Miscarriage - I am 1 in 4

Sunday 28th July - 8 weeks + 2

I was just getting ready to go to bed, Luke was in the upstairs bathroom so I decided to go downstairs, I had a funny feeling In my tummy that usually signalled the start of my period...but of course I was pregnant so it couldn’t and wouldn’t be that.

When I wiped I noticed that there was pink blood on the tissue. It was about 11:30pm. 

I knew that this was my body announcing the beginning of the end. My pregnancy was indeed over, the little life that had started growing inside of me had gone, the lights had gone out. 

It was over. 

I went upstairs to Luke and presented him the tissue, borderline hysterical inside but composed enough to make sense and not to alert Leo to anything out of the ordinary.

I dug around in my many draws to try and find a pad (which I never keep in as I hate them and refuse to use!) and thankfully cane across one (being Sunday night there of course was nowhere open if I had needed to send Luke out... typical).

I got into bed and sat there in the dark, my phone lighting up my face and revealing the silent tears that gently slid down my face. 

Luke held me until he fell asleep, but sleep didn’t come easy for me. 

Monday 29th July - 8+3

It was Monday morning, my many alarms sounded one after the other. 

I promptly went to the bathroom, I wondered what I would find. I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was little to no bleeding, I knew I could go to work and do what I needed to do today. 

The working day came and went, nothing was really happening. It took until around midnight that night, I was certain I was having light contractions. 

As I got into bed and started to quieten down for sleep, I was aware that something was happening. 

I wondered if this was the start of everything. 

Tuesday 30th July - 8+4

 I woke up and felt a familiar feeling that I hadn’t had in over 8 years. 

A contraction.

I wasn’t in any pain but I knew my body meant business today. When I went to the loo I noticed that I had passed the first big clot.

I could tell that my body was kicking things up a gear and I was in two minds about going to work. 

I had never experienced anything like this before and I was terrified it might all kick off during the day. I knew I wanted to be at home when it all eventually happened, definitely not in the office.

I text my boss and let him know that the miscarriage had started, but at this point I felt that I was able to come into work, however I may need to suddenly run away pretty quickly...

I literally had no idea what to expect or how long it was going to take, I knew in some cases it could take weeks. I didn’t want to over react, I didn’t really know how to react or what to do. 

I knew I didn’t want to take the mick with work though, and I didn’t want to start taking time off if nothing was happening.

I went to work and stayed until 1pm, ordinarily I would have been there until 2pm. 

I had spent the entire day sat down, I had been scared to stand up because gravity really does seem to help a miscarriage progress...I was paranoid that when I did stand up the pad would have failed me. 

I Left work and made the 10 minute drive home. When I got home the bleeding started to really flow. 

I feel like I left at exactly the right time. 

Luke and Leo had wanted to go and watch the Lion King, and so had I for that matter. We were all thinking about getting ready to go, but I could feel the contractions progressing and couldn’t help feeling that something was really starting to happen. 

There was a little voice in my head telling me that going to the cinema tonight was a very bad idea indeed...

I was soaking pads very quickly, and the contractions were becoming more regular. Every time there was a contraction more blood and clotting came away. 

I made a conscious effort to keep standing up to make sure that gravity was able to work it’s magic.  Just like I did when I was in labour with Leo, only this time there wasn’t going to be a happy ending.

At about 8pm I decided to run a bath and ‘clean up a bit’, but it didn’t take long for the bath to turn blood red. 

The contractions got stronger and were just like the end of labour with Leo. They weren’t painful, they were uncomfortable and I could instantly remember why I was getting so impatient with being at home at that stage in my labour with Leo. 

I decided to stay in the bath, I lifted my leg up and there was a long, hard contraction that certainly meant business. I don’t remember pushing or applying pressure.... but at the end of that final contraction the gestational sac that housed my baby, plopped into the bath water. 

At this stage I had cried all my tears and made peace with what was happening. I must have called for Luke, because he came running upstairs (god knows what he thought when he saw the bath!), and by this point I have reached into the water, and now had the gestational sac (and baby!) laid flat in the palm of my left hand.

The contractions stopped as soon as I had passed the gestational sac. Just like that, my body had been working towards one end goal, and the objective had been reached. 

I lay there thinking how amazing our bodies really are, they just know what to do even when we are unsure. 

Luke looked more emotional than I felt, I think I had cried that much when the bleeding started and had that time already to form a sort of acceptance, but for Luke this was all fresh and new. 

