Pregnancy after miscarriage -support thread

[cori]

As some of you already know I am currently 5 weeks pregnant after having had a missed miscarriage at 17 weeks in April of this year.
I am very pleased and excited to be pregnant again but at the same time full of fear and anxiety.
Their seems to be a lot of women on mumsnet at the moment who have experienced a recent miscarriage and are pregnant again. We all have the same worries.
Hopefully we can use this thread to offer each other mutual support and help keep each other positive.

Arabica- excellent news about your scan.

hya diddle, im fine, still getting a few contractions here and there, just had first one of the day and was a biggy, was not painful in any way though but hate contractions, drs will scan cervix tommorrow so i will tell them about contractions. i am a bit nervous really hoping they say ooh what a long normal fused tight looking cervix lol
how are you doing?

of course they will say that slink - your cervix will be tightly closed.
I'm feeling ok thanks, tired but guess i should get used to that. seem to havce expanded a lot the last week or two, bump is now huge.

Good luck Slink for tomorrow - yes cervix will be closed.

Ive just had a scan this morning and im now 8+2 not 8+5 which cheered me up, still looks like a blob, due back on the 2nd Feb four weeks time for my booking in scan.

Good luck for the cervical scan, Slinkstah. How is that carried out?
I'm looking forward to the nuchal scan. If I get a good enough result then I won't have to have a CVS but they did say it would be hard to get a result over 1 in 250 (the cut-off point for recommending CVS apparently). My age related risk is 1 in 30.

diddle- im tired too, hasn't seemed to get any less into the 2nd trimester- oh well conserve energy for june onwards its likley to be a sleepless one my bump is still small, i will catch you up soon, i reckon ill get to 20 weeks and then it will happen all of a sudden.

trix glad your scan went well

arabica, its mad how the risk goes up so dramatically with age, when i had ds at 19 my risk was 1- millions, in my pg last year my age related risk was about 1-1000 i think. i hope your actual risk is low so you dont need cvs
cerivcal scans are done like really early scans- probe thing in vagina, must remember to wash and trim

And wear your nice pants too Slinkstah

Morning all,
Slink- Hope your scan goes well today.
Trix- Glad your scan went well.
It would have been my due date today, so feeling a little . We're going away to Cheltenham with DDs for the weekend. Hope everyone has a good day today and have a nice weekend everyone.

Thinking of you Petunia. Hope you have a good w/e.

apppointment was a disaster! the consultant was nice and listened to the babys heartbeat with a doppler, and asked even more questions about my stillbirth. then she send me to maternity day care unit to have a cervical scan and to be seen there in the future until my 20 week scan at the antenatal clinic.
at the maternity day care they explained about this trial which basically is 1 group of people get cervical scans and stitch if scans reveal shortening of cervix and the other group of people get normal antenatal care. take a wild guess what group im in!!! yes the fuck all care one! so i am now not going to be seen until my 20 week scan and even though i am having contractions and anxietys which are preventing me sleeping i cannot get even 1 cervical scan to even put my mind at rest. i was led to beleive i was going to be monitored so i am really dissapointed!

to top all that off whilst sitting in the maternity day care i noticed a blood letter in my notes which had my blood results for hiv and hepc etc hiv= neg hepc= equivocal repeat serology!!!!(equivocal is when they can't get a result, either from it being not negative enough or from the blood sample not good enough) No one had even noticed or thought to tell me! i also remembered i had forgot to get the afp bloods done so i went back to antenatal and explained they said the afp people had left, and that i would have to come back on monday! i then asked about the equivocal and said this is why is did not want it done(i had equivocal result for same test 18 months previous, took 10 weeks and 3 repeats to get a negative, i spent those 10 weeks in complete depression thinking that i had got some awful disease) by this point i was stupidly crying saying why has no one discussed this with me. anyway a nice midwife came along and left a note on some other midwifes desk to phone me at some point.

im really upset about it all, i now am completely alone in this pg, i will have no assurrance that my contractions are not causing my cervix to shorten. and on top of the extreme anxiety i am feeling right now i now have the equivocal hep c result to worry about too.
i have also not slept in 2 days worrying about my supposed cervical scan! i have been told that if i get anymore contractions to go to AandE and get them to look up there with a speculum and see if my cervix is shut!!! what a joke, so now i have no proir warning that i might go into labour because cervical scans show thinning etc and if i do feel ill and having contractions and any signs of labour i am to just present myself to the AandE to look with speculum- last time i was having symptons and contractions way before my cervix decided to open, speculums can't see thinning!! arghhhh

oh crickey sorry for the long post am very upset

Sorry to but in here... slink.. I am so sorry to hear of the poor care you are receiving by your maternity hospital. Is it worth going to A&E anyway to make sure of things? Or can you dr intervine in some way? Have you already be asigned a Midwife, could you call her. sorry for more questions just trying to see if there's another channel for you to get your answers .x

They shouldn't leave you in when you are upset like this. I do hope you get reassurance scans etc. soon . x

sorry about whats happening slink, hope you know that people are allways here, willing to offer support. (((hugs)))

thanks guys, just wish they hadn't told me i was going to get monitored and then tell me different. i am wondering why i am booked in for high risk hospital care when all they can do for me now is test urine and bp! i might as well be with the community midwives.

