At the very beginning of July (07) last month, I found out I was pregnant and had a medical abortion...
By anonymous on 22/08/2007
At the very beginning of July (07) last month, I found out I was pregnant and had a medical abortion. I had been regularly 2 weeks late for a couple of months but this time I was 3 weeks late so I went the to Brook for a pregnancy test. I found out it was positive.Keeping the baby never came across my mind. Abortion was the only choice. I'm 18, too young mentally and financially to have kids. I filled out the form the next day at the Brook and booked the appointment for termination asap. I had the tablet on Thursday, then the medical on Saturday. I found out I was pregnant and had the abortion in the same week.
Before I found out I was pregnant I had been throwing up regularly after meals. It steadily got worse every day till I couldn’t get out of bed. I hadn’t eaten or drank for days. I found it hard to walk and us my arms. The slightest deep breath would make me vomit! I was at a point were even though there was nothing in my stomach, my stomach was continuously pulsing to vomit. I thought my stomach was actually trying to exit my body! Before I went the clinic for the first pill on the Thursday I tried my best to eat and drink something so I had a cup of tea and 2 biscuits. I couldn’t sit up in the taxi. I had to lie down on the back seat, and I was embarrassingly vomiting in a bag the whole way there. I feel sorry for the taxi driver... I was surprised I didn’t throw up the pill I took. I think after a whole hour of constant vomiting on the way there that my stomach was too exhausted!
I didn’t throw up again till 6 hours later. I was glad for the break. That was the longest I had been without throwing up for a while! I was completely exhausted on the Saturday when I had phase 2 but I was glad it was nearly over! She put the pills and a tampon in me and sent me home. I was only there 20 minutes! There were protestors outside that wouldn’t leave me alone on the way in. "Baby killer", they called me. They glared at me and wouldn’t stop staring when I came out! At the end of the day, the baby was killing ME! as I found out when I was admitted to hospital later on that day.
When I got home I was really tired and just slept. I woke up 4 hours later and there was blood all over the bed. I ran to the bathroom and put the shower on. The blood was pouring down my legs and on the floor. As I sat on the side of the bath and pulled out the tampon....6 clots came the size of squashed plums, it felt horrible. I was in pain even with the painkillers, but it was more discomfort than anything, I felt like I was pooping out my vagina. It felt so unnatural! All that blood and flesh. It WAS flesh, as the shower washed away the blood you could see how fleshy they were. One was larger than the rest; it had a little shrimp looking piece of pale pink flesh in it. Whether it was my baby I don’t know, I couldn’t help but thing it was. I've never felt so bad.
After a tear I picked them up and put them in the toilet and flushed them, put a pad on and a brave face and told my boyfriend they were big but least its coming out, no big deal. Really I was scared. I felt like I was dying. My boyfriend put a film on to help take my mind off but I was literally running to the bathroom every 10 minutes and I would pass up to 8 quite large clots each time. All the blood! It looked like someone had been murdered in the toilet bowl!
I kept overflowing my pad every 10 minutes for about an hour an a half when I passed a clot the size of my fist! I knew something was wrong and I rang the clinic like the booklet told me to. They didn’t believe me and told me to ring back if it continued. I rang back an hour later and with a sarcastic tone she said, "If you were bleeding THAT bad you should have rung the hospital by now". That clinic was horrific and I would recommend people stay away from there!
I went the A&E and was seen to straight away. The nurse and gynaecologist seemed shocked at the state I was in. I bled through my clothes to the hospital bed and they had to change everything. He clamped me open and used these weird looking tweezers to try pick out the clots. He got quite a few large ones but nothing compared to the ones I had passed, he said there’s a strong chance that I still had large clots in me that had to be taken out and he wanted me to go to theatre but they didn’t have the equipment and transferred me to another hospital. He said it was possible I would have to have a transfusion if I continued to lose more blood at the rate that I was.
When I got to the other hospital, the only doctor on the ward had went home so I had to wait till the morning for her to see me. The doctors took my temperature and blood pressure. I had a mild fever and had to sleep with the window open, no blankets and a fan by my bed all night, I bled but no clots came out. In the morning I realised I hadn’t thrown up in 24 hours and my bad stomach seemed to have gone so I attempted a piece of toast and a cup of tea and, oh my god, wow! It felt good to eat again.
