This pregnancy was mine and my fiancée’s first baby and whilst the pregnancy was a complete shock, we were both so excited about our new impending roles. Unfortunately, it was short lived and almost just as quickly taken away from us.
I had a pain on my right side when I went to my booking appointment and my midwife suggested I go and get it checked out at the EPU. I was nervous and excited all at once, but was so looking forward to seeing our little one. I had an internal scan and almost immediately the sonographer said, “everything looks fine”. Instant relief flooded over me and tears filled my eyes. Our little one was measuring 5weeks and 4 days instead of 6 weeks, but I thought nothing of it as I watched the little heartbeat flickering away.
The next couple of weeks were spent celebrating every little milestone, reaching week 6, 7 and 8. Watching my baby grow on the numerous apps I’d downloaded, having countless conversations about our future – would it be a boy or girl?
At 8 and a half weeks I noticed some very light pink discharge but I wasn’t so worried, I’d read that bleeding can be normal and as I’d had no cramps. I was sure it was fine. We had a private scan booked for a couple of days’ time which we managed to bring forward to that day. As I walked in, reality hit, things may not be ok, I hadn’t let myself even consider that.
As I lay down for another internal scan, I said a silent prayer. This time there was no quick reassurance that ‘everything looks fine’ instead there was a long-drawn-out silence (I’m sure it was actually only 30 seconds) and the dreaded words “I’m so sorry guys” filled our ears as the sonographer looked at us from behind his mask with empathetic eyes.
The baby’s heart stopped beating at around 6 weeks and I was now 8 weeks+3, I had had a missed miscarriage. I had never even heard of this before. I had heard of a miscarriage of course but not this, how could my body trick me into a false sense of security? The same body that days earlier I had been in awe of had now let me down, failed me and in turn, had failed my fiancée, my parents, his parents, had failed everyone.
I went to the EPU the next day where they had to reconfirm my missed miscarriage with another scan. The process seemed cruel and unnecessary. I then had to wait and speak with a doctor about my options, the same doctor I’d seen weeks earlier who told me I was having a healthy pregnancy. I decided to go for medical management as we were still in the midst of a global pandemic and for me it was the ‘best’ option.
I came home and waited for the process to start, which it did, slowly at first and then the next day, ramping up to quite an intense level of pain. That is when I passed some quite large clots and as soon as that happened the intense physical pain almost immediately went away.
It’s now two days on and I am still bleeding and have some slight discomfort/period like pains. Physically I’m doing ok, it’s amazing how quickly your body starts to recover from such a trauma. Mentally I’m nowhere close to being ok but that’s also fine. I have wonderful support around me, my fiancée has been a pillar of strength to me, it’s funny to think that for us, when we were at our most vulnerable, we were also at our strongest.
I hope this helps someone who is going through a similar situation. There aren’t enough words to describe how awful it is to lose a little soul, it’s helped me to think that our little one was not meant for this world but we’ll see them again in another. Sending love and strength to anyone who needs it x