Hello, I just wanted to share my abortion story on here, as I did lots of reading online before my experience and I think I owe it to everyone else out there who may be going through this to share my story too. Sorry it is quite long, as there were complications but I believe it is a generally positive experience, despite complications.
I went through MSI and had a scan to confirm a pregnancy measuring 6 weeks 3 days. One week after finding out I was pregnant I took the first abortion pill, I was sent home with the next 4 and 2 to take the next day. Everyone I spoke to at MSI were lovely and very friendly/ non judgemental.
I started bleeding lightly about 20 hours after taking the first tablet which I don't think is very common but nothing to worry about - I then took the next 4 vaginally at around 5pm. I started bleeding/ clotting at around 7pm but no major pains just very much period cramps. I then took the next 2 tablets and dissolved them in my gums. I carried on bleeding and cramping but at no stage did I require the codeine that I had been prescribed - I just kept on top of paracetamol and ibuprofen and my hot water bottle. I continued passing clots until around 11pm when I went to sleep. There were no flooding of pads/ sickness/ diarrhoea anything like that, which I had been expecting and anxious about. The next morning I woke up still little clots and blood but I felt fine and worked as usual. Pregnancy symptoms disappeared within a day or 2 with the exception of tender breasts which I experienced until about day 10 post abortion. I bled like a period for about 2 weeks, some days like a period and some days light spotting. I thought this would be it and all ok.
On day 16 post abortion I woke up at 3am and had flooded a pad. I went to the toilet and was bleeding very heavily, I put a maxi pad on and went back to bed, throughout the day I continued to bleed very heavily flooding maxi pads every hour and passing some quite significant clots - however I felt absolutely fine in myself and there were no signs of infection. As the day went on and the bleeding didn't show any signs of stopping I was getting quite anxious so I rang MSI for some advice, they did say that it can be normal but the level of bleeding I was experiencing (1 maxi pad every hour ish for 10+ hours) was unusual and advised I went to A+E as they didn't have any appointments for another week or so.
So off I went to A+E at about 9pm, I was triaged within about an hour and they called some gynae specialists down so I didn't have to wait for the A+E doctors (with wait times of up to 5/6 hours). The gynae doctor examined me in A+E and was quite shocked with the amount of bleeding, they did my bloods and said I needed admitting believing I had retained product and still had pregnancy tissue. I was admitted onto the ward at around 11pm and given some more of the miso tablets to dissolve in my mouth as I was bleeding too much. The nurses asked me to catch any clots so they could keep their eye on them which I was happy about and to be honest I wish I'd caught some sooner as if I'd seen the actual size I'm sure I'd have gone to the hospital sooner as some were quite large but it's hard to tell when they drop into the toilet! I stopped bleeding at around 12.30am and didn't really bleed then again overnight - so I assumed I must have passed any retaining tissue now.
I went for a scan at 11.45am the next day - scan showed retained pregnancy tissue. The consultant then came to see my pretty quickly afterwards to discuss my options - 1. more miso, 2. surgical abortion with general anaesthetic, 3. surgical abortion with local anaesthetic (MVA). I didn't want to risk taking more pills and nothing happening or having the bleeding 3 weeks later as before and she did say the MVA is all dependent on my pain threshold so I just decided to go for the surgical with GA as they could get it done that afternoon and providing everything went well I'd be home in the evening.
The nurses, consultant and anaesthetist I saw were all so lovely, non judgemental and the support/ care I got was first class. I didn't have anyone with me unfortunately as my partner had a job interview that I wanted him to go to, but I didn't feel alone at all. I was nervous about the GA as I'd never had it before, but it really was literally falling asleep and waking up in recovery about 1 hour later.
They confirmed all had gone well, got me back onto the ward and gave me a sandwich and a yoghurt and my partner came then. We had to wait about 4 hours I'd returned from surgery to come home which I think is usual procedure.
They sent me home with a 5 day course of anti-biotics and a 10 day course of injections to do myself to help avoid blood clots and asked me to take a pregnancy test in 2 weeks.
I feel abit drained today, but I am hardly bleeding/ cramping and am hopeful that is is all finally over.
Good luck to anyone going through this - I kind of wish I'd just gone for surgical from the start to be honest.
xxx