Pregnancy after many losses. How to survive the anxiety?

[CortieTat]

I’m pregnant again after 9 first trimester miscarriages. I’m also 46 and DH is 48 so the odds are heavily against us.

Anyone for a handhold? I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it’s hard.

tight hand squeeze! I am 28 weeks now after 7 miscarriages (and one other pregnancy to term in the middle, which at least has reassured me that it is possible).
Honestly, I think all you can do is take it a day at a time. Just try to be calm in the knowledge that right now everything seems fine. You can't predict or control what will happen tomorrow but every day that goes by without incident is another day in your baby's favour. Sit tight. It's maddening, I know.
How far along are you? I'm guessing with this many mcs you will get an early scan? Might be helpful to have one or two booked in as future milestones.

Hey OP. I fell pregnant in October with my first baby at 39, I’m 40 in August. Im having a c section on Thursday, currently 38+5. I can’t give you any advice on the anxiety because I’ve had it non stop throughout my pregnancy. Worrying that something is going to go wrong and still worrying now. I’ve also had so many hospital appointments / monitoring / scans. I had GD, Polyhydramnios (high amniotic fluid) and my age and BMI of 35 didn’t help. But what I will say and suggest is to mention your anxiety in your appointment. You’ll automatically have some extra scans due to the age anyway (as soon as I said I’m 39 they pulled out a chart of extra scans I’d be having. I also have CTG monitoring twice a week and have been for months. It’s called a reduced movements pathway as I was panicking I hadn’t felt my baby move so they booked me in twice a week for a monitoring. This really has helped me and kept me going for the last couple of months.
Ive also been in and out of triage with worries and they are absolutely the best in there, they always suggest going in if you’re worried or think something isn’t right and they always say they are literally there to help us and reassure us. I can’t say the anxiety will get better, as mine hasn’t even with all of the above but it has helped me power through. Good luck with your pregnancy and please mention your worries so they can jump on it from the off xx

Buckle up

you do whatever you need to do to survive

Can you start baby aspirin yourself? It doesn’t cause any harm. Will your EPU prescribe progesterone? If you aren’t sure, call your midwife booking line and explain your full history.

Make sure you are with the midwifery team that provides a bit of extra care. That might be rainbow clinic or mine was called ‘purple team’ for women with mental health needs. you’ll often get extra appointments which makes time go quicker as you are only a week away for waiting for sometime

Have a private scan every bloody week if you want to, again- helps time tick by. I really ignored the naysayers on this one as the few days of relief it gave me were priceless. I was suffering with anxiety anyway and seeing baby growing was the only thing that truly helped.

At 16 weeks they could find the heartbeat so I started to go monthly for scans after that. In the early days I had scans at 6 weeks (really try hold on until then), 8, 10, 14, 16. The 6 weeks was nhs reassurance, everything else private.

“heroin addicts have perfect babies” was a mantra of mine, sounds flippant but did help stop me spiralling if I accidentally ate a boozy tiramisu.

when you have a movement pattern- go in to assessment any time you are worried.

I was so unwell I had a c section at 38 weeks to stop the worry and suffering.

Thank you! I’m not in the UK so the process is a bit different here. I definitely don’t want any early scans and will try to delay my first appointment for as long as possible, because it is a nightmare going through these first appointments so many times. They always lecture me the same boring stuff about diet and exercise (they have to) and I already live like a saint and train 6 times a week. The repetitive nature of this first appointment is quite traumatic once I had it so many times.

I’m going to wait it out till the first scan at 11-13 weeks, after so many early scans I hate anything that has to do with ultrasound.

I have two DC and never experienced any issues before turning 43 so unfortunately the age is the main problem.

Hi first congratulations and also I'm very sorry about your loses that's a lot for anyone. Are you taking progesterone or spoken to a doctor about taking it ? Could you perhaps speak to someone get counselling to help you with the anxiety ? I only had one loss and was anxious my whole pregnancy I can't imagine how you must be feeling but wishing you the best of luck .

I have progesterone at home so I’m already taking it. Despite being over 43 with all my miscarriages I was never offered progesterone, once the midwife hears that my pregnancy is natural (they were all by the good old TTC) it’s like a switch flipping in her head and I am automatically low risk despite so many loses. Our healthcare system is one of the worst in Europe so no surprise here.

Like I said, a big no to early scans. They made zero difference to the outcome for me and all of them were very traumatic because every time the outcome was not conclusive and made everything worse.

The only thing I would say is take it a day at a time.

It’s very early for me, just a couple of days after a positive test. The longest I’ve made so far was over 11 weeks and that was honestly the worst because I had already relaxed considerably. I have two kids born in my late 30s and never experienced any issues before trying for number three. Healthy, fit, well-preserved 😅.

I completely understand the anxiety, it's so difficult to process after loss. Have you started on low dose aspirin?

Alot of people find it helpful, I've been on 150mg daily along with progesterone too.

I have some at home (75 mg) so I will consider this. I’ve had all the tests under the sun (privately funded) and I don’t have any blood clotting issues or anything that could require a blood thinner. But it won’t hurt, right?

It’s prescription-only over here but I can buy some from abroad once I run out of my current stash.

That's great you've had all the tests done, it wouldn't do any harm to take it. It'll just improved blood flow which can only be good 😊

I started taking 75mg daily from around implantation, then upped to 150mg at 12 weeks. Though, I know some that take 150mg from start as it's the pregnancy recommendation.

Oh over here, we can buy low dose in the likes of Home Bargains or a pharmacy, that's so different that you have to get it on prescription.

I’ve also been taking 150mg of aspirin daily since 12 weeks and injecting blood thinners daily for the last couple of months

Yes, in Sweden it is prescription only. I discussed taking it with a gynaecologist after one of my miscarriages but since I already have children and no history of blood clotting risk factors, she ruled it out.

I got a huge pile of it from my late MIL who used to stash all meds under the sun.

I bought regular aspirin in Sweden and just cut it. That’s an option if you run out

its just the baby dose which is prescription only I think. They refused to sell the baby version but happily sold me a normal dose. I think it’s 100mg but not sure.

Yes, the normal one (Treo) is 500 mg and available in most supermarkets.

I’m still pregnant and managed not to think about it too much so a small win :-) I’m on holiday abroad and bought some extra baby aspirin yesterday so I now have enough for the whole first trimester and beyond.

I also put aside all the money I would otherwise pay for the private scans and extra tests and I plan to buy myself something I wanted for a long time when/if I make it past the first trimester mark regardless of the outcome.

So glad to hear this OP. Every day without incident is amazing progress! Fingers crossed for you.