Day 6-8: I want my uterus back!!!

I go to work and try to suck it up and pretend I am suffering from menstrual cramps. I go through several days of pretending. It is awful. I couldn’t pretend like I wasn’t sick down there. It was obvious from the pace of my walk, my constant fidgeting, the Tylenol popping… that I had ‘female problems’. I felt crazy. When will the pain go away? Am I supposed to call Planned Parenthood for advice again so they an tell me, “It depends” or “It varies.”

I wanted answers about the pain. I re-read the paperwork and it sounded like I would need to make a trip to the emergency room just to get a pat on the back and maybe a prescription for more pain meds. I didn’t have blood gushing out or a fever. Why couldn’t someone have prepared me for this before? A warning at least. I tried to find as much information online. At least a statement about the drug that says, “This drug replicates natural childbirth without anasthesia. Proceed with caution.” That’s all I am asking.

I call Planned Parenthood early at 9 a.m. and waited 22 minutes for the receptionist to answer. I get a voice prompt saying I was the 7^th caller on hold. I tell the receptionist I would like to talk to a nurse about the level of pain I am feeling. She asks me, “Didn’t someone already talk to you about that?” Then she regurgitates the information from her checklist (probably the same patient handout they sent me home with) and I say I don’t feel like I am bleeding to death. I add that I haven’t been taking the Tylenol #3 on the dot every 4 hours. She stopped me right there. She said I was supposed to take the medicine before I felt the pain. O.k… even though the doctor was hesitant about me getting the prescription and now it sounds like it was supposed to be protocol? So she said I’ll have a nurse call you back, if not today then tomorrow. Its like they know about this death pain thing and nobody wants to admit it. Grrrr…

I get a call from the nurse at 4:30pm that day, it goes to voicemail since I was in bed doped up and couldnt get up fast eneough to get to my phone. When I call her back I am the 6^th caller in the queue. God help me… My hormones are out of control and I start crying and hang up.  I call back at 5pm, the clinic is closed. The next day, another less friendly-sounding nurse calls, leaves a voicemail to call back (it’s 5:30 pm). Of course I miss the call because with my luck she calls while I am at work and my boss is talking to me. I call back 5 minutes later, the clinic is closed. Just shoot me now.

I try to relax because to my consolation, the pain had been getting less severe for the last 3 days. And by less severe I mean the pain felt manageable with 2 Extra Strength Tylenols every 4 hours and not with my golden supply of Tylenol #3 with codeine.

Tomorrow would be Friday, the anniversary of the day I wish to never live again. It was one whole week later and I still felt like crap. I wish I had never taken these stupid pills.

Day 5: My uterus is still hurting

It’s Monday and I call in sick. There is no way I can go to work today. I can’t even see myself going to work the entire week. My entire belly is swollen. My uterus and cervix still feel like they are pushing stuff out around the clock. Everything down there is tense. I can’t even lie down on my side because it feels the weight of my other organs are touching my parts down in there and causing discomfort.

I HURT!!!!

I am no weenie when it comes to pain. I usually have a high threshold for pain. I had a tattoo done when I was 16 and removed it with laser surgery at 25 (no anesthetic just ice over the area). Do you know how much that hurts? Having your skin lasered 6-8 times without numbing cream or anesthesia? It hurts. But I was able to tolerate it.

I normally don’t take too many meds for menstrual cramps either. An occasional Advil and they go away with a heating pad or with a massage. But this pain is too much. I stay home and keep checking for signs of anything strange. I go online to check other stories. I find half the stories are describing hell and a few that talk about soreness. I don’t know what to think. Basically, what I find are stories on how this drug is used to soften the cervix to induce labor. So what I am feeling ARE contractions, not *cramps* as everyone describes them.

The day passes with me nursing my lower belly in my hands all day shifting this way and that way for a comfortable position.  But I have to go to work tomorrow. I’d already called in sick three days. I am crying like a maniac because it hurts unless I am completely doped up on Tylenol #3. I keep looking for signs that I will go back to my “normal routine” but those signs are nowhere in sight…

Day 4 of Mifepristone – Misoprostol…Relief?

I was happy to be alive Sunday morning. I was amazed that I was able to sleep each night I was going through this. Maybe it was the codeine. I was so tired at the end of the evening I had no choice but to go into this fog and try to submit to the dull aching pain. There were painful shocks like lightning in my uterus reminding me that there was still a storm down there in the middle of my moments of relief.

