total headwreck, empty sac 11 days ago, embryo 6wk there today...

[SuperGlue]

It was very hard to put this into a title but basically I had a dating scan 11 days ago when i reckoned i ought to have been 9 weeks pg. In the scan there was an empty embryonic sac measuring 7 wks but no yolk or fetal pole. The sonographer said it was most likely a miscarriage but that I would need to come back in 10 days to see if there was any growth during that time as a protocol.

I have spent the past 11 days in total turmoil and limbo. Waiting any moment to miscarry etc.

Went back today for the second scan expecting to be taken in this week for a d&c only to find that the sac had grown in the 10 days and there was now a yolk, fetal pole and an embryo measuring just 6 weeks. No heartbeat but she said heartbeat would kick in, if it was going to, over the next 7 days. SO basically she could not confirm that it was a miscarriage at this stage but that we would need to go back this day next week to see if there is a heartbeat. If not it will be confirmed then.

She was fairly certain that there was a problem with the development of this pregnancy and that the most likely scenario would be that it would develop this far and trail off and we would not find a heartbeat on Monday.

I just can't get my head around it all. Even if my dates were out a bit, I didn't think it was possible to be out that much.

Has anyone else ever gone through this?

I feel like my head is about to explode trying to take it all in / work it all out and another 7 days waiting stretches out in front of me..........

I'm sorry scarlet. Do you feel any different now that you have some answers?

Thanks for the support re work, I guess whatever happens, I can have some control.

How are you going generally? I hope you're doing ok.

Thanks guy. No real story. This was my 3rd m/c and they sent the products of conception for genetic testing. It would either come back that there was something wrong chromosomally so the pregnancy would have always ended in m/c or not. It came back not. I have issues with low progesterone so for my next pregnancy I'll go down the medicated route again. Not sure what the point of it is really, but I have a consultant appointment to discuss on Feb so I guess I'll know more then. Hope u ladies are doing ok.

im glad you have some answers scarlett. i cant remember your full story, would you like to talk about it?

although it indicates there was nothing wrong with your daughter i would try and take some comfort in that. your eggs are healthy. i know that doesnt explain why your body couldnt carry it but it doesnt necessarily mean anything is wrong. so many people have mcs and multiple mcs then go on to have a healthy pregnancy with a fabulous outcome so i think this proves that a lot of the time as crap as it is it is just chance.

in cases where there is a problem if they find it they can smetimes help with medication. have you seen about people taking asprin to help? sorry im blabbering on im probably not helping at all and you probably know a lot more than i do i just dont want you to loose hope.

i hope you are ok, thinking of you

No, you are on the right track. My first m/c was a mmc. I waited a cycle and conceived straight away on the next cycle. I can fall pregnant easily, it's holding on to them, that's my problem. I was 6 weeks into my next pregnancy when I got a bleed and had a natural miscarriage. I was devastated and felt it wasn't just bad luck. I had tracked my cycle and had been telling, but my temperature shift was slight and I had a short luteal phase - the time between ovulation and AF, normally about 14 days, mine was 10. Both of those indicated that I was low in progesterone. I attended a fertility clinic at that stage. They don't investigate until 3 m/c's in a row and I wasn't prepared to wait that long. I did a few cycles on Clomid and didn't get pregnant. Clomid was causing cysts on my ovaries as well, it really didn't agree with me. On my next cycle I was on Femara, for the 4 cycles I was also injecting HCG, taking baby asprin and taking cyclogest. I conceived on my first cycle on Femara and have a 4 year old DD. Ever since then I didn't go back on the pill. I was keeping an eye on my cycles and my luteal phase had increased to 14 days. I had had bloods taken about 2 years ago as we were considering ttcing again, but didn't. Those bloods came back ok, not very high but high enough to support a pregnancy. Sometimes a term pregnancy can sort out whatever is not in sync and taking all those drugs is wearing and expensive (not in the UK) so we decided to try on our own. We did know the risk but everything seemed great that cycle. My GP prescribed ccyclogest but I wouldn't have started it until after the positive test. I guess it was just too late. So I'm going back down the same road again in Feb.

Now, just as a caveat to that, I know many people who have had one m/c and it was just a one off. I know many people who had 2 m/c's in a row and it was just downright bad luck. In my case everything I had read indicated low progesterone and I was lucky to find a fertility clinic that supported that. Many many specialists don't believe it's a thing. My own local hospital where I had my DD and my ERPC are MOST unsupportive of this fertility clinic's approach, but I'm quite happy with it as it resulted in DD which trumps the support that they offer for recurrent m/c in a case like mine, which is nil. Please don't read my post and worry that you may be low in progesterone. It may not be the case at all. In the vast vast majority of m/c's the issue is with the embryo where the pregnancy is not viable.

must admit i saw the lutheal phase issue and thought how do i know if i have that. i will not panic though as you have said it may just have been a one off and ill keep my fingers crossed for now that it was .

its great that you found a fertility clinic that supported you and resulted in the successful arrival of your dd. im taking it that because there was no issue with the products that it points to the progesterone again? it is terrible what you have been through to get to this point but i suppose now you know it is best to try all the medication when ttc next time round that can be positive that it will hopefully be successful again?

do you have to wait long for the medication to kick in before ttc?i am getting excited for you!

