Did I actually have a miscarriage? Please help.

[moon_nymph]

I've spent the last thirteen years of my life agonizing over this event, wondering whether or not some mistake was made and if I actually did miscarry. I was fifteen when this happened: engaged, living independently and actually trying to start a family at the time; we'd been trying for almost a whole year at this point, which is why I think I dismissed a lot of the early signs when this happened, I didn't want to get my hopes up again. Prior to the actual event, a few days, maybe even a week or two earlier, I had noticed an unusual tight, hardness to my stomach right above my pubic area and below my stomach, which I'm now assuming was my uterus -- it felt about the size of an orange, give or take a little. I realized that it was odd, but I ignored it because I thought it might have something to do with my period at the time even though I wasn't on it or that it was potentially just some manner of strange bloating, something along those lines.. though I had never before nor never since had that symptom.

Anyway, long story short we were visiting our families on Christmas day, I had been feeling kind of ill all morning and assumed that I was possibly coming down with the cold or the flu though I had been feeling more or less fine a day or two before. My partner wanted to engage in intercourse, which I consented to though I wasn't really up to it, and throughout found the experience to be very uncomfortable as well as slightly painful, mostly the pressure of him against my stomach where it was 'swelling'. Immediately afterwards, I went to the bathroom and noticed that I was leaking a very clear watery discharge, which was another sign that I thought was unusual, but dismissed because again I thought it might simply have something to do with a natural feminine occurrence though I had never dealt with it before or again since.

By the time we got home that evening I was bleeding heavily and passing massive clots with a terrible fever and having the most excruciating cramps which I would describe as contractions though I have never had any before -- all I know is that it wasn't usual period type cramping, there was a profound urge to push. I could hardly walk, laying down was unbearable and in a stupid attempt to stop the bleeding I forcefully inserted a tampon though it might as well have been a knife for as much as it hurt. I was afraid to call my parents, and my partner in panic instead called my friends who eventually convinced me to go to the hospital. I finally arrived at the hospital about two hours after the bleeding started and was stuck waiting for at least an hour and a half to two hours more. By the time I was on the examine table, the pain had lessened dramatically though everything still ached.

I can't remember that much afterward because it was kind of a blur, but I do remember speaking with my doctor who said that I was only having a heavy, irregular period and that the pregnancy hormone hadn't showed up in my testing. However, my mother revealed to me recently when I asked her about this, that when they contacted her on the phone that evening they explicitly told her that I was having a miscarriage. So, I don't know what the truth of the matter is.

The last five years or so I've been suffering with endometriosis and pcos, which I believe has invaded my bowels as well as right kidney at this point, so I'm very aware of what an irregular period is like and believe me when I say that what happened that night was not an irregular or simply heavy period. I have never had symptoms like that again in my life, any of them, thus why I believe I miscarried but.. it doesn't make sense why a doctor would tell me one thing and my mother another. The only thing I can assume is that it maybe had something to do with my mother who was a nurse at the time and had worked with everyone who attended to me that night for years. Maybe she hadn't wanted them to tell me or maybe they didn't out of respect for her, I don't know. I feel like I probably sound crazy admitting that.. but I don't know what else to think. I just want to know if anyone has experienced something similar? What do you think? I think about this incident all the time, every year and I can't forget it.. I need some kind of closure.

[AnnieBrooke]

If they did not find pregnancy hormone in your system, you were not having a miscarriage.  It is possible the doctor told your mother it was one before the lab test came back, or he called it a "possible miscarriage."  It does not sound like he told her hCG *had* been found in your system.  Her memory of the content and timing of the communications after all these years might not be correct.  

Because this is obsessing you and you can't find closure, you should order your medical records from the incident and have them sent to your present doctor, who will look up the lab tests done and see what they say.