Downpour, downpour

Some of this is a little gruesome. Please don't read if you will be offended.

After several days of bleeding and a couple days of cramps, last night at about 1am the pain became extremely intense. We went to the emergency room at San Francisco General Hospital in a cab. It had started to rain. Ivan held my hand. I frequently had to lean over and grit my teeth from the severity of the pain. We tried not to focus on what was likely happening.

They took me in very quickly, and my kind nurse Gallo walked me to the bathroom so that I could give her a urine sample and put on a hospital gown. Once she shut the door and I began to undress, blood and tissue began to gush from me and onto every available surface--the floor, the toilet, my gown. I tried to clean up after myself, but it continued to run down my legs in hot, red streams. I opened the bathroom door to ask for help, but all I managed to do was begin to sob loudly into the hallway as blood pooled at my feet.

They put me in bed and hooked me up to an IV. I began to shiver violently, and they wrapped me in blankets. They called for Ivan. The doctor did a painful pelvic exam and vaginal ultrasound. He didn't say anything for the longest time, and I asked if he could see the baby. He turned the screen toward me so that I could see my tiny baby, very still. He couldn't see a heartbeat, and said he wasn't sure if it was because she was so small or if it was "something more worrisome." Ivan and sat and hugged and cried while we waited for my lab test results.

In the end, the verdict was that I am still pregnant according to my urine and blood tests. But the doctor warned me that I may very well be in the process of having a miscarriage; it's just too soon to tell.

I cried at the thought of my baby falling into a clump in the toilet. I was advised by multiple people to save the tissue so that it could be sent for lab tests. And then I cried at the thought of fishing her out and holding her in my hands.

I have been given instructions under what conditions I should return to the hospital. Otherwise, I return to my prenatal clinic Monday to give more blood and urine samples to find out if I am still pregnant. Now all I can do is wait.

I am so unhappy. And numb. I feel like I have failed.

The rain is coming down hard now.