Pregnancy after loss support

[Hopingrae]

Hi ladies, I've recently found out I'm pregnant again after 2 losses in a row. I'm very lucky to have a DS and I had another MC before I had him. So 3 losses in total. I'm only 4+4, but got faint positive 11 days ago at 9dpo and it feels like I've been pregnant for aaaages but time is moving so slowly. We've booked an early scan when I'll be 8 weeks exactly so waiting it out until then, and hoping nothing happens in between. I wondered if anyone else is in a similar position and wanted to share this early journey with me. I've decided not to tell anyone this time round, a lot of my close friends are dealing with newborns or their own ivf journeys and I don't want to add any load to anyone. But it feels like a huge load to me so would love to share with someone!

@Rockyslife I'm so glad you've got a scan and the offer of some emotional support. I've got everything crossed for you that it's good news. I've had scans at 6+2, 8, 10, 12+2, 12+4, 14 and 20+3 so far and no one has said anything about too many! I think mostly that's more managing expectations for people who won't see much change if they go too often but if it's medically needed then it's fine. They wouldn't offer them if it was problematic. X

@Confusedandtired90 oh it's so horrible when you're trying to interpret numbers without much context. I'm sure that's within expected range for up to 5wks? With my previous loss my HCG at 4+1 was about 30 and then took 8 days to get to about 64... Something like that. So was super low and not doubling anywhere near 48hrs. Try to keep calm until you get the next bloods... Far easier said than done I know! Sending hugs xx

Welcome @Ketryne and so sorry for your previous losses. It's great news that you've passed your first major milestone and seen a heartbeat. All of us on this thread know that those nerves sadly don't just go away when you've passed certain markers in your head. It's like exposure to any loss makes you so much more aware of all the other things that can go wrong. However, it is important to try and celebrate the wins! Right now, you are pregnant and you've got further than the last two pregnancies. This is a whole new one, with new genetics, the support of the progesterone and every chance of having a different outcome this time. Fingers crossed your little rainbow bean is a fighter 🙏🏼🌈💕

@Confusedandtired90

I had very low HCG when I first tested positive at 4 weeks (just 18) and my specialist told me it was likely not viable. By 4+5 when I had my next test I was up to 370 and he said that was 'very promising'. So 723 sounds really strong to me.

Thank you so much, it's really helpful to have the support of other people who understand. It's not been straightforward as I had quite a bit of bleeding on the day I tested positive, then very low HCG in blood tests at first, and quite a bit of pain (although more stabbing/shooting pain rather than cramping), so I've felt sure at various points that it wasn't going to stick.

I finally felt brave enough to register with the local midwife team on Tuesday after the scan, so I'm hoping to actually make it into the system this time around. I know I'm really lucky to already have a beautiful DS, but the emotional strain of the hope and fear is still very difficult.

@Ketryne it's so tough to have a hard start after going through loss already! It just puts you on edge from the get-go doesn't it.

I also have my darling DS. Had such an easy ride with him even though he was a lockdown baby, so to then have 3 losses last year really threw me. As well as the grief etc, it's that consciousness of the growing age gap and maybe not getting the family you'd pictured isn't it. And feeling you've less right than some to be so upset because at least you've got a child... So many complex emotions. All you can do is take it all one day at a time. My first trimester felt like it lasted about a decade!! Things sped up a bit after the 12wk scan. Hopefully that'll be coming round before you know it. 💗

Morning lovely ladies, I had my 10 week scan this morning and it went really well. Measuring at 10+6! But lovely to see little one kicking and waving. A nice milestone ticked off. 12 week scan next 🙏

@Ketryne @Wise0wl welcome to the thread. I hope you both find it a supportive place to be!
@Ketryne I'm similar, I had 2 MCs last year and also have a DS who is 2. That's a great start getting through your first scan, what a relief. Keep aiming for those milestones. We all know how hard it is.
@Rockyslife I'm sorry it's been so hard at the mo. I really hope epu can give some reassurance this morning, good that they got you in quickly.

@Confusedandtired90 I think that's a good number for hcg. At 4 weeks exactly mine was 150. It's not really the 1st number that matters realky, it's the second and consecutive tests that matter to see if they're going up or doubling as they should 🙏

@Rockyslife I'm so glad you're being seen this morning. I hope everything goes ok

@Hopingrae so glad to hear this update! Another little milestone nearly here with the 12 week scan

@Ketryne welcome and sorry to hear of your previous losses. It's so hard to try and be positive for our husbands and OHs, I don't think they realise the anxiety and stress we feel, but I understand their thought process too. I'm glad to hear you've booked with midwife, just take it day by day for now

Thanks for your responses everyone - have been driving myself mad with it! And one sided cramps. So hard to know if it's endo / me being a hypochondriac / it is actually another ectopic BLEURGH. Have emailed my consultant to see what they say 😖

@Rockyslife have everything crossed for you this morning - really hope it goes well xxx

@Hopingrae that's lovely news. Roll on the 12 week scan - feels like such a milestone doesn't it?!

