I had a medical (not surgical) termination at 8 weeks in mid January in hospital and having passed there and then the requisite amount of tissue etc to be allowed to go home, considered the matter closed. As you do. Completely expected to have post termination bleeding for a while afterwards and was told by hospital staff that if I passed "anything larger than a satsuma" in the next two weeks then I was to go back as there may be an infection. Was told that should all be fine after two/three weeks.
For the next three weeks I had some general bleeding but nothing more than what I would call a slightly heavy period but which also by the end of three weeks had pretty much tapered off to nothing. No clots, nothing concerning, no "satsumas", no pain, no flooding etc.
After a few days of nothing at all, all of a sudden when out and about in a restaurant one lunchtime (abroad, no less), I feel a leakage and thinking I've just peed myself, try to hold it in but can't. I get to the loo and discover that my trousers are dripping fresh red blood and there are some clots (walnut sized, not yet a satsuma...) on their way out. Cleaned myself up as much as possible but over the next hour, I collapsed in the restaurant and bled out a huge amount of blood and some very large clots (baking potato, not satsuma). I was taken to local hospital where - so I was told as I was so out of it by this time - I effectively gave birth to a cabbage sized placenta. This would have been 12 weeks.
The local hospital staff were horrified to hear that I had not been scanned after the termination by my own hospital in January. Despite a slight language barrier, my understanding is that their view was that the termination had only partially worked and that whilst the pregnancy had finished, it had not all made its way out.
They also told me that as there was so much 'retained matter' (lovely phrase) the body had effectively been fooled into thinking I was still pregnant and therefore kept producing placenta etc which is why there was so much which came out. These doctors classified it a "miscarriage and haemorrhage" rather than "post termination haemorrhage" as apparently there was so much tissue etc that it pretty much constituted a miscarriage rather than anything post intervention, iyswim.
I had surgery in that hospital to remove every last bit and was discharged the next day. Am still finding myself revisiting the restaurant scenario as it was pretty traumatic.
Can anyone with some professional knowledge shed some light and/or perspective on this for me please, if only to put my mind at rest? Did my UK hospital make a mistake by not scanning me? I know this sounds crazy but is it really possible that the termination only partially worked but then nature took its own course with whatever was left? Why would I have such a large placenta and so much blood loss if the pregnancy had been terminated 4 weeks previously? Is there actually quite a lot of matter and tissue even at 8 weeks or could this be extra stuff which had developed in the intervening 4 weeks?
My GP is writing to the UK hospital concerned and I'm going through PALS to express concerns, but my mind is all a bit of a mess at the moment about it all. The only thing which is keeping me sane when I have visions of the blood and the huge clots and flashes back to contractions and blood gushes on the floor of the restaurant is that at least I had decided to end this pregnancy myself and that at least it wasn't a situation in which I was expecting a live baby later in the summer.
If you can help then I'd be most grateful. As you can see from the time I'm writing this, it's something that does keep my thoughts busy in the small hours.