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Miscarriage/pregnancy loss

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Miscarriage Help - How Much Bleeding?

45 replies

OVO1410 · 28/04/2020 21:17

Hi, I'm guessing I'm 5+4 but can't say for certain as I got pregnant immediately after coming off of the mini pill so no LMP to go by. Yesterday afternoon I started having continuous period-like pain and there was a small amount of pink blood when I wiped. I went to the toilet a few times after and there was nothing there. The pain then got so bad in the night that it woke me up. I went to the toilet and it felt like blood gushed out of me. The water in the toilet was dark red and there was loads of dark red blood when I wiped. I was expecting this to continue today but there has only been a small amount of brown blood when wiping and the pain has gradually got less throughout the day. At no point has there been enough blood that it's actually been on my pad, it's only ever been on wiping. I spoke to my GP and she said that there's no point going to EPU as they won't scan me due to how early on my pregnancy is. She said to manage the pain at home and take a HPT in a week. She also told me to rest in bed as the pregnancy could still be viable. I just wondered if anyone had experienced similar? I already have two DC and have not had a miscarriage before. I remember my DM miscarrying when I was a teenager and it lasted over a week. It seems silly to say but I don't feel like I have bled enough? Surely a miscarriage shouldn't be shorter than a normal period? I would love to hear if anyone has been through similar. TIA

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Ereshkigalangcleg · 12/05/2020 18:37

Keep an eye on it Stabal and maybe speak to your EPU. I had to call an ambulance and be taken to hospital in the middle of the night as I didn't pass it all with two lots of medical management and there was an infection. Lost a lot of blood because I didn't know what to expect, had to have a blood transfusion then emergency D&C.

Stabal · 12/05/2020 18:48

@Ereshkigalangcleg oh god.. I'm so sorry you had a bad experience! I'm back with EPU tomorrow morning to check if everything passed and if it hasn't I will be utterly shocked lol. I don't know whether my bowel pain is related to my endo as I have cells on my bowel.. Either way it's very uncomfortable and unpleasant.

Ereshkigalangcleg · 12/05/2020 18:58

I hope it has all gone Thanks I didn't have any pain at all, just bled a lot. So my experience wasn't the same as yours, I just wanted to suggest that you keep an eye on what's going on. I hope your EPU can reassure you tomorrow.

Starlight39 · 12/05/2020 19:34

Sorry @Stabal that is has been so awful for you Flowers. Hope it gets better soon.

@OVO1410 I found it much much less painful than labour. I have 1 DC and had gas and air and a waterbirth. It was an easy birth (relatively - still some pain obviously!). I'm not sure if my experience was the average in terms of how long till it starts. The second time it started a little quicker but I think that was because I was bleeding slightly already. I think it would have been OK if I lay in bed and told DC I wasn't feeling well. I credit the codeine with helping a lot along with the other painkillers at the same time.

OVO1410 · 12/05/2020 20:51

Sorry to hear you've had such a bad experience @Stabal. Hope everything goes okay tomorrow when you go to the EPU 💕

I'm having lots of red blood come out when I sit on the toilet (but none on a pad still). I'm not sure if it's been set off by the internal probe from the scan. I'm hoping I might pass the pregnancy naturally before I go to hospital on Thursday.

One thing I have learnt from this is not to trust the clear blue digital tests. They were matching my dates accurately but the sonographer measured me at two weeks ahead. So they were saying I was 4 weeks pregnant when I was actually 6 weeks pregnant Hmm At least I know not to waste my money on those in future! Thinking about it now, my faint positives on the normal tests started when I would have been six weeks pregnant too, so maybe the pregnancy wasn't viable from the start? Although I get immediate strong positives now and the clear blue ones did progress week-on-week as expected. Very confusing!

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Stabal · 13/05/2020 13:03

Still some tissue left that they want to get clear but otherwise I've passed everything 'pregnancy wise' but was still given another dose of the misoprostal. Don't think I can take another day of it 😭

OVO1410 · 13/05/2020 17:07

I'm so sorry to hear there's still some tissue left. Will you have to go back for another scan?

