This was my second pregnancy, my first-born being just over a year old and the plan was to have two close together. By my calculation I should have been 9 weeks along.
I started getting brownish discharge in my underwear, but nothing when I wiped and nothing in the toilet. “It’s normal, it’s old blood leaving your system” were the answers I got from friends and forums alike. I booked a private scan. Turning up alone it was just the sonographer and me in the room, the sonographer was silent and I spoke first, asking if the sac was empty. She confirmed it was, telling me she thought it was a blighted ovum.
The following day I experienced diarrhoea and the brown discharge turned to red blood, I needed to wear a pad. I started to get period type pains in the tops of my legs, which is very normal for me.
2 days later I had an NHS scan at the EPAU. Receiving both an external and internal scan, they told me that a gestational sac, amniotic sac, yolk sac and fetal pole could be seen (it wasn’t a blighted ovum), that it looked like an early pregnancy measuring 6.5 weeks, but no heartbeat. They sent me away saying the pregnancy could progress or could terminate, I would need to go back in a week. As I stood up from the examination table blood now poured down my legs, the sonographer handed me some wipes and said nothing else. I was told to expect period like cramps and to take ibuprofen. I wasn’t prepared for what followed.
By the afternoon, around 2pm I started getting painful cramps. I took paracetamol and ibuprofen. I kept going to the toilet to check on my bleeding, nothing heavy was going on but the cramps were getting stronger. At 4pm I was rocking on my hands and knees on the bed and felt like I was going to have diarrhoea again. As soon as I sat on the toilet I felt the sensation of thick blood pouring from me followed by the drops of clots into the toilet. This gave me some relief and naively I thought that was it. I went to lay back on the bed, but ended up on the toilet again minutes later.
I ran a bath, tried to calm myself, breathing through the next 20 minutes of contractions and swilling hot water over my stomach. I could hear my partner shifting around outside the door, helpless while in desperate need to help. I couldn’t stand the sound of ANYTHING, so asked him to go downstairs – “I can do this alone, I want to do this alone”.
During the minutes where the contractions let up I felt proud of myself, I made plans of what I might do now I’m no longer pregnant, like go to a sauna, eat camembert and get a sports massage. It was like I was having some bizarre paralleled experience where it was happening to me, but my mind wouldn’t register the pain or the grief – until another wave of pain came.
5pm I am back on the toilet, more blood is lost, more clots drop out. The release of the blood and and clots don’t feel anything near as uncomfortable as removing a tampon. I didn’t know it was happening apart from the sound as they fell into the toilet water. I am now biting down on a towel and making a weird high pitched humming noise. These contractions are now coming every 2 minutes and lasting 1 minute each. I call my partner, I can’t cope with the pain. I am shaking, I’m covered in sweat, I fall forward from the toilet onto him and lay on the bathroom floor. I can’t use words properly just noise or single words like ‘drink’ or ‘bucket’. I am lifted back onto the toilet, I’m vomiting. Contractions are still coming.
My partner called the paramedics and the relief when he tells me what he has done gives me the adrenaline needed to push through the next few minutes of contractions. It’s 8pm when the ambulance arrive. I’ve been bleeding heavily for over 4 hours now. They give me gas and air and ask what pain killers we have in the house. I speak to them normally for the seconds where I get a break. We have oramorph in the house (liquid morphine) from my emergency c section. Unopened and in date, I can take it. I tell them I don’t want to go to hospital and they tell me A&E is not the place for a women miscarrying. I finish the bottle of gas and air. The morphine kicks in, the contractions start to fade. I then take a mixture of paracetamol, ibruprofen, oramorph and cocodamol every two hours.
By the next morning I feel like my body has been through a fall down the stairs, everything hurts and aches and then the cramps start again. I’m back on the toilet and pass another large clot that felt longer in length than the others. Our toilet basin is stained from the blood from the night before. I stay in bed for the rest of the day, I can’t look after my son. I eat anything with sugar in it, but the thought of actual food to fuel my body makes me feel nauseous.
The night after it happened grief hits me, like I can’t hold it in, I can’t breathe. Guilt – was it my fault? I have a 1 year old and even though this pregnancy was planned I worried that I wouldn’t cope with two children. I then blamed my miscarriage on these thoughts. I felt the loss of this pregnancy, but in this moment I feel the loss of all future pregnancies. I have a feeling of never wanting to put myself through this ever again. I felt so angry, like an unreal anger towards anyone and everyone.
My mother in law texted the day after my scan saying “hope you’re feeling better”. FEELING BETTER? I have just lost my baby, I have gone through physical and mental trauma and you hope I’m feeling better after one day! My partner tries to rationalise, “people don’t know what to say” he tells me. “Well they should say nothing”. Which is also wrong when we are trying to break the stigma and lack of understanding of miscarriage.
I had work and appointments over the days that followed and I moved each of them giving the actual reason why. I don’t want sympathy, but I do want awareness. A friend who knew I miscarried also asked why we called the paramedics. When I told her the reasons where pain and blood loss she asked why I was bleeding – people just do not know what happens and without experiencing it or being told about it, how would they know.
I wish I had read a real account of what happens prior to it happening.
I wish I was mentally prepared for what was to come.
I should have started taking medication much earlier on in the day, but it’s a tough call because you don’t know when it’s actually going to happen, but when I started getting period pains I should have started taking regular meds.
I have now told work I will not be in for a week, I need time to mentally heal. I will tell people who didn’t know I was pregnant yet, because I can’t stand the thought of being asked “are you pregnant yet?”.