Missed miscarriage at 12 weeks. Oh my goodness, the blood.

[Doublesidedselleotape]

Hello
Have just been through the most physically full on 24 hours and need to put it somewhere. I had my 12 week scan on Wednesday and it was a mmc. Hospital were very kind and I was sent home with an appointment for next Wednesday to scan again and see how miscarriage had progressed.
Last night (at bedtime, 2 DDs wanting bedtime kisses) I suddenly started bleeding very heavily. To the extent that I was sitting of the loo passing massive clots and so much blood. Went to bed at midnight hoping that the worst had passed and then at midday again today it starts up again. Masses of blood, masses of clots and stuff (I didn't look, feeling pretty queasy). Eased up again by 4 when I slept for a couple of hours, and now bleeding is like a normal period.
I was so shocked, and felt very under prepared by hospital, by the incredible goriness of it. And the cramping and stinging as it happened. Why oh why don't we women share this with one another more?! By far and away the most useful and honest information I've found was on mumsnet. A complete saviour during some very dark hours.
I now intend to spend the next month eating stark tartare and drinking fine red wine.

[lotsoffunandgames]

I had a miscarriage at 10 weeks and no one told me what to expect.it was horrible and I felt very alone.I am sorry for your loss and to have found out at the scan must have been devastating.
I just wish someone would have told me the 'baby' comes out in one piece. I am sorry to be insensitive but I didn't know and...... I don't know, I guess I thought it would come out in bits or something. I can't remember what it looked like as I was so traumatised but just in case, like me, you didn't know.
Take care of yourself.it does become easier.at first I couldn't even say the word miscarriage.xx

[ohhhmylegs]

Oh my gosh, I am so sorry to read this!
I hope you are physically feeling a little better? Emotionally, well that's another matter... I, too, felt hugely under prepared when I left my m.l.u armed with my very tiny, brown envelope with 'miscarriage' leaflets. In no way did it provide me with enough information for what was about to happen to me.

I do agree with you. It definitely should be shared more, especially since miscarriage occurs up to 1 every 3/4 pregnancies. Definitely should have been given more emotional support as I found myself trawling forums, searching for answers that never came.

Drink as much as you need to....it doesn't take the edge off but it bloody well helps!
Hugs

[P1nkP0ppy]

Very sad op, it brings back memories of miscarrying my second baby 35 years ago.
It was very frightening and I was told that because I was a midwife (wtf!) it shouldn't have been such an upsetting experience. I remember I was standing in the shower when I started bleeding and I literally couldn't move. Eventually I somehow got to the loo and my DH found me sitting there 2 hours later.

There was no one to talk to, it was dismissed as 'one of those things' and I was told 'women have them all the time ' which was no bloody consolation whatsoever!

Take care of yourself op, and an unMNy hug x

[TaffetaMuttonfudge]

I went through this last year at 10 weeks and I remember thinking that it was a load of complete bollocks that the midwife at the EPU had told me that it would feel like bad period pains. Honestly felt like labour, and was possibly the worst thing I've ever had to do. Sending hugs and

[Bear2014]

Yes THIS. I had a MMC at 10 weeks (baby measuring 8) a few weeks ago. They sent me away with an appointment for surgical management a week later, and a pamphlet. We decided to carry on and go to Centre Parcs as planned later that day, as all of DD's friends were going and we couldn't face going home to stare at the wall. Fast forward a few hours, I'm literally contracting in the car and sweating, and when we arrived I was losing so much blood and tissue I had to be whisked in an ambulance to A&E with blood pressure of 60/40. It was like something out of a 90s slasher movie, and I'm so glad our little girl was asleep at the time or she would have been traumatised for life!

Sorry for your loss, and enjoy the wine! I've been downing cold champagne all weekend. we deserve it. xx

[Blueskies80]

Yes. I hear you OP. I had the same when I had a mc at 11 weeks, bled so fast and lost huge chunks of matter (had some manually removed by a doctor with forceps without pain relief). Blood pressure dropped to 70/50 I think and was about to pass out. Had emergency EPRC. I wasn't given any information about what to expect before or after the MC.