@Ketryne I'm sorry to hear of your previous losses. Sounds like things are heading in the right direction this time but the stress is pretty intense! As others have said, take each day as it comes

Hey guys, so baby had a heart beat and was fine at this moment in time, but there was a blood sac by the baby which is apparently normal and should hopefully go, I am now scared that this means a miscarriage I don't understand where it would of come from

From what I understand these are pretty normal? And often reabsorbed by your body? Did the sonographer seem relaxed?

Hi everyone that’s joined recently!

@Rockyslife i had this! My blood clot was pretty large as well, bigger than both the gestational sacs. I put myself on bed rest not that the sonographer thought it was needed - they were v relaxed about it. Really limited activity and wfh for two weeks and I had a scan 2 weeks later and it had gone. I don’t know if that’s possible for you. I have also seen multiple posts of people that have had them for quite a while in pregnancy and everything’s gone smoothly, so think they are pretty common.

@Hopingrae so happy for you!!! I’m SO scared and SO excited at the same time for mine tomorrow. Starting to let myself believe these could be our babies. Even crying writing this! I’m a bloody mess at the moment.

@Rockyslife firstly, that's lovely news that you got to see a heartbeat. I understand your worry about hearing there's a bleed. Was it described as a subchorionic haematoma? I had one with my DS and also with this current pregnancy that, to me, looked quite large. At 8 weeks they said it looked like a fresh bleed that was resolving and today they said no more fresh blood and continuing to resolve. The sonographer said they're really common in pregnancies and women will either bleed them out (which is generally safe, although alarming!) or the body reabsorbed them (this happened to me with DS pregnancy).

@Hopingrae @Rockyslife fantastic news on the scans! 🥳 Very happy to hear your news 😊

Lovely news on your scan @Hopingrae and it’s reassuring they heard a heartbeat @Rockyslife. I’ve had a subchorionic haematoma before which was described to me as the embryo causing a bruise as it sort of embeds itself. I hope you can get some rest this afternoon after a stressful night and morning x

Welcome @Ketryne it’s great that you’ve had a positive scan, but can really relate to how you are feeling.

@Rockyslife thats such good news that the heartbeat is on the scan. Try not to worry about the blood sac, sounds like it is extremely common

@Hopingrae amazing! So glad the scan went well

For those of you taking the progesterone pessaries, do you have many side affects? I took my first one last night & woke up at 2am with bad cramping. I know it’s a side effect as it says on the leaflet, but I’ve not had the bad cramps in a few weeks since when I first got pregnant!

@MogMogMog85 this is a lovely thread for pregnancy after loss xx

@Hopingrae and @Rockyslife massive congrats on your heartbeats and positive scans. Rockyslife I can understand your worry, but I'm sure the sonograoher was right and it will clear up. When is your next scan?

Cw: miscarriage and bad scans

I'm gonna introduce myself, I'm going to be 39 in 2 months, been trying for our second for 19 months - no pregnancies in that time. A sperm test came back as low morphology, and we were just about to have our initial ICSI appointments in a couple of weeks. Sunday morning I got a stonking bfp. I'm 5 weeks now, sore boobs, big fatigue, some dizziness and food cravings. But no nausea. We started trying for our family when I was 32 and it took me 16 months to fall the first time. I peed on loads of sticks because i was so nervous after the long wait, and read all the stats about miscarriage. As I went into my 7th week I started to feel really positive and booked an early scan at 8 weeks. It was MMC but a really traumatic scan where the stupid sonographer couldn't locate the embryo and said I might be ectopic. She also didnt say a single word to me for 6 minutes of scanning (they reviewed the video 6 whole minutes) and i was left just weeping silently with no idea what was going on. Not to mention she was jamming the scanner so hard into my cervix i actually felt massively violated and i am used to these exams and dont complain normally. I had to wait for the weekend to finish being told "call 999 if you rupture" and go straight to the NHS epu. There they located my embryo straight away at 6 weeks no heartbeat. The sonographer was matter of fact but very empathic and reassuring and i actually left feeling reassured of my fertility. She also mentioned (i didnt say anything) that she had no idea how the sonographer failed to find the embryo cos at 6 weeks its easy. I think that 36 hours of waiting for a life threatening rupture with no medical assistance did me in, and yeah I'm terrified of having a bad scan again. Trying to remind myself even if the worst happens and I have another mmc I will probably have a much better sonographer...

