MmeLindt I'd love to see any campaign stepped up to be honest because it's still nowhere near well-handled in this country (it's one of the reasons I'm so open and outspoken - to fight the perception it's something that goes on behind closed doors that we don't talk about in case it upsets people). Going to sidetrack slightly here since my losses all occur at about the same point in the cycle in the first trimester.
The last one I lost was about 11 weeks by the time it was finally declared over, and, although the staff in the EPU were as kind and caring as it's possible to be - the EPU was shoved right in the far corner of the hospital. You had to walk past the shiny new refurbished maternity and ante-natal departments, down progressively more and more dingy corridors, till you got to the arse end of nowhere. It all spells out the impression that you don't matter - you're not going in their shiny happy corporate propaganda, you're a group they have to treat unwillingly.
Sat in the waiting area for scans - you can tell who's had what outcome. You watch them emerge from the scan room either clutching an envelope with a scan photo inside, or a leaflet on how to miscarry - I dubbed the machine and room The Sorting Dildo (from the lovely term dildocam which describes the internal scanner they tend to use in early pregnancy scans so well), because it did feel like a bizarre version of Harry Potter and you getting sorted into team envelope or team leaflet... how I longed to walk out of that room with an envelope.
If it's bad news, you get essentially abandoned, left to it for pushing a fortnight (at least in my PCT) while they leave you to cook in case things are just earlier than they thought - horrible how abandoned and alone you feel, wondering if you're going to start to lose or not - your whole life gets put on hold. In my last case I was very unlucky and had to do the two week wait twice since the first rescan showed a second sac, and possibly developments in the first sac - a whole month of limbo. No one contacts you, your GP by this time hasn't even been notified of what's going on - you're just left to it.
After I had surgery when they ruled the fight well and truly over (my poor body hung onto things like a trooper - I'm seriously proud of it for its efforts there), again, you're pretty much left to it. The only aftercare I've had has come from ME chasing - two months down the line, I still haven't restarted periods, no one's ever offered counselling or anything like that - quite simply, no one cares or has the resources to care. The comments on here when I mentioned how I'd felt daft, stupid or a fraud playing with the idea of being a mum and other people mentioned they thought it was only them who felt like that - they kind of show how alone you are after it all.
I'd LOVE the miscarriage campaign to be stepped up. I'd love some linked up system whereby the NHS manages to organize cancelling your midwife appointments when a loss is confirmed, I'd love for notifications of what's going on to be passed to GPs sooner - so you didn't have to go and explain it all to them without them having any idea you were no longer pregnant, I'd love just someone to phone or write and say, look support is here if you need it... anything other than being sent out of a manky room with a crappy leaflet and left to it alone. You have these women grieving for what is, essentially a bereavment of not only their child, but their entire view of the future of their life, with the natural hormonal issues and emotional turmoil of pregnancy - and there's no aftercare out there. You've got women who suffer retained tissue, infections, Ashermans and other complications - and no one bothers to diagnose or follow up on them unless THEY go along and shout and push for that help.
...and don't get me started on the fact they refer to the babies we lose at an early stage as "Products of Conception" and the surgical option with that delightful "Evacuation of Retained Products of Conception"... I've fought that particular battle all the way through my own saga!
I think the MN campaign concentrated a lot on the practicalities like scan access at weekends and the like - but the aftercare/follow-up issues need to be addressed too. We shouldn't HAVE to be sitting there trying to self-diagnose if not having a period for months is normal, or retained products, or ashermans - we shouldn't have to be peeing on pregnancy sticks for weeks to check if our system's returning to normal... you wouldn't leave a new mother without any after-birth support so why the chuffing hell is it ok for us?
Sorry - thread's probably moved on in the time I've typed all that and it's now irrelevant but it was in response to MmeLindt's post at 10.05.