12 week scan yesterday... devastated. Any advice welcome.

[WickedWitchOfTheWest83]

Hi,

So yesterday (Friday) morning my husband and I skipped off to the hospital for our 12 week scan, both very excited to see our very much wanted 2nd baby.

An hour later, after hearing the heartbeat and watching the sonographer struggle because the baby was moving around so much (which my husband and I were laughing at because we thought it was so cute!), we were ushered into a private waiting room and told our baby’s NT is measuring at 6.3mm and there seemed to be a bit of fluid around the head too. I was hysterical and my husband was barely holding it together.

They took my bloods and couriered them off to be processed as quickly as possible and booked me in to see the consultant for another scan and CVS on monday. So we are waiting all weekend unable to function at all!

The foetal medicine nurse/midwife who was in the room with us at the hospital, trying to reassure but also prepare us and explain everything to us as best she could, called yesterday afternoon with the results...

1:146 risk of Downs.
1:9 risk of Patau’s Syndrome.
1:9 risk of Edwards syndrome.
Hormones are very low too - 2 particular pregnancy hormones that I don’t remember the names of.

So all is still going ahead on Monday with the scan and CVS. The consultant isn’t actually working on the ward that day but she is going to be in the hospital and has promised to come to the ward just for me.

We are in pieces. I can’t believe this is happening to us! This sort of thing is the kind of thing you read about but never think it would happen to you. Not really. I’m 34, my husband is 38. That’s not really old, is it? My husband and I just keep taking it in turns to be the strong one and hold the other while we cry. It’s mostly me crying, but he is just as devastated. We have to get through the next few days of tests, results and decisions and I’m not sure how to do it.

I keep scanning the internet and these threads looking for good news - women who have had the same experience but had healthy babies. We wouldn’t continue with the pregnancy if we didn’t think the baby was going to have the best quality of life, but we are trying to not go down that road yet - we want it to all have been a mistake on the doctors part.

I’m not sure what I am asking, but please post whatever replies you think might help.

So sorry to hear that Op - so cruel, there are no words

Really sorry to read this devastating news. 💐

Also thinking of you x

So sorry

Thinking of you today OP.

I'm so sorry op.

I know it doesn't feel like it now but you will cope , you will get through this. Stay close to your partner and keep talking.

Oh you poor girl. I’m so so so sorry for you all.
We lost our baby girl last year to Edwards. We got our diagnosis at 17 weeks and had a TFMR Done medically as I couldn’t face the idea of delivering her. It was the right decision for us. As has been mentioned ARC were incredibly helpful and just listened to me trying to process it all on the phone to them. Give them a ring should you need to.
Grieve and hold each other close. The next few days and weeks will pass as a blur and it’s awful. The waiting for whatever is to happen. Just horrid.
Do look after yourselves as much as you can and take some time to process what’s happened to you.
We planted a tree in the national forest for our little girl so that there will always be something positive and beautiful in the world in her name. We also gave her the middle name Rose so that we could have her around and smile. It was and is important to me that we speak of her - it’s just how I chose to cope with it but do remember there is no right or wrong way to deal with this.

Ask as many questions as you need to of the hospital.
So much love to you. X

Thinking of you today xxx

KTD27

A lovely post. Sorry for your loss

so sorry.

@wicked I hope you are ok. I said I’d update you on our results (1:5 down’s risk plus heart defect). We got a call last night to say the baby does have downs, confirmed by CVS, and we have chosen not to continue. I’m waiting to hear how quickly they can book me in for a surgical termination. I may need to go to a Marie Stopes type clinic as the current wait at my hospital is 3 weeks, and we can’t face that.

So I guess I just wanted to say that you’re not alone, and that in some small way I understand the heartbreak. Thank you to those on the thread who’ve also shared their decisions - @KTD27 I particularly found your story helpful. I guess this situation is more common than we realise as it’s not talked about.

So - sending love and

Hi all and especially @wickedwitchofthewest83. I am coming on to say I am so sorry for you and for everybody who has come on here with similar stories. It is truly horrific and you have every ounce of my sympathy.

I have been through this twice (wickedwitch - don't let this suggest that this will happen to you again, I am much older than you and my issues were entirely age-related. So you have been incredibly unlucky given your age, and I on the other hand just didn't get lucky given my age, if you see what I mean).

I want you to know that you will survive this and you will be happy again, I promise. All pregnancy loss is awful, but I think this kind of diagnosis is a specific type of trauma for all sorts of reasons, as you will already know. I know I felt utterly traumatized by it, but shut down in the immediate aftermath, I guess as a coping mechanism. It has taken a good while to work through the feelings of grief, regret and loss, and the wish for what could have been. I am getting there though and you will too. I do recommend counselling when you feel up to it. It took everything I had to be a good mother to my two living children while also finding a place to grieve for the babies I lost.

One thing that I gradually realized and found comforting is that we are truly not alone. There are thousands of us out there who have experienced this but it really is not discussed and that can feel very isolating. I have never felt as lonely as I have done since all this happened, despite having a loving and supportive family.

Please know that there is an invisible army of women (and men!) out there who have been through the same, putting their arms around you and wishing you well. Get through the coming days and weeks any way you can and keep talking on here and on the ARC forum if it helps. Sending love and support. xxxx

I'm so very sorry to hear this sad news. Thinking of you today and wishing you strength.

