20+4 no heartbeat at scan

[Undertheoldoaktree]

Just feeling so lost.
Such a longed for and planned child, conceived literally on the first try.
No problems at first scan, every test came back fine and a completely risk free pregnancy.
I avoided everything I should - not even had any caffeine.

No inkling that anything was wrong, and me and DD(7) went to my scan today excited and she was eager to find out the gender!

No heartbeat.

I go for surgery on Monday.

I have a daughter from a previous relationship but my husband has no children and was so excited, as were we all. I feel so bad for them both.

What the fuck do I do now?

I'm so sorry OP, my thoughts will be with you and your little one today

Hope everything goes as well as it can later x

It’s just the most awful thing I’m so so sorry.
My daughter was stillborn almost 12 years ago now. I went on and had two more lovely babies but I think about her all the time.

You need to think about what you want to do to celebrate/memorialize this little life. You can get in touch with SANDS and they will be able to give you support. X

I hope everything goes as well as it can do today. When you're ready do contact SANDS and/or seek out counselling - I've just started counselling for my loss and I'm glad I pursued it. It's the worst thing to happen to a mother - no parent should lose a child. Take all the time you need to grieve amd heal physically and emotionally

Just wanted to send you hugs for today. I found the actual procedure was fine. Being asleep helped. Definitely echo PPs and their suggestion of counselling when you feel ready. It can affect any future pregnancies if you decide to try again or at least I found it did for me and made me super anxious; I appreciated the mental support that counselling provided me.
Another thing we did was name our daughter - it was important to me that she is spoken about and remembered. She existed. We also planted a tree in the national forest in her name around her due date. That was incredibly healing for me and I like to think there will be something beautiful in the world because of her.

Hi Op.
Hope today is as easy for you as possible.

Will be keeping you in my thoughts today.

So sorry for you OP, take care of yourself

Sending love and support your way OP, albeit anonymously.

I lost our son at 22 weeks in 2016 and can identify with much of what you've said.

All I can say is take support from wherever you can get it, take it one day at a time and be as kind to yourself as possible.

My DS was the same age as your DD, I found his school were wonderful to him, I would encourage you to seek help from them for her, if you feel she needs it.

A few months after our baby died, I took my son shopping to choose some babygros he thought the baby would have liked and I had them made into a memory bear for him, it's probably his most prized possession.

Sands are fantastic - I wasn't ready to engage with them straight away but if and when you feel you can, I would 100% recommend it.

Name your baby, plant some snowdrops or a tree in their memory, buy a tiny beautiful Christmas decoration for your tree, do whatever you like to mark your little one's life, and never be afraid to talk about them.

You're stronger than you think, you'll look back and wonder how you survived but I promise you, you will.

Take care, I will be thinking of you and your baby X

Feeling very bad today, yesterday was predictably awful.

I'm suffering deep regret about the method I chose, as a lot of things that would have helped me grieve have been made unavailable as a result.

I feel really stupid as I started to realise this was the case after I'd made the decision, but I only saw a Dr for 5 minutes on Friday and about 30 seconds yesterday and non of the pro's and con's of each method were given to me or explained to me, and I made the decision without time to think after very shocking news.

I'm unable to have hand or footprints, or a lock of hair, or photographs. I am arranging a local burial, and the hospital think it would be inappropriate to bring my baby home, except for briefly in a coffin before the funeral.

It should have been obvious in hindsight, but I only really started to consider what the procedure might involve on Saturday and I just haven't been with it.

I'm really quite upset, and I know it's all my fault.

OP absolutely nothing is your fault, you poor poor thing.

I have been there, that awful panicking feeling of hearing the worst news and yet having to carry on listening and making decisions that you thought you would never need to consider. Please don’t blame yourself for anything.

You will need to give yourself time to heal.

When I had a late miscarriage and was really struggling I found the Miscarriage Association helpful.

Here, try to give them a ring, you will find it helps to talk to people who understand. .

Dear OP

None of this is your fault. I know you are blaming yourself, but really none of this awful situation was within your control. You won’t believe that right now, but it is true.

You were in dreadful shock and hugely upset on Friday and of course you couldn’t think clearly, let alone feel able to ask doctors for detailed explanations. You hadn’t even had time to process the news before you were being asked to make decisions about what you wanted to do.

I am so sorry. Is there anyone at the hospital you can talk about this with? Please do call SANDS for support.

They're also unable to offer any tests or investigations "until it happens again", which is definitely not what I wanted to hear. Though we decided against a post mortem, after a traumatic labour with my daughter that caused considerable (short term) damage, I would have appreciated some sort of investigation as to whether there'd been any lasting effects from that.

Thank you everyone for your kindness and support. I'm so sorry for everyone who has suffered a similar loss, and that I've been so self centred in my replies to those who've shared their experiences.

I'm just feeling so shit right now, I don't think I'll ever get over it.
I'm so terrified I won't be able to have children with my husband.

I was very young with my daughter, and pregnancy and her early years were very scary for me. She developed cerebral palsy from a botched forcep delivery, so the years as a single parent were hard.

This pregnancy had been such a calm and healing experience in comparison - being older, married and with such love and support from my husband. No nervousness and not the slightest hint that anything was wrong. All tests came back with far lower risks than average for my age, everything was fine at my first scan, iron levels all high and healthy, perfect blood pressure, healthy BMI.
Avoided everything I should, right down to chocolate because of the minimal caffeine content. And now I won't even find out what went wrong.