Slink I would scream and shout at them some more and get your MW to step and get you the care you need and deserve. x

Slink - I am absolutely gobsmacked at the awful care you are getting!!!!! brought tears to my eyes that after all you have been through, they won't even check for you. That is apalling!!!

You need to get your DP to get on the phone to them again and sort them out, you NEED to be in the group where you get more monitoring, its essential not negotiable. I'd kick up one hell of a fuss and make sure you get looked at. If they have time to do this damn trial then they have time to give you a scan next week!!!

I would seriosuly consider complaining as well to someone who can make a difference.

Sorry about typos! far too mad to check them.

Give me their number slink i'll bloody call them, this is madness!!!

Slink - I can only repeat what Diddle has said, go to your doctors and get her/him to do something this is a disgrace. What hospital is it?

Its appaling to be treated in such a way I would make a serious complaint its just shoddy.

They say who gets treatment and who doesn't is completely randomised and that so far they still don't know whether its best to do anything about thinning of the cervix or not. and they said some women might thin naturally but be at no risk for preterm labour.
my argument is though, i want to know if my cervix is thinning so i can make the choice to have a stitch or not myself and take things into my own hands like bedrest and basically anything to get me past 24 weeks. i'd rather be prepared for it if it happens.

i am stressed! the hospital seems friendly but unorganised, i am completely bewildered as to why they said i was going to have scans and now im not! the hospital is st marys in paddington btw

im so unhappy i have to fight for the care i need, i fought last pg but not hard enough, i rang to say i was unwell and was fobbed off, i then continued moaning at my antenatal appointment(few days before i presented in established labour) and was told my iron count was normal and my urine fine therefore i am fine- can't help thinking if they had just listened to me, they would have discovered i was in preterm labour and stopping it before it was too late might have worked

i have had such bad luck over the last 3 years, well since i moved to london!! its been one thing after another i am sorry for wallowing in self pity but i can't help feeling like i must have broken a mirror or something

dp has found a place on harley street that does cervical scans for 50 quid so i might go there.

Slink - also sory and aghast thatyou've been treated this way.
If you can check the credentials of the Harley St clinic and it's all good, then I'd really consider handing over £50 for the peace of mind.

Slinstah. I am so sorry you are having such a bad experience. How many weeks are you now? If I were you I would seriously consider having this cervical scan done privately.
Why dont you give 'Tommy' the baby/pregnancy charity a call on Monday. They have experienced midwives on there helpline and they might be able to give you advice on the level of care you should rightly being expecting. here
If they advise you that you are recieving a substandard level of care then my next step would be to write a letter of complaint.

I know it takes a lot energy to fight for care you should be able to expect automatically. I would try writing to the complaints department, outlining your experiences, I would also cc the letter to the Head of midwifery and Head Obsterician. You could try to call the head of Midwifery to complain, but I dont know how likely it is that you would get through.

Good evening ladies, I have been following your thread as I have had 3 mc and am now 12 weeks pregnant and VERY nervous to say the least. Up to yesterday everything seems to be going great but for the last two days I have been having what I can only describe as Braxton Hicks type feelings - not painful but uncomfortable and worrying. Have got 2 DDs so effectively this is my 6th pregnancy! (that makes me feel like an old sow) so there is a lot of "wear and tear" inside but wondered if anyone else has had similar symptoms. Help!

Hi Clara,
Sorry to hear about your previous miscarriages. How far along are you?
As I said to Slinkstah a while back, I had something like braxton hicks contractions when pregnant with DS, sometimes they can be quite normal even early on. Have you had a booking in appointment yet. I would raise it with someone.

Slinkstah, how are you doing? Hope you are OK.
have just been looking some old threads, did you used to be Virtualfairy?

Hi Clara, I had very simialar types of pains / cramps but they turned out to be constipation paints. Mention it to your midwife / doctor.

Slink - hope you're doing ok this morning, i would go for the Harley street scan if its checks out ok.

Clara1 - So sorry to hear about your multiples miscarriages, but congrats on your pregnancy. I woudl get your braxton hicks checked out just to be on the safe side, although it is common to feel them.

hi everyone yep alls well with me, have left dp in charge of hospital stuff as have too much on my plate atm as i have 3 weeks left at uni. he is hoefully gonna book me in to a private place to get some cervical scans.

been having few contractions this week and low feeling and a little watery/thin non smelly discharge sorry tmi - all worrying signs but am thinking that i would never have noticed these before so may be being a tad paranoid. there is nothing i can do apart from wish the 2nd trimester away and hope for the best. the dr said last week that there is 90% chance that all will go ok this time. have heard worse statistics in past but am trying to be optomistic.

cori-yep i was vf, good guessing. after a big mn break i needed to change my name when i decided to ttc as a new start and to not be traced by well wishing old friends on the sep05 club. wanted to try and leave grief in my old name and ttc afresh hope you can understand awaiting a telling off face

No, I wouldnt tell you off, but had wondered what happened to VF, I think we chatted a bit after you lost your baby. I just thought that some of your story sounded similar to the person I chatted to months ago. So I had a look back.
I understand not wanting to be traced, I actually havent chatted ever again to any one who was in 'due in October thread' no offense to them.