The miscarriage support and TTC after miscarriage thread

Tiger_greeneyes

You sound a little more on top of things today SC, I can tell just by reading your post It'll take ages, of course it will, but I'm glad you're 'looking' a bit brighter today

I really don't think hospitals are geared up for miscarriages. I'd much rather be on a general ward rather than maternity, but maternity is where the specialist dr's and nurses are. I spent part of my miscarriage sat in a hospital corridor because the hospital was really busy and had nowhere else to put me I wasn't up to questioning myself as to why I had to sit there - but after 8 or so hours, I got up and went home. I didn't know until afterwards that I'd miscarried.

FairyElephant_2

Hi All,

It's taken me a while to get the courage to read this thread & join it. Some of you from TTC and TTC+12 threads will know that I had an ectopic after IVF over last Xmas/NY and since had failed FET (frozen embryo transfer). I knew that reading this thread would make me cry - and it has - but I thankyou ladies for sharing your stories.
There are so many more of us than I expected - a lovely nurse/midwife said to me afterwards that it is like a secret club or society - until it happens to you, you just never know how many other women are 'members' - she and the other nurse attending me had both been through the MC experience.

nadnad wrote: »

i think its awful that they dont have a separate area for people who are miscarrying to wait. i also went to the EPU initially and and then twice more to be scanned and checked (eventually was booked in for d&c), and sitting there knowing that my baby was gone and having to look at other happy happy women with there scan photos was agony. i'm sure it wasnt pleasant for them either seeing me crying in my OH's arms, because im sure they knew what was happening. it wouldnt take much for a separate waiting area or room surely?

I can't agree more with you Nadnad - I said the same when I went through it. I had to keep going back to the EPU for scans (4 times) as they couldn't find the ectopic to start with. It was the most horrible experience of my life. Even worse than all the happy faces was that a few women (well, a couple of them were young girls actually) came out of the scan room upset because they WERE PG - at one point my DH had to hold on to my hands really tight and talk very fast to me - he knew I was about to explode and cause a scene - I wanted so much to slap them silly and scream at them that they didn't know how b****y lucky they were.....

I had to have an injection to bring on the MC. They kept me in hospital overnight the night before - this was just before NYE. Luckily I was in a kind of gynae ward and not a 'baby' ward. Even so I cried all through the night, but the nurses on duty totally ignored me.
Even though they told me it could not possibly survive an ectopic PG, and I was in danger myself, I still felt in my heart that by having the injection I was killing my baby, which I had wanted for so so long and tried so hard for.

Opposite me was a woman who was having a 'natural' MC and she kept crying too - but because she wanted to go home to her 'baby' daughter and saying how she hadn't wanted another baby anyway (you can guess how that made me feel?!? I've been trying for so long to have a baby.....)- then they let her hubby bring in the daughter (who was about 3 I guess) to her, along with about half her family......

Afterwards I had to go in for blood tests every 3 days to make sure my hormone levels were dropping, and they wanted me to go to the EPU, but after 2 visists I had a fit with the Dr in charge and said that there was no way I could go back there and sit in that waiting room, unless they wanted me to have a screaming fit at all the PG ladies in there! So they let me go up to the gynae ward and have my bloods taken there instead.

I had a month off work mainly becuase they didn't want me to drive after the injection until my blood levels had gone down to a certain level.

Someone asked how to cope with the EDD...well, mine was the same day as my official test day after the FET, but AF arrived the day before........so I got absolutely crazy drunk....not the best or most sensible way to cope I know, but it seemed a good idea at the time. The next day I felt so ill from the hangover that I couldn't think about anything else!

Sorry - I seem to have written a whole essay here - didn't realise I had so much to get off my chest! Well done if you are still reading....
Now I still have good days and bad days. I still don't react well to PG ladies, and although I know it is bad of me, I haven't seen my BIL, SIL and their latest since he was born - he was due a couple of months before mine so he's about 4 months now. It hurts so much to know that they have #2 now and we actually started trying before they even concieved #1. I try not to be bitter but sometimes I can't help feeling how unfair life can be.

Sorry for the mega-long thread!

Big hugs to all who need them,

FE

pixiegirl

I just want to say *big hugs* to everyone

I have sat here reading everyones posts and crying my eyes out!

My story goes like this .............................. me and DH have now been TTC for 46 months (actively about 38 due to DH being away etc) and it feels like forever! Dh is in the army and we are currently in Germany but were in Cyprus before.

