Experience with missed miscarriage?

[helenv679]

Hi,

Firstly i already have a healthy 1 year old so feel very lucky about that.

But I've just had a private scan at what I think was 9.5 weeks with second pregnancy and there is no heartbeat/it's measuring only 7.5weeks. I've had no bleed or cramping so seems like a missed miscarriage.

I'm not sure what to do now - do I phone my GP? They won't know I was pregnancy b/c I self referred. Or phone midwife? My first appt was due to be next week.

Will they double check anything? Is there a chance my dates are wrong? Would it have had a heartbeat at 7 weeks if dates are wrong?

And if it is the inevitable - how do I pass it? Is it a tablet? Is it an internal procedure? How much does it hurt?

Hoping someone can advise without being up too much emotional trauma for themselves xx

Where was your private scan? When I found out my first missed miscarriage at Window to the Womb, they contacted the hospital so I didn't have to and I was given an appointment for a scan at the Early Pregnancy Unit to confirm. That's their normal policy when this happens, I imagine other clinics might be similar? What did they say to you? So sorry you're going through this, it's horrible xx

Thanks @SwimmingSwimming it was an Ultrasound Direct clinic. I have a report so I guess I'll just phone early pregnancy unit and take that with me.

Hi OP, so sorry you’re going through this. You will need to go to the early pregnancy unit at your local hospital, they will offer you 2 scans that are a week or two apart to confirm whether dates are wrong and baby is fine, or if unfortunately baby died. Unfortunately in my experience they don”t count any private scans so it may feel like a long process :( I had to be referred to the hospital by GP or midwife, so if you have your midwife’s contact details that would be your best person to contact I expect. But do check your local hospitals website, you may be able to self refer. If it’s confirmed the pregnancy isn’t progressing and nothing has happened naturally, you’ll probably be offered surgical management, medical management (tablets) or to wait it out. My baby died at 6 weeks but I didn’t naturally pass anything until 12 weeks (in between the 2 hospital scans) but this ended up being incomplete and I had surgery to remove everything. I had extremely heavy bleeding for almost 7 hours, ending up in A&E, but no pain when it began to happen naturally. It was odd being painless.. And the surgery was done under general anaesthetic. The recovery wasn’t too bad and I felt assured knowing everything was over. I’m happy to answer any more questions you have

Hi sorry to hear about this. Definitely phone your EPU. They should do another scan to check. They may confirm based on measurements and no heartbeat or they may say wait and week and return to see if any progress changes or run some HCG blood tests 24 hours apart to see what your levels are doing. It is an awful time so please make sure you can take your partner or someone with you. The EPU were lovely to me.

If it is confirmed they will explain your choices and you don't have to decide right then. I took all the leaflets home and then phoned them once I made my decision.

Generally you'll have 3 options, 1) to wait for it to pass naturally; 2) given medical management which is often tablets to help the process of 3) a surgery to remove everything.

Take care of yourself 💐

Thank you @Privatemedical246 and @strawberry6 and I'm sorry you've had these experiences.

I will phone midwife or EPU first thing.

Is it common for natural or medical management not to be complete and for surgery to be necessary? Is that quite rare? I didn't realise that could happen.

I don't know how common it is. I think I remember it being around 30% do not complete. I opted for surgery for my missed miscarriage as I had an 18 month old at home and didn't want to be suffering around them. The surgery was quick and I was home by lunchtime to rest, they also tested the baby for any chromosome abnormalities to see if there was a cause for the miscarriage.

Hey Hun,

I experienced a mmc in January this year. I had a healthy scan at 10+5, then at my 13+2 NHS scan they told me baby was only measuring 10+6 with no heartbeat.
It's an awful time, im so sorry you're going through this. I was referred to the epu the next day where as the other ladies said, you are given the 3 options.

For me, I opted for the surgery to get it done in one go but they couldn't fit me in until 5 days later. In which time I googled some stuff to see what could help a natural miscarriage/induce labour and tried some of that. I drank soo much orange juice and I don't know if it was a coincidence but I then began having contractions, not quite as bad as they were at full term with my son but definitely contractions. I was a few weeks ahead of you so hopefully yours is a little less painful as the baby will sadly be smaller.

