I haven't read all your stories yet, but I've read quite a few. M Anna, thank, thank, thank you for this. I will tell a brief version of my story but I was in such a bad place, in pain and not thinking clearly due to the pain when it happened. I was alone in my apartment and in pain for two hours before I called my parents who came and took me to the hospital. I don't know whether their presence comforted me but about 10 minutes into the car ride (hospital was 20 away) the pain stopped and I felt a rush of relief (and fluid). I didn't know but I had passed the baby and amniotic sac. I was interviewed at the ER and as they were getting ready to admit me for exams I asked to use the bathroom as I really had to urinate. I went to the bathroom, peed and felt a large plop in the toilet. I was shocked and froze for a minute. I then realized I had a ziplock bag in my purse. I went to reach for the purse and could hear the toilet starting to flush (it was one of those automatic flush sensor things. I dove back toward the toilet and grabbed the sac out of the toilet just as it was about to get sucked down. In doing that I think I tore it a little (or maybe it tore on the way out?) and I could see a little doll like baby with short arms and legs (8 weeks gestation when the heartbeat stopped, 12 weeks when I passed her). I put her and the sac in the little sandwich ziplock baggie I happened to have. They almost took her away in the hospital as a "specimen" but after some arguing with the nurses, the doctor stood up for me and said they needed to respect my wishes. I will always have a special place in my heart for that culturally/spiritually sensitive doctor. Meg has been in the freezer at my parents house since then. My partner and I have been in the process of moving apartments and I didn't want her to get lost or damaged. We plan to go back to my hometown one of these weekends and bury her on my family plot, with my 26 year old deceased brother (brain cancer), in the most idyllic place, next to a pond, in an old cemetery cut out of a little cornfield between two forested hills where they will rest together.
Thank you for starting this thread as it has shown me I am not alone in this sad experience. No one talks about it, that I know, and I've been to afraid and not ready to talk about it in detail to any friends or family. It's a very isolating feeling. This "icky", sad thing happened to me and everyone "hopes I feel better soon". I am grateful for that but it is difficult to put my emotional state and evolution from this loss into words.
As a side note: I didn't really know the sex of the baby but in my heart I feel it was a girl. We named her Meg, not short for Meghan or Margaret, just Meg as it had to do with an anagram formed by her possible initials. From there it became a joke during the pregnancy. We were pretty sure she was Meg, but if she was a boy, in that case, he was Not Meg (or Nutmeg), which is funny since we're from Connecticut and are in the Nutmeg state (a happy memory from the wishing and planning stage). I don't have a picture of her. I'm inspired to take one now, but have been afraid to go back and look at her since that night, on the bathroom floor of the hospital (gross, I know but that was the least of my concerns at the time).
Jennifire
Thank you again, and although there are no pictures on this thread this is my story. Jennifire