Maybe it all felt real for the first time. 

I must have stayed in the bath another 10 minutes or so just looking at what would have become our second child. I bathed the sac and cleaned it all up as much as I could, I felt like this was perhaps the one and only thing I could do for our little one now. 

Luke had brought me a pot, and we placed the baby inside ready for a proper burial.

It took 3 days for my body to complete the miscarriage, from the start of the bleeding to passing the sac and baby. 

My natural miscarriage lasted 3 days. For me this was the absolute best way for the worst thing to happen, the thought of taking pills to bring this on medically made me feel uncomfortable. I would have always had a doubt in my mind that a mistake had been made...

I wanted my body to realise the awful thing that had happened and act accordingly.

Just like it eventually did.

3 days after I was told the heart had stopped (July 25th), if it had indeed ever beaten at all...it all unfolded as it should. 

I didn’t need another confirmation that the baby didn’t have a heartbeat, my body had let me know that all on it’s own. 

Sunday 4th August

A week after the first spotting had started, I passed what I am certain was a very small placenta. 

It didn’t look like the other clots that I had passed, it was different. Having been to the hospital on Thursday (August 1st) where they scanned me and declared that there was nothing left, I had experienced a complete miscarriage, everything that should have come away, had.... they had missed this little placenta.

I didn’t have anymore contractions when the placenta came out. It just arrived, and that was it, the last little thing that made me pregnant was gone. 

I was no longer pregnant. 

5th August 

With the last of the pregnancy out of me, my body must have taken note. The bleeding stopped, just like that.

I had bled for 9 days straight, only really heavily on the night of the actual miscarriage. 

Once everything was gone, it stopped.

First Trimester: Viability Scan at Worcester Royal Hospital

Today I felt positive, today I was going to see little Pop’s heartbeat for the first time.

I made my way to Worcester Royal, I felt excited and hopeful. I had allowed plenty of time to get there and find where I needed to be.

The scan was booked for 10am and I had been told there was an appointment booked for me in the Early Pregnancy Unit following the ultrasound.

I sat and waited for my name to be called, but 10 o clock came and went, they were running late. I saw pregnant ladies get called into their scans and come out with beaming smiles over their faces. 

I sat there thinking that will be me in the next few minutes.

Eventually my name was called, I followed a sonographer into a room a little further down the hall. I came prepared for them to scan my abdomen at first (I really needed to pee, and I had already been to let a bit out because I knew it would be too full again!).

They struggled to see much on the abdominal scan and sent me back to empty my bladder again (as I expected they would) so that they could perform an internal scan. 

I came back into the room and the ultrasound commenced. It was a very different atmosphere in the room as opposed to anything I have ever experienced before. In every other scan I have ever been at, the sonographer or midwife has spoken to me as she went along, pointing out different things as she saw them. 

Today she said ‘I will talk to you in a minute’.

Warning flag 1?

I lay there trying to glance at the scan screen that had been positioned slightly out of my view.

Warning flag 2?

I saw her find the gestational sac, I saw little pop appear on the screen.

Still nothing was being said.

Until she spoke ...

‘There is no heartbeat’ 

I had been asking questions as she went. Had the sac grown? Had the embryo grown? What were the new measurements?

I felt reassured when she told me that the embryo was measuring 7 weeks and the gestational sac had grown (she wouldn’t give me the measurements however...).

I kept thinking even if they hadn’t observed the heartbeat just yet, it was a positive that Pop was still growing, maybe my dates were still out?

The sonographer called a colleague in to observe the embryo, they weren’t even certain that there was a yolk sac at one stage. Eventually they found one and it looked like Pop may have been hiding it by being directly in front of it. 

The colleague confirmed that she could see no heartbeat.

I asked if I could have a scan photo, of all the scans I had been to during this pregnancy, I didn’t have a scan photo. Whatever the outcome of this pregnancy... I needed a ultrasound photo.

They spent time looking through the snaps they had taken, they said that they couldn’t give me one with any measurements on. Ironically the ones that I would have wanted the most. 

They printed one but reminded me that this may not have a happy ending. 

The report that they had generated was electronic and never entered my hands.... it went straight to the midwife in the early pregnancy unit.

I went around there still hopeful, the baby had grown, there was a yolk sac... there was still hope.

When my name was called and I followed the young midwife into a room in a part of the hospital I had never been before, I wasn’t nervous. I didn’t think that this may be signalling the end.

