emotions after miscarriage

[Mrsm14]

Hi all,

I wanted to start this thread as I had read some similar earlier threads from lovely mumsnetters, but they were from several years ago and aren't active now. I have found I am feeling pretty overwhelmed at times, so I wondered if anyone else out there is feeling the same and could do with a sounding board / some hand holding.

We had been trying for about 8 months for our first baby and I had a miscarriage nearly 5 weeks ago while on holiday, at 8-9 weeks. I had an ERPC on holiday, then flew home. Since then I have had two courses of antibiotics for suspected infection (it wasn't in the end), additional scan and blood tests because of suspected remaining product (there weren't any) and 2 weeks of thrush, which finally went this weekend. I went back to work 2 weeks after the miscarriage and on the whole, I think things have been getting better, although it's been very up and down with emotions. Then for the last few days - I think since I got my first period on Saturday actually - I have felt this constant sadness. I initially felt relieved, maybe even a bit happy to have my period, but then I crashed and have felt crappy ever since. It's there when I wake up and it's there pretty much all day. I feel tired and lethargic and everything feels a little bit empty / without meaning in a way. I feel like I should be feeling better by now and am really upset by how hard it has hit me. I want to feel stronger and ready to try again but I'm not sure if I am. I am terrified I am getting depressed - I had problems last year with anxiety and depression - and that I will be told I need drugs, which I don't want. Some days I feel like I have just totally lost the plot! I just want someone to fix everything really. God that is a right old whinge, sorry.

I think it's all just really lonely and it might help to have a live thread for people who are a few days/weeks/months on, to share how they are feeling. Alternatively, everyone else may well be doing fine and I am a big old whining mess (sob)

E x

[Gr33dyeggs]

And today I just feel empty.

[Gr33dyeggs]

Sorry to see you're down again mrsm. I can only say that what you're feeling is normal and significant dates will understandably be hard. Speaking to others the pain lessens with time and with your next pregnancy. Fingers crossed for next month for you. Xx

[Gr33dyeggs]

Hi. This thread is just what I need right now. I'm sat here tears rolling down my face after having confirmation I've miscarried at 11 weeks. I just feel sad and dejected. This is my/our second miscarriage, first 6 yrs ago at 9 weeks and I have a 5 yr old in between. What I am struggling with is they wouldn't scan me when I had pink spotting last week or when red blood at weekend. The earliest was today (Wednesday) by which time I'd miscarried naturally at home, like b4 which I didn't want. But although I knew I was pregnant and had positive test and lots of symptoms and even a bump, theres no medical evidence 'baby' existed. Gutted.

[Mrsm14]

We've also finally started ttc again and it didn't work this month, which has probably also made me feel a bit rubbish!

[Mrsm14]

hi ladies, how are you all? I have been much better generally, but have found that with Christmas approaching, I am feeling really upset all over again and have cried several times in the last week, after not crying for weeks before this. Our baby also would've been due in January, so perhaps that is coming into it too. I just keep thinking how this christmas was supposed to be different - we thought it would be our last as just a couple and were so excited about our new family unit. Is anyone else finding the approach to christmas tricky?

[BB01]

Hey all, I'm so sorry to hear of everyone's difficult times but it's reassuring to know I'm not alone. Found out on Saturday at a ten-week scan that the sac had not developed beyond five or six weeks. I had my suspicions as my symptoms had mostly subsided and just didn't feel pregnant any more plus bleeding on and off. I feel like I'm on a roller coaster of emotions

[Dottymum81]

Hi - I was due to have my first midwife appointment tomorrow but sadly I started spotting Sunday night and it all went wrong very quickly although I am waiting on blood results to confirm. When it initially happened it was sheer panic and sobbing but since then I have found myself feeling pretty numb about it during the day and not really wanting to talk about it as I just can't bear to hear peoples attempts to make me feel better and sympathy makes me feel even worse. But now I find myself in bed quietly crying whilst my husbands sleeps feeling so confused and worried about my little raspberry I don't believe in god but I have convinced myself that the poor thing is lost in limbo I think the root of it is that I'm pretty sure it went down the hospital loo and I feel that I completely abandoned it.