Well you can work it out quite easily if you get to know your cycle. That is one thing I learned after my first m/c'. I joined fertility friend, bought a basal body thermometer and started temping. You will see a rise in your temperature when you ovulate so you can work out when you ovulated. I don't bother tempong anymore as I can tell from my cervical mucus when I'm ovulating. Which I think is pretty cool. If you didn't want to temp, you could also get ovulation sticks.
Yeah, essentially I guess I was hoping for the result that I got as it doesn't throw anything new into the equation. I would rather not have known the gender though because it makes the whole thing less abstract. Someone asked me was I going to think about names and I don't think I will as that would again make the whole experience less abstract and more concrete and I think I would feel a greater sense of loss.
I will have an initial consultation and I reckon I will probably be good to go with medication starting from the next cycle after that. It worked last time, there is nothing to say for sure it will work this time. I have decided that if I do fall pregnant on a medicated cycle and have another m/c, I won't be trying again. I'll just take it that DD was some kind of miracle and leave it at that.
Thanks for asking, it feels good to get all that out!

Oh scarlet I feel so sad reading about your news and that it was a little girl, perhaps because I have a dd but it is just such a sad situation. You sound strong and brave and I really hope that the fertility clinic can work their magic for you again.

ginger hope you are doing ok? Won't be long now till you are back on the ttc path and I will have everything crossed for you that this mythical super-fertile phase proves true and that it happens very fast.

Mrs you have had such a tough time and your work manager ought to be ashamed of themselves. Where is the humanity and compassion? It is galling. Hopefully having the sick leave now will give you a chance to gather your thoughts and make the best decision and also give you a change to get yourself and your dh back in synch - you need each other now just as much as going through the MC itself. In fact I would almost say more in these long days / weeks afterwards when the rest of the world just goes back to normal and you are left picking up the pieces.

I had another announcement at work today - I work in a very small place and 3 of my colleagues are now pregnant. I have to say I struggled a bit today when I got home from work. I felt so cross and irritable that I was a misery to be around. Poor dd. I am still struggling with my sister's news too and feel very churlish but I just don't have it in me to be excited.

It is six weeks now and they feel like the longest 6 weeks of my life. (apart from the days of waiting in Nov)

Anyway, hope everyone else is bearing up ok? I read a lot but don't always have the time (workwise) to reply but you are all in my thoughts a lot x

Hi Scarlet. It must be hard to be told the sex. When I had the 'products' tested in a previous miscarriage nobody told me the gender and I wasn't given the option of finding out either. I'm so glad I wasn't because I know I would have said yes and it would have messed with my head afterwards.

Superglue it's totally normal to feel like that amid pregnancy announcements. Don't beat yourself up; going through the mill and then discovering that others are happy and pregnant and glowing etc is a nightmare.

I'm on the Sept antenatal thread but I've stepped away from that at the moment until I get my scan results tomorrow as, even though the ladies in there are beyond lovely, I can't bear to read it.

How is everyone today?

im hoping you get a successful outcome with the medication scarlet. in a way id be pleased it wad a girl as you have a dd and my mam said to me sometimes people have prblems carrying a certain sex had it been a boy and that is true (not sure if it is) then could have thrown another worry into the mix. hope you get your consultation booked soon and can make a start.

super you are having a hard time with all these announcements. i work with 2 girls that are due within weeks of me when i returned after christmas i was surprised at the size of their bumps it really brought it home that thats where i would have been. i just try and remind myself that it obv wasnt meant to be and i will get there in the end. ttc is becoming a nice exciting distraction for me i think.

wish your mam and sister could be a bit more sensitive towards you too i guess people just have no idea how long this grieving process lasts its awful. could you or would you see a counsellor to offload a bit? it may help.