However I do not understand why hospital staff do not warn you about what's about to happen when you start Miscarrying. Something to warn you, like you have for labour, so at least you can go into with your eyes open rather than expect a heavy period and find that it's more akin to labour, except , in my experience, with tonnes more blood. Not to mention that you might end up with it all going down the loo. just horrid.

I wish I had more energy to do something about this, eg writing letters, and I suspect that the reason why nothing much changes is that people find it upsetting to talk about it too much so no pressure is applied to hospitals or nhs to change their approach.

[Blueskies80]

And I am so sorry for yr loss xx

[gingerbreadmanm]

So sorry for your loss double

I had similar december 2014. I just wanted to say keep an eye on the bleeding.

If it picks up again i would give your local epu a call as you could have retained products that you may need to have removed.

Hospital told me like a heavy period. Mn said you wont believe the blood. I had you wont believe the blood with mine. Three times. Admitted to hospital twice and had an emergency erpc the second time.

I think the best advice is if you are soaking through a maternity pad in around half an hour or less there may be a problem.

Hopefully you are over the worst of it. As others have said, it will get better in time.

One thing that kept me focused was baring in mind how you are supposed to be extra fertile afterwards if you were thinking of trying again.

[LyndaNotLinda]

It is NOTHING like a heavy period. I couldn't leave the loo because I was bleeding so heavily.

OMG Bear - can't imagine what it was like in a car!

And so sorry for your loss Double

Mine (mmc at 13 weeks) lasted 3 days before it really slowed down so it may get worse again before it gets better. If it's very heavy however, you're much less likely to have retained anything.

[FATEdestiny]

I am forever grateful to me best friend who went through a MMC 6 months before I did. If it wasn't for our chats, I'd have been wholly unprepared. Some practical advise for anyone who might find this:

• Expect vast, vast quantities of blood. If you know this, expect this, you can cope at home. The shock of the gore is what drives many to hospital.

• When the bleeding starts, expect to need to give 6-12 hours where you are unavailable to anyone to do anything. Get someone else to have your children if you have any.

• Gather together every towel/blanket you have in your house and place in a pile by your bed with one folded towel under you.

• If you don't have wipe-cleanable floor, put something down to protect your carpets from the blood. Maybe a couple of opened out bin liners.

• You will feel labour type contractions which will come in cycles, with pains getting closer together.

• Take to yourself bed. Undress from the waist down.

• Periodically (30-60 mins) change the towel you are lying on, so that the blood doesn't soak through to your mattress. Just chuck the towel on the floor and grab a new towel from the pile next to the bed, don't think about the mess for now.

• You maybe feel faint / light headed through blood loss. If you can cope with this at home by resting, you can stay at home. Going to hospital is not necessary unless you want the extra support.

• Sitting on the toilet for periods of time during the miscarriage is helpful because gravity aids in emptying the blood faster. You may well pass blood clots and yellowish jelly like matter. I found it easier to just not look.

• Bearing down / pushing can cause a 'whoosh' of stuff to come out. This is useful if you want everything over and done with, but can be shocking if you were not expecting it. I would recommend you don't do a pushing motion whilst in the shower, you could end up with splatters of blood everywhere. In a similar vain, flush the toilet while still sitting on it and without looking behind you, to avoid looking directly at the gore of it all.

• When all the pains have finished, you will continue to bleed quite heavily. If you fall asleep (understandable after the ordeal you have been through) be aware that blood may pool inside you and overflow when you stand up. I'm not talking a little bit, I'm talking it'll need a towel between your legs to catch the blood as it flows out of you upon standing.

• You may well have heavy period type blood loss for several days or a couple of weeks afterwards.

This thread title: Oh my goodness the blood sums it up. There was far more blood and gore than the NHS prepared me for (MMC discovered at 12+ weeks scan, measuring 5 weeks, natural miscarriage a few days later)

[Bear2014]

FATEdestiny - I kind of feel torn, I don't want to freak everyone out by detailing it, but I definitely feel like it would have been useful knowledge to have. The NHS literally left us with the impression that it would be ok to carry on entirely as normal. I left to go on holiday with some Always Ultra and some Nurofen. Looking back now, it's actually hilarious.