I miscarried what i thought was everything at home in 12 hours (tbh it was mainly a few hours of the worst of it) but was convinced the actual baby didn't come out, so epu checked me again and found some remaining tissue but not much. So they cancelled my surgery as it seemed unnecessary and gave me the medicated option to help finish the process. Again within a few hours I was contracting, lost more clots and this did complete the miscarriage.

I was rescanned a couple of weeks later and they took a pregnancy test to confirm everything had gone back to pre pregnancy state.

I'm now 14 weeks with my next baby and things seem to be going fine. I'm sure you won't want to think about another baby right now but just incase it reassures you that you can trust your body in future and this won't always be the case. I've had a hard time trusting my body this pregnancy, especially with the last being a missed miscarriage, no signs and symptoms. It really is a slap in the face to see it all gone wrong in the screen.

I hope you're coping ok, let yourself grieve and feel all the emotions you need to x

I had this happen a few years ago now OP. I'm very sorry for your loss.

I was at my 12 week scan only measuring 7.
I opted for natural management firstly as the midwife said usually once the mind knows what's happened the body catches up. She was correct and I started miscarrying that evening. I had a check up the following week and I had passed everything.

And on a positive note I did fall pregnant again within a few months so I wish you all the best for the future. 💐

I'm so sorry. I had a MMC earlier this year with my first pregnancy and had to wait to be referred to the EPU by my midwife. Agree with what everyone else has said on scans and options. I went for the medical management, but had to have two rounds and it took about five weeks for everything to pass. In hindsight I wish I had gone for the surgical option as it would have been over quickly instead of the drawn out and emotionally draining process I experienced.

It's not too traumatic to talk about this, I felt so alone when I was going through this so I hope sharing this helps you.

I am so sorry for your loss, I too was very confused about what would happen, i hope things go seamless for you.

I had a private scan and discovered no heartbeat, the steps that followed for me where:

1. Call early pregnancy unit, advise them of what has happened and get an appointment
2. as said they may not take into consideration the private scan, however my consultant actually did, so do not be afraid to push for them to accept it, they possibly will as long as there is a few days between scans
3. I was given the tablets same day to try and bring it on, this was a Wednesday, the medicine unfortunately did not work for me, I was given a second dose on the Friday and it again did not work for me
4. I was booked in for surgery the following Tuesday and had a D&C

My honest advice after it all is to opt straight for surgery if possible, I was so afraid for surgery, scared of anesthetic, scarring, complications etc but in hindsight it was a painless and quick procedure, more importantly the recovery was minimal, the bleeding was fairly light not even like a regular period and lasted about 2 weeks in total, my period was back within 5 weeks, i was pregnant again 2 months later and i am currently nearly 36 weeks pregnant.

The medicine doesn't work for everyone unfortunately, the medicine can be painful, heavy bleeding, sometimes not all comes away and you end up needing a D&C anyway, this is just my advice, i know i was heart set on the medical route and wouldn't listen to anyone, but having gone through it now I can honestly say surgical is less traumatic.

I hope you are ok and can get over this time, the emotional recovery is what i found the worst of he whole experience

Hi OP,

I have had 2 ectopic pregnancies and one MMC- I had surgical management for the MMC because I knew for me personally from previous experience that this was the least ‘traumatic’ option.

I was booked in, the drs were lovely, I knew when it was happening and that everything would just be sorted out: I wouldn’t have to experience the pain and heavy bleed. I went in at 9am and was home by 1pm. Got a McDonald’s takeaway and. Watched shot TV, for what it was it was a good experience and I would opt for that again.

Another thing that I was told was that it was likely I would fall pregnant quickly after the surgical management (maybe this was specific to me, I don’t know, didn’t seem to have a problem actually falling pregnant so maybe they were basing it on that). I actually got pregnant again 3 weeks later and now have a healthy 8 month old. With other options my cycle had taken a few months to come back so that was another thing for me when I decided.

Sorry this has happened to you 😞, apparently with every loss you have a little bit of your baby’s DNA always stays with you, so they will always be part of you.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your stories and i'm sorry for everyone it's happened to. it's nice to hear a lot of people went on to have successful pregnancies afterwards :)

I phoned the midwife today and was told to come to my scheduled appt on Monday and we'll go from there.

Based on all this advice, I think I'll opt for surgical - I'd rather know it's sorted and not dragged out. But without reading any of this, I would've had no idea - so thank you again xx