By the end of the week.

Feb 9th

Same building, same floor layout. The lounge area has a great view over the old city and the lake.  The kitchen, just like downstairs, 6 floors down, where I sent my first week with A. But there are no bottles of fomula or breast milk in this kitchen, no new babies in the lounge. There are women here, in rooms with the same patterned linens as downstairs. But this is a quieter floor. Less newborn cries. Probably still tears, but quieter, from some rooms.

I keep hoping the miscarriage will start, so I don't have to make the decision, about having the surgical procedure or asking for a pill to do the work. I'm reluctant to wait for my body to "do what it does naturally" because it's been a pretty poor performer so far in these matters in the past. And because I am scared to have extreme pain and bleeding at home in the middle of the night where A might have to hear,  see me cry, be rushed off to a friend place for e night.  Where M might have to call the dog sitter to get the dog in the morning and me to the hospital if things don't go the way they are supposed to. Ey didn't with the first pregnancy, with the birth, with the breast feeding or with the depression. If I truly listen to my body It keeps saying "yeah, um, I'm not really sure how this is supposed to work, so you'd best get some help."

And the options, as usual, are not simple. A procedure that might damage my fertility but be over by tomorrow,  or a pill that could induce a few day extremely painful miscarriage. And the latter might not be complete and I end up here again.

So here is what I've learned about a d&c. It is a bit barbaric in the sense that current practice does not involve any looking to see what is being done. No ultrasound monitoring or camera to make sure that only what is necessary is being removed. And when more is removed than necessary, this can cause scarring that can lead to infertility. More miscarriages or just no more getting pregnant.

The pill, whatever version, is painful, takes longer,  messier, and possibly still requires a d&c after all the pain and difficulty if not all the placenta comes out.  But so far,  apart from that I'm not sure if it is the worse choice for me. It just hasn't been used that much yet to treat miscarriages, so our new Obgyn didn't know much about it.

So here I am, at the university hospital, waiting to meet some doctors and get some answers. About their practices, statistics, options.