Maybe I was naive, maybe I thought positive thinking was the way as always....

Who knows.

She pulled up the reports, I couldn’t help but read over her shoulder. I needed answers and it felt like no one wanted to give me the full story...

‘Retroverted uterus’

‘No heartbeat’

‘Embryo 3.5mm’

‘Irregular gestational sac’

I didn’t know I had a retroverted uterus, they had told me the baby had grown, but that measurement suggested the baby had shrunk?

No one, no one, no one had once told me that the gestational sac was irregular. 

What did that even mean?

I posed all this to the midwife, she tried to call the sonographer to question the measurements. When there was no call she left me and my mum and went to physically get some answers for me.

She must have been gone 20 minutes or so....

Eventually she came back.

I had just hit record on my phone, I thought she may say the actual measurement of the embryo and the sac and I could have a verbal record to fall back on later if I forgot...

Only what I ended up recording was the final say, that this pregnancy wasn’t viable. 

That this pregnancy would most likely end. 

That this pregnancy was a missed miscarriage. 

The baby’s measurements were correct, she had looked at the ultrasound herself. This meant that the baby has shrunk by 2mm in a week. I didn’t know that’s what happens when a baby dies in the womb. 

I kept it together, I don’t really know how... maybe it was shock, maybe it was disbelief. 

The absolute disbelief that my body had failed me. 

I was given my management options, I could let nature take its course.

I could take a tablet that would flush the pregnancy out of my body.

I could have surgery to essentially vacuum Pop and the pregnancy from my body.

I wasn’t making this decision today. No way, I needed to be absolutely 100% certain that a mistake had not been made. 

I declined every option today, they offered me one final scan next Thursday, and then I will be given my management options again. 

The options to remove my tiny baby from my body.

The midwife seemed surprised that I had no pain, no bleeding, no signs of miscarriage. My boobs were still sore, the tests were still very much positive....

How could this be happening?

I’m young, I’m fit, I’m healthy. This baby was WANTED. We were in a position to love and care for this baby. 

Leo so wanted to be a big brother so much. This baby was meant to be, how could our futures be changing just like this?

I was composed the whole way home, heck I drove. I was fine until I called Luke and had to talk through what had happened and what the next steps were. 

The tears fell, but I needed to tell Leo now and I needed to be strong, I failed.

I told Leo that the baby was going to go to heaven, that his or her little heart was not beating. He seemed to take it ok... 

My womb has become a tomb. 

My baby has died.

I am carrying around my dead baby, acting like everything is ok, facing people who are telling me ‘you will sail through this pregnancy just like you did the first time’.

But I won’t.

I am torn with what to do, I want to feel the pain of losing this baby. I want it to hurt, I want it to really, really hurt. I feel like experiencing that will actually help. I want to see this pregnancy leave my body, I want to bury my baby under a blossom tree. 

I feel like this is the least I can do for the little life I carried, because we no longer have a whole lifetime together.

Equally I have heard horrible things about the tablets and tissue getting stuck. I equally don’t want this to happen... I keep going back to the surgical route... I would want to claim my baby after, I need to find out if that is an option. 

I have so much to think about.

I have so many questions.

I am going to request my pregnancy notes from the hospital computers. I need them. I need to know everything that they saw, everything that they noted. 

Maybe for closure, maybe acceptance, maybe just to depict the whole sorry tale. Maybe to fathom if this was just a one off... or could this happen again?

I always thought getting pregnant would be the biggest struggle, not staying pregnant. 

I broke tonight, the tears fell and they didn’t stop. I still feel pregnant, my body doesn’t realise what has happened, I wonder if it will? Or will I need to take the medical route?

How could a baby die and your body not realise?

What if the first measurement taken at the scan a week ago was wrong? What if it’s because my dates are all over the place? What if it’s because I have a retroverted uterus? Maybe it was the angle of the scan? 

I’m scared. I’m devastated, I’m terrified that this could and will happen again. 

I just keep thinking ‘what if’.

First Trimester - 7 Weeks Pregnancy Update

At 7 Weeks The Baby is the Size of a Blueberry!

How do I feel?

This week started off with toned down symptoms, as I have said in previous weeks my pregnancy symptoms seem to come and go, away and change. 

I'm currently 7 weeks + 4 days pregnant and today my boobs are SORE! I’ve just had to come upstairs and take my bra off as the underwire was driving me to distraction. They still feel tender now even though they are free within my shirt.

