I miscarried my first pregnancy at 11 weeks 2 days ago. Everything had been fine the week before at our private scan. Everything developing as it should with a good healthy heartbeat.
I had been spotting brown blood for 2 weeks. Just after my scan it started turning to red brown clots and then bleeding. I cramped pretty much all day for 4 days until it reached its peak on Thursday when the pain became unbearable. Fearing the worst but unsure of what was happening I asked my partner to call 111 for advice. I passed the foetus whilst he was on the phone. The pain instantly stopped.
The first thing I'm finding hard to deal with is how it happened. It was all so undignified. I had a bowel movement just before passing the foetus and although I had flushed in between, the remains got flushed down the toilet 😔. I feel horrible for this. Like I took away baby's dignity and just flushed it down the loo. At the time so much was happening and we weren't thinking straight. I don't know what we would have done differently had we of retrieved it but the way it happened just doesn't feel right.
I've read that miscarriage pain can be likened to that of early labour. It has not detoured me from wanting to try again when we're ready but after experiencing the pain I wonder how I would cope. It only lasted for about 10 minutes at most and I did not know what to do with myself. The sweat was pouring off of me and I felt crippled by the pain. I could barely speak. Does anyone have any words of advice/encouragement? This process has been so much tougher than we expected it to be.
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Miscarriage/pregnancy loss
Miscarriage at 11 weeks. Very upset with myself.
IfeelFloopy · 07/10/2017 18:34
I’m so sorry that you’ve been through this. 
I had a medically managed miscarriage on my 2nd pregnancy as I found out on my 12 week scan that the heartbeat had stopped at 9 weeks.
Please be reassured that the pain you feel during a miscarriage (whilst is the same as early labour sensations) is a completely different experience all together.
When i miscarried I was emotionally in a tough place and was essentially grieving. This makes the physical sensation way tougher than early labour.
During my miscarriage the nurses were trying to explain to me how it may feel but I put on a tough front - ‘yeah I’m fine, I’ve been through labour before e.t.c’ but what I wasn’t prepared for was how it floored me emotionally.
The nurses also discussed with me what my options were for the remains of my baby before they started me off and I was quite flippant at the time. I don’t know why but I think this was just my way of cop g with what was happening. It wasn’t until afterwards that it hit me & I wish I had chosen a different option looking back.
Perhaps there’s something you could do to say goodbye to your baby since you didn’t get a chance to deal with things the way you wanted.
Some suggestions are: Light a candle/plant something/a xmas tree dec (if it’s round baby’s due date) - this isn’t for everyone but for some it can help.
Don’t give up - you will get there in the end and it will be worth it.
I'm so sorry for your loss, Floopy.
WRT to the pain, the different emotions and circumstances of miscarriage and labour make the pain very different. Please don't be afraid of going through labour based on this experience.
My mum had a miscarriage on the toilet also, when I was small, and I recall her feeling the same sense of having dome something "wrong" by flushing the toilet afterwards. I think it's a perfectly natural way to feel. But as the poster above said, it's not uncommon to do something that's out of character or that you don't fully think through at the time. It just hits you like a ton of bricks and you go into autopilot or to some other part of yourself that you didn't know existed. You haven't done anything wrong.
I think the suggestions above are lovely. One of the things I found most helpful when I lost a baby early in pregnancy was, at my sister's suggestion, naming it. I believed it would have been a girl, though it was too early to know, and I found that naming her helped to give her an identity and some dignity. Again, it's not necessarily for everyone but it was helpful to me. I also ended up speaking to a priest about my feelings after the MC, and at the end of our conversation he gave me a little token that I could hold - it was just some beads on a string with a little cross at the end but it was something tangible that I could hold on to to ground myself when I felt like I was losing it a bit.
It gets better.
I’m so sorry this happened to you OP
The same thing happened to me.
I had MMC at 11 weeks just like you. Mine lasted 3 days of intermittent and excruciating pain. And just like you, there was a moment where I had an urge to go to the loo and it all whooshed out of me. And I flushed it all out of shock. I remember DP asking me why as he wanted to see “the baby” and I just cried hysterically at the thought. MC is very very traumatic. I think the raw and grim trauma of it is often underestimated. You just had a normal physical reaction by the way - your body expels something often your bowels will empty too - the same hormone that contracts your uterus will work on your bowels. In other words you couldn’t have done anything about it.
I can however assure you that labour is not the same so please do not worry. I’ve been through both and your mental state and mindset during labour is different.. In a very strange way, when I was in labour I knew I could do it as my first baby allowed me to get strong and I knew that if I could do it then with all the mental anguish of loss, I could do it when the baby was imminent. I found MC pains far more difficult.
This baby will always be with you. Your plan for remembering him/her is lovely. Love and strength to you
Sounds like a lovely way to symbolize your baby. I hope this comforts you both.
Sending you love
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