Last night I slept so very little. I was awakened often with waves of cramps that have become way too much of the norm for my period as of late. Now, keep in mind as I tell this story this is the period after my second month back on birth control. I had started taking Vitex as well, which the Midwife had recommended. Yes, I had looked into it with birth control online and only saw warnings that it could lower the effectiveness of birth control, not of any worrisome potential repercussions. That said...
:warning - there will be rather graphic comments below:
Fortunately, I made it through the night. I got up to put the dogs out in the morning and felt the gush that comes with gravity pulling at my body, so I hustled to the bathroom. Wow was it heavy, shockingly heavy. I remain in waves of pain, but head into the shower to get cleaned up for work. While there and cleaning myself the blood is just RUSHING down my legs. I've never never never seen more than just a little bit of pinkish red when things are heavy and I'm in the shower. It just keeps coming. I gave a wee bit of a push and glop, glop, glop. Blood clots were pounding the bathtub - again, extra horrid and something I've never had happen before to this capacity.
As the shower water continues to flow so does the blood down my legs, this is starting to feel scary. The large clots that just came from me started washing towards the drain, all but one. I even tried kicking a bit of water at the last remaining large glop and it didn't budge. This is getting even scarier.
I wash myself again, and once again, red - not pink, water and soap is rushing down my legs. I decided to get the rest of me cleaned up so I can try to deal with the situation and then clean there again with the same result. I quickly dried myself off and wiped things up at the toilet to find more clots and more blood. I took some basic precautions and proceeded to try and get dressed to find I needed to rush back to the toilet several times to change things out to prevent bleeding out.
During the course of all of this I also gathered up the more mysterious clot from the tub, this thing had some substance to it. I'm now thinking I need to get ready for work, but stop at urgent care on the way to work, taking this rather gruesome talking point with me. I'm fine, I'm sure, but... scared, so I need to do something. What exactly came out of me? Why am I still bleeding like crazy in combination with some of the strongest cramps I've ever experienced?
Well, urgent care isn't open til 9. Ok, that's when the doctor's offices open too, so I head the rest of the way to work and rush in to tend to things again to prevent a bleed out before I get to my desk. The cramp waves are now worse than anything I've ever experienced, and I'm back in the bathroom several more times before I can call the gyn at 9. This is horrible.
I call and leave a message, as one has to do there ... and I wait. I've already decided I'm not taking the Vitex this morning, just in case. This time I only wait for about an hour for a call back *rolls eyes* The nurse collects info, I tell her everything including the scary clot, and she says she'll speak to the doctor and call me back. They finally call back around 11:40, after how many more waves of cramps and more urgent trips to the bathroom - including the one that seems also to be normal now which has me nauseated, drooling in preparation to vomit, and pale as a sheet for a good 45 seconds.
Stop the vitex, that w/ bc is causing this. Take 800mg of ibuprofin 3x a day for up to 5 days to slow the bleeding. They don't want to see me. I really think considering what I described coming out of me and how abnormal this is for me they would want to see me or the clot, something. Nope.
The larger amounts of midol I took in the morning had the cramp waves start to subside a bit by lunch time, thank goodness. As I write this they are pretty much gone and the bleeding has most definitely slowed to something that doesn't have me terrified.
I did pull the clot back out to try and move it around and there is chunkier things in it as well as a white type of tube-shaped something. I've googled the hell out of things looking for disgusting images of miscarriage materials to try and validate myself one way or the other.
So, is it possible that all this time, since last summer when I thought something 'changed' from the tries... maybe I was pregnant at some point, it wasn't viable and it just didn't clear out until after two months of birth control and then vitex working to regulate (it says do not take while pregnant)? Am I just crazy? I'm very tempted to take photos of what came out of me, it seems so wrong to toss it out and not try to know for sure what I'm looking at.
What an interesting turn of events in my world, no? The lack of response or seeming caring from the gyn's office troubles me even further. It's not like we did blood tests looking for pregnancies at any point.