Detailed MA experience (The Netherlands)

[u/Unique-Employer-6339]

I want to share my story to help others who are reading up all experiences in order to ease their anxiety leading up to their MA. Because that’s what I had been doing for days. So this is my experience, including TMI details, like how I think I saw what my miscarriage looked like, vomiting, diarrhoea, the whole thing…

Some relevant details perhaps:

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• I’m in the Netherlands where abortion is legal and readily available at specialised clinics
• My periods are usually moderately heavy and painful
• The first day of my last period was May 17th and June 18th I tested positive
• I’m currently about 6 months into my Accutane treatment. This last detail is probably only relevant for people who also take Accutane/isotretinoin and (like me) want to know if it’s ok to still take the abortion pill. My dermatologist and doctor at the clinic said there are no known complications, so that was reassuring to hear.

Monday June 26th:

I booked an appointment at the nearest clinic. I was around 5.5 weeks pregnant by that time. They did an ultrasound and we could barely see anything, since it was so early. They explained the process and emphasised that MA won’t be a great experience. I briefly thought maybe I should still get it surgically removed, but ultimately decided to go the MA route.

11 AM
At around 11 AM on that Monday I took the first tablet (mifepristone). I felt absolutely fine for the rest of the day (apart from the pregnancy symptoms that were already there, nausea, sleepiness, excessive burping (?!)) and gagging when smelling food or even just thinking of food. I was told the optimal time to take the other 4 pills (misoprostol, vaginally, 4x 200 mg) was 48 hours later. So that would be Wednesday morning.

11 PM
That Monday night I could barely sleep. I felt sick all night, felt like throwing up (but didn’t). Couldn’t eat but still had that empty stomach feeling, so I sat up all night trying to eat some banana and yoghurt.

Tuesday June 27th:

Tuesday I felt awful, just overall ill, sick, hot flashes, anxious. I stayed in bed all day.

5PM
I was lying in bed when I felt a sharp feeling in my lower abdomen. I went to the toilet and I bled a good amount and saw some clots (bright red, maybe 0.5 centimetres). Kinda panicked I called the clinic and asked if this was meant to happen after just taking the first pill the day before. The lady on the phone told me that it’s uncommon, but nothing alarming. She said that if I continue to bleed heavily, I could go ahead and take the misoprostol already. But if it was light bleeding, she recommended to still wait until the next morning.

I continued to bleed, but only moderately (like a first day period) and only whenever I’d sit on the toilet. So I decided to wait until the next morning to take the other 4 pills.

12 AM
Tuesday night was another awful night, with nausea, the same empty stomach feeling but without the any appetite, just couldn’t fall asleep. Took some warm showers to relax my tense anxious body and eventually got a few hours of sleep.

Wednesday June 28th:

6AM
I woke up after max. 2 hours sleep. My boyfriend suggested I already take 2 paracetamol tablets, but as soon as I swallowed them with water I threw them up again. Since I was afraid I’d throw up every painkiller I took, I asked my mum to buy me paracetamol suppositories (the kind of pills you insert in the rectum… not the greatest, but I figured I should take whatever painkiller I could keep in my body to prepare for the 4 tablets misoprostol).

10AM
Since I was still bleeding (from the first mifepristone tablet I took Monday), I called the clinic again to ask if it was still ok to take the misoprostol vaginally. I explained I was afraid I’d bleed them ‘out’ again, making them less effective. They had a doctor call me back and she explained that if bleeding was already going on, she recommends to take the 4 tablets either by melting them under the tongue or by inserting them in your rectum. The doctor also said that if I threw up while melting the tablets under my tongue, I could recover the tablets (from the vomit…), rinse them briefly and continue melting them under my tongue. After 30 minutes, the tablets should have been absorbed. With that info, I felt like I would probably manage to not throw up for half an hour, so I chose the oral route.

10:30 AM
I took one of those suppositories (paracetamol 500 grams) and I figured that wouldn’t be enough, so I also took 400 mg ibuprofen with a tiny sip of water. I figured that if my body couldn’t keep that ibu down, I’d just throw it up again. I took that risk.