Anyway sorry that just all poured out. The miscarriage was awful, I haemorrhage but no one at the hospital monitored me or told me I had to leave everything in one of those dishes so they had no idea how much blood I was losing (despite me telling them I was changing my pad every 4 minutes and it was dripping full - I guess they assumed I was being hysterical?) Until the cleaner changed the bin several hours in and presumably couldn't lift it it was that heavy and flagged it up). I remember running to put a canula in and shouting at the nurses for being so lax, he was furious that any woman would be left for hours with no canula with any signs of bleeding let alone reporting hemorrhaging. There was another woman in there who had been actively damaged during surgery and I thoguht she was gonna die a few times - I'm still pretty anxious she may have not long after I was discharged as I went back for my follow up scan and she wasn't there. The nurses didn't attach her drip properly and she was going downhill, we all pressed the alarm but no one came til we were shouting for them, and no they weren't busy they were all laughing at the nurses station 6 of them in total when the alarm had been going for ages. Ugh sorry. I'm not anti healthcare professionals, I swear some of them are seriously dodgy though.

Now I write all that out I'm thinking no wonder I feel so nervous.

My symptoms are exactly the same as my MMC as I had nausea with my son and no dizziness or sore boobs. I was v emotional with my mmc and not feeling that this time around. My son was conceived 6 months after my MMC, so I don't have a history of recurrent miscarriage. The main thing is it takes me absolutely ages to conceive, which may be related to my husbands sperm. Apparently he has a really high count and motility, and apparently morphology means the dna is fine, so I feel like whichever sperm finally made it this time must have been a very strong one. I guess there's always a risk of miscarriage though and my age doesn't help. And if it happened now, it would just be very hard to bear, especially delaying ICSI by months and beyond my 39th birthday... I guess this whole game is anything but fair though, and I do realise how lucky I am to have my amazing son. He's 3 and a total handful but a delight too. This baby would be born just after his 4th birthday, well unless I suffer P-PROM again which is another hurdle that's gonna stress me out the further I get...

So yeah I appear to be feeling pretty glum today- how are you all doing? Xxx

Re-reading that I'm so sorry for the poor writing! I just wanted to clarify that the woman who was damaged during surgery was a middle aged women in the gyno unit where I was miscarrying - this was not an obstetric or pregnancy/birth related surgery as I just didn't want you all being scared given we are all pregnant here... so sorry that wasn't clear.

I can't be bothered to go through everything else I wrote poorly, hopefully it makes some kinda sense! I'm def feeling scatty today....

@MOGMOGMOG85 welcome and congratulations on your new and much wanted pregnancy. There are a few of us on the thread who already have a DC (I also have a DS who is 2) and I think @SnookyPook wisely said somewhere further up the thread that is brings quite a lot of complex emotions feeling grateful for already having one but such sadness and anxiety following losses. You're not alone. Wishing you all the luck with this pregnancy. I think a few of us have definitely found the first trimester feels like it lasts about 10 years, but it's all about one for in front of the other and a day at a time (I hate these cliches but it's true!)!

Hi everyone.
scan today went as well as it could do.
had it confirmed that the third little baby isn’t viable and we will either miscarry or it will absorb into the body which we are very sad about.
saw two little wriggly babies with strong heartbeats which probably was the best moment of my life so far. 10+2 and actually thinking now these will be our babies. Heads down now til our 12 week scan and hopefully finding out that all our tests come back normal 🙏
hope everyone else is doing ok x

@30somethingttc aw that's really poignant that one little one hasn't made it but how wonderful that you saw two strong heartbeats and little wriggle-bottoms. Hope all keeps going well - not too long to wait for 12wk scan!

🕯️for your little lost triplet 💗

@30somethingttc I'm so glad to read about your 2 precious little ones with good heartbeats, how special. But so very sorry about your third little bean. That's very sad. Hugs to you. I'm with you on the 12 week scan being the next milestone. We've got this x

Welcome @MOGMOGMOG85 sorry to hear what you have been through. I am also having the same symptoms I had with my MMC, but had a scan this week which showed a baby with a heartbeat so looking positive so far.
Although I felt so ill with sickness yesterday, but feeling ok today, so I’m over analysing everything!

@30somethingttc im so sorry to hear about the third baby, but such good news you got to see the other 2 wriggling about. Not long to go now until 12wks

@MOGMOGMOG85 meant to say - not surprising your head is all over the place after all that. It would make anyone feel on edge! Have you looked into whether anyone at the hospital provides a birth trauma service (I'm pretty sure these usually deal with MC too) or reaching out to the perinatal mental health team? It might be really cathartic for you to be able to talk it through and to discuss your concerns now you're pregnant again. They might have implemented positive changes since your first pregnancy and your previous loss. One other thought, are you in an area where you could opt for care under a different hospital this time? Anyway, sending hugs and hopefully all will be a very different story this time round 💗