I had a MC in Dec 06. I "knew" straight away that i was PG - spose its just womens intuition. So after debating on the best way to tell DH (i wanted to make it as special as possible) I went to mothercare and bought a pack of the tiniest baby vests ever, some glitter pens and pink and blue glitter confetti with some cute little cards.
I waited then til i was 11 dpo and then POAS. 2 beautiful blue lines appeared straight away. So off i trotted and got out the card and wrote in it "we finally did it, you will be an amazing daddy etc .............." and then on the vest i wrote "congratulations daddy - due to be filled 03/08/07" Then i got a little cotton bud box (removed all stickers etc) and popped in the little card and folded the vest with some of the glitter confetti. I then wrapped the whole thing in brown paper and wrote his name on the gift tag and popped it on his drawers (i knew he would come home and go in the drawers to get his clothes out)

I was beeming all morning waiting for him to come home at lunch time (they only work til 1pm in cyprus) When he came in i was still beeming like a cheshire cat as i was making his lunch. He came in as usual gave me a kiss, asked what was for lunch and said he was goin to get dressed and asked if i was going up with him, i told him id be up in a sec after i had finished sorting the lunch out.
About a min or so later i went up stairs and DH was just perched on the end of the bed eyes filled with tears reading the card. He rushed over to me and scooped me up and gave me the biggest kiss and cuddle ever and asked "is it really true?" i burst into tears and showed him the POAS (all 4 i had done that morning - just to be sure lol) Then we both just started laughing. Those next few weeks held happy memories i will treasure forever! I m/c about 7 weeks.

Were due to move in a couple of weeks and Dh is away so i was sorting through his things and packing them up when i came across the little box with the vest and card and 2 of the + POAS. That just set me off again. I had no idea that DH had kept them. Obviously i hadnt expected him to throw them away either but it was just a shock to come across it in his things like that.

I honestly feel that we will never have a baby, not that we will ever stop ttc BUT we are going to push the doctors at our new place to allow us to have more test. As they were reluctant due to our age and the fact i have got pregnant once before and the basic tests showed nothing wrong (progesterone and SA).

Its nice to be able to come somewhere and be able to vent these things to other women that know exactly how your feeling.

Well done SC for setting this up! Hope we can all be here for you to help you through this hard time x

Pixie x x x

nadnad

i'm so glad this thread is here. it will be so helpful, and like others said it is like a secret club its something everyone finds v difficlut to talk about, but this is a really good way to help.

i started to worry that i shouldnt post because my signature obviously shows that i have my little boy now, and I didnt want to upset anyone, but thinking back to my miscarriage it really helped me that my boss who had suffered a miscarriage the year before was pregnant again and due any day. it gave me hope and settled my fears a bit. so i hope that is the same for some of you going through this now.

what was especially difficult for me was that my best friend in all the world was pregnant too and we were both due within days of each other. and my husbands best mate was also expecting another little one. i found it very difficult to talk to my friend and when eventually i did i couldnt mention her pregnancy at all. by the time i actually went to see her for the first time after the mc she had a bump and I was so choked. thinking back she was very good because she never mentioned her bump or scans or anything to me.

i agree that hospitals aren't really geared up for miscarriages, its something so deeply personal and traumatic that no one can really understand what is needed unless you have been through it.

nadnad

just to answer re sick leave - your GP will be able to give you a sickness certificate for work, mine told me she would give me as long as I needed.

because it is leave relating to pregnancy it will not be counted or recorded alongside "normal" sick days. and cannot be used for any disciplinary procedures.

galvanizersbaby

nadnad wrote: »

i started to worry that i shouldnt post because my signature obviously shows that i have my little boy now, and I didnt want to upset anyone, but thinking back to my miscarriage it really helped me that my boss who had suffered a miscarriage the year before was pregnant again and due any day. it gave me hope and settled my fears a bit. so i hope that is the same for some of you going through this now.

I think you are right nadnad - if you have suffered a miscarriage you have every right to post here regardless of whether or not you have any children.
Some people have said to me 'well at least you have children already' and I see their thinking behind this and I know I am lucky - however it doesn't make you feel any better about the one you have lost in my opinion.
I would hope that all the stories about successful pregnancies after miscarriage will reassure people and give hope x

milliebear00001

Just wanted to add that I've been shocked by how many of you have been placed on Maternity wards after miscarrying. After both my ERPCs I was placed on a general ward so it doesn't have to be that way. I would have been horrified to be be placed on a Mat ward. My hospital now also has a separate scanning dept for early pregnancy which means often you avoid the having to sit with heavily pregnant women. If I had to go in for an EPRC again, I would definitely ask to be placed on a general ward for recovery.

nadnad

i haven't said what exactly happened with my miscarriage so here goes:-

i was 13 weeks pregnant when i noticed some brown blood, i went to the hospital and they told me everything was probably alright but to come back the next day for a scan. went to EPU next day and the doctor couldn't see a heartbeat, she got a second doctor in to confirm, baby had stopped growing at about 7 weeks.