I stepped away for a bit from the thread as I needed to focus on other things. I'm sorry that we've had others join the thread but glad that the support is here for everybody. I hope everybody is ok.
I'm still feeling very wiped out, i'm not sure how much of that this the emotional / physical effect of the mc or because my RA is wearing me out due to the lack of drugs so my body is flaring especially in the cold. I was able to start back on one of the arthritis drugs last weekend as they agreed it was ok but the other one I can't if we are going to resume TTC.
Odd things have been still been surprising me and making me very emotional for example I was really looking forward to the episodes of Last Tango in Halifax that we had recorded as I loved the previous series. I hadn't realised that one of the characters lost her baby in the 1st episode.... I got really upset and made DH switch the telly off. I've been really cautious since about what I watch. I'm not sure when this will change.
I also haven't been participating in dry january even though pretty much everybody else i know is evangelising about it... i've generally politely declined but those who push the subject have been told quite bluntly that i feel I gave my body a break from alcohol in the nearly 4 months I thought I was pregnant and now I feel I can treat myself if I want to!
Thinking of everybody.

hi wonky its good to hear from you. that is sad about last tango i think we forget though how fresh this all still is. i know for me as i now feel like i havent been pregnant for a while it is a shock when i think it is only a month since i was still pregnant.

let yourself have those feelings and deal with them as best you can, hopefully they will start to become less and less. i find comfort thinking about how far we have come especially emotionally since the very beginning.

i must admit i saw on the news about zooey deschanel and it struck a nerve.

i also havent been doing dry january for the same reason however i am in the middle of af right now. think i will drink this wkend then have a few off just incase trying to do everything different this time round!

Thanks everyone for the lovely messages. I had also heard that it is harder to carry boys so that was a bit of a concern. I think now that I will always think of the sister that my dd coud have had though. That makes it a little bit harder.
Good luck to you al doing dry January. I am doing it by default as I don't really drink at home and would need a night out planned to drink. I wil give you one word of caution though. You might be doing fine on a day to day basis but alcohol can make many of the emotions that you have pent up come to the fore, so you may suddenly get upset when drinking. There is no harm in that and it is good to get it out, especially with close friends or your DH.

i thought id be a wreck after a drink and didnt drink for a while afterwards because of that but fortunately i am a happy drunk and it doesnt creep into my mind.

had a tough one the other day though my dbils young gf was round and drunk and telling us about her terminations. Had to keep it in check then as alluded to not using birth control which really really gets my back up.

your dd could still end up with a sister scarlett i know its hard but try not to spend too much time thinking what might have been. you will get there in the end.

Hello there, hi wonkylegs I had been thinking of you and it is good to hear from you. I know what you mean about stepping away from it for a while. I have been a lot less active on line since too. And I totally get what you mean about tv programmes catching you unawares - same thing happened with me but it was a different programme.

I guess it takes time and life moves at such a fast pace these days that it feels longer than it really is. 4 weeks. 6 weeks. It's nothing in the grand scheme of things for such a fundamentally life changing thing.

Will be thinking of you and your scan tomorrow ginface keep us posted

Hi ladies.
Nice to see you all and hear how you are going.

I didn't even think of dry January, particularly whilst enjoying my nightly glass of red. I'm careful to only have one though, as I know it can be a depressant. The paramedic actually joked I should drink more to relax...hahaa...thanks.

I've been quite bad at f-booking since my MC, I just cant stand people's self absorbed statuses, or how hard life is because of some stupid random thing. I know it sounds harsh, and I don't mean to be, but there are more important things.

Had a telephone interview today, thought I did quite well. I have my resignation letter written and ready to post, I'm sad I'm going to miss colleagues, but some I hope I'll stay in touch with.
Got to do something for me, and the place I work just isn't for me anymore.

Scarlet - what do you think the consult will do? Do you think you will go for the medication again to help?

Gin - thinking of you for tomorrow. We'll be here for you.

I'm planning to POAS this Friday, just to make sure its negative. Its only been 2 weeks today, so I'm not sure if my hormones will be low enough. You're all right when about the time, I feel like I have skipped a whole chunk of my life and its all a blur.

Hugs to all you lovely, supportive ladies.

hi ladies, just a quick one for gin. thinking of you today hope you get some good news, let us know. also saw a few people over there but as af is officialy over o have joined ttc after miscarraige if anyone else fancies it.

Doing the same to check on Gin.

Sending my resignation in today - a 5 page letter to the CEO should cover it!

wow mrsb big day for you and sounds like your letter will cover everything!

you will have to let us know how you get on, are you still off work? feeling any better?

Hello ladies just a quick one as I'm out and about...just had the scan and there was our little blob, it's heart beating away and growing nicely!!! SO pleased. Thank you for all the lovely messages and support, will pop on properly later this evening when I'm home and catch up with you all x

wow gin tht just made my heart soar, it was only fair someone on here got good news and i am so glad you have been able to share that with us.

fab fab fab and congratulations. really pleased for you sat like this at my mobile at work what a weirdo ha!

I am so so delighted for you gin! That is amazing news. It also goes to show that the protocols they put in place do serve a purpose.

Excellent news!

Wow fab news, I'm extremely happy for you

Well I think AF has arrived. I never thought I'd be glad for that but it feels like a good thing for once.