Things I didn't know about miscarriage until I experienced one...

[TheSting]

I have only had one miscarriage but so many elements of it were a complete surprise to me.

Feel free to add your own.

• That with a MMC, there may be no sign that you've miscarried until you're scanned.

• Just how much waiting may be involved.

• That surgical procedures under GA may be required.

• That comfort and kind words may come from unexpected places. I never would have guessed that my male boss's reaction would be more supportive than my female best friend's. The warmth and compassion of the EPU and day surgery NHS staff has really stood out too.

• How lonely an experience it can be despite having a loving partner.

• That I would feel embarrassed by my previous reactions to other people's miscarriages. At the time I thought that I was sympathetic but I really had no idea what they were going through.

- That I would feel embarrassed by my previous reactions to other people's miscarriages. At the time I thought that I was sympathetic but I really had no idea what they were going through.

This haunts me too. My sister had a MC last year and all I said was 'oh no, are you ok' and then never mentioned it again. I feel so ashamed.

The things that surprised me:

• How much love you feel for your unborn child. And just how truly devastating it is to lose it.
• That even after reading that there would be a lot of blood loss, nothing prepared me for the 'gushing'!
• Going for the scan after my MC and not realising that it was going to be in the antenatal department and how upsetting that was.
• The ongoing physical difficulties faced for days & even weeks after.

• That the week after surgical management would be more painful than the first few days. Got through a lot of painkillers.

Sting also was overwhelmed by the care and compassion of the NHS staff that treated me.

• That a pregnancy test can still show as positive for 3-4 weeks after the miscarriage.

Ditto to all of your points. My local EPU were amazing, as were the day surgery unit. I just wish I hadn't have been there in the first place! I too never realised the emotional pain of this. I literally can't see the light at the end of the tunnel at the moment. Love to you all 💕💕

How much it would hurt and how dismissive some HCPs were about it.

How psychologically you will be affected by your first period after miscarrying.

How difficult it is to hear the first pregnancy announcement after miscarrying.

How difficult significant dates are - due date especially.

How the second miscarriage is somehow easier to deal with, the first was a bolt from the blue, the second one I nearly expected.

I have been lucky and have carried a pregnancy to term and have a lovely child. I do still look at children who would have been in the class that my first m/c child would have been in and wonder what if.

For what it's worth, my life took many twists and turns after my first m/c, turns for the better that I could never have anticipated. I don't think I would ever have had the courage to make those changes if it wasn't for the m/c's as I nearly felt I was invincible from coming through the other side of it.

That when people say "Don't worry, you will have another one" that it is incredibly insensitive.

I was so desperate for that baby. I didn't want just any baby. I had hopes and dreams for that baby. I had plans around that baby's due date.

That your milk can come in after a miscarriage, I still remember the pain from engorged breasts stuffed into a tight bra.......

How hollow and empty I would feel......

That holding an 8 week old feotus would in some way be a comfort to be able to say goodbye. .

That I'd prefer to let nature take its course and wait to miscarry naturally after a mmc - a long 2 weeks but I felt my body was still looking after it as long as it needed me.

That at 8 weeks I would have painful contractions.

That despite now luckily having 2 dc, I still sometimes cry for the ones I lost.

That you have to wait ages in the epu, alongside women moaning about their pregnancies

That even early miscarriages MMC discovered at ten weeks, could have such a huge emotional and mental impact. I was randomly bursting into tears several weeks after the surgical procedure had been done.

How terrified of pregnancy it would make me, I couldn't face the thought of going thro it again.

That the warnings before the procedure that a small percentage of women suffer would happen to me had to have a repeat SMM as the first one failed.

The kindness and compassion of the NHS staff is definitely something I still remember and meant such a huge amount to very broken me. The kindness of the doctors who took time out to tell me it was not my fault and even relate personal experience. Their kindness was such a huge deal.

That I'd be ashamed and embarrassed.

That a miscarriage can have incredibly difficult complications - I had a persistent molar pregnancy that led to 2 erpcs, brain scans, lung scans, lumbar punctures, hospitalisation hundreds of miles away from home, nearly a year of chemotherapy and a lifetime of bi-annual cancer checkups.

I can identify with the ashamed and embarrassed feeling. My first mmc I had got to 16 weeks (they don't scan here at 12 weeks) and with it being my first pregnancy I was full of the joys of it, never considering that anything could go wrong. That feeling of telling people that I was no longer pregnant, that feeling that it was my fault somehow.

You also never have that innocent delight in being pregnant again, even when it all worked out for me I spent 9 months worrying that it would be taken away from me any given second.

But, for anyone going through this at the moment, it does get a bit easier with time. I found the best comfort from faceless strangers on the internet who were going through exactly what I was going through at the same time. The pain does fade and it does become a stage in your life that is in the past and you move on from it, no matter how it all works out.

-That natural miscarriages can end up with you flushing the foetus down the loo!
-How small a first trimester miscarried foetus actually is.