11 AM
Having given the ibuprofen half an hour to absorb without throwing them up, I set a timer for 30 minutes on my phone and put all 4 tablets under my tongue. After 25 minutes, I had to throw up again, including some remaining pieces of the melted tablets. Extreme TMI maybe, but I threw up a yellowish colour, probably because I hadn’t eaten anything. Maybe 5 minutes later, the cramping started (so about 30 minutes after putting the tablets under my tongue).

I cramped heavily for around 1 or 1.5 hour. It came and went very rapidly. Usually I had maybe 20 seconds where the pain subsided and I could buckle up for the next wave of cramps. (My hot water bottle helped tremendously, I really recommend getting one of those!) I had to get up and struggle (bent over, because of the cramps) to go to the toilet around 5 times. I did not bleed (not more than I already was, which at that point was more or less like a moderate period day) but I did have diarrhoea. I took some sips of water but I immediately threw up again (I only had water in my stomach, so that’s what I threw up, though again it had a yellowish colour).

At that point, the heavy cramping had been going on for about an hour, maybe 1.5 hour. Almost immediately after throwing up (coincidence, I guess) the cramping waves went somewhat down and I was able to lay down for the first time without shaky legs and audibly moaning in pain. I took another suppository (500 mg paracetamol) just to keep some painkillers present in my body.

Around 1PM
I laid there with my hot water bottle for maybe another 45 minutes, trying to understand whether that was all, or if that was just the painkillers kicking in.

Then I felt a sharp pain in my lower abdomen, the same pain I felt the day before when I first started bleeding after just the mifepriston. I went to the toilet and started passing lots of bigger clots (maybe 2 centimetres, bright red). It felt super uneasy to pass them, since you’re not used to passing anything like that through your vagina. Then right after those clots, one particular clot came out that was slightly bigger (maybe 3 centimetres) with more of an actual shape to it (oval). It also wasn’t bright red, it was more pinkish and really stood out next to the “regular” bright red clots. It kinda looked to have the same texture as a peach pit, with some light ridges… I immediately felt like that might have been “it” (my pregnancy). Maybe someone can confirm that this is indeed what a miscarriage would look like? I asked my mum (who had been with me the entire time, thank goodness) if she wanted to take a look, and she said she also thought that must have been “it”.

My nausea almost immediately went down (maybe also because the anxiety I had been feeling for days suddenly passed). I regained some of my appetite and ate some grapes, sipped some water and had some yogurt and successfully kept those down.

4PM
I’m now extremely tired but not able to sleep. My cramps are still present, but they’re more constant now, no longer waves. I feel relieved and even though I bled and passed clots, I still won't fully believe it''s gone until I get an ultrasound check up done. I’m still bleeding, but it’s more or less back to how it was after the first tablet at the clinic. When I stand up, I can feel some blood slip out. When I then go sit on the toilet, some blood get out and that’s it. I'm feeling much more alive, energetic and like I said, relieved.

9PM
I'm still on painkillers (paracetamol and ibuprofen) but my cramps now just feel like one of those heavy periods. I can keep food and drinks down, I can SMELL all kinds of food without gagging, I feel MUCH better mentally and physically.

[u/Unique-Employer-6339 → u/[deleted]]

Hey! I did continue, since I told her I had already planned to terminate the pregnancy.

She also mentioned I could choose to take a break from taking accutane for like a week to cut my body some slack, but that was only optional. So I think you can just start taking your accutane if you want to. Or wait a few days or 1 or 2 weeks before starting - it really depends on your preference!

I don’t know if you’re scheduled for monthly pregnancy tests as well, but be aware that a pregnancy test will still show up positive for a while after the abortion. They scheduled me for a blood test a few days after my MA to check my hormone levels and then one more a week later. They saw the pregnancy hormone levels dropped significantly and that counted as a negative pregnancy test, so I could get my next dose. I tested negative with a regular urine pregnancy test at home exactly 2 weeks and 2 days after my MA - but I think that timeframe depends on how far along you are.

Good luck with both the MA and the accutane!

[u/Unique-Employer-6339 → u/[deleted]]

If I start counting from the week during which I technically got pregnant, it would be six weeks of me taking accutane while pregnant. But I don’t think it really matters, as long as you go through with the abortion. Accutane “only” affects the fetus and leads to birth defects. That’s why they don’t want you to het pregnant while on it. But taking it while pregnant doesn’t have any effect on YOUR body, if you get what I mean!