I am lucky to have a DD who is helping more than anything else. My heart goes out to anyone experiencing this loss x

[impatientlywaiting14]

Hi there, I posted on the miscarriage talk board recently after having some really low days. The ladies have been so supportive and its really helped. This thread was recommended to me. I thought i would post to try and reanimate this thread to see how you are all doing in your individual journeys and offer support like I have been shown xxx to all

[LadesC]

Hi all. Just been reading through some of the posts. Sorry to all who are having a crappy time. Im feeling very raw at the moment.....started spotting on Thurs at 10 weeks ... scan showes tiny nonviable fetal pole. Passed sac last nite at home. Now the physical pain is easing I feel terribly sad....im nearly 38 and have no children having met my partner quite late. We have had 2 miscarriages in 5 months and Im already losing hope although I know many people go through much tougher journeys than this. My job in healthcare deals with pregnancy and Im dreading going back. Feel such a let down to my partner who is being great but is so upset. Sorry to vent....just havin a low moment

[Mrsm14]

welcome to the newbies and sorry you are also having a tough time. seasavage I think miscarriage is an incredibly lonely thing to go through and I have guilt that I have not given my husband any children yet - which I know is silly, ad he doesn't blame me, but there it is. It's hard trying to get back to being just us, and being happy with that, so you are not along with those kinds of feelings.

greatbig I initially had 2 weeks off after my erpc (although during that time I was being treated for a suspected infection and then had the worst thrush ever for 2 weeks too!) I think I then had about 4 weeks where I was working flat out, going out drinking, shopping, seeing friends etc and then just completely crashed and it was like it all finally hit me, emotionally. Was such a shock to the system. I have now started some counselling and apparently 'delayed grief' is quite common. I had to have another couple of weeks off work as I was just in bits, and am now doing a phased return. I think I just threw myself back into things way too hard initially and didn't realise it might take so long to deal with everything - so if you can ease up and you feel stressed, I would recommend that. You burn out a lot quicker when you are physically and emotionally drained and I think that is what miscarriage does to you.

Hi Tori and small, nice to see you guys here again! I found out last week that my only real friend in the city (we moved here last year) is pregnant and due around when I was. Haven't seen her for weeks and I imagine that's because she was putting off telling me. I am now sort of dreading it, much as I miss her, but luckily she has been understanding about it. We had talked about how great it would be to get pregnant at the same time though and it really hurts that she gets her baby and I lost mine. I went to the park last week with a girl I know and her 2 year old and just sobbed when I got home, after spending 2 hours in a playground with her and a load of babies and pregnant women. I can't believe I am nearly 3 months on from my miscarriage and it is still so painful. It just all sucks!!

[thesmallbear]

Hello ladies, how are we all doing? I wasn't going to post on this thread until I had my broadband sorted (house move) but feel like I need to offload today so posting via phone.

The pregnant woman at work came up to me today & told me she had seen some bright red blood when she wiped. I felt so shit for her and obviously it brought everything back for me. I am really rooting for her and gave her the best advice I could. I told her bleeding in pregnancy is v common & might not mean anything, but she knows what happened to me so is obviously shitting herself.

Then when I got home I went on Facebook and my best friend, who gave birth literally 2 days after I lost my baby, had written a status about how she was enjoying the sunshine with 'her little man' and what a 'perfect life' and it just made me feel so shit!

It's like I am a contradiction of emotions. It's like the miscarriage has made the 'surface' me bitter & twisted and jealous of people's happiness. But then when there is a risk of something bad happening to that person or their pregnant the real 'deep down' me comes back and wants well for that person.

I have waffled! I hope I have made some sense and someone can relate to this!

Tori I have noticed you are trying again and I just wanted to say that I wish you all the luck in the world!

[seasavage]

Hello all. Many thoughts to you all for your journeys and losses. I have unfortunately had my second (and consecutive the lmp date for pregnancy 2 was miscarriage 1) miscarriage this year. I have spent the last 3+ weeks being a wreck (this one was a mmc which must have occured days after the reassurance scan where all was fine. I opted for a d and c, so I actually miscarried a week and a bit later. I picked up a UTI in hospital for the d and c. I am still ill the UTI won't go and I am still bleeding.
I am so sure that this is it. My body doesn't work now (I had 2 children 8 and 6 years ago). I am a month off the age my mum had menopause. The doctor has told me to try it again. My husband so wants a baby. Everyday I have to find a reason to hide so I can cry. I can't do it. My body just wont. I know how heartbreaking this all is for him and I feel so guilty and useless. A lot of criticism has come at me (I'm too fat, too old, don't eat such and such diet, don't jog, don't whatever the latest 'health craze' is). So we haven't even told parents or most friends about this second miscarriage. I try to keep it together as my husband is really worried about how badly I feel. But I am stuck. The only friend who knows has her own problems and I guess she helped once. She's all out of things to say now. Her phone silence speaks volumes. I realised noone wants to know.
I guess I am saying (and I am so sorry it took all thst to justify it). I am stupidly lonely and worried about how my husband will feel, how many of these miscarriages will I have before he figures out it's not some fluke of statistics. But it's me?