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Stabal · 13/05/2020 17:22

@OVO1410 yeah I'm booked in for a week's time again to check. Had the contraction pains fairly quickly with this dose and passed a large clot and things have been calm since.. Keeping everything crossed that was it and this is a far less traumatising experience than Monday! Hope you're doing okay x

OVO1410 · 13/05/2020 18:35

What a relief that it wasn't so bad this time Thanks My bleeding has almost stopped again so I'm definitely not going to do this naturally. I've got my hospital appointment in the morning so hopefully it gets sorted then. I've been doing this for two and a half weeks now and I'm sick of it Sad

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Stabal · 13/05/2020 19:07

@OVO1410 you poor thing. It really messes with your head 😔 I'm glad you have your appointment tomorrow, let us know how it goes x

OVO1410 · 14/05/2020 14:24

Scan at hospital confirmed missed miscarriage. Been given mifepristone today to stop the pregnancy hormone. Back in hospital on Saturday to be given misoprostol to induce me.

I can't believe the mistakes the sonographer made at my private scan. He told me there was no yolk sac and the foetus measured 27mm so dated 9 weeks + 4. I told him this was impossible, I knew when I ovulated and I was only 7 weeks + 4 but he was adamant. NHS scan today clearly showed a yolk sac and foetus measured 8mm so dated 6 weeks + 5. The NHS sonographer believes the private one mistook the yolk sac for part of the foetus, and that's why he thought the foetus was three times the size it actually was Shock The private sonographer also missed a cyst on one of my ovaries that's bleeding. And he definitely looked at my ovaries as he showed me what he was doing on the screen. Both scans were internal so there's no excuse really. I know it doesn't change the outcome anyway but I'm still shocked that the private sonographer got it so wrong.

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Ereshkigalangcleg · 15/05/2020 17:02

Sorry OP Thanks that's bad that they missed things.

OVO1410 · 07/06/2020 13:00

After medical management, I bled for 13 days. It was painful but manageable. Although the bleeding was heavy at times, I didn't have a particular moment where I could say that I had passed the sac or anything. When I went back for a scan three days after the bleeding stopped, they found that the foetus was gone but I had some retained products. They said these were very small and would pass with my next period.

However, I have not yet had a negative pregnancy test. I test every 4 days and it's still an immediate strong positive every time. It has been 4 weeks since the baby stopped developing and the consistent heavy bleeding started. Shouldn't the tests at least be getting fainter by now? How will I have a period if my body still thinks I'm pregnant?

Today I have started bleeding again after two weeks of no bleeding at all. Is this my period (regardless of the positive tests)? Or is this the miscarriage restarting to get rid of the retained products?

I'm not sure if this complicates matters further, but I'm now under a consultant as they thought I was originally pregnant with twins but that one was ectopic, as they found a "mass" in one of my Fallopian tubes. They now believe this is a corpus luteal cyst (which is common in pregnancy) and that it has collapsed and is bleeding into one of my ovaries (which is common when the pregnancy fails). I'm wondering if this is affecting my hcg levels in some way and that's why the pregnancy tests are still positive?

Just wondering if anyone out there has been through the same, as everyone I know who has miscarried has been a lot more straightforward than this and it makes me feel very alone x

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OVO1410 · 23/06/2020 14:16

Just wanted to update for anyone in future searching threads due to a similar situation.

The second lot of bleeding I experienced got rid of the retained tissue so that my womb was empty. However, there was still a mass in my Fallopian tube and pregnancy tests were still positive. My consultant was reluctant to believe that it was a heterotopic pregnancy (one in the womb and one in the tube) as the chances of this are 1 in 30,000. They were more inclined to believe that the mass was a ruptured corpus luteal cyst rather than a twin ectopic. They also said I wasn't in enough pain for it to be an ectopic pregnancy, despite me telling them that I have a high pain threshold and give birth naturally with next to no pain relief required.

They started monitoring the hcg levels in my blood every 48 hours. The hormone was decreasing, but not as quickly as they would expect, and still very high for someone who's baby was discovered to have no heartbeat five weeks earlier (the levels were 4100 on day one, 3100 on day three and 2800 on day five). They tried to fob me off with "come back in a week for another blood test" but I had been going through this for seven weeks and had had enough. I insisted they book me to see my consultant the following day which they did.

