The reason for this post is because during my whole ordeal, I couldn't find ANYTHING about the physical aspect of miscarriage on any of these forums that talked about a timeframe of things happening and what to expect (I know it varies from person to person). I was so worried about the size of the clots and how to know when it was over. I wanted to post my experience even if it helps just ONE woman (or partner) that is going through this horrible ordeal and is wondering what to expect (or approximetely anyway...). I know it's long, but I wanted to be thourough because someone out there I'm sure, is wondering if "it's normal?".

Basically, last Thursday we found out we lost the baby. Up until that point I had NO bleeding, cramping or anything. All of my symptoms of a healthy pregnancy were still in full swing. It was about 12 hours later that I began to notice spotting. I really think that because my MIND let go of this pregnancy, my body finally felt ready too. The first 24-36 hours consisted of mostly spotting when I wiped.

By Saturday, the bleeding began to pick up a bit and was beginning to turn a brighter red (it had previously been brown). But still, was only mostly present when I wiped. Nothing was making it to the pad. This continued through Monday. The bleeding picked up a bit by Monday morning, but still wasn't what I was expecting. There was still no pain or anything. Only the rare light cramp not even worth a Tylanol.

*The rest gets pretty graphic*

Monday, while at work (I had taken Thursday and Friday off-I'm a teacher and it was the first week of school. Quite the timing, huh?) I began passing some small clots (similar to period-like clots) when I would go to the bathroom. None were really on the pad at all. What I do remember though, was what seemed like the water breaking while on the toilet. I felt this quick gush and I looked between my legs. It wasn't real bloody, almost clear/yellow like when my son's water broke. Still, no pain.

By Monday around dinner time I began passing some larger clots (maybe the size of a keylime?). Still, not much pain at all. Blood at this point was making it to the pad, but still not too bad. While we were out at dinner, I felt something just kinda ready to come out. There wasn't any pain or pressure, I just knew I needed to get to the bathroom and QUICK. I sat on the toilet and pretty much passed what I'm sure was the sac. It was about the size of a lime (the baby was only 9 weeks) and it was red/greyish with a clearish center. I didn't look too closely, honestly, I was a bit grossed out. I thought that was the end of it and I escaped with a painless (physically) miscarriage. Whew was I wrong.

Monday night, after passing the "sac", I got a lot more crampy, but nothing I couldn't get through. I'm not big into meds, and I didn't even take a Tylanol. The bleeding began to pick up a bit. I found myself having to change my pad more often. I went to bed around 9 planning to be back at work because Monday went ok. By 10:30 at night, my cramps woke me up. It was hurting pretty bad, but not worth getting out of bed or waking my husband yet. I think I fell back asleep because I vividly remember waking up again at 11:30. By now, I was having full blown labor contractions. AND, every now and then I'd feel a quick uncontrollable gush of blood. The contractions began by lasting about 10 minutes with about 3 minutes of rest between them. On my 3 resting minutes I would run to the bathroom to let some blood out and change my pad. I found that walking around seemed to help a bit at that time. These contractions lasted about an hour, then it got REALLY bad.

By 12:30am-ish The contractions were one minute contracting with only one minute recovery. I honestly think that at this pain level when I was in labor with my son I had already gotten an epidural (and I pretty much waited it out with him!!) I was crying and breathing like crazy during these. This is when my husband woke up. (I figured there was no point in both of us being sleep deprived the next day since we have a 14-month old to look after and we're both teachers who had JUST started our year). I had these one-on-one-off contractions for about another hour. I mananged to take some Advil and it didn't help at all (I'm not too surprised). At this point I couldn't even get up to change the pad and actually, the blood flow seemed to have slowed a bit. Around 1:30, the contactions became one minute on and two minutes off. They were still horribly painful. But, I knew that my body HAD to do this and this was how I was going to avoid my D&C that I had scheduled "just in case" for Friday.

All of a sudden (around 2:30 am), mid contraction I realized I HAD to get to the bathroom. I got there and passed a few clots that were seriously the size of my fist. They didn't hurt though. That made me wonder if maybe THAT was the sac, but it was dark and I didn't look. After those clots came out, the contractions were DONE. Then came the "fun" part.

From 2:30 to 4:30 I soon realized that sleeping was going to be impossible because I seriously was GUSHING blood. This might be some TMI, but it was almost like when you have that really bad diarrhea that is completely uncontrollable when you sit on the toilet. Thats how the blood was. There were no Kegels strong enough to hold it in. I continued passing (painless) clots of blood the size of limes and even larger for that entire 2 hours about every 10-15 minutes. (During this time I realized there was NO way of making it to school the next day, and since sleeping was impossible, I wrote my lesson plans). By 4:30 am, I realized that it had been about 30 minutes since my last trip to the bathroom so it might finally be safe to sleep.

I slept from 4:30am- 6am (Tuesday) when our alarm went off. I didn't realize how much blood I'd lost until I offered to help get my son ready for my husband to take to daycare. I got as far as getting his sippy cup filled and a yogurt out of the fridge before I had to go lie back down in bed. I slept until noon. I felt like crap and was eating Iron pills like crazy and made a hamburger for lunch (for the Iron).

By then, the bleeding had SIGNIFICANTLY slowed down and there was no pain. Today, (Wednesday) I only made it half a day at work. I'm still so drained. I'm not even bothering to get in tmrw until lunch. I got bloodwork done and my levels are dropping.

Tomorrow it will have been a week since we found out we lost our Angel. I just see it as it wasn't meant to be, and I'm just so thankful to have had an easy, successful pregnancy prior to this one and have a beautiful 14 month old boy as a reward.