I am on tenterhooks waiting to see if the bleeding I had last night is going to become an early miscarriage (I am only about two weeks pregnant). This would be my third pregnancy loss at a really early stage, and I am finding it so upsetting and also very hard to find information about pregnancy loss at this stage. My doctor is quite dismissive. I'd be so grateful to hear from anyone out there who has experienced something that sounds like my story below...
I'll be 36 in March. We started trying for a baby in August 09. Very soon (a couple of days after I think I'd have conceived) after our first attempt, I started feeling symptoms (nausea mainly that first time, but also a funny smell in my nose) that made me hopeful that we might have got lucky and become pregnant first time. I really 'felt' pregnant, but didn't want to get my hopes up as it was so early and I had read that the first few weeks were a risky time. After about four days, I started to bleed. This was well before my period was due, and I was pretty upset. My doctor advised that I hadn't done anything wrong, that it was very common for a pregnancy to fail at that early stage and that my husband and I should just again the next month. She also suggested that it was possible I hadn't been pregnant, but was unable to account for the symptom I felt.
We took the doctor's advice, tried again the following month and again seemed to get pregnant straight away. This time, the symptoms were increased ? my boobs were incredibly painful and seemed to get huge in just a few days. I thought I'd have to buy new bras. I felt quite nauseous, and about a week after I think we'd have conceived I started needing to go to the loo a lot more often. Because of what had happened the first time, I was really nervous and worried about any niggling little pains. I tried to convince myself not to worry, as I thought the same thing couldn't happen again, and once I got nearer to when my period was due, I allowed myself to get hopeful. But about two days before I had planned to take a home pregnancy test, I started bleeding. This time it was quite painful, and I was again very upset and sad, feeling the loss of the potential baby, and also worrying that maybe there was something wrong with me if I could conceive so easily but it wasn't lasting. I did a pregnancy test, but it was negative.
A friend of mine who is a retired GP kindly agreed to do an internal exam (just in case there was any hope that the bleeding might not be a full-scale miscarriage). She said that my uterus was definitely enlarged, as it would be if I was pregnant, and at that time my cervix seemed to be closed but sadly later that day there was a lot more blood and I had to accept that if I had been pregnant, I had lost the baby. I did another pregnancy test a couple of days later, just being hopeful, but again it was negative.
I wasn't able to get an appointment to see my doctor for ages, so had to settle for a telephone appointment. Again, the doctor tried to tell me that I might not have been pregnant, and even I had been, there was nothing that could be done at so early a stage. She told me that 'three is the magic number' when it comes to miscarriages, and that she couldn't refer me to a consultant, especially as I hadn't had a positive pregnancy test. She advised me to wait until after Christmas to try again, because then my baby wouldn't be born at a bad time for the school year (which was the last thing I cared about!).
I run my own business, a shop, and knew that the months before Christmas would be busy and stressful. I couldn't face trying again for a baby during that time, as the worry combined with work stress would have been too much. So earlier this month, scared but hopeful, we tried again. A few days after possible conception, I started feeling the symptoms. Not as strongly this time, but I thought that might a good thing. I didn't tell my husband as I though there was no point in us both worrying. I thought I'd wait until I had a positive pregnancy test. 9 days in, (Tuesday just gone) I woke up to find a tiny bit of brown blood and panicked. I got a phone appointment with a doctor (a different doctor) who said that it could just be spotting due to the embryo implanting in the womb. He also said I could be imagining the symptoms, but when I told him that I'd been keeping a diary of how I was feeling since last September, and that I knew that aching boobs, nausea etc, were not normal at this of the month, he started to take me more seriously. But he said I would have to be trying unsuccessfully every month for a year before he would refer me for any tests (because he said early pregnancy loss was so common). He advised me just to wait it out this time and see what happened.
There was no more blood that day, or the next day, and I was starting to think maybe things were OK when last night there was some more blood. There still hasn't been loads of blood, but my period is due around now, and I'm just so worried. I still feel a little bit sick, and by boobs are a bit achy, but I think not as much as they were before. Am now waiting to see whether I get a full bleed. I did a pregnancy test this morning, and it was negative.
Does anyone else have experience of feeling pregnancy symptoms so early and then losing the pregnancy? I feel so sad for anyone who has lost a baby, no matter how early. Thanks so much.