So I found out I was pregnant on 14th Feb. On 28th March I had a miscarriage. I have never been pregnant before so this was my first pregnancy. I have been feeling put off by services following miscarriage and thought this thread would be good for people to talk about their experiences of miscarriage/loss positive and negative.
I started with the spotting ( brown and small amounts ) on Saturday 16th March. It would come and go and I had no pains. I thought it had stopped but it came back the next day. I contacted my midwife who reassured me this was completely normal and was ‘implantation bleeding’ so I didn’t worry when it carried on. I still had it after 5 days so I phoned the midwifes again and again they reassured me it was normal and that if I still had it by Sunday to call them back. By Sunday morning I had a bit of fresh blood which quickly turned back to brown old blood. Feeling quite anxious by now as it had been going on for 8 days which I thought was a bit long. So I called the midwife and she agreed and said she would arrange for me to have a scan on Monday and would call me with the details of when to go.
Monday lunchtime we arrive for our scan. I knew something was wrong as it was taking a long time and I’m a nurse so looking at scans I could tell there was a sack but I couldn’t see anything in it. She checked with how far along I thought I was and I was meant to be 11weeks. She ended up having to do an internal scan. It showed a foetus the age of 6 weeks with no heartbeat. She explained my dates could be wrong.
She said she would ‘sit us in a quiet room’ whilst she called the dr as I would need to go speak to the dr. So we sat in this room... small impersonal and it was like ‘the bad news room’ we hated it. I wish they had just sat us back in the waiting room. She came back after 5 minutes and said the dr was expecting us over in the main hospital and said we could ‘use the back door’ instead of going through the waiting room. At the time I wasn’t focusing but on reflecting on this treatment it made me feel like we were ‘not to be seen’ ‘something wrong’ almost felt ‘dirty’. If they thought they were saving our feelings then they shouldn’t have bothered this just made me feel awful .... we would much prefer to have gone via the waiting room.
The Dr was very good and said they didn’t know at the moment if this was a miscarriage or wrong dates...... that I would come back in 7 days and they would re scan me.
No information was given of ‘what to do if’ . I knew what was happening and grieved straight away. My husband held onto hope our dates were wrong.
The bleeding continued turning more fresh bright blood with small clots. Then I started with back ache and cramping on Wednesday. I took paracetamol and had warm baths and used hot water bottle. This seemed to help. I had called the midwife back and left a message ... no one ever called me back.... I didn’t know whether to go to hospital or stay home or at what point should I go to hospital. I just felt alone and having to fend for myself in a situation I had never been in before. I began thinking..... ‘wow, what do other people do who are miscarrying’ is there any clear guidance. By Thursday early evening the pain was getting so bad I couldn’t stand and blood was pouring out of me.... we just didn’t know what to do and I could get in a car so my husband called an ambulance.
I was in hospital for 8 hours..... stayed in A and E majors on a machine and they gave me iv paracetomol after 2 hours....... now I didn’t have the entinox as the paramedics had taken theirs the pain was so bad I was shaking, feeling nauseas and gripping the trolly so hard..... I thought I was going to pass out. The female nurse didn’t even seem to know why I was there... she asked me what I was in for ..... I felt awful telling her. Shouldn’t she know? When could I have my pain relief? When would a dr see me. After being moved to majors from minors I had a nice nurse and he gave me the pain relief. He gave me a load of bedpans to pass into when I used the toilet as he said they needed to know how much blood I was using.... yet in minors they hadn’t informed me of this and I had just been going on normal toilet and flushing.
After passing the foetus whole around midnight and giving the contents to the nurse an emergency nurse consultant came to see me. She was quite stand offish and very curt in her manner. She made a mistake by telling me that these things can be managed at home. And when my husband asked a question she snapped ‘and who are you’ this whole attitude annoyed me. Before my husband even managed to answer I looked at her name badge and addressed her by her first name and explained this person was my husband and that I am someone who has a very high pain tolerance level and that my plan had been to manage this at home as I had been doing the last couple of days. However, I felt losing a lot of blood and not being able to stand and feeling dizzy warranted an emergency in my books. I think she realised how she had come across and immediately said that absolutely that was why there was there and that I had done the right thing. Now the foetus had been passed I was free to go. However, blood was still pouring from me ...it was on their trolley so I suggested it would be safer to wait for a while to see if the bleeding lessended and I had heard them mention a blood transfusion. She agreed and I stayed another 2 hours and arrived home 3am.
I had been told to phone the scan department the next day which I did and they agreed to see me. On re-scanning it showed everything had passed. I was told I might bleed for a while but if I had any bad smell or increase in bleed to phone.
I. Still bleeding and just lost 200 mls of blood so phoned a number I had been given... they said it was normal and not to worry.
Reflecting on the whole situation I don’t think there was much support for women who have miscarried. I’ve pretty much had to decide whether I should call a midwife, my gp, 111 or an ambulance with no clear guidance. This was exspecially nerve racking for never had been through this either. No services seem to connect up with me having to explain my situation each time I speak to someone. We recieved no psychological support from any professional services all I was told was go home, don’t walk, don’t work......
I’m hoping mine is an isolated experience because if it isn’t then this is very sad.