My Miscarriage Story

Before you go on to read this, I want to give a fair warning that what I wrote is raw and full of detail. I wrote this with anyone who might be going through it for the first time in mind. I didn’t know what to expect and was so unprepared for everything that happened and I hope my story helps someone going through this for the first time.

Reading stories from others’ experiences helped me get through my miscarriage. It made me feel less alone and more normal to see that others had the same or similar symptoms that I was having.

So here’s my story…

I always knew I wanted kids…someday. In my early 20’s age 28-30 felt so far away and “old”. I thought I’d be ready to have a baby around that age. 

By then I’m done living my life, I won’t care about my body changing anymore and I’ll be ready to settle down. 

Well. I have never been more wrong about anything in my life!

At 28 I was just moving in with Shane and he was only my boyfriend at the time. We weren’t even thinking about marriage yet. We had to see if we could survive living together first!

Fast forward four years and we were married. Shane was asking me if we could have a baby before we even said our I do’s. And then every single day after that. 

That felt like a lot of pressure.

Anyone who knows me—I mean really knows me—would tell you that nothing would make me want to do something less than someone asking me to do it multiple times.

I also didn’t feel ready. I couldn’t explain it, I couldn’t even really tell you why, I just didn’t feel ready. Maybe I felt unsettled? I don’t know. 

I kept saying things like “after our honeymoon” “after we go to Vegas” “after we get a house” … I think I was really just hoping I’d feel ready after those things but all those things came and went and I still didn’t feel ready. 

I could see how badly Shane wanted to be a dad and I really wanted to give him that…but I just wasn’t ready. I wished it was something I could buy and wrap up as a gift, but it’s not. It’s a huge life-changing decision that takes a lot of thought and preparation. And time!! So much time!

Being a business owner makes it an even harder decision. I have even more to take into consideration. Bloggers / content creators can’t really take time off without being penalized from algorithms and there’s no PTO for me or maternity leave.

I just have to “leave” without pay and that feels scary. I also enjoy my job, and no hate to the stay at home mom’s, you guys are amazing, but I don’t think that’s in the cards for me. I need my own identity and something to differentiate me from “mom”.

Everyone kept telling me they regretted waiting and that it can take a while to actually get pregnant and that I should just try now because you never know how long it might take. 

I don’t know what it was but I just had this feeling that wouldn’t be the case for me. I had a pretty good feeling that if I tried it would happen quickly. I know my body, I can even feel myself ovulating each month. I just knew it wouldn’t take long. 

Finally around my 34th birthday I said ok we can try, even though I didn’t feel completely ready. I started believing what friends were telling me; that you never truly feel ready and there’s never a good time. 

So we tried. 

I’ve always had a little bit of a sixth sense and throughout my life have predicted the weirdest things. 

I had a vivid dream about my friend being pregnant and a few days later she told me she was pregnant. I couldn’t believe it. I mean I knew it but I still couldn’t believe it. 

A week later I had a vivid dream that I had a little boy…he was a toddler and I was in a museum with him, my mom, and Luna…lol. I don’t know why Luna was in a museum with us but she was there!

I woke up from that dream with a horrible metallic taste in my mouth. 

I know a lot of “first symptoms” from friends of mine but this wasn’t one I had heard of before. 

At first I thought it was the Indian food we ate the night before. I asked Shane if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “Nope”…

Ok now I’m freaking out. I KNOW I’m pregnant. I asked Dr. Google if that was a symptom, and sure enough it was!

We’re out of town visiting family in Maryland and I need to figure out how to go get a test without Shane knowing because obviously I wanted to do a whole cute thing to tell him.

I don’t know what this “cute thing” will be yet but I want to do something fun to tell him!

I tell Shane I’m taking a walk and call my mom to tell her everything. But obviously I want to tell her in a cute way too so even if it’s positive I’ll tell her it’s not so I can tell her when I’m ready. 

I’m not the kind of person who can process things alone though so I had to call her!

I pick up 5 packs of tests and rush back. I immediately take the test and immediately there are two VERY dark lines. 

Holy shit. I’m pregnant. WTF. 

It really happened on the first try. I knew it would but really??? 

Shane was on a work call and his mom was meeting us for dinner in 2 hours. It was a belated birthday dinner for me and obviously I’d be expected to drink alcohol. I’m pretty good at sneakily ordering mocktails but I was still nervous one of them would catch on.

Also, I’m constantly chewing gum because this metallic taste is so strong. 

Now I needed to get something cute together so I can tell Shane. Before getting pregnant, I thought I would be able to keep this to myself for a week and it would be a cool little secret that only I knew. 

