body hadn't figured out that it should miscarry the tissues that were there. I just kept carrying an empty sac.
I had a D&C operation to remove the pregnancy 5 weeks ago. But the mass of emotions has only been hitting for the past 2 weeks. It's been insane to try to come to terms with the fact that I'm grieving something that never even existed--there was no baby, but I thought there was. I know what it is to look at your newborn, to feel those movements, to watch a baby grow into a person. I have a son. This baby was supposed to arrive on his 5th birthday. He's wanted a sibling for 2 years now, and talked about it all the time. Since the miscarriage he's not even mentioned it.
I'm terribly sad. I feel broken. All of us who miscarry have lost something enormous. No one seems to get the fact that I'm still sad and I don't feel comfortable talking to people about it because they just don't understand. But I also somehow wish that there had been an embryo there--something I could have a picture of, something that I could say goodbye to. In retrospect, I wish I had had a miscarriage on my own rather than having the D&C surgery...because now I feel like my pregnancy was simply erased. I can't get over the fact that there never really was a baby in my body, because I was so certain that there was. I can't mark the passing of a life that never even existed. I fell in love with the idea of my baby, but I never actually lost one. My body was deceived into thinking something was there, growing. But it was just an empty sac.
I'm tired of hearing how miscarriage is so common. This is one of the only up-to-date forums I've found of others like me, and all the doctors keep saying is that it's very common. That doesn't help. I can't even get myself to go to the doctor for the surgical follow-up. Can't stand the thought of being in that women's clinic with all of those bellies and babies.
I'm not afraid of getting pregnant again, but I can't even think about the idea of being sexually intimate with anyone again. It's not about fear of pregnancy...I feel so broken I don't know how to feel good anymore. I'm totally afraid of letting myself get close to my spouse again. Is there anyone else out there like me?
