Pain after managed miscarriage and fibroids

[AliCam]

Hello everyone,
I'm new to this - and this is my first post - but Mumsnet has been a great support to me during my first pregnancy, as I has all sorts of problems and came to these forums to understand how others had coped.

Unfortunately my pregnancy ended this week, with a medically managed miscarriage at just over 15 weeks. It was heartbreaking, as we had just told all our friends and family the news and were so excited.

The mmc took the whole day (I was in hospital 11am til 1am) and I have to say was very painful. I think this was made worse because I have two uterine fibroids - very big. I must say the hospital staff were a great support - I was given a lot of morphine - and my husband and my mum were with me. If anyone is having to go through something similar, please feel free to contact me and I will be happy to tell you more about it.

What I wanted to ask, to anyone who has had a similar experience, is how much pain you experienced afterwards and how long this lasted? I am still in a lot of physical pain - especially when I go to the loo - like my whole body is contracting. It just feels very sore in my lower abdomen. And I'm getting lots of cramps. The bleeding seems normal - as I expected - and I know I can't expect to go back to normal straight away after all my body has been through this week. But has anyone else had a similar experience, and do you think it might be related to the fibroids? I will be able to ask my doctor all of these questions in a month or so, when I go to get all of the post mortem and test results back (which I wanted to have to find out why I miscarried) but I am interested to her how long after an mmc people experienced pain for.

Thanks everyone

xxx

Hi Ali so sorry for your loss. Has the hospital confirmed if all the tissue has been passed? I had medical management at 10 weeks (sac measuring 7 weeks) and it took six days for me to pass the the pregnancy sac. As soon as I passed the sac the pain stopped instantly. Sometimes a bit of the sac breaks off, so is it possible that there is some still in there and your body is contracting to try and get it out?

I was told to expect symptoms like a heavy period and as I have heavy painful periods anyway I thought 'fine I can cope with that.' What I got was full-on contractions and insufficient pain relief. It was the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.

A few years ago I was spotting between periods and had a scan where they told me I have fibroids (two small ones I think so not as bad as yours). I wonder if that was why my pain was so extreme? Having said that a lot of the women on here have said that they have experienced contraction pains when they were told it would be like a period. I really don't understand why they don't warn you that your body goes into labour (maybe you were warned at 15 weeks)?

I've also read that fibroids can increase your chance of MC, so I'm worried that was the reason for this MC and may mean I'll have another next time.

I don't have the answers you want but wanted to give a virtual hug. If you find out any info about fibroids from your GP I'd be grateful to know what s/he said.

Thanks for your reply thesmallbear. I was also told the pain would be like a bad period and, like you, had full on contractions like in labour. I'm sorry you didn't get the pain relief - I just made them give me a lot of morphine, which I could manage myself, so that was a help. The doctors examined both the fetus and the placenta and said they were sure that I had passed everything. I think the pain I am having now is maybe the uterus contracting back to normal size - which is made more painful by the fibroids. If it continues for much longer I will see a doctor, though.

At the 12-week testing I came back as very high risk (1/7) for Down's Synrome, so the consultant told me he thinks that was the most likely cause of mc. It was just nature saying that this baby wasn't ready and could not survive. I asked for lots of tests to be done, though, because I am also worried that the fibroids may have played a part. I will let you know when I get confirmation - so that we can both perhaps be reassured. I kept being told that many women go on to have lots of children despite fibroids, so fibers crossed for you too xx