[Goldrill]

I fully agree. Mine was at 12 weeks and was about 10 years ago. Now I've been through childbirth twice it would probably scare me less, but at the time I was quite terrified. Ended up in middle of night ambulance to hospital because of the pain and the blood - then had medical management, manual clot removal and finally a scrape. I wish I'd know you can go straight to surgical management because I'd have done that.

I've had several early miscarriages since and they were really just like a heavy period. I am not sure anyone who miscarries at about the end of the first trimester is really going to just get that level of symptom, and I think there should be a lot more support.

Very sorry for you loss, Double.

[KittyandTeal]

I find it awful that some of you have had to go through this at home, alone.

I lost ds at 14 weeks, a mmc. I was induced in hospital and for all intents and purposes gave birth to him. I was also shocked by the blood loss and the palm sized clots after he'd been born. I didn't have any of that with my loss at 22 weeks, that was much more like a shorter full term labour with minimal blood loss after.

I sorry to everyone who has had to go through this, especially without medical help.

[rider1975]

I've found this thread useful. I'm having a medical management tomorrow morning and am steeling myself for it now. I'm 9 weeks today and am feeling anxious.

[anewbie86]

This! Exactly this.

I am a couple of days post miscarriage now (baby died at 5/6 weeks and I didn't pass it until 12 weeks). I'm glad that I read this thread before it started. (I just posted a few bits of extra advice on there that I found helpful as well). I also spoke to my friend about her experience. Her exact words were 'I'm not going to lie...you will get contractions'. How right she was! I was a bit taken aback actually by how painful it was (nothing like I've ever experienced before - whoever said this is like period pain either has terrible periods or is mental or lying...I'm looking at you NHS) and the quantity of blood that I passed for a 5/6 week embryo (I passed huge clots including ones the size of the palm of my hand. And I pushed some of them out, because my body seemed to be telling me to). I am still passing clots today (2 days after) and feeling very crampy, enough to need codeine at night (though nothing like what I had before).

Hopefully it doesn't scare anyone - even though I was pretty worried about the process before it happened it did help to know that what I was experiencing was normal. My body just took over and did what it needed to do and I didn't feel scared while it was happening.

Would also agree with fate above - you can deal with this at home if you choose to be there. For me, that felt like the right thing to do and it was far more comfortable to be able to walk about the whole flat and bounce up and down on cushions to ease the pain than if I was in a hospital I think.

We can do this ladies Love to all who are going through this or have gone through it before. We are all so strong even if we don't know it.

[InionEile]

Sorry for your experience, Double. Sounds very similar to my MMC and, yes, the only honesty I found about the physicality of a miscarriage was here on MN. In fact that's how I first got addicted to found MN, looking for advice on what to expect when I had my MMC.

The bleeding and the pain is way, way more than anyone tells you. I thought I was going to die it was so bad. Maybe medical professionals don't want to scare you or be alarmist so they keep quiet about the details? It is different for everyone too so it could be they don't always want to talk about the worst case scenario.

Personally I found the shock of how bad it all was nearly as traumatizing as the loss of the baby. It was just too intense to deal with all together.

Thanks for sharing your story and I hope you feel better soon. Take your time to grieve the loss as well. Don't feel you have to 'move on' to suit other people.

[gingerbreadmanm]

Some great advice but i just want to reitterate again that if the blood loss is extremely heavy you may need hospital treatment.

It's not because you can't cope alone it's because something has gone physically wrong and you will need manual removal of retained products.

I was not allowed to leave hospital incase i bled to death the second time i was admitted. That was the consultants words when i asked to go home and i wasn't allowed until i had had surgical removal.

I had alread had manual removal two days before and a failed medical management.

If you feel something is not right just ring the epu. That's what they are there for.

As someone else said, if i were to suffer an mmc again i would go straight for erpc.

Sorry i only added this as i spent three hours haemorraging on the toilet at home due to bad advice about how much blood is normal.

