Missed Miscarriage at 20 week scan- any advice please

[WhyAlwaysBoris]

Hi everyone, i had my 20 week scan yesterday and they told me the baby had died. I have to go in on Thursday for them to start labour. I'm absolutely heartbroken.

Would appreciate any experience / advice about all the decisions i'm supposed to be making because i just can't think straight and don't know what to decide about any of it.

Is it a good idea to see the baby afterwards? /to have a postmortem? / to let the baby go to the communal cremation or to make other arrangments? or anything else you want to tell me......thanks

Hi, I am sorry you are going through this. I lost my son at this stage in May last year.

You will find that general the midwives are great. When you go in they will have to insert some tablets near your cervix and then throughout the day you will be given tablet to help get the labour going more. You can ask for pain relief and I did. It helped me to get through it.

They will offer to let you see the baby and it helped me and my husband to do this. In our case it was easy to see that he was a little boy, but I know in some other peoples case they have not been able to tell. They will take hand and foot prints for you. I am not sure if your baby has been asleep for a little while but if that is the case then s/he may be a little red from what I heard from other people who went through this. The decision to see him/her is up to you and you have to do what is right for you. They quite often take photos and these can be put in your medical notes for you to have a look at at a later date. We asked to see the photos first and then we saw how perfect he looked and saw him.

You will need maternity pads/super heavy flow sanitary. I got a friend to do this part for me. The bleeding is like a very heavy period and goes on for quite a few weeks. I also got given a tablet to help stop my milk from coming in.

I asked the hospital priest to come and do a blessing for our baby. Again this is a personal choice but it did help me feel that he had been recognised. This is because at this stage you do not get a birth certificate.

I opted for a post mortem and was told has the mum it had to be me who signed it. There are different levels that you can opt for e.g. an external exam and x-rays down to a "full" one. I opted for the full one. I have to warn you that it may not come back with an answer. Ours did not and for a while I was very angry that we did not know what had killed him.

I also signed up to the baby mailing preference service, this stops a lot but not all of the baby post from coming to you for one year and that did help.

I am not sure if this helps at all. I am so sorry that you are going through this. I remember this period has being one of my darkest times and there will be times over the next few days where you will not feel that you are able to do this. You are and gradually those dark periods become less.

my thoughts are with you

Hope you do not mind got a bit more to say.

For the hospital take spare change this will help with vending machines etc. You will find you are offered lots and lots of cups of tea and biscuits/toast. You may want to take some snack like things and a bottle of water/juice. It is an idea to take something in with you to distract you e.g. books/crosswords/puzzles-just because it can take a while. I also took some shower gel. The labour room where I was had an ensuite shower and I had a shower there after the delivery.

They will also give you a box. In this has things like the wrist band, they gave us the blanket that they wrapped him in and it had the photos and the hand and foot prints in. We bought a blanket that we wanted to go with him and I can't explain why we just felt that it was right a bit like he would not be alone. I am not entirely sure how to explain this.

In the case of the hospital I was at they organised an individual cremation after people were past 16 weeks. I think it did help us say goodbye to him.

So sorry for your loss xxx

so sorry for the loss of your baby! Like lemonsherbet I too lost my DD2 around the same gestation. Same at my 20 week scan there was no heartbeat and she only measured 16-17 weeks.

We didn't know whether DD2 was a girl or boy at the time of scan and delivery. Like lemon said she was too little to determine, although I had a suspicion. It was her post mortem that gave us the answers. She had a condition called triploidy, which is incompatible with life. She had an entire extra set of chromosomes. We did see her after delivering her and it was very peaceful, we also had her blessed by the hospital chaplain.
We decided to arrange our own funeral for her, as the hospital couldn't assure us of any ashes when they did a cremation and she would have been buried in a 'mass' grave with other babies. We felt that wasn't right for us, so had a church funeral and she is buried in her own little plot at our local church yard.

Lemon covered a lot in her reply, but please do ask any questions if you have them... would be very happy to answer them!

Thank you all for your replies
Lemon and Tinkerbell, so sorry to hear about the loss of your little ones, I really appreciate your very generous and detailed replies & it somehow helps to know more of what is coming.
If either of you could bear to think about it, I would like to know how long it took for labour and delivery- they have just told us to come in on thursday, & we'll leave the next day. Don't really know if this means a few hours or over 24. Maybe it is so varied they don't want to give more of an idea?

Hello, I'm very sorry for your loss.
I lost DS2 at 22 weeks, he was an inter uterine death also.
I had a tablet one day and returned two days later to have pessaries inserted to start labour. Whilst I was on the Labour ward it was in a room that was quite separate and accessed by the back door.
I went in at 09:00 and delivered at about 2pm. I asked to see my son and was pleased I had, they did give me some photos too. Your baby may well look darker than you would expect.
Labour was hard as there was nothing to look forward to but obviously I was happy to take any painkillers going.
Delivery was easy as the baby was so small. I was ready to go home very quickly and left that night though I could have stayed if I'd wanted to.

The biggest shock was my milk comng in, I'd fed DS1 for a year not long previously so it came in with a vengeance. I don't know if this is your first child.

I had DS buried with a beautiful service by our parish priest, his grave was a source of great comfort for a long time.

I hope you are being protected by t he same sense of numbness that I experienced.

Good luck x

just a quick one, before going off to bed! wishing you all the strength for the next few days!

