Hi all,
I am a long time lurker but have never posted before!
I swore to myself if I ever got to a point to be optimistic in my TTC journey I would share my story on here to give hope to any other ladies going through recurrent miscarriage- this may be a bit long winded but I really hope it might help someone <3
We started our TTC journey in March of 2023 after I just came off the contraceptive pill. It took some time for this to come out of my system but by June we had fallen pregnant but unfortunately this ended at 5 weeks pregnant. We were devestated but were told 1 miscarriage is actually quite common and it was unlikely to happen again.
We fell pregnant quickly in August and after getting past 5 weeks I started to relax thinking this was our time. I decided to book an early ultrasound at around 10 weeks privately in October. We weren't particularly nervous, more so excited however when we went in the sonographer asked was I sure of my dates as she couldnt see anything on the abdominal ultrasound. She then did an internal ultrasound which should 2 yolk sacs but no fetal poles- she assured my my dates were just wrong and I was only 6 weeks pregnant but I know myself this wasn't possible. I left devestated and within 3 days began bleeding.
Again, we were determined to keep trying but honestly I was after losing hope after 2 miscarriages- we were referred to the recurrent loss clinic but our appointment wasn't until March so we were told to keep trying and if we fell pregnant we would be seen sooner so we did. We fell pregnant in December but once again miscarried in January. I didn't even feel anything for this loss as we weren't excited- we just knew it would happen once we saw the positive test. Unfortunately this miscarriage took 5 weeks to fully leave my system so it brought us up to our referral to the recurrent loss clinic.
During our appointment, the doctors and midwives were absolutely amazing- they ran through our history and told us to carry on trying but this time they gave us a plan. As I had a known blood clotting disorder (all previous pregnancies I was told I wouldn't start heperin until around 8 weeks pregnant) I was started on 400mg of progesterone from 3 dpo and baby aspirin every evening. Once we were to get a positive pregnancy test I would take 100mg eltroxin (I was already on this) in the morning along with 400mg of progesterone twice a day, 1 x heperine injection, 75mg baby aspirin and high dose folic acid.
We got another positive pregnancy test mid April (getting pregnant has never been our issue, its always been holding onto pregnancies) and I was absolutely terrified, I didnt even tell me husband until I was 6 weeks and that was only because he asked me did I want a glass of wine. We didnt really speak about the pregnancy too much however this one immediately felt different (however I thought maybe this was just due to being on the progesterone?) I was constantly nauseous from 5 weeks pregnant and from week 7 I was signed out of work as I physically couldnt get out of bed.
We were brought for an early reassurance scan at 8 weeks and I cannot express the fear I felt- I was convinced there would be no baby. I walked into the appointment and burst out crying. Thankfully the midwife was amazing- got me up on the bed put the dopples straight on my belly and told me within 5 seconds there was a healthy strong heartbeat. She actually had to stop the scan as I was crying so heavily she couldn't keep the doppler on my tummy! We had never seen a heartbeat before.
We were told to come at 10 weeks (just to reassure us, not because anything looked wrong) and once again I was filled with dread. There was no way I was going to get another good scan- but low and behold the exact same thing happened (I started to cry, they scanned me immediately and baby had a beautiful heart beat). We were measuring right on track!
Finally we were discharged from the early pregnancy unit and were given our dating scan in the maternity hospital for when we were almost 13 weeks pregnant.
I spent the entire 3 week gap googling "good 10 week scan but terrified for 12 week scan" to see so many women going through the same fear as me- unless you've been through losses I don't think you will ever understand how terrifying being scanned is.
We went for our scan and once again, the midwife was an angel. Straight up on the bed, doppler on belly and withn 5 seconds said "gorgeous strong heartbeat and your baby has the hiccups"! I burst out crying (you can probably see a theme here) and she reassured me everything was perfect so she was just going to be quiet for a little while to get all the measurements but nothing at all was wrong.
Baby was measuring exactly on track and she actually struggled to get the measurements as they kept hiccupping and wiggling but she got them in the end!
I know we aren't out of the woods yet and I am obviously so terrified still of anything going wrong but being out of the first trimester is such a relief.
Anyway, if any of you managed to read this far, I really hope this may give some hope to my fellow recurrent loss pals. I know my journey hasn't been the longest and some people are dealing with these losses for years on end so I cannot imagine how hard that must be but I do firmly believe I would not be in such a priveledged position without the help of the variation of different drugs given to me by the recurrent loss clinic.
I wish you all the absolute best with your journeys and truly hope any woman going through anything similiar can find hope and the motivation to keep going for what we all so desperately want - sending you all so much love <3