They gave me and my OH my options - either wait to miscarry naturally, take tablets to bring it on, or come in for a d&c. we went home to think about it and my initial reaction was to wait and see. i couldnt breathe i was so distraught and me and my husband spent the rest of the day in shock and crying, it hit him as hard as it hit me. that was on a friday.

on the sunday i woke with terrible cramping and thought this is it, i was in the bathroom for 5 hours, passing clot after clot and I was afraid to look. when it was over i felt slightly better in myself. and for the rest of the day i began to come round. i didn't keep any clots as i wasn't told to, i know some hospitals tell you to.

i had an appointment the following thursday to get a scan, and i went in (after seeing people with their happy scan photos this made me collapse again). I told the doctor about the events of sunday and so she scanned me, and told me that no i hadn't miscarried at all, she explained that my womb had tried to empty itself but hadn't managed to, I was so shocked because i had never imagined this at all. After what i'd been through i was certain that I had miscarried. This hit me really really hard.

She advised that I should come in for a d&c she could see that I wasn't coping very well. my husband took me home and i thought about it and decided a d&c was best.

the next morning we went to the hospital and i was in the gynae ward and was given a little side room away from everyone else. me and my oh were a little bit crazed i think, i kept trying to find things to laugh about, we watched inane tv until the doctor came round. i was given some sort of pessary to open my womb. a while later i began getting excruciating pains which i guess were sort of contractions. i went with it for a while but then a nurse came in and saw the pain i was in and decided to give me something for it.

This bit i find funny when i think about it - i know its not the time to be laughing but it definitely lightened my mood and my OH at the time - she came in with a tablet in a cup and i was thinking my god i'll never swallow that its huge! but still i opened my mouth and then she says "oh no this is inserted in your back passage". What!! i looked at my OH and was nearly in fits. anyway she did her job and the next thing i know my bum is fizzing away, and I says "oooh thats the strangest sensation i've ever had up me bum". the nurse did NOT laugh. but we did - like i said i think we were kind of delirious. but it still makes me laugh now in spite of the circumstances.

anyway eventually they came to wheel me down to theatre. i woke up in the recovery room. the first thing i said to the nurse was "did they stick something up my bum again?!" she looked so shocked! i meant a painkiller cos thay had explained they might, but she didnt know what i was talking about.

the doctor came to see me when i was back in my room and explained that they hadnt needed to do the d&c as i miscarried naturally as soon as i was under anaesthetic.

it took me a couple of weeks before i wanted to speak to anyone other than my OH and then i gradually came around. although it wasn't until 6 weeks later that i felt ready enough to go back to work.

anyway thats my story. i haven't gone into the tears and tantrums because anyone going through it/gone through it knows what its like. but i thought i'd tell you all about the actual process in case anyone else is going through something similar.

CAFCGirl

Morning All

First of all I just want to send out massive hugs to everyone on this thread, and those who might be reading but not posting.

I see it as fitting that exactly 1 month after finding out, that I've found this thread (Im normally on the DFW board), and Ive sat here for an hour reading these posts and sobbing my eyes out, not only for myself and the baby we lost but for everyone because I would give anything for another woman/couple not to have to experience miscarriage.

Our story reads like this. DH and I found out we were pregnant by chance. We were going on holiday in July and I was aware that my period hadnt started (normally like clockwork) and I had this feeling it would come whilst on holiday, so I did a pregnancy test to reassure myself that my period would come (deranged I know) anyway it came out positive and I remember feeling like I wasnt on this earth...
Anyway we went on holiday, had a fab time, bought little things for the baby, came back to awful morning nausea but no sickness thankfully. I was around 6 weeks at this point.
Told a few close people, inc my team where I work and it was all going really well. About 9 weeks my nausea went, my boobs stopped aching, and the little gut paunch I had, was gone. I said to OH I felt "weird" but couldnt put my finger on it.
Had booking in appt at 10 weeks and then scan at 12 weeks.
Waiting in the ultrasound area was weird, I saw one woman come out with a pushchair, her OH and her daughter, and 4 scan pics, and I instantly had this sense that I wasnt coming out with any pictures.