Now any subsequent pregnancies are just going to be filled with fear. Even if everything looks perfect, I can never know it won't happen again.

You will come to terms with it OP, you will never forget but you will find the strength to carry on. Don’t apologise to us.

It sounds like you have a great marriage, you will heal together and be able to look to the future.

Just keep going for now and try to be kind to yourself, that will do just fine right now.

Sorry for your loss x

OP, you are to blame for nothing, absolutely nothing, it's natural to feel that way but don't torture yourself.

Are you in the uk? If so, the hospital should have a bereavement midwife who will be able to support and guide you through this, explain what happens and why, and perhaps advocate on your behalf for the lack of information you've been given so far.

It feels unfair and is unfair. Sorry you are going through this.

Please try to go easy on yourself op , it's so hard to make decisions after such shocking news. I would bet that those of us that had inductions mainly had them because that was the only/first option offered at the time - I know that that was the case for me.

Take care of yourself and I wish you well in your recovery

I agree that you probably won’t come to terms with it and I don’t think any of us who have experienced similar do, but you do become able to carry on and time makes things much less raw.

From all my many SANDS meetings, many of us had full post mortems and still got told that the reason our baby died is unknown. There is a huge lack of understanding in what causes many things in pregnancy and “it’s one of those things” is a line that seems to be frequently trotted out by doctors. What is certain is that it is very rare to be caused by something done during the pregnancy - usually it is cord or placenta issues, chromosome or genetic issues, or an underlying illness. What I am trying to say is that even if you had had a full post mortem, you might still not have any further answers.

Yes subsequent pregnancies will be filled with fear; which is natural. However, there are really good support threads on here with women who will completely understand what you have been through and why you are so scared. In time, maybe join this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/conception/3244374-TTC-after-stillbirth or the pregnancy loss one.

Oh OP just sending you hugs because nothing I can say will make you feel better right now. This is just the shittiest thing and you have to allow yourself time to grieve and work through all the emotions. Everything you're feeling is totally natural so please don't be hard on yourself. Hope you have plenty of support around you at this really terrible time. I wish I could say it gets easier and better but I'm only 4 weeks post mc myself (first pregnancy first mc) and so I have no idea when things will feel better - others on here though who've been through this maybe a great ago will be better at giving advice on that. We'll just all have to ride this storm together

I have a follow up tomorrow, when I intend to raise some of my concerns.
Some of my treatment was really excellent, but it's really come up short in some areas.

From researching since, the management method I chose increases the risk of this happening again in the future. I wasn't told this, and it's not a risk mentioned in my consent form.
So as well as not being made aware that a lot of options would close with my chosen method, I wasn't told it is now more like to happen again.

I'm usually quite eloquent on paper, but struggle talking in person, so I'm nervous about getting everything I want to say across. Especially as the meeting is with the Dr from before, who was really quite short and dismissive.

I lost quite a lot of blood during surgery, and I'm not sure of the details, but my heart rate increased from its usual 60bpm to 160+ post surgery. I've little recollection and heard nothing from anyone at the hospital, only my husband has told me he was rushed into somewhere usually off limits to see me and it looked like I was having some sort of panic induced fit and had to be heavily sedated.

I'm now on 15mg of diazepam 3 times a day, but only until tomorrow unfortunately. It's the only thing that's really helping unfortunately. I keep waking up screaming but feel fairly level, measured and able to deal with things calmly once I've taken it.

I didn't expect the physical pain to be so bad, and I'm wondering whether something has gone wrong. I'm on 240mg of codeine a day, but my stomach feels like I'm having labour pains still - which I really don't think should be the case.

I filled in the form stating what I wished to happen with the remains, but haven't been given the form from the hospital to give to the funeral director so now I'm stressing about that too.

Everything else aside, there were some really wonderful women working on the unit I was on - and I've got (almost) nothing but praise for my experience there.

I could hear newborn babies crying from my room which was a bit of a logistical oversight, and when I first arrived 2 nurses were ignoring the sign in station and left us standing around for over 10 minutes being ignored, when they argued loudly about their shifts and how they both really didn't want to be their today .

They left fairly quickly (or were kept away from me once I complained!) but everyone else was really, really great and I've started writing thank you cards and will send flowers.

As me and my husband were saying, it must take a certain type of person to work in such an area of medicine, and the nurses certainly don't get paid enough for what must be a very distressing job.
I couldn't be more grateful to the professionals who cried with me, and missed breaks to stay and comfort me.

If it is too hard to do so at your follow up tomorrow, put everything in an email and send it to PALS.

I didn't expect the physical pain to be so bad, and I'm wondering whether something has gone wrong. I'm on 240mg of codeine a day, but my stomach feels like I'm having labour pains still - which I really don't think should be the case.

It is painful in the extent that your uterus is going back to size and you are recovering from an operation. 240mg of codeine will also cause a lot of constipation and that could add to the pain. Are you taking a laxative as well?

OP I am so very sorry for your loss

I'm so sorry for your loss OP. Please take time to grieve and rest. Xx

Op I'm so sorry you've gone through this.

I just want to add that I was told testing to find out the cause can be done no matter what type of management you used. I hope there is another doctor you can speak to about this. X