[Mrsm14]

So sorry for the new ladies on here but welcome - it's a good place to talk. I have had an awful time. I actually think I wasn't in a great place before I got pregnant though to be honest and this has really made me realise I need to address things. I've just had a shitty couple of years, with my dad getting sick, work problems, several house moves, panic attacks and lots more - I have decided to give myself a proper break and really try to get better before I ttc again. I am going to try taking some medication for my anxiety and low mood, which I have always been really against but maybe I need to do that, along with some talking, and give myself time to get to a more positive place. I want to be ok when I get pregnant again and I'm not ok at all at the moment! It is hard, because I feel like I'm the only one not dealing with it sometimes, but I think this thread helps me realise that we all find it difficult, in different ways, and we all need time to heal. Much love to you all x

[greatbigbushybeard]

Hello there, I had a miscarriage 3 weeks ago when I went for my 12 week scan. We'd been ttc for 2& a half years and had Ivf. It was a good cycle but a bumpy few weeks afterwards because my preg test wasn't clear so I had to wait a while, which we did. 4 pg tests later were all positive, began to get a bit excited about it and then started spotting. Then a few days later had a massive bleed with a weird white lump. I thought it was all over. We went for an early scan at 6 weeks where there was a sac but not hb or fetal pole and a week smaller than expected. We then went back a week later and there was a fetal pole and a hb but still a week behind. They told us that it might be something or nothing re the measuring a week behind. We exhaled and began to believe that it was all happening and we were pregnant. Then got to 12 weeks and there was no hb. They said it died a while ago.

I totally identify with small bear wanting to know the medical terms and answers because on that awful day I didn't really take it in and it all was a bit vague what had actually happened. I went back 2 weeks after medical management and had a chance to ask more questions and took a notepad. I jotted down what they told me after as my head is all over the place at the moment.

Anyhow I went back last week ( 2weeks after) for a scan and appt and there were still lots of ' product' ( what a term!) there so I've taken a second set of tablets and am due to go back next week. I have now been bleeding for 3 weeks, which is depressing in itself. I thought at 3 weeks on that I was coping with it quite well but small difficulties just set me off and I am in hysterical sobs. I thought I was dealing with it well. I had the initial tears and dh was sobbing the morning he had to go back to work. I was crying but not wailing. Now I've found if something sets me off it's now sobbing. People have said maybe I need to let it out more. I remember telling people without crying and really talking through it and just feeling quite empty. I think now it's really coming out. My dh has dealt with his and put it away in his box. He says he's not happy about it but he's moved on. I feel that now I'm going backward and I should have grieved more at the time.

I saw a friend yesterday and I started talking about it and welling up and crying in the middle of yo sushi! She said it's good that I'm letting it out and let it be. She even suggested having more time off work or cutting back on my responsibilities. I am a teacher and I'm now supposed to be planning and helping others get ready for new school year and I just feel so fragile. I'm just bursting into tears. I'm really worried that when I'm back at work under stress it'll come out. I haven't told anyone at work yet. I am quite private so not sure what to do. Others have said it would be good to tell one or two people so they have my back, so to speak. I will tell the head. I woke up today ok and was intending to get loads of school work done & all I have done is cry and had a doctors appt. I even cried at that when he asked me how I was. I feel terrible because I need to get on but these emotions are pushing down on me. Sometimes the not telling people is harder. My friend said I should do what comes naturally. We're meant to be having a girls dinner tonight. One of them knows but the others don't. One of them did have a miscarriage. So in a way it would be nice to talk to her but then I don't want to bring the whole night down for everyone else.

Also does anyone feel that if you're not in floods of tears telling people that they judge you & think you are heartless?

At one point I didn't want to post on a thread like this because I didn't want to wallow in it but now I'm so glad that you are here and that I can. Perhaps this is another step in the journey.

tori totally get what you mean about missing the old you. I'm fed up with how ttc colours so much of my interactions with people and what I think they think about me.

Perhaps we can all keep posting and helping one another. I am on a ttc long time board with lovely, lovely ladies but don't want to bring them all down. One lady even pointed me in this direction and now I'm taking her up on her good advice. It's really good to read about other people's experience. It's making me feel less alone and less weird!!

[thesmallbear]

ToriB I'm sure she will understand that it is just hard for you and you're not being a bitch. Was she sensitive in the way she told you?

Quite a few people I know would have had babies of a similar age to mine and I feel sad, as it've been nice to have all those people to share a similar thing at the similar time with. It feels like next time I won't have anyone to share things with, although I'm sure there will be other pregnancies around the same time as me next time too.

[thesmallbear]

ToriB34 I can't even begin to imagine how difficult it must be to do a job like that after everything you've been through. I'm stressing out about having to sit near to one pregnant woman. It must be torture seeing all those babies everyday. Did the nurse who was moaning know about your miscarriage? If so she should be more considerate. I know being pregnant can give you aches and pains etc but you should really consider the company you're in before you start whining.

I'm on annual leave at the moment. I booked the time off to pack up before a house move, but we were super organised so most of it is done tbh. I think work was more of a distraction than I realised, I have too much time at the moment to think and drive myself crazy! I've made myself a list of tasks to hopefully distract me.