I’m taking this as a positive sign, and I have to admit that I do love to feel the symptoms of pregnancy (especially with all of the drama that this early pregnancy has been subject to). 

I was thinking over the last few days though about how this compares to my pregnancy with Leo. The first massive difference is that it was November when I found out we were going to have Leo, it was colder and the nights were darker much earlier, I don’t think this helped the pregnancy fatigue I felt and it was so easy to go and get into bed.

This time though it’s July, it stays lighter much longer and I resent going and getting into bed while it’s still light (I tried last night but Leo wouldn’t allow it!), so my conclusion is that winter and pregnancy fatigue were both at play, and maybe I don’t feel as tired because it’s summertime?

It’s just a thought!

I feel more bloated this week, and I feel like it’s showing, especially in comparison to my physique before we went on holiday. I’ve finally cleared my eating habits back up and baby seems to be on board.

For the past 2 days I’ve made myself poached eggs on rye with smashed avocado, a great go to pregnancy breakfast full of everything baby needs (eggs are an all round good food!), so that is going to be something I strive to continue from here on out. 

I want to make sure I’m getting a lot more fruit and vegetables into my diet (just like before I was pregnant and baby took a dislike to them! Got to love those food inversions!).

It’s only a few days until I go to Worcester Royal Hospital for my viability scan now. I hate the word viability. At this point I’m feeling really positive and I’m looking forward to getting to Thursday and hopefully seeing Pop with his or her beating heartbeat! 

I’ve been looking at different gender theories this month, the Ramzi theory and the nub theory. 

The Ramzi Theory

The Ramzi theory works on the basis of where the placenta is, they say that if the placenta is on the left (it’s a mirror image on an ultrasound so this actually means it’s on the right) - that it means you are likely to have a boy. 

If the placenta is on the left (again it’s a mirror image on an ultrasound so this actually means it’s on the right) that this means you are likely to have a baby girl. 

I’m the scan we had last week at 6 weeks + 6 days, the placenta looked to be on the left (actually meaning right), I’ll have to confirm the actual placement at my next scan!

The nub theory is something I’ll cover after my 12 week scan!

I didn’t come across any of these theories in my first pregnancy and it’s quite fun to guess at what gender I think we may be having. Still... in 9 weeks we could potentially find out! 

In other news.... Did you know that a ovulation test can actually be positive if you are pregnant!? I had no idea! Someone happened to mention it to me... So of course I tried it out and it has indeed gone positive! 

Fatigue

During the day I’m absolutely fine, it’s the evening that fatigue descends and I just want to flop about like a potato. 

Still when I got home from work on Monday I mowed the lawn, tidied the house top to bottom and then flipped out like a potato! 

I did want to start my exercise routine again this week (now my eating is back under control), but last night Leo’s tutor cane round for an hour, and now we seem to be in the middle of a heat wave, I may be crazy but I’m not stupid! So it can wait until the heat relents somewhat. 

Here’s a little overview of 7 weeks pregnant..

Sleep seems to be coming more easily again this week (Unlike the pregnancy insomnia of week 6!), my eating has been better over the last few days and I am really hoping that this is going to help Pop with some of that early development that he or she is going through! 

Symptoms:

Achey boobs, fatigue, baby brain is in full swing, veiny boobs for days (and they have now grown by an inch! 34inches to 35inches!)

Bump:

No bump to report yet, just that of the food baby I have been lovingly crafting!

Exercise:

I know excuses don;t get results, but there is no exercising in this 33 Degree heat!

NHS Dating Scan - 6 Weeks Pregnant

Thursday 18th July 2019, a day that I had been anxiously waiting two weeks for since my last early scan at Peek-a-Baby.

I woke up feeling like a school child who had forgotten to do a whole pile of homework and had to face a teacher imminently, I was scared of what I was going to be told today, and hopeful that my little Pop’s would have a happy ending.

I was unsure what the day would present to me, I knew they would first attempt to scan my tummy, but judging on the previous scans, I knew that it may require an internal scan instead. I dressed accordingly, I opted for a top and a skirt so that I could stay modest for both eventualities.

I began to paint my face, systematically applying the war paint that I knew I was going to need to face the day.

 I was preparing for what I expected to be an emotional day.

I got Leo ready for school, dropped him off and popped into work for an hour. Then I set off to pick my younger sister up, who had very kindly offered to come with me as Luke had to work.

My bladder was full to bursting, I had not been to the loo since first thing that morning, and it was now coming up to 10:40 - the time of my appointment.