I thought there was no way I could go to work Monday and pretend like nothing was wrong. I could barely sit up straight. I was on the couch, on the bed, standing up, walking around thinking I might find a better position to relieve the pain and a better chance of expelling everything. I was still bleeding on and off. I kept thinking about the videos and guides on the pill that recommended you curl up with a few good books and movies after the procedure, oh and a hot water bottle. Pff.

I depended on the pain medicine. I only had 20 Tylenol #3 pills, they were like gold. I was so sad. I had read that a side effect of the doxycyline, the antibiotic, was depression.Whatever it was, whether not having anyone to talk to about this, feeling rejected by my doctors and medical professionals at the Catholic hospital, feeling lied to by the folks at Planned Parenthood, all this amounted to some horrible thoughts. I still feel I deserve this suffering.

I spent the day in bed, on the couch, medicated, pretending I was ok when my family called, and crying when my boyfriend came home from work. I felt like I made the biggest most painful mistake of my life. I still don’t know if that means I shouldn’t have aborted or if I should have gone through the surgical abortion instead.

I am still so confused about this. I thought I would avoid the trauma of surgery, the possibility of perforating the uterus, of tools and aspiration machines. Ughh. But I have to say, this Sunday, I felt I would do the surgical abortion in an instant had I known the effects that this pill would bring upon me.

Day 3: Contractions + Extreme Sadness ≠ Normal Routine

It was Saturday morning and day 3 of my medical abortion. The first day at Planned Parenthood I didn’t feel much of anything after the first pill Mifepristone. Day 2 of Misopristol I felt only minor pain and clotting. But day 3 was the worst day by far!

I started the morning off ok. The diarrhea had subsided by day 2 in the morning. I was able to eat and drink water. I didn’t experience scary bleeding. I felt ok. But then I started experiencing the most immense sadness coupled with the most intense cramps imaginable in the morning. I didn’t bleed as intensely than the day before. I just felt like I was literally giving labor.

Every hour the pain would come in waves. It would start small, intensify, peak and then I would go to the bathroom having given birth to a fucking blood clot about the size of a dime. Other times it would be mucus-like blood. This happened every hour from 10am until 10pm that night. It was the worst day. This day I thought would be the worst and that no pain could top this pain. I kept telling myself the pain would be over, the clots would be over and I would go back to my “normal routine”.

I hated myself for doing this. I asked God for forgiveness for being so selfish. I asked my poor uterus and woman parts for forgiveness and promised I would take care of my body more diligently if given the chance to live. I actually felt like I was going to die Saturday night based on how fucked up this pill made me feel physically and mentally. I stopped fighting the pain and started accepting the pain as punishment. I did this to myself and I deserved to suffer. I guess I would never be able to detach myself from my ingrained Catholic guilt so easily. I took my Tylenol #3 and I went to sleep at about midnight. Hating myself and hating everyone.

Day 2 at home with Misoprostol: The Contractions Begin…

I slept ok the entire night on Thursday. I didn’t feel anything strange after taking Mifepristone the first day. I also had to take doxycycline with food twice a day.  I felt sad. I felt angry. But I didn’t feel anything yet physically. I was just exhausted. I took Thursday and Friday off from work. Everything I read on recovery indicated that I could return to my normal routine after a few days (yeah right), except for having sex and strenuous exercise.

I woke up Friday morning and saw that I had a little bit of blood on the pad. The spotting must have meant the first pill was working. Whew. The Dr. at Planned Parenthood told me I could take the second pills (Misoprostol) up to 48 hours later. The paperwork and a few nurses said 24 hours later. Hmmm. I wondered why I was getting different information. I thought the Dr. misspoke and blew it off.

The first pill, Mifespristone, was the pill that would kill the connection between me and the baby – the progesterone would be cut off and therefore deprive my uterus of what it needed to let the baby continue to thrive. I had my doubts about the 24 hr waiting period in between pills and thought to wait longer, for more blood to show on my pad and to make sure the progesterone had completely been cut off but decided to take it after 24 hours as my documentation said. What if I waited longer and that screwed things up?  I was confused. I was on hold for 20 minutes with Planned Parenthood and just wanted to get it over with already. I don’t know if this 24 -48 or even 72 hour wait time makes a difference on whether the pill is successful at emptying your uterus or not.  I’ve read different recommendations. But I started the second pills exactly after 24 hours. It was noon. I was told to take anti-nausea/diarrhea medication 30 minutes before (Promethazine) and so I did.