Nope no way. The second I found out I needed someone else to know. But before that I needed to run to target to put something cute together for Shane!

I grabbed a toy car and wrote a note on it “no more texting and driving, there’s about to be a baby on board May 2025!” along with a little onesie. 

Here’s what I learned in my brief time in the kids clothing section at target: there are not enough neutral baby clothes!! I was circling that section forever trying to find something that could work.

I wanted to tell Shane so badly that day. It was so hard to keep that to myself all day and get through dinner without saying anything. 

Everything tasted awful by the way. That taste was so strong. 

His mom asked me why I was chewing so much gum. I told her it was a hack to get rid of my double chin. She told me she went home and started chewing gum to work on hers 😂 so funny but I felt a little bad about that.

So the next morning comes around and I get to tell Shane with the little gift bag I put together. Inside was the onesie, the little toy car with the note, and 5 positive pregnancy tests.

I’ve never seen him so happy in my life. He immediately yelps out “you’re going to be the best mom and I’m going be there for you every step of the way”. 

I’m sobbing at this point and feeling relieved and a little more excited. Telling Shane was for sure the best part.

A few days go by and I’m realizing all the things I can’t do anymore and I’m having my holy shit moment. My “I’m not ready for this” moment. 

I’m feeling resentful and regretful. I knew I should have listened to my intuition. I knew I wasn’t ready. But Shane is comforting me and helping me realize this will be a good thing, I’ll be a good mom, my baby won’t have the traumatic childhood I had. 

I start journaling every day and I see my thoughts going from scared and unsure to excited and confident (kinda). It was cute. 

My best friend commented on this too, how she noticed a huge difference between when I told her I was pregnant and “now” (the now was a few weeks later) and she said she was so proud of me and happy for me and I’m going to be a great mom. That made me cry happy tears.

Early on I journaled saying I kind of wished it had taken us a little longer to get pregnant because maybe if it did I would want it more and be more excited. 

We both downloaded like 5 pregnancy tracking apps and they said it was the size of a poppy seed. So we called it poppy. 

Every night we read about poppy in the apps and how poppy is developing. What my body was doing for poppy, all the things.

Seeing Shane be so involved and excited made me feel like we were in this together. It was comforting. 

I was grateful to not have morning sickness and the metallic taste only lasted 3 days. I think the metallic taste was just my body telling me there was something I needed to know. 

I was really hungry! But no bad symptoms. For some reason, it really felt like a girl to me. 

We counted down the days until we could FaceTime poppy (that’s what we called the ultrasound). We wondered what it would be like to see poppy on the big screen and what poppy would look like. On the apps it looked like a little donosaur with a tail.

The day comes for our appointment and they do a vaginal ultrasound since I’m only 8 weeks and they say they can see things better that way.

Um..that thing is LONG. I thought it was going to come out my mouth! 💀

So she’s probing around and it’s getting uncomfortable. She’s having trouble finding poppy. 

She sees the sac and it’s measuring 7-8 weeks but she says she doesn’t see anything in it. 

She tells me I’m going to miscarry. 

I didn’t know what to think. She must be wrong. I didn’t say much, thank god for Shane — he did all the talking. 

I don’t even remember what they said. 

She told us to meet her in her office where she told us our options. She said I could pass it naturally, take a medication, or do a D&C. 

She said it without much compassion, very matter of fact and said it’s “normal” and happens all the time — to 1 out of 4 women to be exact. 

I didn’t like that answer but remember, I’m the kind of person who can’t process things in the moment so I’ll take some time to process and come back later with thoughts and questions.

It’s amazing how much changed in an hour. One minute we’re smiling in the exam room waiting to see poppy, and the next we’re home alone crying on the couch.

We get home and we don’t even know what to think. I start googling things because she didn’t explain much to us. I see the words “blighted ovum” so we call and ask if that’s what it was and she says yes. 

So I google more. I find stories on Reddit that people were misdiagnosed with a blighted ovum and I start thinking maybe I was misdiagnosed too. 

I wasn’t bleeding, I didn’t have symptoms of miscarrying so maybe she’s wrong. 

I know miscarriages happen all the time, I have many friends who had one or more. But I never thought it was something that would happen to me. It’s one of those things that happens to other people, not me. 

I felt like I failed Shane. Seeing him get so genuinely excited to become a dad really was the best part, and seeing how devastated he was when we got the news tore me apart inside. I know it’s not my fault, but I still felt like a failure.

When I journaled about wishing it wasn’t so easy to get pregnant, this wasn’t exactly what I meant…

Also — thank god we saw this doctor. She was just the first one I could get in with (I didn’t really have a doctor I liked yet) and the one we really wanted was two weeks after this appointment. 

