I miscarried in March at almost 14 weeks. I don’t like using that term. I prefer to say our baby died in March this year, because that’s exactly what happened.
It took us a little longer to fall pregnant than we expected, but in January we found out we were pregnant and we were elated.
At 6 weeks, I started to bleed. It wasn’t much but it felt more than just ‘spotting’. We had a scan at our local EPAC and there was our little dot of a baby on the screen with a fluttering heartbeat! I cried.
The bleeding never stopped. We were in and out of EPAC sometimes two times a week, sometimes passing clots the size of golf balls. Each time we were met with images of our growing little one on screen with a little heartbeat pounding away. The scans showed there was a bleed. I was reassured that these kind of things normally go away on their own and told to rest.
At our 12 week scan, the sonographer told us there was a lack of fluid around baby so they couldn’t get all the checks they needed and booked me in for another scan in a few weeks time. We were happy to have seen little one again.
We went to EPAC for an Anti-D injection, I’d been told I needed this due to the bleeding. It was there where one of the lovely nurses pulled us into a side room and asked how we were doing. She said we didn’t ‘look like people who just received bad news’… We didn’t have a clue what she meant. She sat and explained to us that the lack of fluid around baby was a big problem and it was very unlikely that this fluid would replenish itself and along with the bleed, it wasn’t looking good.
We were stumped. We had no words. That’s not the vibe we just got from the sonographer less than ten minutes ago. EPAC arranged for another scan a few days later.
This next scan looked different. There was a huge mass on the scan that hadn’t been there a few days before. It was bigger than our baby. The room was silent as we all glared at the screen. I remember the look on the sonographer’s face – it seems she wasn’t entirely sure what it was either. Either way, baby was still there, fighting away. They decided the mass was a huge blood clot and warned me that if this were to pass, it could be catastrophic.
That weekend was hard. The Sunday was Mother’s Day and I was petrified that it was going to be the day I lost my baby. I lay on the sofa, rubbing my tummy begging the universe not to take my baby just yet.
We made it through the weekend but on the Tuesday, the same lovely lady who performed our first scan was the same lady who told us, “I’m really sorry, I think little one is gone.”. We already knew.
I didn’t have the choice of going home, I was told I had to stay as they were worried what would happen with the huge mass of clots inside me once the miscarriage was complete. And I had no option of surgery as baby was too big. The time we spent in hospital was horrific.
We met our baby the following night, on 21.03.23 just after 11pm. They were beautiful. We named them Baby Wood.
I’m still working through my grief and I have a lot of trauma to work through too.
But I am so, so proud to be Baby Wood’s Mummy and I will love them forever.