feeling like a fraud - early miscarriage

[babblington]

hi all -
just had a really early miscarriage, maybe 6 weeks at the most. I was on holiday, it would have been a much wanted 3rd baby. DH and I have pretty much always concieved first time, we've been so lucky, never expected this. I don't really feel like I can be properly sad because it was so early. we'd just done the test before we left on holiday and then it was all over. I rang my dr in the uk and he said 'oh it's just a late period' despite having had a positive result, and I'm sure he said it to make me feel better, but it doesn't. And I feel like a fraud because my friend (and thousands of other people) just had a 11 week miscarriage and was completely traumatised, and this seems so trivial in comparison, but i'd just got my head around it and now it's gone. sorry - long, boring.

Hi Headfairy - glad I spotted this! Yes, I am extremely lucky and am 30 with DC3 - been told it's a boy but not convinced! I got pregnant not the first month after the miscarriage but the second, so there is something to be said for getting on with it!
I'm really sorry for your loss though, hope you are ok.

Oh I'm so glad Babblington, congratulations and I hope everything goes well when your new baby arrives.

I'm feeling surprisingly well, I don't think I was convinced about this pregnancy from the start. I took 4 tests because I didn't believe it, so I never really started to think about the new baby. I think that's really helped. I had a little cry once I realised I was miscarrying, but since then I've felt absolutely fine. I'm now just trying to work out when I'm next going to ovulate so we can try again!

Sounds like your head is in a good place!
Good luck- have lots of fun trying.

I thought I had miscarried at 6 weeks with my first baby (I hadn't - but that is another story - involving a very dismissive GP) A friend said 'never mind it was probably just a bundle of cells' - I still have the friend but will never forget how insensitive I found that remark! (even though I know she didn't mean it) Even though I didn't miscarry, I still went through the grieving process as I thought I had done. A miscarriage is a miscarriage and still upsetting even at that early stage. Good luck with trying again.....

Headfairy, sorry to hear of your loss

And Babblington, glad to hear you got pregnant again

I know how quickly I feel emotionally attached once I know I'm pregnant (I'm 26 weeks into 2nd pregnancy) and don't see why losing at 6 weeks should be dismissed

Hi there, I can't speak as someone who has had a very early miscarriage, only as someone who suffered one at 12 weeks. But what struck me most when I lost my baby was a sense of not knowing whether I was entitled to feel the emotions I was feeling. Should I have felt better because I already had a child, or because it didn't happen later in my pregnancy, or because I had a feeling early on that things weren't right so it wasn't a huge shock, or because my husband was equally devastated? I still can't described exactly what I felt, but I do remember that in amongst all the feelings of grief was this enormous sense of unfairness - I was supposed to have a baby and for reasons I could never know that chance had been taken away from me. I mourned a baby I never had, and you are doing the same. It makes no difference when it happens, the loss is just as great -everything you feel is a valid and legitimate feeling.

Thanks babblington, I think I am in a good place. DH's face did light up when I said we should try again as soon as possible, I'm sure he's excited about having another baby too, but his immediate thought was lots of sex

sammummy, about your mc, so sorry you're finding it so hard. Of course it doesn't make it easier if you have another child. You're just as likely to feel the grief just as much as anyone else. I hope you feel better soon.

How insensitive of your doctor! I agree that you have every right to grieve, am hoping things are going ok now.

sorry to hijack,

Mable, I'm really curious, did your doctor do any tests to confirm that you had been pregnant?

Just that I had a 2 week late 'period' a while back (not a normal period for several very distinct reasons) that I suspected was a miscarriage but tried very hard to ignore/forget. Eventually mentioned it to doctor who said it probably was a miscarriage but never mind. Always regretted not trying to find out for sure earlier, as felt guilty for having lost it, and guilty for feeling sad/guilty as there may never have been a baby anyway. Certainly felt like I had no right to mourn a baby that may never have existed!

hmm, it would be interesting if anyone else has been 'diagnosed' with just a probable miscarraige and nothing more concrete. did it help at all, or did you find it hard too? - very long - sorry

same thing happened to me, and lots of people dismissed it as it was so early.

of course you should be able to grieve, you have lost a much wanted baby

so sorry for you

((hugs))

pumpkinsoup, not quite the same as you, but I remember a few years ago now, I had a very ill advised liaison with an ex boyfriend and the period I had afterwards was a bit late, not as much as two weeks, but maybe a week. I didn't really keep track of things in those days. Anyway when it came it was heavy and clotty. Now I've had a miscarriage I'm starting to think that's what I had then. I always thought a miscarriage would be terribly painful, but I now know that if it happens at this sort of stage, ie 5 or 6 weeks, then it's not terribly painful at all. At the time my biggest fear was cancer as my friend had had some big clots during her periods and had an abnormal smear result and had to have some cells removed. This scared the heck out of me and I had a smear the next week. It was all clear of course, but now I'm starting to think I had a miscarriage.

