Hello all,
I’m new to posting on here, but sadly not new to this thread as I have been reading all your posts for weeks on end trying to muster up the courage to actually type something myself. It is with a heavy and broken heart that I find myself in the same boat as all you OP’s.
I apologise in advance but this is going to be a long post...
I had a MMC with my first pregnancy, discovered on 30th Nov last year - exactly a week after my booking appt with the Midwife - even harder to accept as one week it’s very real and I’m being asked questions and having bloods taken and given loads of information...only for it all to come crashing down around me a week later just a few rooms down from where I was previously so happy and excited.
I had been experiencing brownish discharge for a few days which led up to that day and the morning before I had passed what looked like an old dark-blood-coloured clot and then nothing else. (I have to add, I had no pain or indication that anything was wrong - symptoms still going strong). I had spoken with a Midwife at work; (I work in a Children’s Centre, so am surrounded by midwives and health visitors and pregnant women and babies pretty much all the time!) who didn’t seem alarmed even when I showed her a photo of what I had passed, she didn’t appear to be concerned. However, later that evening I got home from work and discovered some fresh red blood when wiping. I found myself desperately scrabbling through my notes to find the triage number only to be told that I was too early to be seen there. The lovely midwife on the phone said she didn’t feel overly concerned with what I was describing to her and she advised me to get a GP appointment for the next day and ask for an early scan at the EPU at the hospital. I had no further episodes of bleeding or passing anything overnight so naturally I woke up feeling confident about what the day would bring.
Oh boy was I wrong.
I won’t ever forget the look on the sonographer’s face when she turned to me, my partner and my Mum and very calmly and kindly explained that the TV Scan unfortunately showed that there was only an empty sac measuring at 6 weeks + 6 days when it should in actual fact have been at 8+6. It hit me like a train and in that moment I just became numb and completely zoned out of the conversation, the room, and what felt like the planet! We were told to wait a week in case anything was to appear/grow but that it was looking unlikely at that point.
Anyway, as you can imagine, that week was the worst of our whole lives. We couldn’t face telling anyone that this special little secret we had been keeping had suddenly disappeared and left my partner and I completely and utterly shattered. We had decided to surprise everyone over the Christmas period as I would have been 12 weeks on Christmas Eve - even booking a private scan for just before to make sure we had photos to share. Ironically, I booked the private scan the same day I received the letter for our dating scan at the hospital as it wasn’t until the 27th Dec and we so wanted to tell our families on Christmas Day/Boxing Day!
I spent that week at home in bed, in darkness, just sobbing and broken and not wanting to talk to anyone but my partner who had gone to work and struggled with trying to be “normal” around his colleagues who had no idea what he was going through. Looking back now, that week is a blur and one which has changed us both forever.
We returned a week later to the EPU, to the same room, the same sonographer and the same gut-wrenching darkness of the empty sac which had only grown around 2mm during that hellish week. I was given my options and decided that surgical management would be the easiest for us to cope with as Christmas was drawing ever closer and I felt like we had suffered enough. I was booked in for the 11th of Dec and had an agonising weekend of worrying about the procedure and “what ifs” whilst still trying to come to terms with this whirlwind which had ripped through our lives.
Unfortunately there was a “hiccup” shall we say when I arrived at the hospital as I was told to check-in at the wrong place and then was very clumsily sent to the delivery suite where I was met with pregnant women and babies crying and new life, which was horrendous for me as I was there for the complete opposite reason! Anyway, this was swiftly dealt with and several apologies and shocked faces later...all in all, my experience of the surgery was good. I was first on the list for surgeries that day due to my latex allergy, so went down around 8:30am and was back in recovery about 9:15am. The nurses on the ward were fantastic and very sympathetic and kind and we had our own room and the privacy we needed to grieve for our loss. I was able to leave the hospital a few hours later and came back home to come to terms with what we had been through.
Christmas and New Year came and went and we tried our hardest to make the best of it, but I really struggled with overthinking about what could have been and the hopes and plans we had made for our future as a family. I hadn’t been to work since the day we found out and my return date was creeping closer and my anxiety levels were rising. Luckily I had the support of a fantastic GP who had been with us on this most horrible of journeys and she agreed that it was too soon for me to go back to the environment I worked in and be surrounded by the thing I longed for the most whilst trying not to burst into tears when anyone smiled at me or asked how I was. All in all, I was signed off work for 7 weeks and had the full support of my managers who were fantastic and eased me back in when I was good and ready.
I’m writing this, currently with AF in full force on my third cycle since the surgery, feeling stronger but still broken and desperate to feel complete again. My partner has been truly wonderful with supporting me and I’m lucky to have great friends and family who have helped us out of a very dark place. Also, a great deal of my healing has been aided by these MN threads and all you OP’s - although I have only just managed to bring myself to post, your words and kindness towards each other has helped me discover and feel my ‘new normal’ and given me support that I’m not alone.
I am trying not to get my hopes up for my little rainbow, but it is hard every month not to get excited and then disappointed when AF arrives. However, I have to remind myself that my body is obviously still healing and recovering and I hope that once it’s ready, my miracle will happen.
If you have made it to the end of this post, I thank you for taking the time to read. I just want to finish by saying please be kind to yourselves and take all the time you need to cry and feel angry and heartbroken and most importantly, heal. We will all get there...one day at a time.
Love and positive vibes to you all,
Laura
Xx