I put the Misoprostol pills in between my cheek and gums in my lower jaw, two on each side. I waited 30 minutes for them to dissolve, which they didn’t and was expected. I was supposed to swallow the rest of the undissolved pills with a glass of water after 30 minutes. The pills weren’t bitter, just chalky. It was around 12:45 pm. I waited for something to start happening.

Friday 2pm (one hour after Misoprostol): I had already started to feel a slight tug in my uterus, like gravity was doing something to it. It was a stretchy feeling down there and discomfort that made me want to lie down. But what happened first was feeling an immense urge to poop. I thought it was gas at first but what came on was the worst diarrhea ever. I felt like my body was trying to push everything out. I didn’t feel nauseated, I just had to keep going to poo like 3 times before I got a sign that I was expelling blood.

At about 2:45pm  (one hour 45 minutes after Misoprostol): I was making tea –felt no cramps yet just diarrhea- when I felt something wet in my pad. I thought this must be it. I rushed to the bathroom and it was a clot about the size of a quarter on one end but long and stringy and uneven throughout, about 4 inches long. It wasn’t white as some people described the gestational sac. It was dark red. I examined it. It didn’t look like anything. It didn’t look like a normal menstrual clot, which I usually get during my periods. It was much bigger with different types of tissue attached but it was the same color as a menstrual clot. Remember, I was 5 weeks and 2 days pregnant. Maybe this is why the gestational sac wasn’t so obvious to me.

Every hour and a half I had to go to the restroom to poo and along with the diarrhea I would push out a clot. I expelled about 4 smaller clots until about 9pm that night. I had a pad on but didn’t wait to soak it. My bleeding wasn’t liquid it was mainly clotting so I would go to the bathroom instead and the blood or clot would come out there. You may be told not to do this so you can measure the amount of blood you are expelling but I had a pretty good idea of what heavy bleeding looked like and it looked this wasn’t it.

I was given Tylenol #3 for pain. They told me to take it only if I needed it. I thought Extra Strength Tylenol would be enough for pain and Tylenol #3 would be a back up…but boy was I wrong!

The strange part is that I didn’t get my extreme cramps until days later. I was able to sleep Friday night after taking my Tylenol #3. Maybe it was because I was so tired. I felt dull throbbing pain down there but nothing extreme Friday night. I slept and waited to begin another day Saturday with less clots and waiting to go back to my “normal routine”.

The first day at Planned Parenthood for my abortion

Got to the clinic early and there were about 4 other couples waiting. All of these girls looked like crap just like I did. My partner was there with me. I hated him. I hated myself for being in this situation. There were a number of times when each of the girls would file in and back out to sit down in the waiting room. More couples were filing in. Damn, all of these people were baby killers? I hated them too. After an hour, it was my turn. I was asked if I knew my blood type. Nope, I didn’t. I got blood drawn from the inside of my elbow. It bled a lot. They had to replace the cotton ball. My veins must have been pumping that hard.

They sent me to a hallway to sit down after they drew blood. There was another girl sitting next to me with a suitcase. We didn’t even look at each other. I was sent there to wait for my sonogram. I thought I had read everything about everything and that getting a sonogram was equal to an ultrasound on my belly that would show how big the baby was. The girl called me in and told me to get undressed from the bottom down. The “sonogram” was basically a giant dildo, with a condom and lube that would show the “pregnancy sac” and size of the “pregnancy” via the vagina. It was supposed to show the location and size of the baby in my uterus.

The nurse inserted the sonogram/dildo wand thing into my vagina. I saw that there was a printer and I asked for a picture. Yep, I did. She was printing them out anyway for my charts. So I asked for a copy. My boyfriend kept referring to the baby as the sperm and egg – like a moron – so I wanted to picture to show him it wasn’t just fluid in there. The image on the picture was a dark spot that was .75 cm wide. The baby was 5 weeks 2 days. I was sent out to wait again in the lobby for a while. I showed my boyfriend the picture of the baby. He said stop calling it a baby and told me to get rid of the picture.  I put the picture back in my purse. They called me in again after waiting an hour.

