After spending 5 hours in the ER...

...we are finally home. Exhausted, worn out both emotionally and physically, but home.

Let me back it up a bit.

I passed a large piece of tissue around 11am this morning, and we thought it was the embryo. It was light pink/flesh colored and had a spongy texture. We were extremely emotional, but at the same time relieved that it had finally happened, the miscarriage was over and we could begin our healing process. We wrapped it in tissue and put it in a little box and then Jason took it to an orange orchard and buried it. After seeing it, we couldn't bear to flush it down the toilet. We felt like we had had closure.

Then the heavy bleeding and intense cramping started. Didn't really think anything of it, I had been told to expect both. So when I went to the bathroom, peed, and stood up, I was really not expecting to feel anything slide out of me.

It was the placenta. Fully intact. Roughly the size of an apricot, and we could see a large mass inside.

I started shaking, sobbing and called for Jason. This was our baby, not what we had cried over, mourned and buried hours before.

I didn't know what to do. Do I somehow preserve it to take to our clinic tomorrow for testing? How does one go about preserving a placenta and embryo? I was beside myself. I called my cousin who suggested we call the on-call nurse at our medical clinic, who in turn recommended that we go to the ER - their guidelines dictated that any patient with passage of tissue that large seek immediate medical attention.

So we go to the ER, our sweet little baby encased in toilet paper and sealed in a clean plastic zipper bag. It's 6:45pm. They were very nice, got us in fairly quickly, and then the barrage began: meet and greet with the doctor, ultrasound (both abdominal and vaginal), blood work (5 vials, including blood type), urine sample, pelvic exam, and, the most painful of all, watching our baby be taken away in a container for testing. The doctor peeled, yes, peeled, the placenta from the toilet paper, and dropped it in a container for the lab. I know it's soul is no longer there, but it was heart breaking to witness. I wish she would have done it away from us - to us, that was our baby, but to her, it was a specimen for the lab to poke and prod.

The ultrasound looked good: no residual tissue in my uterus, and no sign of ectopic pregnancy. She checked my cervix (which she said was extremely posterior, and quite uncommon, oh goody) and it's almost closed, so the miscarriage is coming to an end. My blood type (which I already knew) came back B- so she told me I needed a RhoGam shot (because I have the rh negative factor). And here's the thing that really upsets me: I really needed that RhoGam shot. If I had not gone in to the ER, I could have DIED. Yes, died. The miscarriage mixed my blood with the blood of our baby. The next time I'm pregnant, if our baby does not have RH negative blood like me (which is highly probable because Jason is RH+), not only would I have gotten extremely ill and possibly died, our baby would not have survived. Basically, my body and the baby's body would have been attacking each other since our blood was mixed. It was imperative that I receive that shot. And my doctor at the fertility clinic said NOTHING to me about it. He never said, "Since you're RH-, if you miscarry, you need to get a RhoGam shot." Know why? Because he's never run a blood type test, but here's the thing: I've told him I'm RH negative. So upset, so frustrated and pretty scared.

Thanks to my cousin telling me to call the on-call nurse, I got the shot I needed and I'm going to be ok. Good Lord, what a day.

It's 12:30am. Long, dramatic, traumatic day, but we're home. I never thought I would witness what I witnessed today. I never expected to see the placenta with our little one inside. I'm so sorry we buried just tissue in the orchard, and that our baby is in a lab somewhere waiting to be taken apart and examined. It makes me ill to think about. So I won't. Or at least I'll try my very best not to. I know it's spirit is running wild up in Heaven, running wild and playing like any little child should.

I will choose think of that instead. And smile.