Had we not made two appointments this all would have happened before I even got to a doctor. I would have been SHOCKED in the worst way possible. 

I was supposed to leave for a work trip 5 days after getting this news. 

Shane and I debated whether I should stay or go. He was still going to have to go into the office and since I work from home I’d be alone all day just waiting for it to happen. 

So we both decided that I should still go. I hadn’t started bleeding yet and was feeling normal so I thought I’d be fine.

The doctor said I might not even pass it naturally.

Of course, the very first day of this trip is when it all started. When I woke up there was a little bit of blood.

I had no idea what a miscarriage would be like. I thought it was going to be like a period and I’ve had hundreds of those. I thought the bleeding might progress slowly, like maybe I’ll spot for a little while like other people did.

This was WAY different. 

At the time, I thought I knew what a miscarriage might be like. But once it began, it was clear I was truly unprepared.

All I know is that I’m not allowed to wear a tampon. Pads only. Gross. 

So I doordash the comfiest looking pads to the AirBNB were all staying in. Cute. 

If I’m being honest, this work trip was a nice distraction from everything. I was surrounded by women who are all mothers, some who had been through a miscarriage before. 

This was my first time meeting most of them in person so what a lasting impression I’m sure I left on them lol. 

They were all amazing. Everyone was so supportive, always checking in on me and asking how I was feeling. I felt cared about and loved and it was comforting.

So nighttime comes around and everyone goes to bed. I’m having intense stomach pains and I have no idea what’s going on. 

It’s around 11pm and I feel like I’m in labor. I start googling my symptoms…I’m having contractions. 

There is no position I can get into that’s comfortable. 

The pain is unbearable and I’m dragging myself from the couch to the bathroom every 5 minutes. 

Every time I go there’s blood and what I thought was the “passing” because it was thick tissue looking stuff and I was in so much pain. 

I was told by friends that I’d see the sac and so I assumed mine was just coming out in pieces. 

About 45 minutes into what felt like I was about to give birth, I had deep feelings of regret for coming on the trip and I look for flights first thing in the morning. I change my flight and then realize that being in this much pain on a plane would actually be worse and I change it back. 

Finally I’m in so much pain I can’t take it anymore. I was told this was going to be like bad period cramps…this was NOTHING like period cramps! I was googling some more and I read that some women are prescribed pain medications to help get through this part, I wish my doctor had mentioned that to me. I did end up taking Motrin and it might have helped but I’m not positive.

Shane is 3 hours ahead of me because I’m in California, so it’s like 2 am for him. He doesn’t hear my 27 phone calls so I have to get creative. 

This was my last resort and I felt so bad doing this but I used the security app on my phone to set off our alarm in our house. That woke him up 🙂

We spend about an hour on the phone, I’m crying and thinking I need to go to the hospital and Shane is having a panic attack thinking someone was breaking into our house. Sorry Shane…

I’m in so much pain I can barely talk but knowing I wasn’t alone and that he was on the other end of the phone made things slightly more bearable. 

I finally stop having contractions and am able to go to sleep. 

That was the worst part but I didn’t know if it would happen again so I was anxious when nighttime came around again. I didn’t know what to expect.

Why isn’t there a manual for this? I’m sure it’s not exactly the same for everyone but it would have been nice if my doctor had given me a little insight here. 

That’s also why I’m writing this. I hope this can help at least one person who’s wondering “now what?” after finding out they will have a miscarriage. 

The day after I got home I felt a ton of pressure in my stomach but I had just peed so I didn’t know why I felt like I had to pee SO bad right after I just went. 

I go to the bathroom and I feel it. It felt like I popped out a slimy ball. I look in the toilet and it’s poppy’s sac. It was about the size of a golf ball.

I scream for Shane and I tell him what happened. I pulled it out with my hands and we said some words and gave poppy a fishy funeral in the toilet. 

I checked my oura ring stats at the end of the day and it’s WILD what a miscarriage does to your body. If you’re going through this and you’re a go, go, go kind of person like I am, don’t feel guilty for giving your body as much rest as you possibly can.

A few of my friends knew I was pregnant so I let them know I would be miscarrying as they messaged me to check in and see how I was feeling. This part sucked, I hate making people feel awkward when I have to share that with them and I hated having to share this news before I was ready.

This is something I’ll keep in mind for the next time, I didn’t tell that many people but there were more people who knew than I was comfortable with.

I didn’t want to be checked on all the time by everyone, I didn’t want to talk about it at all. I had barely even sorted out all my own feelings.