@Nightmanagerfan
I’m sorry.
Just to say I had to go to Marie Stopes for my tfmr as I was 14 weeks but wanted surgical management and that was the only option.
It wasn’t a bad experience- 2 things to be aware of.
Scum of the earth protesters outside. -Ignore.
There is a point they separate you from your DH. This is so that women aren’t pressured into termination against their will but in the situation where you are having to terminate a much wanted baby it’s hard to be parted from your DH- mine was my rock. It was awful for him too, he sat in the car and cried.
When you come round the recovery room is communal- that’s pretty awful too if you’re upset.

I’m so sorry

@chrisinthemorning thank you very much for this. Amazingly my hospital had a cancellation and I'm going in tomorrow. (And v. low chance of protestors.) They did tell DH he'd have to wait outside, so that explains why. Good to know re: recovery too. I'm going to try to just get through it as best I can and then go home and cry. So sad you had to go through this too.

I’m so sorry OP and everyone going through this

So sorry op and all of the others here having such heartbreaking experiences xx

I just wanted to say to OP and others on here going through similar that I'm so sorry and I'm thinking about you. I lost my precious third baby 3 years ago after CVS pointed to a poor prognosis. My baby then died at 16 weeks and I had medical management . Some of what you are going through will be similar, some different but I know some of the hell you are going through and my heart goes out to you.

Good luck today Nightmanagerfan

Today isn’t a good day for me. By the time I went to bed yesterday I felt “normal” which only made me feel guilty. I woke up feeling very “normal” but even that kind of normal is so weird that it’s hard to explain. Again, I felt guilty. Then I went and picked up my little boy from my mother’s (he stayed there last night) and he is covered in chicken pox. Which only added to my guilt.

I brought him home and my husband was doing work at the kitchen table whilst watching snooker (he’s a fireman, so isn’t on duty until Sunday - but taking it off until Monday for obvious reasons) and I had to drag a “hello” out of him for both me and my son. I asked if everything was ok or if anything had happened and he said no but that that he was just likely feeling the same as me. He keeps saying that - that we are both feeling the same.

A very short time after, he asked if I was ok and I shrugged and he said “it’s ok, I know how you are feeling - it’s happening to both of us, I’m feeling it too”. It was in a nice tone but I snapped.

While I get that this is his baby too, he did not have SEVERE morning sickness for weeks and weeks. He doesn’t feel this little baby kicking around like I do - it’s little flutters, but I know what it feels like and I can FEEL our baby inside of me. His breasts aren’t tingling. His nipples haven’t got larger. His hormones aren’t all over the place. He wasn’t put on anti depressants a couple of weeks ago because he was diagnosed with prenatal depression. He hasn’t not slept since week 3 because his bladder has been making him go to the toilet up to 10 times through the night. HE didn’t take a hormone tablet yesterday that is killing off his pregnancy and HE ISNT GOING TO BE PUSHING THIS BABY THROUGH HIS VAGINA TOMORROW!!!!!

I am! I am giving birth to our little girl tomorrow at nearly 14 weeks. I am physically going through all of this. We are both emotionally going through a lot but he can’t say it is the same. It isn’t. It isn’t a competition either, but it isn’t the same!

Plus it is my mum’s birthday tomorrow. While I’m being induced and giving birth to our daughter so that this pregnancy is terminated, it will be my mother’s birthday.

I feel like a terrible mother right now in every respect because I don’t feel like I’ve been there for my DS and now I haven’t protected my DD and am going to be killing her. I know I have no other option, for her sake and for our whole family’s sake, and I don’t regret what I am doing, but it is still so fucked up and not what I dreamed of when I found out I was pregnant 3 months ago.

I just feel shit. Tired, shit and I can feel the baby kicking right now. And my husband has retreated into himself and gone upstairs to sulk and I’m left downstairs to look after my 2 yr old with chicken pox all over him and toddler tantrums.

Just needed to rant.

Oh Wicked

Of course it is not 'the same' for the two of you. It is however a terrible loss to both of you - I wish he could have chosen his words better.
You are carrying this baby, you are feeling protective towards your baby, you will have to deliver your baby, your body will have to deal with all of that; his won't.
You are grieving for the loss of what could have been and that is so, so hard

Anger is a very common and valid expression of grief and of course there is nobody/nothing obvious to direct it at, so many couples in your position express their anger and the whole fucking unfairness of it all at their partners.

I am so so sorry you are forced to deal with this.
I know none of this helps just now but I am going to write it anyway: you have nothing to feel guilty about, neither you nor your DH caused this to happen, nature can be a right bitch when it comes to events like this (or rather nature is totally uncaring and random).

Rant and rave, cry or not, feel normal or not - there is no right or wrong way to feel right now.

If you and your DH can lean on each other rather than make anger an escape route for your grief all the better - if you cannot manage that just now, so be it.

Hugs to you x.

Really sorry to read this wicked what a horrible thing.

Last March i lost a baby to triploidy at 14+2 fortunately my baby girls heartbeat stopped on its own and i was able to have an erpc so avoided the induction route (previous stillborn was induced so i know how you must be feeling).

I hope tomorrow goes as well as can be. So sorry for your loss.

I am so sorry for your loss OP. I hope everything goes as well as can be expected. I am in absolute awe of the wonderful women sharing their experiences on this thread - it's incredibly giving.

wicked and the other posters on here who have had losses. Life can be terribly shit at times

I am so sorry for you, not in a patronising way, just in a really sorry and sad for you.