I was sent to a room where I met with an old lady nurse with a tired face. She looked at me like she’d had enough of crying bitches all around her. So I forced myself to be strong and not cry. She asked me if I had any questions about the procedure after reading the bullet points on the patient handout. Of course I had questions. It seemed like everything I asked she responded with “It depends.” Or “It varies from person to person.” So much for expertise and reassurance. I signed some papers. She was the first person to ask why I was doing this. I don’t know if she was required to ask or if she was being nosy or wondering if I was being forced to do it. I don’t know. That was weird but I answered honestly anyway. She seemed satisfied. I should have just shown her my pros and cons list. She sent me back out to the waiting room. I waited another hour or so.

They called me back in to the exam room. Yep, back and forth back and forth for 4 hours. I heard a doctor talking outside the door with someone about procedures and policies. I think the person he was talking to was in training. He was giving his trainee an overview of what he was going to tell me. I pretty much heard everything through the door.  I felt so cold. The nurse that took me into the room had given me a cup of water and put my “goody bag” on the counter. The white paper bag had my name on it. There was a lot of stuff in it. That must be the pill. I felt even colder and started shivering. The doctor that I heard outside talking was now walking inside with his colleague, a woman. He quickly introduced himself and pretty much repeated everything the nurse said on that patient handout and asked me if I had any questions.

I tried a different approach with him: The first thing I thought of and asked was worst-case scenario…What happens if there are complications, if I’m at home and something goes wrong? Do I go to my primary care provider – the fucked up Catholic hospital that denied me basic health information – since it is closer to my home than other emergency rooms? He said NO. He gave me another option for a hospital further away but that would admit me and I suppose not kill me on purpose? I guess that’s what these crazy abortion-hating medics do to women who abort their babies? Make them pay.

I started feeling dizzy. I wanted to get this over with so fast. He asked if I was ready. I was. He placed the white pill, Mifeprex (Mifepristone) into my palm. It was a big tablet. I took the pill and drank from my Dixie cup filled with cold water. And that was it.

I grabbed my bag and left. I wasn’t expecting anything eventful to happen the entire night. That pill would basically kill the lifesource or connection from me to the baby by cutting off the hormone progesterone to my uterus. Scary moment part 1 would be over. Scary moment part 2 would begin 24 hours later when I would take the Misoprostol on my own at home.

The most important Pros and Cons you’ll ever write in your life

After reading all the crap, hell and damnation stories, medical horrors, and statistics on failed abortions and unhappy marriages and divorce on the internet, I decided to make a plan. Something like a brainstorming document or map that could help get my thoughts in order.  I had no one to talk to about my situation. I didn’t trust my friends, they were all “happily married” bullshitters with problems who acted like they loved their married lives and had adapted to their situations. I was sobbing the entire time I was doing this because I felt like I already knew the answer. I thought this is bullshit. I’ll just have the baby and that’s that! I thought I am a tough girl, I could do this on my own.

Then I thought what the hell am I going to do taking a kid to daycare every morning when I can’t even get to work on time? Where am I going to fit a crib and stroller in my small apartment? Who is going to baby sit? My family is nowhere near me. And I would never ever go through a pregnancy to give away a child for adoption.

I made the list of pros and cons. All the pros would answer how well prepared I was to take care of a child and the cons focused on why I couldn’t do it. There were more cons than pros. All my pros were based on some girlie fantasy on how I’d make a great mommy.

I made my boyfriend fill out the same sheet of paper. It was a good “worksheet” to get him to talk about what he thought were the reasons why he could or couldn’t be a father now. His were mainly cons too – ridiculous self-centered and idiotic cons, but cons nevertheless. I carried this paper around and after 2-3 days in my purse I kept adding to the cons side and nothing to the pros side. I decided to see a doctor for advice on the different options available to me.

I ended up at Planned Parenthood…because like the confused idiot that I was, I went to my primary care provider at my local prestigious Catholic hospital thinking I would get a “first do no harm” type of visit – that regardless of my doctor’s personal religious beliefs, I would get accurate medical information regarding my health. Because its the right thing to do, right? Answer a woman’s questions about risks involved with abortions? Provide information on this new drug? Explain the side effects? Complications? Offer a referral to a counselor or freakin’ nun or chaplain? Nope. None of that happened.