[jinglebellmel]

Oh god, waiting for this at the moment after a mmc at 10 weeks. Have been having some mild cramping and light bleeding, thought I might be nearly done! 😮

[Hayhay123]

I've just googled this as I am currently going through this so glad to find this thread.
I started miscarrying on Friday at 8+2 weeks (bad stomach pain and brown stringy blood when I wiped)
Then Saturday bright red blood later followed by clots the size of a 50pence. I rang the hospital midwife dep who just said "ring the out of hours doctors" (no sympathy)
I rang them and was told unless I needed an emergency nurse to come round I needed to ring 111. Couldn't get through to them so
Rang on Sunday. They asked if I was in a lot of pain (no) or that the blood was enough to fill a mug within 10 minutes (no) so was told to just let it happen and ring again of it got worse.
Now today (Monday) I've just been to the lol to find a huge clot (looked like a small lung) in my pants and a lot of blood.
I don't feel ringing them would do much, unfortunately I'm home alone with 2 kids who don't know so can't go off to hospital, and tomorrow I'm at an important all day meeting at work which I cannot get out of (I cannot tell them what's happened to me)
Has anyone had a miscarriage and done it WITHOUT seeing any medical proffesional? Should I expect more clots and more blood?
Not a nice experience xx

[gingerbreadmanm]

I think lots of people miscarry without any intervention. I guess trust yourself to know when something feels wrong.

With mine i was literally sat on the loo peeing blood for 3 hours and getting gushes with every contraction, every 2 mins or so. That was with retained products though. The hospital make it sound like you should be fine with maternity lads but you will have the pass the sac and its contents at some point.

Although my contractions were painful, as i hadnt had a baby before i didnt know what they were. They were manageable though infact i dont think i had painkillers.

When i had a real, induced labour with my ds who was stillborn at 27weeks i thought the contractions would be the same but it was only the very very early ones that were. I soon got a shock when they ramped up.

[anewbie86]

gingerbread - yes I agree and I absolutely should have made that point in my post...if the bleeding is very heavy then you should definitely seek help. What I was trying to say was that don't feel you have to go to hospital to have it if you want to try and be at home. I'm not sure if that came across or not I would also not want to be alone at all during the process itself for that very reason - if the bleeding gets worse you will need someone to call for help and get you there. Don't suffer alone just for the sake of coping by yourself.

jinglebell - I know it's easy to say but try not to worry (I have wanted to punch people who have said this to me before haha). I think it depends on so many things so you might be done but it's so hard to say...I don't think anyone would be able to tell you what is coming. But for me I found that the cramps got worse and that was the sign that the big event (for want of a better phrase) was on its way. I had worse cramps for maybe 36 hours before it actually passed, then afterwards the cramps died down so I knew the worst was over.

Hayhay - sounds like you've had a horrible experience with the professionals. So sorry they've been rubbish :-( I found I was kind of left to it as well and not really told what to expect at all, but I didn't call them while it was happening as I knew they wouldn't do much from speaking to others (unless I was passing out with the blood loss). I know this won't be what you want to hear but I really would try not to go into work tomorrow if you can avoid it. It's totally crap to miss things (I missed one of my best friends' wedding as I miscarried that day which was the worst possible timing) but you really need to take care of yourself as it's such a lot for your body to go through.

So sorry for you all going through this. We are miscarriage sisters

[gingerbreadmanm]

My hospital told me that once everything had gone the pains will stop immediately so maybe something to think about too?

I waited almost 10weeks really to mc naturally. I felt amazing after erpc and wished id had it done as soon as the mmc was discovered. The emotional trauma for me wasnt worth it.

[anewbie86]

That's so awful...I'm so sorry you had to go through that :-( I had a 3 week wait between finding out and miscarrying naturally so I can't imagine how much of an emotional trauma that must have been for you....just so horrible :-( xx

[rider1975]

I can't understand how you can bleed to death? I thought MC was the uterus shedding the little sac and its lining. Where does all the extra blood come from? (This might be a stupid question.)

[gingerbreadmanm]

Its likely traumatic any which way just the relief or the erpc made me realise how much it had affected me.

I have no idea. It was a post partum haemorrage. Something to do with the cervix staying open. I was made high risk for my next pregnancy because of it.