Please or to access all these features

Miscarriage/pregnancy loss

Find support and share your experiences on our Miscarriage forum. See also legal rights and support after baby loss.

Blighted Ovum diagnosis then passed an embryo

4 replies

Neverendingheartbreak · 05/12/2024 13:42

Hi all,

I should be 9 weeks pregnant today, but at a private 7 week scan I was told there was a small, empty gestational sac. The private scan provider referred me to EPAU who did bloods. My Hcg was 46500, but 3 days later they did a transvaginal scan which also showed an empty sac. Because the sac wasn't large enough to diagnose a miscarriage, I came back on Monday (8 + 4). The sac hadn't grown and was still empty, so they diagnosed a missed miscarriage and said it was officially called a blighted ovum. I opted for medical management, so had mifepristone on Tuesday and began my in hospital medical management with misoprostol today. The experience hasn't been as traumatic and painful as I had imagined (thank goodness), but after passing some quite large placental tissue the hospital thought it was likely to be the end. I've been kept a few hours longer and passed some more tissue. I said to my husband "I know it can't be as the sac was empty, but that looked like a baby". To my surprise, the nurse then came in and said it was in fact an embryo. I asked how this was possible and she said it can happen where the embryo grows outside of the gestational sac. I asked if this was called an ectopic pregnancy and she said no it's called a pregnancy of unknown location. I can find information about PUL online, but nothing that explains the scenario I'm faced with. Has anyone got any knowledge/ experience of this to run me through exactly what has happened, where the embryo grew instead, how this occurs/ chances of it happening in future, and how this was missed on an ultrasound? We'd finally got our heads around there never being a baby and it being a blighted ovum, to now be hit with this and me seeing a fairly substantial sized embryo in the toilet. Please help

OP posts:
Casdentwo · 05/12/2024 13:53

I'm sorry you've gone through this can you get the medics to confirm there was definitely only one sac ie not twins ? Sending you a hug x

CustardCream31 · 05/12/2024 14:24

I'm so sorry for your loss and experience. I don't have any advice, but I have had a similar experience recently. Should have been 9, saw a heartbeat twice (hard to find and measure on all scans) but measured behind, but on final scan they dated me 6 weeks and said the heart had stopped. Had the medical MMC at home.... and eventually passed a much bigger, more advanced baby than they said/measured. I feel so traumatised and worried they had it all wrong.
Sending hugs your way and hope you get useful/comforting replies Flowers

Neverendingheartbreak · 20/12/2024 12:24

Sorry for not replying sooner, it's been a difficult couple of weeks. I'm sorry to hear about your experience @CustardCream31. I'm still no further forward with answers @Casdentwo , I think I'll just have to accept it as one of those things we won't really know what happened. I just posted a new thread about TTC in future and some difficulties I'm having with my consultant. That's the next battle. I had just started to feel more positive again and the clouds were starting to part but I feel totally knocked back by this now 😭

OP posts:
CustardCream31 · 20/12/2024 12:44

Don't apologise Flowers totally understand.

Be kind to yourself. As hard as that is - with all the "why" and "what if" questions in your head (I'm the same!).

Surely a rainbow has to follow a storm....

New posts on this thread. Refresh page