I wanted share my experience to ease the mind of other women who might be going though the same thing right now as reassurance, as I know reading things like this has helped me.
I’m currently in the last stages of my at home medical abortion, I was 8+5. I found out I was pregnant on September 11th, and knew right away I couldn’t keep it. I booked an appointment for the 13th, but it got moved to the 19th. All went well and my pills arrived the next day.
I decided to wait a day or two until the Friday/Saturday so my mum would be home (I’m living with her while I save for a flat). I took the first pill at about 9:40am yesterday. No side effects apart from feeling a bit tired and headachy, with some very light cramping when I woke up this morning.
I had breakfast and took two ibuprofen and two codine, waited half an hour and dissolved the first four tablets in my gums as I didn’t want to do it vaginally. Once I’d let them sit for 30 mins I washed them down with water as they hadn’t really dissolved. About 10-15 minutes after this some cramping started, felt like the beginning of a period. It was like this until about an hour in, where the pain steadily increased. At the two hour mark, I threw up a lot in the sink which wasn’t pleasant.
The pain from this point was steadily climbing, to the point where it was pretty painful I can’t lie. I then had the sudden urge to go to the toilet. I spent about half an hour on the toilet rocking back and forth in pain (8-9 out of 10 atp). I was sweating and shaking lots and brought a bowl with me incase I was sick. First I felt a smaller clot fall out of me, wasn’t painful just felt strange! Then a few minutes after that there was a bit gush and a bigger clot fell out of me. As soon as this happened, the pain went RIGHT down, the sweating and shaking stopped, and I managed to get off the toilet, so i imagine this was the pregnancy (I’ve not looked into the toilet at any point to check, my midwife said I didn’t need to)
Since then the pain hasn’t gone above a 6, even when I dissolved the last two tablets. I’ve managed to eat and felt more myself then I have done my entire pregnancy. I haven’t bled much in my pad, but I’m not very worried about that as the bleeding seems to happen the most when I sit on the toilet, and I’ve been passing smaller clots every hour or so.
I’ve spent the whole day on the sofa watching comfort shows and films with my mum and animals and drinking plenty of water. It’s been uncomfortable and painful but totally manageable!! It’s nowhere near as scary as it seems, what with reading the horror stories online and all. I’d completely wound myself up about it, but it was absolutely fine :) I hope my experience makes even someone feel a bit better!