and Try and Try and Try Again

I wake in drawers of scarlet. They were light blue the night before. I undress and filled the bathroom sink with cold water to soak the underwear. Maybe it can be salvaged. I have to work the stopper by hand. When did that break? Probably year ago. It joins the long list of little things that I ought to fix. Someday.

I go downstairs to tell Hub, "I don't think it's going to work out this time."

"Implantation bleeding?" He asks. I shake my head. "You bled with Elsie, too."

"Not like this."

The first clot is slippery and warm, soft and the size of a plum. It passes into the toilet, the way most of them will. There's no cramping. That all happened the day before. Now it's just the occasional sharp twinge when a clot squeezes past my cervix and I run to the bathroom to let it slide into the toilet. At some point, I started trying to catch these clots, to see if I could find the small, clear gestational sack or any gray tissue of a placenta. At some point, I gave up and just took a quick glance into the bowl before flushing. No gray tissue yet. Plenty of blood.

This morning, just to be sure, just to drive myself crazy, I take my temperature. 98.2. That's post-ovulation levels or menstruation levels. Not as high as pregnancy levels. I take the urine test. It's still positive, but my line is fainter than it was last week.

So that's that. A second miscarriage. Very different from the first. Early and quick and natural. Beats later and drawn out and invasive, like last time. This time I feel my anxiety for my fertility much more strongly than the loss itself. I think the number is 3 miscarriages before they send you for all sorts of tissue tests and fertility screening. I'm one shy, but already feeling like damaged goods.

There will be followup to this. HCG blood tests and possibly an ultrasound. Still a chance of a D&C. That will all start next week. That's how I'll get to meet my midwife.