You also never have that innocent delight in being pregnant again, even when it all worked out for me I spent 9 months worrying that it would be taken away from me any given second.

yes.

I also really worry about my friends and Jen they tell me they are pregnant, too.

*and Jen when

Oh god I agree totally with all your posts. I've just passed my due date and I'm starting to feel better now. I'm still going through psychotherapy to deal with it all. I had a missed miscarriage and I was totally and utterly devastated. Wishing you all peace and love.

How much it hits you both physically and psychologically.
I went of the rails completely.

I did too, looking back on it, and probably should have sought counselling of some sort to help me work through it.

That comfort can come from unexpected places ...

I had a miscarriage 12 years ago, my first pregnancy. I was playing in a brass band for a hobby at the time (though not when it happened). I had to phone the band manager to tell him I couldn't do a concert due to miscarriage. The next day he turned up with a huge bunch of flowers on my doorstep and said how sorry he was to hear the news. He'd got two grown up kids and was a manager at a London bus depot (not that that is massively relevant, but he was just a real people person iyswim) . I will NEVER forget it and it made me feel a bit better at the time.

Now got two DCs (11 and 9) and it seems a long time ago ...

That I would have my scans next to women who were having their dating scans

That I'd be lying on a trolley alone in a&e in the corridor because dh stayed to look after dc1 because MIL refused to look after dc1.

That MIL would say it was all my fault I miscarried as I was 34 & then 35 & 'what do you expect at your age'. That dh would take her side.

That 15 & 16 years & another dc later I still mourn my lost babies.

My first pregnancy would be 26 this year, 2nd they'd have been 17 last month.

I found the 2nd harder as it required more medical intervention and psychologically I did everything 'right'. The first pregnancy I was 18, single (had split from baby's father), and on the pill.

2nd pregnancy I was married, it was planned, I was healthy and not on any medication. It felt so unfair

I now have dd aged 16. But I still remember.

The 1st one the amount of blood shocked me, yet there was little pain.

The 2nd a very small amount of bleeding but scan revealed no heartbeats. Lots of pain as had to have 3 surgeries and needed a lot of recovery time.

With the first one only my dr and a friend knew that I was even pregnant.

With the 2nd it happened further along and I'd had terrible morning sickness so more people knew, was so hard telling people. Harder still having people who hadn't heard coming up to joyfully ask how it was going only to have to tell them I was no longer pregnant.

I learnt who were real friends and who weren't.

I remember a colleague telling me about their baby that had come to term but died 24 hours later. They had known that the child was unlikely to survive any longer outside of the womb. It was such a deeply personal story for him to tell me and came from such a compassionate place that I was pretty overwhelmed by it. I often think about that conversation.

We don't have an EPU, so like many of you, I was sat in a waiting room each time with a room full of happily pregnant women, some of whom I would have known. I remember chatting happily to a woman pregnant with twins while waiting for my first scan that showed the mmc, and having had the results of the scan, having to sit back in the waiting room with the same lady in there and not even being able to make eye contact.

The last mc I had, they told me that they had a private room but it was currently in use by someone else who had gotten bad news - I was pretty used to the process at that stage so I was fine with that, but I saw the poor couple coming out afterwards - they had been sitting in the same waiting room as I had, and it was then that I realised that of course the woman who was pregnant with twins had realised what had happened to me - it's written all over your face, even if you aren't in an uncontrollably sobbing heap. How hard must it be for the receptionist in the maternity unit to open up in the morning, and see all of these women coming in knowing that so many of them will have their dreams and hopes shattered within a few short hours? How could you face into that every day?

The pain, the fucking fucking wretched physical pain that even oramorph couldn't touch.

That just when you think it can't get worse it does.

That you just don't know what to do when the "a miscarriage won't happen to me" belief is rudely snatched from you.

The fact that a miscarriage sucks the joy out of any subsequent pregnancy.

BUT

That you will smile again sooner than you think

That it's happened to so, so, many others you know.

The fact that it's ok to talk about it.

And - as a fellow gym mum said to me; "yeah, it's just shit, isn't it? Shit".

And that it'll be ok x

That a midwife would dismiss my early miscarriage as "just your period coming late" (despite strong pregnancy symptoms that were still going strong when I started to bleed) and a "false positive on the home pregnancy test" (that'd be 16 false positives over 11 days then ) then railroad me into a transvaginal scan "to prove there's really nothing there because that's what you came here for". I arrived at the EPU in bits having been overjoyed to find out I was pregnant less than a fortnight earlier, and came away feeling like a fraud and totally robbed of my dignity, and wondering whether all the positive tests had been a product of my imagination (DH and DM must have imagined them too). When I had a second early miscarriage 2 months later I didn't even bother recording it with my GP for fear of being disbelieved all over again.

Over 3 years and 2DC later I still feel so angry at having been made to feel a fraud for grieving an early loss, and being robbed of the opportunity to grieve a second loss for fear of being disbelieved. It's had a lasting impact and I still cry over it every now and again.

to all on this thread who have suffered losses.