No DC - Convinced of 6th MC. Handholding please...

[MsJL]

Hello there. I am currently 5+2. I had a tiny bit of spotting which I took for implantation bleeding and tried to keep calm in the middle of last week. For a whole week things were normal and I allowed myself to think that perhaps this would be our time after so much heartbreak. However, the last two days I've had tiny spots of slightly blood tinged discharge. Just now, I noticed a spot which was slightly more bloody. I don't think I can fool myself any longer. I'm dreading telling my DH as I just don't know how we're going to go through this again. It's like miscarriage groundhog day.

I know I could go for a scan but my experience is that I'd only have to wait another week for confirmation and it just adds to the stress. I have a totally unsympathetic work environment so that makes things more complicated in terms of appointments etc.

I am under the car of St. Marys - all tests come back normal and have been lucky enough to be tested for Killer Cells which again are normal.

My plan was to sit it out (unless it's very clear it's all over) and go for a scan on Monday 15th when I shall be 6+5. Although I've had pregnancies up to 8/9 weeks they've all stopped developing at 6+1, 6+2.

I can't quite believe I'm going through this again. At the risk of sounding incredibly self-indulgent, I hate my life right now.

LAF77 I will respond properly but I just wanted to send you loads of love. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time right now. I hope you're doing something nice this weekend. Take care. x

MsJL, good luck for monday, my thoughts will be with you, i have everything crossed for you. I had a d&c on tuesday myself. The doctor said to me that the reason people with recurrent miscarriages may not be successful in having children is because at some point they will stop trying. Some of the ladies on here are testament to the fact that if you keep going you will get there. The doctor said to me if couples keep trying at some point it will work, what cant be predicted is which pregnancy it will happen on. I know i have 2 kids already so have had some success but hersaying that made me feel that we just need to keep trying. Good for you prescribing yourself aspirin! If it cant cause harm why not. My consultant obstetrician was under extreme pressure from me to do something for me, anything, and he suggested aspirin and heparin (the fertility clinic added the rest), i had a baby with IUGR and pre-eclampsia with both of my dds so the aspirin is used for PE too. I am going to insist on steroids the next time too (i'll see how far my demands get me!), my obs is already saying he doesnt want 'to go down that road' but he is not my fertility dr so i will plead with her instead! The way i see it now is whether i have a diagnosis of an auto/alloimmune issue or not or anything else(i have never had a biopsy for killer cells/TEG), there is nothing to lose at this stage of the game!

MsJL, I have been wanting to post as I remembered it was your scan tomorrow. I just wanted to say good luck and I too will be keeping everything crossed for you. I really do hope it is good news.

I am pregnant for the 6th time (6 + 5) after 5MC's in 4 years. After the last one I didn't think my DH and I had the courage to try again but here we are. Desperately trying to stay positive and look forward. Everytime I go to the loo my husband has the look of fear in his eyes until I tell him everything is ok :), and when I call him I have to start with everything is okay before I talk. It is heartbreaking. I have been under the care of St Mary's now for 2 years. All tests have come back normal. The last 2 I was told to take aspirin and this time round not!?. I have my scan this Tuesday and am absolutely bricking it. I know I have drawn strength from the ladies on MN by reading about their stories of courage. Take care x

How did it go today MsJL ?

Firstly, I want to thank you all of you who have held my hand and supported me over the previous three weeks. You have been amazing and I thank you all for sharing your own sad stories whilst looking after me.

As I feared, it was bad news. The measurements were all as they should be and the sac regular but we had no heartbeat. I was 7+5 (in terms of precise dates) they put us at 7+3 and the sac measuring 8 - we'd only just lost 'it') The sonographer seemed genuinely sad and baffled for us and said 'It's all there, there's just no heartbeat.' We had the usual experience of sitting with people barely out of their teens wafting around their pictures of their second 'babies' (I know that is a really horrible thing to say but it was really hard) before I shuffled though the hospital to EPU. They managed to find a bed and I had my fifth ERPC yesterday. It was only 24 hours ago and I am now sat at my desk at work wondering why my DH and I have to keep going through this. I realise this is all incredibly self-pitying. I feel like an absolute fraud for feeling bloated, tired, vaguely nauseous. (I think a 'normal' person may not have even noticed what was just 4 days of slightly tinged discharge - I had no pain.) Yet it remains that yesterday I was pregnant and we had a shred of hope and now we're back to wondering how on earth things can change for us. Even though I thought the outcome could be the same I hoped against hope and really thought it might 'come good' this time. My DH said he thought it would be ok this time - that just breaks my heart.

BrownieGecko I hope there was good news for you today. please let me know how you got on. I just called St. Mary's to cancel my scan with them. How funny to think you were sitting in that miserable corridor whilst I was on the phone to them. Your comments about your DH really struck a cord with me.

Traceymac2 I hope you're taking things easy and I wish you all the best for a future successful pregnancy.

LAF77 if you want to scream and shout and rail against the world just come and find me! Am sending you love.