My consultant scanned me and decided it was a twin ectopic pregnancy and told me that surgery was the best option. It had been five weeks since they had first seen the mass and so there was no way it was going to go on it's own. She was reluctant to give me the methotrexate injection as the pregnancy would then grow before it decreased so there was a serious risk of rupture. I was told to come back at 8am the next morning for surgery. So there I was, on the date of my 12 week scan (and my mum's birthday, who died the year before) heading down to theatre at 8.30am.

The trust where I live have only been doing open surgery due to Covid-19 but I was very fortunate that my consultant had been trained on a new keyhole technique and came out of a clinic specifically to do my surgery. I was the first person to have keyhole surgery at that hospital for three months. As soon as they got inside me, without even touching the ectopic pregnancy, it ruptured. I suffered extensive internal bleeding but they managed to get it under control and they removed the entire Fallopian tube as it was so severely damaged. The consultant told me afterwards that the ectopic pregnancy was so large that they couldn't understand how it hadn't ruptured prior to my surgery.

Anyway, that's my story of how my missed miscarriage lasted 52 days from the first day of spotting: the discovery of twin one having no heartbeat on day 16, the confirmation that they had left the womb on day 33, the retained tissue passing by day 44 and twin two (ectopic) being removed on day 52. I hope this thread helps someone in future.

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Stabal · 23/06/2020 18:50

@OVO1410 omg you poor thing! That is awful but I'm glad you're finally on the road to recovery. How are you feeling generally and also how are you feeling about everything that happened? Is your other tube still working in case you try again? Sending you so much love x

GingerCalico · 23/06/2020 22:05

Ovo - oh my god that sounds like an absolutely horrific time you had Shock you must be a very strong and brave person, crikey you deserve a medal to have to go through all that and then carry on as normal

Good on you for pushing for answers, just goes to show the more I learn about pregnancy the more I think what a medical miracle it was that I was even born, with the amount of things that can go wrong. I hope you're taking good care of yourself and doing some self care where you can

OVO1410 · 24/06/2020 16:48

@Stabal Thank you for posting Smile I'm recovering quickly from the surgery. It's been a week today and there's hardly any pain now and I'm able to move around more normally. I get tired really quickly which is down to the blood loss but I'm on iron tablets which are starting to help. I feel okay about what's happened. Obviously it's sad and I feel the loss, but it was such a freak thing to happen that I can't see the point in being angry or negative about it. I'm just trying to move on and appreciate the good things in my life Smile The surgeon said my other tube looks healthy so my chance of future conception only decreases by about 20%. I didn't realise before but the Fallopian tubes aren't actually connected to the ovaries so an egg from the tube-less ovary can still find it's way into the remaining tube Shock If I do decide to try again, the chance of another ectopic pregnancy is about 5% and the hospital would scan me early at 6 weeks. How are you feeling after your miscarriage? Are you trying again?

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Stabal · 24/06/2020 16:55

@OVO1410 it's amazing how positive you're being, I'm in awe! Brilliant news that everything looks good with your other tube, I wish you all the best for the future! I bled lightly until the 29th when I passed a golf ball sized piece of tissue which EPU have told me was decidual cast and about an hour after that bleeding stopped completely thank god. Yeah we're trying again straight away, I got an unexpected faint positive on Monday but had some brown spotting last night and this morning so unsure what's happening. Trying not to get too excited or equally panicked! I will test again on Friday when AF would be due going by my previous cycles 🤞

OVO1410 · 24/06/2020 17:02

@GingerCalico My mum died last year due to an auto-immune disease. She was only 57 and I helped to care for her for a year before she passed. I've since had bereavement counselling to help me deal with the trauma and it's changed my whole mindset and made me a much stronger person. I don't think I would have coped with the heterotopic pregnancy otherwise, particularly having to go to the hospital alone every time because of COVID-19 Sad I'm just very lucky that I'm already blessed with two amazing children and they keep me going Smile

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OVO1410 · 24/06/2020 17:07

@Stabal I'm so glad to hear that the bleeding finally ended for you and you're possibly pregnant again. Cautious congratulations to you Thanks I totally understand why you're trying not to get your hopes up. I had light spotting early on in my first two pregnancies and those pregnancies are now 3 and 6 years old Smile I'll have everything crossed for you that everything goes to plan and you have a healthy happy pregnancy this time. Please keep me updated, sending you lots of positive thoughts xx

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