2 doses of misoprostol and bleeding has stopped

[Cadmum]

20 week scan confirmed my fears. Baby died a week before the scan.

I was already spotting and my cervix was slightly open.

I was admitted 24 hours later because I wanted time to accept the diagnosis and allow my body to make progress on its own. 12 hours and 2 doses of misoprostol vaginally and, despite cramping and lower back pain, I am no longer bleeding. Not even a drop on the loo roll. Am I right to be worried?

I am in Thailand. Language barrier is huge. My temperature is slightly elevated so the nurse popped the thermometer under my arm instead and was happy with the reading of 37.4.

This is my third induction for missed miscarriage of similar gestation and the first went so quickly I did not have time to make it from consultant's office to the hospital. Second time was only a few hours as well.

Thank you if you have read this far. Bigger thank yous for any helpful advice. (it is 9:30 pm and dh needs to get back to our dcs but I feel irrationally afraid of being left alone...)

I am so sorry to hear your very sad situation. I too have just been through the same thing- my baby dies at 10 weeks and I gave birth to him 3 weeks ago :-( I am so devestated & so totally know how u r feeling.

How have things progressed for you now? have u given birth yet my love?? I went into labour 10 minutes after they put the tablets inside my cervix- but perhaps i was about to anyway & this just set it off?
this must be torture for you.

Thinking of you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Cadmum, hope things have progressed by now and you are recovering. I'm so very sorry for your loss. Please come back and talk if you want to.

Thank you for your posts.

I appreciate the offer to talk, literaryone. What follows is a bit of a novel...

jkb I am very sorry for your loss. How are you now?

I feel a bit like I have been run over by a train but I suspect that this is normal. Sometimes I feel ok and then without any notice I will fear tearful.

Basically, I stopped feeling certain movement on Friday 16 November, started spotting on Monday morning and had an ultrasound confirm that there was no heartbeat on Thursday (November 22).

I was admitted on Friday morning to be induced.

I never started bleeding as I expected I would. Cramping increased and waters went with no blood.

Baby girl, Rachel, was delivered at 11:22pm in Friday evening. I was alone in my room when the waters went, I rang the nurse but caught her myself before anyone arrived.

It was nice (well relatively) because it felt less clinical than I am sure it would have been. Dh was about 300 m down the road still. I had foolishly sent him off to be with the dcs because I felt that progress was too slow.

I was transferred to Labour and Delivery but the placenta was stubborn and after 3 hours, much bleeding, some pushing and some unauthorized pulling on the cord, I eventually needed an emergency D&C...

Once back in my room, I was too uncomfy to sleep. I was often asked if I had any pain to which I replied YES but was never offered medication. I am still not sure how to interpret that. I eventually asked directly and was told that the doctor would order me something--LATER... This ended up being antibiotics and a multivitamin at discharge?!?

I was tempted to take my own paracetamol but aware that this would mask a fever...

The midwife was lovely but the other nurses were scary or useless or both. The consultant was actually the Maternal Fetal Medicine specialist who did both of my scans and took pity on us because the consultant I had seen for previous antenatal checks is on holiday until January. Friday is usually his day off. He was truly an angel for not fobbing me off to explain my story to another unfamiliar doctor.

Throughout the process the language barrier was tricky but not as much as the cultural one. I underestimated this since we have been in South East Asia for 2 1/2 years.

I am back home now with boobs the size of cantaloupes wondering why I don't seem to be able to find any information on milk donation here. The consultant thought I was crazy for asking and told me to bind my breasts and not touch my nipples for a few weeks. Stellar advice for someone longing to have mastitis again but not so great for me.

The hospital helped to arrange a small funeral on Sunday which was both helpful and uncomfortable. Dh and I went on our own.

Sorry for have written a novel...

I'm so sorry, sweetheart. That must have been terrible. Not to write my own novel here, but I understand how you are feeling as I lost my little boy, my first child, at 19 weeks almost three months ago. jkb has also recently suffered a similar loss, so we do know.

These cultural barriers do exist. I live in Asia too (though this is my home) and things like milk donation and so on aren't even on the radar for the greater part. Postmortems on preterm infants are also not immediately suggested or offered -- I didn't even think of that until seeing online that they are offered in other countries.

I'm glad the hospital was at least good enough to arrange a funeral, even though it may have been very hard to be there. There is something about being able to give our children that dignity in death that any human being would get; it can be faintly comforting, though it doesn't fix anything, of course.

Wishing you strength and hoping you can all, as a family, grieve together. How old are your other kids?

I am sorry for your loss. It is so heartbreaking and it changes your view of everything, doesn't it?

I am very fortunate to have had 2 healthy children before our first loss (also a little boy at 19 weeks). I cannot imagine the pain coupled with the uncertainty of not knowing you will have another baby.

I have said before that I sometimes feel like a fraud on miscarriage support threads because we DO have four children and the implication is that maybe I should have cut my losses ages ago. Our extended family certainly feel this way so we did not even tell them about this pregnancy.

Our dcs are 15, 13, 10 and 6. It is only because they have brought us so much joy that we even dared to try again...

Thank you for understanding. Yes, one of the things I'm really struggling with now is the uncertainty about whether we'll be able to conceive again and about whether I'll ever have a healthy biological child. Adoption in my country is fairly simple and not expensive, so I know that is an option, and a highly ethical option at that. We had in fact decided that if we didn't conceive after a year of trying, we would go that route -- and I was very comfortable with it. But somehow, those 4.5 months of pregnancy released something in me (probably just hormones!) that make me want to biologically have a child before adopting another one.

Every child that is loved and wanted is a child that is grieved, whether you have other kids or not. Sure, you don't have the additional fear that a miscarriage in a first pregnancy brings, but you still have the loss of a dream of bringing another child into your family. So please don't feel like a fraud. Your loss is different but is just as painful as anyone else's.

I'm sure your kids will be a great comfort to you and your husband. They are all old enough to understand that you are grieving and to grieve themselves. Hold them close.

I was in Bangkok two weeks ago, wish I was there now and could come give you a hug.

xox

I hope that you are able to conceive again literaryone and more importantly carry the baby to term. I wish there were clear and obvious reasons for your stillbirth. I theorize that it would be easier to have a diagnosis but this is just a theory... Were you offered any testing?

Thanks for not making me feel like a fraud. I do think that I am fortunate to know that I have my children waiting back home regardless of the outcome on further pregnancies.

I wish I could offer you reassurance beyond platitudes. I DO know people who have had a stillbirth and gone on to have two other children but anecdotal evidence won't alter your personal chances, will they? I wish I could set back the clock to a time where I knew nothing of late miscarriages. I was so naive in my first pregnancies. I wish I could offer you the same...

I've been tested for a number of things but there were no results out of the ordinary. What happened is a mystery.

I know three people in real life who had second trimester losses, myself and two others with losses after 20 weeks. And one with a stillbirth in the third trimester. So I know how rare it is. Only the third trimester loss was explained. And these women all went on to have healthy children after that, six between the three of them, one when age wasn't in her favour at all. So anecdotally, I know there's hope. But being able to feel confident about it is something that has just been snatched away. We're anyway in the waiting period, during which we've been told not to try, so let's see how we feel afterwards.

Than you for your sympathy and your understanding at a time that is so very difficult for you. And please do come back if you feel you want to just vent.