Thanks so much for raising this issue - my GP was dismissive but the worst were the staff in the theatre where I got a ERPC - wheeled in on bed to see operating table with rubbish bin & black plastic bag at bottom. At this stage I was hysterical and hesitated when asked to climb over to the table. The nurses started laughing saying 'she doesn't want to get on'. Of course I didn't - it was my first baby and first loss missed at 8 weeks, discovered at 13 week scan. Health professionals need to be much more sensitive, so hopefully campaigns like this will make a difference.

I had 3 m/cs in 2007. First was at 14 weeks, I had contractions for several hours at home before begin taken to casualty in agony where I spent a further 2 hours being looked after by lovely nurses. Then taken upstairs to wait 2 hours for consultant from hell who looked at her nails and yawned when I was explaining in a rather drugged up state what had happened to my first ever pregnancy. She carried out inspections and tests which I have found out later were unnecessary and said there was no option but an ERPC. She got angry and walked out of the room when I said I was going to another hospital as she had hurt me. Went to UCH where I could not have had better care and who eventually sent me home that evening to have a natural m/c. There needs to be better training and monitoring to ensure that blase consultants don't treat patients as inconvenient pieces of meat.

You do wonder sometimes if some of these people remember their hippocratic oath..

"I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug."

All this stuff about it being a missed period or how you're not taken seriously until a second period is missed is terribly dated. Research has moved on massively since the days when your GP wouldn't see you til the 2nd trimester - a lot of medical and nursing staff just need to catch up. If I waited until that point, I wouldn't have ANY children.

There are disorders - associated with blood clotting, for instance - which affect the way the fertilised egg implants in the uterine lining and the placenta forms at its earliest stages. If this process is affected then your chances of a successful pregnancy are extremely low. 1 in 10, in my case. These disorders can be treated, however, and I now have two children (with four miscarriages). People who think that an early miscarriage is nothing to concern oneself about are just ill-educated. It may be that the embryo was unfortunately not viable due to a one-off chromosomal problem, but it could be symptomatic of a greater fertility problem. This is less common, obviously, hence why the NHS doesn't treat for recurrent miscarriage until three consecutive losses.

Apart from being ill educated and unsympathetic, to dismiss an early loss is to ignore the effect that something like this can have an one's mental health and consequently your family's wellbeing. HVs do that ridiculous test for pnd when they see you after a birth, but less consideration is given to how you might feel if you're trying to conceive again whilst looking after a bouncy toddler.

I had the flu badly, and consequently had a misacarriage at 10 or 11 weeks in 2000 and I'm still a little bit sad about it once a week or so, even though I've gone on to have more kids and I am otherwise happy with my lot. I wasn't treated well at all at the time, looking back. But I found out later I could have chatted it all through with a midwife if I wanted, and I wish I had done that. I didn't realise you were allowed to do this if you hadn't already booked in.

sorry to post so late, I have lurked on the forum twice this year waiting to feel confident to post good news and join a due forum, before having 2 m/c. my first was at 11wks earlier this yr, and then recently, had a 'late period' which i know was v. early pregnancy as i had 4 +ive home tests but was waiting a while before confirming with GP.
DId i make a mistake in letting things happen naturally the second time without reporting to my gp? i am 37 and have never tried before to get pg b4 this yr. v worried that there is a problem but NHS don't seem to care about m/c unless you have a minimum of 3 confirmed pregnancies that end in m/c before tehey investiate.
totally depressed by it all as i am coming up to my first due date....can i bear to try again?

Same here with our 3rd baby. Quick conception with all my pregnancies and then we lost our 3rd one. I still feel really sad and I know I always will. I understand about feeling a fraud as "only" 6 weeks but that was still weeks of knowing a baby was there and loving them.