It was a nurse practitioner that tended to me. She said she couldn’t talk about that “stuff” because “we” are a Catholic institution. I was dumbfounded and started crying and she pretended to be completely absorbed with what was on her computer screen. She had to deal with my crisis eventually and said to look up a free clinic or planned parenthood. When I asked her about the abortion pill she said there was no such thing as an abortion pill. That the pill I was thinking about was the one I should have taken the day after I had unprotected sex (she was wrong, the abortion pill is the abortion pill and the morning after pill is the morning after pill). Well, she kept arguing that the morning after pill was the abortion pill and that there was no way out for me. What a jerk!!  So aside from humiliating me and referring me to a free clinic, she gives me misinformation. I needed help and someone to talk to and instead this representative of the Catholic church demonizes me.

I walked out of that doctor’s office in that Catholic hospital in tears feeling so alone and abandoned. I renounced my Catholicism then and there. The church that once took care of my spirit and soul and was my connection to God had abandoned me.  The church turned its back on me. Now, I only became concerned with my health.

Information I found on Mifepristone and Misoprostol

Below are the sites I looked at when I was deciding on whether to take the abortion pill or do a surgical abortion. I did not want to do the D&C or “scraping” (as I imagined it). I felt that would be more of a risk. I was leaning from the beginning towards the abortion pill because it sounded like a more natural option based on what I read. Everything sounded so natural and homey and private so of course I was leaning towards it. The thought of being on a bed in stirrups didn’t sound so good compared to this pill that seemed to replicate a natural miscarriage. I don’t know how I could every think that replicating a miscarriage could be more natural or better.

A simple google search can bring up good and somewhat balanced info towards towards the top –  not so much of the right-wing conservative bible thumping. Beware, there is a lot of that kind of literature posing as science. It starts with “You will die if you take the abortion pill…” and so on. There is also lot of pro-choice literature out there too making it sound like the abortion pill will make daisies pop out of your uterus instead of the dead embryo tissue and uterine lining that it is. I simply recommend you do some reading before you make a decision on the abortion pill. More is better. Be informed, get all sides. hear the horror stories, the easy stories. Just be prepared.

The Abortion Pill: Medical Abortion with Mifepristone and Misoprostol from the Feminist Women’s Health Center

I found a student’s blog site that did a good job of compiling everyone’s personal narratives but it was hard to navigate through or comment on posts. Looks like it was based on her biology paper on RU-486. A lot of horrible scary stories but they sound sooo true to real life experience. I would suggest reading the more recent ones.

I also read Providing Abortion Care for mid-wives and other providers to get some more background info from a health care provider’s perspective.

National Abortion Federation for info about everything.

Lack of personal stories on the abortion pill made me start this blog

Hello everyone.

If you or someone you know have been in a situation where you had to get an abortion, you’ll soon realize it is extremely difficult to get factual and balanced information from abortion providers or doctors. Nobody really tells you the truth! Everyone sanitizes the information to try to protect you, or they infuse it with their own political or religious ideologies to scare the living daylights out of you. I hope to begin this blog so that women can tell their stories about what exactly happens after you are administered the abortion pill. I hope you will share your stories with me about what you felt after taking the abortion pill or (Mifepristone or Mifeprex [also known as RU-486] and Misoprostol or Methotrexate [MTX]).

Women, young women, mothers and grandmothers, boyfriends and husbands and friends!!  You need to read about what happens to a woman’s body once you take the pill so you can help your loved one make the best decision and care for her during this time.  I would appreciate it if people who have taken the pill comment on exactly what happened, side effects after taking the abortion pill, blood loss, cramps, pain all that… It’s hard when you have to go through this crisis and then all there is to go by are a list of bullet points on general side effects that doctors, pharmacists or health care providers regurgitate. I know they don’t want to scare you but it would help to have information that is more human and balanced, less clinical and less judgmental.

This situation carries an enormous amount of stress and I hope every girl out there that goes through with the pill enters into the abortion clinic having an informed and realistic expectation of what might happen. I didn’t!!  If you have any comments, please feel free to send me a message. I don’t want to hear anything from any hypocritical two-faced Catholic church representatives. You are hypocrites and I no longer wish to be part of the church or its teachings.