Pregnancy Question

[Eclectic Music]

Hi everyone, i have a question. One of my characters is pregnant but doesn't know it yet and before she does she gets into a fight with her best friends abusive boyfriend and is socked in the stomach. What I need to know is this:

How many weeks or months could she be pregnant and not know it?
Would being socked in the stomach be enough to cause a miscarriage?
What happens during a miscarriage? I have a vague idea but would like to have the facts so I could write it acurately.
And, hmm, I think thats all for now. Thanks guys!

Shiloh

[snooze]

How many weeks or months could she be pregnant and not know it? It depends how close to her period she was when she got pregnant. It also depends on the kind of shape the person is in. A woman with really strong ab muscles might not show until maybe her 6th month.
Would being socked in the stomach be enough to cause a miscarriage? No. It's a common misconception that a tumble down a flight of stairs or something will make a miscarriage happen. Wombs are way more resiliant than that. I can see this myth arising in the times when women wore corsets and thus their bodies weren't as they ought to be. Most miscarriages are spontaneous, (no one knows why, really,) and can occur before the woman knows she's pregnant--I think something like 30% of miscarriages go unreported as such because they just don't know.
What happens during a miscarriage? Well, the actual miscarriage can happen days or weeks before the woman notices any pain or bleeding or other abnormalities. It also depends on the kind of micarriage and how far along they are. Recently, my cousin's wife was in her third month and she's been told that she's miscarried--but nothing has happened yet. The foetus is dead and apparently at the 9 week size--and she was told when she was roughly 16 weeks along that the baby was dead, although the foetus, once it's dead, can tend to shrink as it kind of "re-absorbs" I guess. It's been a couple of weeks, and nothing has happened yet--so she's probably going to go in for a D and C soon. They gave her the option of inducing labour at home by herself, but good God why anyone would do that to themselves is beyond me.
In any case, while the actual events of a miscarriage probably vary and I'm unaware of the various symptoms, I think we can assume that in some cases there's pain and vaginal bleeding (anywhere from a little to a lot--in any case, when pregnant, blood isn't a good thing that early on...) Anything that comes out of the uterus at that point won't look much like a baby at all.
Once it's been established that there has been a miscarriage, (take her to the hospital for crying out loud!) they'd probably give her a D and C to clean things up. (Basically, they scrape out the womb.) For details on the procedure, try wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D_and_C). All I can say is ow while crossing my legs. Why Wikipedia has a link to a "How To" section on D and Cs is beyond me... :shock:

[Eclectic Music]

Hmmm, well the miscarriage is a very pivitol point in the story for the characters so do you have any sugesstions for how it could happen? In the story the character has just had a fight with the boyfriend and starts cramping severely so she takes herself to the hospital and has the miscarriage and doesn't tell anyone for a week... (thats when the story picks up and I get to develop the MC's through some angst). Should I have an incident in there that could have caused the miscarriage? Or just have it be random and by chance, so to speak? Also, I read up some on miscarriages on wikipedia but due to the late time and such I wasn't able to understand most of the wording :shock: So, if I have the MC go to the doctor, have the miscarriage and probably stay in the hospital to heal for a while, how long would she be in there? And how would she be feeling afterwards?

Sorry if none o fthat made much sense up there.... I promise I'm going to bed now...

[snooze]

Hmmm, well the miscarriage is a very pivitol point in the story for the characters so do you have any sugesstions for how it could happen? In the story the character has just had a fight with the boyfriend and starts cramping severely so she takes herself to the hospital and has the miscarriage and doesn't tell anyone for a week... (thats when the story picks up and I get to develop the MC's through some angst). Should I have an incident in there that could have caused the miscarriage? Or just have it be random and by chance, so to speak? Also, I read up some on miscarriages on wikipedia but due to the late time and such I wasn't able to understand most of the wording :shock: So, if I have the MC go to the doctor, have the miscarriage and probably stay in the hospital to heal for a while, how long would she be in there? And how would she be feeling afterwards?

Sorry if none o fthat made much sense up there.... I promise I'm going to bed now...

Well, if you want the drama of having her cramping up and such during or just after the fight--the miscarriage would probably have occured a few days earlier. The body takes some time to realize what's happened, if it occurs naturally.
Or you could pull a Sliding Doors and have her get hit by John Hannah and an ambulence.
You don't have to cause the miscarriage though. Weirdly, it's kind of something that takes care of itself, usually, in terms of getting started. Your MC might have to overnight at the hospital, since D & C involved heavy anaesthesia (sp?). She'd probably be very crampy and tender and bleedy for a while after the procedure--like a menstrual cycle from hell, I guess.
I could ask my mom, if you want. She had a handful of miscarriages back before I was born, and probably more that she didn't pick up on at the time, if you're looking for aftereffects and such.

Now to hit that submit button.
...Odd.
I feel like I've done this exactly 2000 times.
Hrm.