Oh MsJL I'm so sad to read this. I've been checking the website regularly hoping that I'd see a message from you saying the opposite of what you wrote. Are they going to run tests on the bean to see if they can find out if there was an abnormality?

I really don't know what to say other than I'm so sorry and I'm here to be a sounding post too. XXX

Thanks LAF77 I wished I was going to post telling you it was all ok! I had the ERPC for two reasons - I feel like we need to know if this one was chromosomally abnormal and my work are about the most unsupportive group of people you could imagine so I wouldn't have got away with managing it naturally. I have the weirdest feeling the test results will come back as normal this time but who knows. I don't know what I'd prefer really or where that leaves us.

Thinking of you. x

Oh MsJL I can't believe that you are actually at work today! You are not self-pitying at all, but I know what you mean about work and no sympathy. I've never told my boss or colleagues about what has happened because I'm concerned about getting marginalised for veering off the career path, so I've kept it quiet too and haven't taken a day off sick even when I've been miscarrying naturally.

Lots of love to you at this difficult time.

LAF77 you're clearly braver/madder than me. I mean that in the nicest way! I think it's one thing for me to rock up to work the day after an operation carried out at a weekend or on a day's holiday but I don't know how you got through 3 natural mc's without a day off. I really hope you don't have to endure such hideousness again. I think I've decided that will be my last ERPC - I can't keep putting my body through that.

Thanks for the good wishes StillSquiffy

MsJL I was so gutted for you when I read your post, I am very sorry this has happened again :(. It must be absolute torture having to go back to work and sit there and pretend as though nothing has happened. You are a very brave lady.

After our 5th mc, my DH and I decided that we needed to break the cycle as I just couldn't go back to work each time and pretend all was dandy so I applied for a 6 month sabbatical. I do know I am lucky that work are understanding and am incredibly grateful for that. Is that an option for you? You have both been through a tremendous amount of heartache and need time to grieve together.

I read your post on my way into my scan and burst out crying. Both of us were preparing ourselves for the worst but to our amazement we saw a little heartbeat. Both of us broke down, I have to say the guys at UDS are absolutely fantastic, we were in the room with her for ages. It is still very early days (6+6) so we are just trying to stay positive until the next scan in 2 weeks.

Part of me feels so bad posting to say our scan was ok as I know it must feel like getting to where you want to get to is so far away, all we can do is take one day at a time and draw strength from people who share their success stories and hope that one day that will be us.

Thinking for you x

BrownieGecko I am so touched by your empathy and send you and your DH much love. I hope this one continues to be a strong bean.

I do know what you're saying about a sabbatical. My working situation (and commute) is something I could change but I wonder whether that will make me feel more anxious. We gave ourselves a break after mc no.5 (early October '10) and took a three week holiday over Christmas and then I fell pg as soon as it was humanly possible to with very little effort (!!). There's something a bit sad about how easily we conceive when the outcome is never a good one.

Thank you for sharing your news from yesterday - I've been thinking about you and was hoping for some happiness.

What is UDS - am I being thick? x

MsJL thank you for thinking about us yesterday when you were going through something so painful. We are elated and petrified at the same time :)

I know what you mean about the it isn't difficult to get pregnant as I know so many women struggle with that too, but trying to get it to stick is the tough bit for us. I very rarely get angry but the one comment that will send me loopy is what many have said to me and a friend said recently "You are so lucky you cow, at least you can get pregnant". Needless to say there was a stunned silence from me and then the Medusa look, followed by...well, I don't really feel that lucky to be honest!

I have to say taking time out from work and the commute was definitely the right thing for us. I was averaging 10-12 hour days in the office on top of my 90 min commute so I was a tad stressed and not in the right frame of mind to try to get pregnant again. I wanted to try again and feel in control of things and break the cycle of going back to work and trying to be "normal". No one can expect you to or judge you for deciding to take a break after what you have been through. Have you and your DH seen a councellor before, I can't remember if you said you had, sorry? I only ask as it was one of the best things we decided to do, even my husband has turned up to every session over the last 2 years as he has got a lot out of it. I can highly recommend our one, she is based in Kings X and is fab. Let me know and I can give you the details.

UDS is Ultrasound Diagnosic Services where Prof Regan always sends me for scans.

Thank you for all this BrownieGecko. My friends who experienced problems conceiving all have children now - I know it's not a competition but there's not much to be said for being pg when you never have a 'live take home baby'.

I know you're right about work but if I took a sabbatical that would mean giving my career up. Whilst having a family is more important to me than any job I worry about giving it all up and then having no children. It's not easy. I have never been offered counselling by any of the health professionals in my life over the last two and a bit years. When I asked to be referred by my GP I wasn't deemed 'suitable' by one service and was considered too 'normal' by the in-house team. Would you PM me the details of your person?

Do you see LR privately then? Do you only see her? If I'm honest I'm not feeling terribly well supported by her and am wondering if I can switch to someone else.

