I had a missed miscarriage earlier in the year, the baby had died shortly after 12 weeks but it was picked up at just shy of 18 weeks. There are a few things that happened that I still feel so angry about and in order to move on I do feel like I want to put a complaint in about how I was treated by the hospital, it is an nhs hospital so I feel guilty doing so and obviously have strong emotions on everything that happened so I wanted an outside opinion on whether these complaints are valid
Admitted on a Friday evening, midwife had been unable to find heartbeat at home appointment day before and I had begun bleeding Friday evening. A scan was done at A&E on a small scanning device and no heartbeat was found. They would not confirm that the baby was dead until I had a proper ultrasound which took place Monday morning despite 3 small transportable device scans being done over the weekend and no heartbeats being found on them or doppler. They kept me in limbo over the weekend and I didn’t feel that was necessary after so much confirmation that there was no heartbeat. Also would of surely been obvious they were not looking at a baby of 18 weeks on all of these scans even if not a full ultrasound?
Despite the fact the entire weekend they would not confirm whether the baby was dead or not they left my notes in front of me and my husband read them and they had wrote that during a speculum they could smell decomposition. This made my husband cry and when I was asking what was wrong he took my notes away so I would not see. Not sure if can complain about this as perhaps he shouldn’t of read them but I do feel if they smelt decomposition I should of been told and it’s more reason they could of confirmed death a lot quicker
Once the baby had been confirmed dead on Monday the terminology very quickly changed to fetal remains when talking about my options and throughout the rest of my stay. This was a baby to me and very difficult to hear.
Once the baby had been confirmed on the ultrasound to of died shortly after 12 weeks they very much treated me like I had an early miscarriage and it felt almost forgotten that I was a women who was 18 weeks pregnant, my body had retained the pregnancy for over 5 weeks and my hormones had continued to be produced. Issues arising from this were that I was not prescriped any medication to stop my milk coming in, it was insisted it was impossible when the baby had died so early. Upon my own research it was definitely not and my milk very much came in and really made a horrible situation so much worse. It took a week to go away and was a painful and constant reminder of what had happened. Other ways in which I feel it was treated like a very early miscarriage as opposed to my experience of being nearly halfway through my pregnancy was the way the doctors spoke to me, about how it’s just one of those things and happens to 1 in 4 pregnancies etc. kept saying early miscarriage. Of course I understand now that technically maybe it was an ‘early miscarriage’ in reality but by experience it was a late loss and I do not feel the emotional impacts of this were considered either.
I had medical management and afterwards when they asked if I wanted to see the baby I was clear and said that yes I’d like to say goodbye but only if it isn’t going to be anymore traumatising, as I was in my head 18 weeks pregnant and it was a real baby to me and I knew what I would see wouldn’t be that but I didn’t know what a 12 week baby looked like and I only wanted to see if it looked like a baby. They said it did and he was shown to me. Unfortunately he didn’t at all, a crude description but he looked one of those toy gooey aliens and it broke my heart. I still have visions of him sometimes and find it very difficult. straight after seeing him I was sobbing that he wasn’t a baby, so why did I feel like I’d lost my baby. Again with time I of course understand he wasn’t technically a baby but a foetus and that perhaps my request of what I wanted to see was subjective. But I do wish I’d been told that it wouldn’t be what I thought. I would of preferred to remember him how he was in my head, a baby, as opposed to what I saw.
During the medical management I was warned I would feel some cramping like period pains, I feel I was drastically downplayed the reality, it felt like full blown labour and went on for 5 hours. I appreciate that the baby coming out wasn’t as painful as birth due to the size, but the contractions were just that, contractions and they were relentless and excruciating. The induction pessaries were rapidly put in and I wasn’t eased into it, it went from 0 to 100 very very quickly. I was heartbroken and in pain and just kept getting called a warrior by the midwives but felt really scared and unprepared
When I actually passed the baby he was obviously attached to the placenta which hadn’t come out, I was stood over the toilet and I could feel the fetus had come out and was lying against my thigh. It took the midwife 15 minutes to come and clamp and remove him from me. That felt absolutely traumatic and I feel like it should of been instant. We had to ask the health care assistant 5 times to go and get her and she kept saying she was doing controlled medicines stock or something. If she was with a patient perhaps I’d be more sympathetic but to leave me in that position for that reason didn’t feel fair
Discharged with zero aftercare, not told to take a pregnancy test which would of made my retained tissue problems be dealt with weeks quicker, told I’d hear from a bereavement midwife and never did, really was just left to it with no support
was told post mortem results would take 18 weeks but chased up a couple of weeks ago and was told I can expect a wait of atleast another 6 months