[thesmallbear]

Thanks Mrsm14 I have good days and bad days and feel anxious some days. On Thursday night I felt like I was going crazy. I decided I needed to find the print out of the info concerning the second scan and the fact I couldn't find it was driving me nuts!

I think the reason I was like that is because I'm still a bit confused as to what actually happened. At the first scan there was the sac but nothing inside it. I asked if I'd lost my baby and the sonographer said 'as the sac's still there I have to give this a chance.' I didn't know what the hell that meant, just that I had to come back in 7 days. I assumed that my baby was tiny/just a ball of cells and that s/he must have come out as part of the bleeding.

Between the 1st and 2nd scan I did some exercise and a fairly large blood clot came out (first time I'd past a clot). I thought that the blood clot was the sac and it was definitely all over. I went back for my second scan and was really surprised to see that the sac was still there and had grown! They told me there was now a yolk sac. There was a small dot on the screen that they said 'may resemble a foetal pole.' I was going to London for my birthday the day after that scan so they gave me a print out of the scan info, so if anything happened when I was in London I could show the hospital there.

I went for the 3rd scan and it was just an empty sac again which had shrunk. I said I didn't understand where the yolk sac/potential foetal pole had gone as not that much 'stuff' had come out that week. I was then told that sometimes things get reabsorbed back into the body.

The problem I am having is that I feel like I have lost my child, but maybe he didn't even really ever exist if they were not even sure that there was ever a foetal pole? I was desperate to read what it said on that scan info for some evidence that he might have existed. I think from reading things on mumnet and the Miscarriage Association website that it might have been something called a blighted ovum. They never told me that though, they just said it was 'missed miscarriage.' Is it a blighted ovum if there was a yolk sac at some point?

Sorry for the essay, just seem to be obsessing about what actually happened from a medical perspective now.

[Mrsm14]

Hi all, just wondered how everyone's week is going? I had a couple of really pretty good week's and then this week has been crap. Been really teary and anxious again and it still surprises me how it can all just feel like it is falling apart, all over again. I got my period this week again and it does seem to really affect my mood. We're not actually ttc again yet but I guess it's still a reminder and probably the hormones go a bit crazy too. Been bored and frustrated at work and teary at home. I do hope you are all having ok weeks though - smallbear I think we lost our babies around the same time and I really wanted to let you know you're not alone in having proper ups and downs a couple of months on. I do try to remember that I do get through days - many of them- without crying though and we just need more time still I guess xx

[Erica21]

Hi girls,

Thought I'd post an update on how I'm feeling post MMC (2 wks ago). Had dating scan at 12 wks which showed no HB, so baby possibly died at 10 wks. Had natural MC 3 days later and was horrific, no 'heavy menses' symptoms described by doc, my waters broke with light cramping, before I delivered a tiny baby followed by 2 hours of non stop bleeding on loo then had ERPC 2 days later. Physically I'm feeling ok now, tiny amounts of dark brown bleeding but nothing more. Emotionally though I've found myself crying on the occasional evening, especially at bed time. The last few nights my DH has been working late and have found myself feeling incredibly low. No energy, binge eating and drinking more wine than usual. I feel deflated, with no energy, exhausted in the day even though I am sleeping ok. I am very lucky to have a DS, so I have to 'get on with it' but just thought I'd describe how I was feeling in case it helps anyone. I am self employed and so no one I am working with knows I was pregnant which is a huge relief and have fortunately ended up with lots of work in August which is a good distraction. A couple of friends have been amazing and have listened to my story without judging or offering me the '1 in 4 pregnancies end in MC' spiel. More people than I could have imagined have been through this, yet I'm surprised how much of a taboo it is. My cousin is a midwife and was very kind when I talked to her. She did encourage me by saying that essentially, I would like to have another baby, so just crack on with it when I'm ready, not to forget what I have lost but to create a new life as that is what I really want. I do hope I am pregnant before DD in feb, but we're not rushing into anything, just making some plans for nice things to do in the future, hoping that we will be lucky that things will turn out positive x

[thesmallbear]

The pregnant woman at work has now posted a picture of her scan on Facebook, so everyone will know. If she's past the 12 week mark now I'm guessing her sickness will stop soon and she will be back at work. I'm dreading the baby talk. Although, having said that, I'm hoping she comes back to work sooner rather than later. The anticipation of dealing with the situation might be worse than actually dealing with it.

[strawberry12]

Hi charlieis30, thank you so much for your reply and advice. I really appreciate it. I have spoken to a doctor who reassured me that the miscarriage wouldn't have been caused by something I did, but I am struggling to make myself believe it. I think you're right - it's about wanting to be able to control it if there's a 'next time'. And also about finding some kind of explanation. I still can't shake a feeling of guilt but I hope that will change with time. X