MsJL I hope that you have had not too much stress from work today. I'm very interested in what you have written about LR. She is the name that everyone knows, but I've had my suspicions that as she is such a well-known researcher in the field, she may not be the best person to actually see. Sometimes, they are better at the research than actually working with patients.

I read your posts and think that they are my thoughts. I would give up my career to have children, but if I gave up my job right now, I'd have nothing. Being busy at work helps manage the pain. If I didn't have that, I don't know what I'd be like. I probably would be in bed all day. So maybe I am crazy to be working whilst I've been miscarrying. The worst was probably the first one. I lost it on a Friday morning at about 7AM. I cried my eyes out for a few hours and then I went on a conference call at 9AM and had to pretend that I cared about the numbers on the spreadsheet. I have some flexibility in my job where I can work from home without having to explain myself. On the second one, I lost it on Sunday and was in the office on Monday and had to go through all the small talk about whether or not I had a nice weekend. I'll never forget all of the little details. They are burned into my mind.

Some people have told me in RL that maybe I have too much stress in my life from my job or I was travelling too much for work and that's why I miscarried. I know that is absolute tosh. There are plenty of people who have more stress at work or travel much more than I do and they go on to have normal pregnancies. I don't want to get into debates with people who have never had a miscarriage, so I thank them for their concern and never speak about it again.

xx

LAF77 work's fine really. It's just hard to care quite so much when something like this happens. I know what you mean about all the small talk and how inane it feels. On top of that my boss said some really hideous things when I had mc no.1 which I don't think I'll ever get over. I work in a small company and have never asked for any allowances to be made. I feel so unsupported and really didn't want them to know about a further mc this time around. I'm feeling weirdly ok at the moment but I know I'm due a crash.

The whole work/less work thing is a really difficult thing to quantify. There are women in third world countries and war-zones who have healthy babies and we're so lucky whatever our working day or commutes. I think if it's going to stick, it's going to stick. I'd do anything I could to have a viable pregnancy but I'm not sure that laying in bed all day is going to help me. I feel like you're having a really tough time at the moment. Have you ever been offered counselling? It's a really horrible and stressful thing we're going through and so few people have any real understanding of all it's effects. Take care. xx

Hi MsJL, so sorry not getting back to you with details of councellor yet. I will PM you as soon as I am back home tmrw as I don't have the details with me.

Stay strong x

MsJL I am so very sorry to read that you are going through this again. I too had been following this thread and hoping for good news.

I have had 4 miscarriages, the first was a mmc at what should have been 10 weeks, little one hadn't made it past 6+5. Then I had 3 natural mc all at around the same time, never having seen a heartbeat. We also found it very 'easy' to get pregnant which I found really tough, given that I always thought that would be the difficult bit!

We had tests following our fourth loss, all coming back normal. Whilst waiting for a referral for the next phase of tests, we felt strong enough to try again. And as I type this, I am 27+6 weeks along our journey and our little one is squirming away as I have just eaten my breakfast.

I know how hard it is to keep going, and I know the light at the end of the tunnel can seem so very far away at times. I just wanted to offer some hope, some encouragement, lots of love to you. We did nothing different but some far everything is turning out to be different!

Take care of yourself and do whatever you need to grieve and heal. It can happen xx

couldthisbeit thanks for taking the time to message. I'm really sad at all the heartache you've been through. How wonderful that you are well and thriving now. I wish you all the best over the coming weeks and months (and years!).

People like you have been a massive support and I do know that things 'just change' for some people but it's hard to hold on to that hope after 6 losses and my advancing years (!). I know people have been through far worse so shouldn't naval gaze too much.

I'm feeling a bit down today and I know worse is to follow - but I have to keep looking for the light.

xx

Hello there. Just posting to no-one in particular. So two weeks after my ERPC and I'm still bleeding. I feel pretty gross and unattractive and sad. I actually feel like my heart hurts. Yesterday was REALLY hard. I took my mum out for brunch and then was near a lovely seaside town resplendent with lots of happy Mum's and Dad's with children, buggys and bumps galore. It was impossible not to think 'I should be a mother now, with an 18 month old or a year old or.......'. I know nobody's life is perfect and all these people will have their own stresses and sadness. We just so want to be parents - we reckon we'd be pretty nice ones too.

I went to bed for an hour and half in the middle of the day and cried.

Hello MsJL. I have been following your story as I had a mc around the same time. Sorry you are still really bleeding and also feeling miserable. I thought I would reply as a few of us who have also mc'd in the last few weeks are chatting lots on a thread called How Are You Feeling After MC? so do come and join us. It's really good to be able to compare feelings - physical and emotional and just to chat.

Emotionally I think I am getting a lot better but I still find myself like you looking at the buggies and babies. I have never been especially fond of children in general (I don't mean I don't like them, just I have to get to know them!) but I feel a physical pull now when I look at babies. All very strange.

It's ok to cry and also go to bed and hide away. I hope you start to feel a bit better soon and am sure one day you WILL be a lovely mummy xx