Anyone else here had to have a surgical termination that can tell me what it's like?

[sludgefactory]

I'm not sure why I'm writing here really, other than I feel like I need to get this out somewhere. I'm devastated. DH and I had been trying for a baby for 2.5 years before we managed to fall pregnant with our first in June. We were ecstatic and couldn't believe it was finally happening for us!

I was really anxious from day 1 and we had private scans at 6 weeks and 9 weeks just to try and allay our fears, and baby was developing beautifully. At the 12 week scan this week it all went wrong. The baby had a severe case of hydrops fetalis and we were told would not survive another 8 weeks, let alone to full-term. We had to take the decision to terminate the pregnancy and have tests run at that point to understand the underlying causes.

I'm now waiting for my surgery date, still pregnant, with all the symptoms and baby was still alive when we saw it, and it just feels so hard. I'm terrified for the surgery and have no idea what to expect - the only thing I asked is that it's under general so I don't have to know what's going on.

Can anyone tell me about the recovery from something like this? I'm, scared they're going to do something wrong and I'll never get pregnant again.

I'm so sorry, my love. I've been in your shoes, and it's really hard.

Have you had a general anaesthetic before? I was asked to wear a surgical gown and no jewellery (or bra - underwires), and wheeled down to theatre on a bed, under a blanket. There's usually a little room outside the operating theatre where the anaesthetist will meet you again, having talked to you on the ward, and you'll be given a cannula in your hand and as you fall asleep, an oxygen mask to wear. IME, the next thing I remember is waking up in a recovery room, where there is usually a nurse looking after only one patient and s/he'll take care of you for a little time (hard to say how long as I tend to fall in and out of naps) and give you a drink. When they're happy that you're fully conscious and recovered, they take you back to the ward. On every occasion that it's happened to me, the staff were very compassionate and I felt well cared for.

In terms of recovery, you'll definitely want to take it easy for a while. I took a week off work and largely lay on the sofa and watched easy TV. I felt ok physically to go back to a desk-based job, but was still quite sad and low when I did go back, so you might want to take longer if that's possible or if your job is very physical. My period came back 4-5 weeks later. I went to the GP about a month after that (so 8 weeks or so after the m/c) because I was feeling a bit weird and we decided together it was probably anxiety. Just knowing that it wasn't something physical really helped, and that spell passed quite quickly.

I had an ERPC in November 2012 and was successfully pregnant again by May 2013 and that baby is a beautiful 9yo boy now. I had another in December 2017, decided to wait a little while but was pregnant again by February 2019 and she is a beautiful almost-4yo girl who's about to start school. I hope you have a very similar experience. I'll always be sad about the babies who didn't make it, but the grief shrinks as time goes on.

It's a quick and straightforward procedure. I had it under conscious sedation at 10 weeks. I dressed in a gown, they gave the conscious sedation meds. Then I lay in the chair, they injected a local anaesthetic into the cervix, and they performed the suction procedure. It only took about 5 minutes and I felt comfortable and was talking to the staff throughout. Then I walked to the recovery room where I spent 20 minutes or so chilling. Then I dressed and was done.

I took the next couple of days off from work, but honestly, while I wouldn't have wanted to be running any marathons, and it was probably better to be at home so I wasn't under pressure, I didn't feel the need to stay in bed. However, under general you will obviously have more of an effect of the anaesthetic.

I bled on and off for about 10 days afterwards, not very heavily - like a period or less. I conceived again shortly after and had a healthy baby.