Sat in there, was asked if we wanted copies, said 4 for no apparent reason, and then watched the screen, and saw it, just a black screen with a white balloon shaped ring and nothing else. Thats when she said "I'm really sorry to tell you this but this pregnancy has stopped"
I just stared at that screen and cried, looking at this black gap where my baby would have been, and should have been.

She continued to tell us that the baby had stopped developing and had been completely reabsorbed into my system and all that remained was the sac.
She then had to write a report and left us in the room together.

Just gone is all I remember thinking. She came back and I asked when it would have stopped developing and based on how it had reabsorbed, she told us around 7 weeks. All I can remember thinking is how we were on holiday, and it stopped...

Had to come home and got let out of the back door so we didnt have to go through the waiting room..
Had to wait till the next day to get a call from the EPU as they had gone home when we had the scan. The poor woman who phoned me, all she got was me crying.
I opted for a natural miscarriage at home, which I strangely thought would be ok as the pregnancy had been reabsorbed and it was only the sac.
It was exactly one week from the day we had our scan till I miscarried, and it was awful. I was in so much pain, and crippled over, I had contractions in my muscles and passed a lot of tissue, just going from bed to bathroom every 10 minutes.
About 3pm I went, and passed a huge piece of tissue, and after that I felt empty, and lighter. I went back to our bedroom, held a piece of bloodstone crystal I had bought 2 days earlier which I had forgotten about and I fell asleep for about 4 hours.
After that I felt like physically it was over, I had some light period like bleeding, bright red for about 3 days but then was just a light brown discharge for about 2 days and then that was it.

I went back to work that monday, and felt better for going back and having something else to do. Everyone knew and they were great with me, I had only a couple of wobbles, especially when someone who had found out from someone else came in and asked "why have you not started to show yet? I bet you'll be one of the people who doesnt show till 9 months and then just pops it out"
I swear I could have popped her out, I was so angry, I dont even like the girl and she came in thinking she could make crass comments at me when I barely know her!

Emotions wise Im starting to feel ok, but then I have moments where I am so exhausting at pretending all day long that Im ok, that I just collapse into horrendous tears, sobbing for hours.
Thats been getting fewer and further between though.

I've had issues now getting through to the EPU here, as they dont work after 1 and all I ever get is their answerphone.
They did call me on the wednesday before my miscarriage to see how I was and said to call when I had "a significant bleed" but that if it didnt last longer than 1 week then there would be no need for me to go in, unless I wanted another scan just to make sure its all clear.

I dont really want to go back, I feel like its all clear, part of me thinks after all that pain, blood and tissue there cant possibly be anything left inside me!

Ive had some aches in my left side, but from what I've read and the advice of a close friend (who lost her baby at 20 weeks) this is likely to be me ovulating and the ache in that side is because thats where the egg has come from.

Part of me wants to try again as soon as my next period is over with, just longing to feel pregnant again I guess, but then I'e also now developed this sense that I need to get healthier again before hand, and my DH. So he's ben fantastic with me and a real support even though he's going through this too.
I think the whole getting healthier thing is just a focus, a practical way to help myself heal.

Like Elle Gee - part of me doesnt feel right in mourning the loss as a real baby, so a ceremony etc doesnt sit well with me in my situation, instead a friend of mine (from mse actually) is making me a 3 tiered charm bracelet and Im having a small gingerbread man as my first charm for it, as thats what hubby and I had decided on for decoration.

I miss the sense of being pregnant everyday, but mostly I miss what could have been, although now seeing people with babies, makes me feel like for us to have a baby would be totally surreal.

Not sure if much of that makes sense, and I think at times like this its difficult to know what to feel or do, but my only advice is to just not think about how to feel or what to do, just think and do whatever comes naturally, let it wash over you, let it overwhelm you to tears, because it will give you strength in yourself rather than trying to pretend or act, because that will only tire you, and make you feel weak. Well thats my theory on it anyway.

Again big hugs and love to everyone xx

From my DH to our baby
I would have loved to have known you, and I know that I would have loved you xx

merrymary

hi everyone! i'm so glad that someone had started a miscarriage thread. thank you, thank you skintchick

for ages, 10 months to be exact i was googling and searching here for miscarriage and reading up on other womens experiences. i was close to starting a thread about it but never managed to. i read page 1 and started choking.

it brought all the memories and emotions i felt when i miscarried. not long ago, 5th sept this year a day before i got to 19 weeks and 9th december year at 16 weeks. both 2nd trimester, both physically and emotionally painful.

i'm still feeling lost and confused as to why it happened. i'll be reading every page of this thread i'm glad that it only has 4 pages so far. hope we can help and support each other towards healing and acceptance.

:grouphug:
MM x