I so badly wanted to feel normal again, but every time I wasn’t thinking about it I would get a text from a friend checking in to see how I was doing. 

Now, it’s kind of a lose-lose situation because I know if I didn’t have friends checking in I’d be like wtf why doesn’t anyone care 😂 

One of my friends and I (the one who’s pregnancy I dreamt about) were going through this at the same time. It was comforting for me to have her to lean on.

Several of my friends miscarried and I felt like I had to ask how they were doing/feeling every time I talked to them or it would look like I didn’t care.

Now I realize that might have been a little too much, but if you’ve never gone through it yourself, you don’t know. Also, everyone is different.

My advice to you is to ask your friend what kind of support they are looking for and take it from there.

A few days later I had my follow-up appointment and she told us that I had passed everything.

I’m grateful to have passed everything naturally. I didn’t want to take medication or go through the D&C procedure.

Seeing the sac come out was really sad and the whole experience was beyond traumatic. The transition from not pregnant to pregnant to not pregnant in just a few weeks was tough.

I don’t do well with change, so having to accept SO much change in such a short period of time was hard for me.

I really struggled mentally for a few weeks after coming home from my trip. I was trying to process everything but also was trying to keep up with work so I wouldn’t fall behind. It was a lot. 

You don’t stop bleeding after you pass the sac. After passing the sac you kinda have a period. I felt like I bled forever. I think I bled for about 3-4 weeks. I felt weak. Exercise didn’t feel good to me, I was very tired and lethargic. 

When we went back to the doctor she confirmed that I had passed everything and that I looked good. She did say I have some fibroids on my uterus but she wasn’t too concerned about them. I’m a little concerned lol I’ve never heard of that before (Google says they aren’t a big deal if they’re small) but like….what if they’re the reason why this happened??

My body changed so much from this whole experience. I gained some weight, my hips got wider, and my ribcage looks wider to me. I think my boobs look smaller too or maybe it just looks that way because my hips and ribcage got wider I don’t know but I don’t love it. Why couldn’t my thighs get smaller lol, there’s plenty to lose there!

But for some reason after everything passed and the bloating went down, my stomach was flat flat. Like flatter than it’s ever been and I usually don’t have a flat stomach, I’ve always had a little pooch. 

The pooch came back after a few weeks but it was nice while it lasted I suppose.

The hormone shifts are so real. I’ve been way more emotional and it seems to come in unexpected waves. Even a month later. I cried watching the Martha Stewart documentary. That’s not something I would normally cry about. 

After I stopped bleeding my appetite went away completely. I had less of an appetite than I did before poppy and was hardly eating anything. That lasted about 2 or 3 weeks I think and then my appetite went back to normal. 

But I was still 5 pounds heavier 🫠 

It took a while for me to get back exercising regularly but I’m finally back now and it feels good to have a consistent routine. 

Sometimes I feel like I might have a mild case of PPD. I didn’t think that could be possible if I didn’t carry poppy to term but I saw a lot of people on Reddit say they felt that too so maybe it is possible. I’ve been on an antidepressant since before poppy so I think that’s been helping to manage it but sometimes I feel off. It’s hard to explain but it’s this feeling of just going through the motions each day just to get through the day. Sometimes I have very little excitement for life, super unmotivated when it comes to work and exercise, and just an overall bleh feeling. 

When I exercise I feel better, so I have to force myself not to go too long without going to the gym.

Everyone always talks about how to care for a new mom postpartum but no one talks about how to care for a should-have-been mom who lost her baby. At least not to me, so I’ve just been figuring it out as I go along.

So far I’ve just found that it’s important to give myself little joys every day whether it’s going outside for a walk, eating something I love (lot’s of caviar, chocolate, and pizza), or shopping; I’m doing my best to bring myself a little happiness during a not so happy time.

As someone who’s struggled with depression on and off my whole life, I know how to handle these moments (for the most part) and I know they won’t last forever…but I can’t imagine what it would be like to never experience depression and then go through something like this where your hormones and feelings are completely out of your control.

Miscarriage has completely robbed me of any future excitement in regards to pregnancy. I feel really sad about that. I’m sad because of how scared I was to even start trying and then seeing how much I really came around and embraced the change only for it to all be taken away.

I already feel anxious about the “next time” and I know when it comes around I’ll feel unsettled leading up to the first appointment.

I’ve always believed that everything happens for a reason, and in a weird way, I feel like I needed this to happen because now I understand that I’m ready. I feel whatever that feeling of being ready is. It’s unexplainable really but I’m ready. 

If you would like to use the comment section to share your story with others, please feel free to do so.