That’s when I got talking to an admitted nurse there. She was in pain or something and she was heavily pregnant. When I told her it was the first meal I had had in days and that I had been throwing up severely for a while she started telling me about a condition called HG ( hyperemisis gravidarum). 1% of women get it... how unbelievably unlucky is that!!! Something like 1 in 1000 woman has this condition... I thought I was normal. I mean you hear these pregnant women talk about morning sickness. I knew throwing up all day long was excessive but I seemed to wake up on the dot 3am each morning and break out into wild vomiting fits! I thought I just had it bad was all. All the women in there had either miscarried or were just in a bit of pain and were in there to make sure it was ok, and all of them said that it wasn’t a normal pregnancy. Half of them had next to painless experiences with pregnancy. Half of them didn’t even throw up once. Even the nurses working there said it was rare but serious. One of them said that if I hadn’t had the abortion I would have ended up hospitalised being fed through a tube otherwise I would have died along with the baby from starvation. I was malnourished, dehydrated, exhausted, constipated etc just at 7 weeks pregnant and each day it got worse...I’m glad I had the abortion when I did because I would have spent 8 months on a tube then a couple of months recovering.
Anyway the doctor came round after breakfast and pain killer time and went round everybody, she started with me and having taken pain killers 30 mins before I obviously couldn’t feel anything when she was poking me.... which she was only doing lightly, might I add, because I couldn’t feel any pain she immediately said you can go home.... she didn’t know anything about what was wrong with me!!
The nurses jumped in and said no she needs to go into theatre she came in last night. The doctor said no I could go. The only reason I at least got a couple of packs of pain killers and antibiotics was because the nurse pestered the doctor for it. The woman in the bed next to me had a miscarriage but the baby hadn’t come out and had to go into theatre to have it removed. Every body knew how much she needed to go into theatre. As the doctor examined her and cause she said she couldn’t feel no pain (we all had the pain killers at the same time) the doctor said she can go home... the nurses were cross! They nearly shouted at her and said, ‘no, she’s going into theatre this afternoon to have the dead foetus removed’. The fact the doctor hadn’t even looked at her chart and just assumed she was ok to go home made me wonder whether I was ok to go home. I was convinced I still had a very large clot in me.
After bleeding non-stop for 26 days I went to Brook to let them know I was ok and because they wanted a contraceptive talk a month after the abortion. I use condoms all the time anyway and nothing goes in me without a condom so how I got pregnant I don’t know! It’s been 4 weeks since I came off and I’m on again. seems like a perfectly timed period...but with a twist.... I’m passing clots again. I had to pick a large grey clot off my knickers just before and nearly passed out as I did. it must be from the abortion and the clot the gynaecologist was referring to which the stupid doctor never took out is still in me. I’m not going to go to hospital unless I show symptoms of infection because I’ll just end up back there and get sent home again.
Even though I try not to show it the abortion shattered me completely. I do feel like a murderer and it has made me want to be prepared for children in the future, so that termination will never have to be an option. Now that I’m passing clots again, I feel like I’m reliving the abortion. In the month of my abortion I lost my Nan and I attended her funeral. Days after the abortion, my cat died, I lost my dad, I nearly died, my baby died, me and my boyfriend very nearly split up after 2 years and because I spent over a month off work I cant afford to pay the rent this month and I’m behind.... I don’t actually have a family and I live with my boyfriend, even though I’m not ready to have a child, I will want a family of my own in a couple of years but after being that ill due to pregnancy I’m pretty sure I’m going to adopt.
The cause of HG is unknown and untreatable. I was looking for answers of why I’m still passing clots 2 months after the abortion when I came across this site but I think I answered my own questions. It was too big to come out but now my natural period has come its been squished and pushed out with my period. By the strange cone shape of it I’m guessing that is what’s happening. I really hope I haven’t put anyone off having an abortion. My body’s just messed up, I guess. It’s different for every one.
Editor’s note: Thanks for telling us your story. I think it would be wise if you visited your GP for a check up if you are still passing clots at this time.
You have had a very difficult experience which has obviously dominated your thinking and perhaps hasn’t allowed you time to grieve the losses that have come into your life your Nan, your dad, your baby – even your cat. You might need some support to grieve these losses in time and when you’re ready, you can contact you nearest centre for some support.