I had a pill on a Friday morning and was asked to come in on Sunday morning to get things started with pessaries. I had very strong contractions all Sunday afternoon, was on morphine (which is very nice and I strongly recommend) the didn't want to examine me on Sunday evening due to risk of infections. Everything fell still that evening. When they checked early Monday morning what to do, DD was almost there, if they would have checked Sunday night she would have been born then (glad she didn't though as it was Father's day)
I went home the same evening to be with DD1.

You can ask a pill to stop your milk from coming in!

Thinking of you x

Oops tomorrow is Wednesday not Thursday! But thinking of you anyway! Hugs

This is what we did;

Took camera with us and took photos of baby. I spent a lot of time with her. DH did not feel able to. It helped me a lot.

We were able to tell our baby was a girl at 18 weeks. She was small though and only the size of my hand really.

You might want to take a little blanket with you for your baby.

The hospital chaplain came and gave us a lovely naming certificate before we left the hospital. Ask your mw if this can be arranged.

We had the communal cremation. I felt 'happy' with it. However, I think funeral directors do services for babies for free - I may be wrong. I now have my dd in a beautiful box in my wardrobe as I didn't like the idea of leaving her in the remberence garden.

Be warned not all crems produce ashes from a tiny baby. Only the ones that are turned off at night. They then put the babies in as it cools down and there are therefore some ashes left.

We opted for PM, but as expected it didn't offer us an explanation.

Within 4 hours of taking the first lot of tablets, my water's broke and I went into labour. I therefore did not have to wait the 24 hours for the actual indection.

Ask if the bereavement mw can offer you any counselling if you feel like you need it.

I am sorry for your loss. It is a difficult time for you and your family.

Oh yes and I strongly recommend the morphine.

Hi I am so very sorry for your loss :(

I lost 2 daughters at 20weeks and 23weeks (different pregnancies) and I have some regrets and some things I am glad I did-I don't think you can 'get it right' totally-you have to forgive yourself as I have for things I wish I could have done differently.

With 1st DD we knew she would be stillborn at just under 24 weeks. We knew she was poorly from the 20 week scan. I was glad to have as much morphine as possible and can still remember the birth. I was so scared to see her (not sure why-probably didn't want to face it) but as soon as we held her we knew it was the right thing. We have never regretted seeing her and also treasure photos we took. Although wish we hadn't used a flash on some of them as the light can be abit harsh on fragile skin. She had some lovely knitted clothes from the hospital. We chose to have no post mortem as we already knew there were genetic problems from the scan. I do now wish we had as sometimes wish we knew everything. We spent time with her and had a lovely funeral sorted out by the hospital and she is buried in a children's garden with other babies. We chose burial as cremation we weren't guarenteed ashes and burial just felt right for us. We did see her at the funeral home and placed things in her casket from our other children and ourselves, it is comforting to know she has those. We also treasure her memory box with hospital band, scan pics etc. The grief was a long road but we have learned to live with it and time helps.

With 2nd DD, I went into preterm labour just short of 21 weeks but it was too early for them to help her. This time we had a post mortem as there was no obvious cause. It wasn't that helpful to be honest but we would always wonder if we hadn't. We spent time with her although I wish we had taken more photos but we have some and a memory box again. We had a simelar small funeral and placed loving things in her casket. We are so glad we have a place to go to to visit and that there are other babies there too.

Both times I had tablet to stop the milk and it worked.

I hope it goes as gentle as is possible and thinking of you x

Forgot to add, I also recommend the chaplain and the blessing. So glad we had that both times.

our funeral director (Co-op) did our girl's funeral for free, we did pay for the casket, as we didn't want the standard white one they offered us.
Our hospital didn't offer a memory box, but I bought one myself to put all her things in.

boris just wanted to say will be thinking of you tomorrow. Jelly so sorry you have been through this twice.

Will be thinking of you too! X

thank you all so much, really appreciate everyone's advice. We still don't know what to do about seeing the baby, so will just have to go with what we feel like later today. Thanks for the advice about pain relief as I hadn't thought about it at all & I tend to generally be a bit of a martyr about things so have asked my DH to help me accept the help if it is there. Ditto the tablet to stop my milk coming in, really glad to know about this. So sorry you have all been through this before me

Thinking of you today x I too have been in your position and understand your pain and grief x

Thinking of you xxx

how are you doing? thinking of you! x

So sorry to hear about your loss, we lost our 4th baby at 19wks, at the time I didn't want to see him, but was advised to do so and I'm so glad we did. As for painkillers, go for it, the more the better, it just makes the whole experience more bearable. We didn't go for pm and again I'm happy with that decision. We wanted to donate the body to research, in the hope that our loss might save another, but this is not an option. Due to bad timing we had to wait 4 weeks for the cremation service as we'd just missed the cut off point, it hung over me and I really didn't want to go, but so glad that we did, it was reassuring and supportive to see others there that were in there same situation as us. The ashes were scattered in a communal rememberence garden, a very pretty little place with a bench and snowdrops at 'that time of year'. It's 5 years ago next month and I go and sit on the bench and have a little cry, he should've started school in Sept. I still miss him and wonder what would've been, but have got through it by having faith in mother nature, that, for whatever reason, it wasn't meant to be, there was something wrong, my body recognized that and did what needed to be done. I went on to have another little boy and my family is now complete, but he's always in my thoughts. The best advise I can give is to do what you feel to be right for you and your family, take some time to spend a day together, enjoy some family time, love and support. My thoughts are with you, it's a horrible thing to happen, but it really makes you appreciative of what you have got. Take care of yourself.