My name was called and I came face to face with the midwife who had looked after all of my pregnancy care when I was pregnant with Leo. It was so nice to see a familiar face, before I was even fully through the door I was spilling out my sorry tale of my experience with the early scan, a potential blighted ovum pregnancy and already holding back the tears...

I had only said that morning how I wasn’t going to cry.

The midwife looked apologetic and commenced the scan by squeezing the cold gel over my lower abdomen. My womb flashed up onto the screen, and after some navigating around we found the empty pregnancy sac.

My heart sunk and I declared ‘I thought this would be the case, it’s a blighted ovum isn’t it’.

The midwife paused for a moment and said ‘I’m sorry, it looks like it might be, but before we say for definite. Pop along to the loo and let out some of the urine, this will help us see more clearly’.

I did just that, I left some but I was by no means bursting like I was before. I solemnly returned to the scanning room and lay back down on the bed. The gel was again placed over my tummy and then the midwife continued her investigation.

It felt like I was waiting hours before she managed to find what looked to be a small fetal pole. She zoomed in, and there he was. Pop.

Pop was somewhere in there after all. 

The sac wasn’t empty like we had first thought, there was a little tiny life growing away. Getting bigger, getting stronger everyday.

Pop measured in at 5.6mm, which put me at around 6 weeks and 6 days pregnant. 

It also gave me a more accurate due date of 6th March 2020!

It was still too early to get excited though, no heartbeat was observed during this scan, but the fact that we had now seen a fetal pole gave me the hope I needed. 

The midwife wanted me to go to Worcester Royal and wait for an emergency viability scan, but I was aware I had to return to work (who thought I was at a paediatrician appointment for Leo).

The reasoning behind the viability scan was because my last menstrual period was April 24th, so they were realistically expecting to see a much more developed 11 week baby wriggling away. Instead they found a very small fetal pole with no obvious heartbeat, which for them was more alarming than it was for me!

The midwife very rightly told me that ‘this is more important’, and I started to write out a message to my boss. I was struggling with what to say, and in the end I decided that there was nothing better than the truth.

I deleted the text message and picked up the phone, determined to be strong and not to cry..... as soon as he answered my words failed and the tears fell instead. I can’t even really remember what I said, but in not to many words I announced that I was pregnant and would potentially have to go straight from the scan to the Worcester Royal Hospital for a emergency viability scan.

I’m very lucky in many ways, work are very understanding and I was told to take my time and not to worry about work. 

Although it’s not the way I planned on announcing my pregnancy at work, there have to be better ways than hysterically shouting down the phone. Equally I am glad I was honest and got the news out there, even if it was super early.

The midwife was equally amazing and she spent a good 10 or so minutes trying to get me seen, but they advised her that I should wait a fortnight. I think my solemn face said I couldn’t take another 2 week wait, and the next thing I know is she’s managed to get me a viability scab for 7 days later - 25th July!

I’m not sure yet if I have good news, I’m not sure yet if Pop is viable, but I know that I am so much more positive than I was yesterday. For me seeing a almost 7 week fetal pole was just what I needed to see, and ties in pretty perfectly with the dates I had worked out.

What this means though is that I found out about my pregnancy days after implantation happened. Counting back on the calendar I plotted a assumption of when I knew ovulation happened, and when I thought implantation may have perhaps taken place.

Seeing all of the dates plotted out over the course of the last few months really helped me gain a positivity for what was going on inside of my body right now. 

I am optimistic that Pop is viable. I am pretty certain that the cause of confusion and alarm is simply my very irregular cycles and the fact that I found out ridiculously early. What has really thrown me is that the usual dating for pregnancy begins with the start of your last menstrual period, but that JUST does not work in my scenario. 

I ovulated, conceived and got a positive pregnancy test all in the space of 13 days. 

The one pretty amazing thing about all of this (worry aside of course) is that I have seen my baby develop from just a pregnancy sac, and now seen the very first manifestation of a fetal pole. Not everyone get's to see that, and I will be making sure I get those very early scans from Peek-a-Baby when I visit on August 1st, and they can also provide me with those gestational sac measurements too while they are at it! 

Now I have seen a little fetal pole, I have seen the makings of a little baby, I just need to believe that this time next week I will have seen a heartbeat thumping away.

Hopefully this time next week, this theory of when I conceived will be confirmed, and I can finally get excited about being pregnant. 

Come on Pop, we are all rooting for you!