Hi everyone. I've recently had a missed miscarriage and thought I would share what happened to me for those looking for other people's experiences, either for reassurance or just another person's experience of what can happen.
I was booked in for my 12 week scan last Wednesday (when I should have been 12w+3) and the previous weekend I had started to experience a mix of red and brown spotting when I wiped, but when I rang the community midwives they said unless it got heavier and I was experiencing cramping then I shouldn't worry and to hang on to my appointment on the Wednesday, which I did.
Both myself and my partner were very nervous in the run up to the scan, it was my first pregnancy so neither of us really knew what to expect or what was normal or abnormal.
When we had the scan the sonographer double checked how far along I thought I was, and in my heart I knew at that moment that it wasn't good news. I could see on the screen that there was an embryo there, but it was nowhere near what a 12 week scan should be. I could see that she had an estimate on the screen of 7w+2 and she told me she was very sorry but there was no heartbeat and the baby had died some weeks earlier.
We were both pretty devastated, especially as I had been somewhat reassured having spoken to the midwives over the previous weekend. I had thought that if I was having a miscarriage it would all be much more dramatic and I would know it was happening, but that really wasn't the case.
I was taken up to the EPU and the lovely ward sister explained that I was experiencing a missed miscarriage and briefly explained what our options were and comforted us.
After having looked through the options, I decided to go for surgical management under local anaesthetic (an MVA) as it had obviously been several weeks since the baby had died and my body wasn't miscarrying naturally. There also seemed to be more potential risks and complications with medical management pessaries and at that point I really just wanted the physical side of it to be over as soon as possible, so they booked me in the for the following Monday.
Over the weekend I experienced a reasonable amount of bleeding and some fairly painful abdominal cramps, but nothing other than some small clots had passed so they went ahead with the MVA on Monday.
I had a reasonably good experience of the procedure, but I do have a relatively high pain threshold and managed to stay pretty calm throughout the whole thing. I was admitted, told to take some painkillers (co-codamol) at the time of admittance and had some pessaries inserted to help dilate the cervix. This part wasn't painful at all, they warned I may start to experience mild contractions, but I felt nothing.
After about 20 minutes the consultant and nurse came in and gave me the numbing gel on the cervix followed by the local anaesthetic injections. For me, this was actually the worst part as I'm really bad with needles and I felt a bit lightheaded at this as I could definitely feel both of the needles. But the nurse was lovely and pointed a fan over my face to make me feel better and reminded me I could have the gas and air if I wanted.
The actual procedure was very quick, over in a few minutes. It was extremely uncomfortable and I was aware of a pulling sensation inside of me, but I didn't need the gas and air and while very strange/uncomfortable it wasn't horrendously painful.
After the procedure they gave me a hot drink, a fresh pad and some wipes to clean myself up with and monitored me for about half an hour afterwards before allowing us to go home. I had some dull aching cramps for the rest of the day, but it wore off by the following morning.
Since Monday, the post-procedure bleeding has slowed to almost nothing today and I've not had any more abdominal pain or cramping so I've not needed any pain relief.
Obviously this is all just a description of the physical side of things, the mental side is completely different, but I thought an account of what I physically went through with this MMC and the MVA I had might be useful to other ladies who find themselves in a similar position 
This was a planned pregnancy, and my first one, so we were very excited. We had made plans, told our family, friends and colleagues over the Christmas period so it was especially painful to have to contact everyone and tell them what had happened. I'm seeing my GP on Thursday to arrange a sick note, but I honestly have no idea when I will be ready to go back to work. I'm not sure if I'm ready to draw that kind of line underneath the experience. It was reassuring to read other people's experiences here, so I thought the least I could do was share my story for other people