Missed MC. Looking for advice and support

[VioIetMoon]

I found out on friday I've had a missed miscarriage .
My hcg levels were very low to begin with and they have now plateaued. They also couldn't detect a heartbeat. The could see sac and pole . No idea what it measured.
I'm supposed to go back on Friday when i would have been 8 weeks for more bloods to check if my hcg levels are dropping by themselves.
I've had no symptoms and no bleeding.
I'm just wondering, to those who have been through this if you have any advice? I think they will discuss this with me on Friday but I'd just like to be a bit more informed before my appointment and understand real experiences of those who have went through it and I don't even know if I can be bothered going to it.
At the moment , I feel my plan is to wait and see if I bleed naturally but from what I'm reading online it may take a long time. How long did this take if you chose this option? I kinda don't want to go back to epu if I'm being honest and would rather wait it out . I found the staff at epu a little unprofessional and uncompassionate. In the assessment room, they the doctor and nurse were having private conversations behind a curtain about their private life, job and laughing , meanwhile I was dressing behind the curtain moments after being told my baby didn't have a heartbeat. It's probbaly normal to them , but to me I was in shock.this was our first natural pregnancy in 20 years trying, ( we fell pregnant naturally during an ivf cycle)
it felt like our miracle , our only child is ivf, so I definitely wasn't feeling in a jolly mood . They seemed so casual about it. I wasn't offered any advice as to where to turn for counselling or support. Nobody seemed sympathetic. The doctors words were " I couldn't find a heartbeat ok, here's some towels to clean yourself, get dressed , the nurse will see you out" after that I was told someone would phone me to arrange appointment to get repeat bloods next week then sent on my merry way.
I just want it over with at this point so I can move on.
I've read there's options such as tablets and d&c.
Could anyone share their experiences? I just don't know what option is best and what has the quickest recovery?
I've read online you aren't supposed to try again for 3 months after the tablets? However i then read someone said their dr told them they can try whenever .
As for d&c. Is this done under general? And does it require an overnight stay?
I do have a young child and other than the child's father, unfortunately don't have help so a overnight stay wouldn't be for me as my partner has had so much time off during ivf , his work won't let him take any more days off.
I'm just not sure how to proceed and would be grateful for any imput.

Thankyou very much if you taken the time to read my entire comment

Sorry that you are going through this. I had this happen to me and I remember being very distraught as I was already thinking of the baby as a human being. Luckily I had a very nice consultation who was a bit unique but sat me down and shared some really nice words and calmed me down. I remember lying in bed for about a week in a deep depression but finally got out of it. The D and C was fine and I can’t remember any pain. I hope it all goes okay and if I was in your position I probably would feed back to the hospital the inappropriateness of staff having a good laugh whilst you nearby and were traumatised. Sorry to hear you are going through this and sending a big hug x ps got pregnant with twins about 4 months afterwards who are now 12 :)

Ps my d and c was a daytime process and I didn’t stay the night x

I am in a similar situation, having found out on Friday and I had the procedure under GA this morning. I am really happy to say that the staff who looked after me this morning were a hundred times more caring and compassionate than at the EPU and I felt very well looked after.

The procedure was quick, I felt nothing and the GA was effective. I left my house at 6.30am and was back by 12.30pm. I feel a bit woozy but I’m not in pain (and they’ve given me loads of painkillers for the next few days). It was definitely the right decision for me (I was a bit further ahead than you are in the pregnancy).

I absolutely had to have someone with me in recovery and to take me home. They are quite firm about not doing various things for 24 hours after GA including looking after small children alone (for good reason!) but I would have lined up a caring friend to stay if my husband hadn’t been able to take care of us.

I’m so sorry

I had this in 2023 and like you I felt that the staff were quite inappropriate in their mood and behaviour. I had to have medical management in the end because I tried waiting and it just didn’t move for weeks.

So Sorry to hear this. I had a Mmc earlier this year. I was 13 weeks. As I was further gone they were able to test my placenta after my d and c. It confirmed she had patau syndrome. Everything happens for a reason sadly. They did say i probably just went further along than most. I would recommend the d and c. I was asleep for 30 mins total and home about 2 hours later. I was lucky with only bleeding that night. I didn’t have any bleeding after this. I then fell pregnant again 3 weeks after surgery. They told me I was able to try again right away. The surgery tends to give you a bit of a fresher womb lining too. Hope it goes well for u

Sorry to hear you're going through this OP. MMC is so cruel. I had a MMC diagnosed at a private 10 week scan last summer. We'd seen a heartbeat at 6 weeks so it was a real shock. There are some helpful threads and supportive folks on the Miscarriage channel on MN that I found very useful at the time. My body showed no signs of miscarrying and as I wanted to draw a line under it asap I opted for surgical management and had an MVA under GA. It was quick and relatively pain free. It did take 3 months for my period to reappear but that was likely due to hormonal shock and my body just adjusting afterwards. Most people get their period back 6 weeks or so after the procedure. I'm now 21 weeks pregnant so I hope this gives you some hope.

Really sorry to hear about your loss, I had similar a few years ago (missed miscarriage of a spontaneous pregnancy while getting ready to start IVF). I waited and miscarried without medical assistance at home a few days after finding out, it was surprisingly painful but I didn’t have any other issues. My IVF consultant advised I should wait until I’d had one period following the miscarriage and my bloods were back to normal before starting IVF (there was about ten weeks between the miscarriage and starting the stimulation meds). I also found the NHS care and the way the staff spoke to me afterwards incredibly poor so I’m sorry to hear that’s still happening.

I’m so sorry you weren’t given the care
and consideration you deserve, when I had my MMC EPU were incredibly kind and it made all the difference.

I had an 8 week scan on 22nd Dec that showed no heartbeat and growth had likely stopped about 5 weeks - I had a tiny bit of pink when I wiped so they thought it would start itself naturally but it didn’t - I spent Christmas with awful morning sickness wondering how I was going to manage the bleeding of a miscarriage with my eldest to look after and a house of guests.

I chose a D&C and I‘m glad I did - I was awake the whole time, and was home by teatime. I bled for a couple of weeks afterwards, but didn’t have any of the cramps/contractions you go through with the pills. The only downside is was I couldn’t get the procedure until 7th Jan so I was suffering from morning sickness the whole festive season which was rough.

I'm so sorry for what you are going through, it's an awful thing to have happen at any time but especially with the bad care you have had at a time when you needed conpassion.

I have had 2 missed mc, both happened in a very similar way, I had some blood when I wiped which made me go to the epu, they confirmed each time through a scan that they had stopped growing, a week before with one and 3 weeks before with the other.

I went home both times to let things happen naturally. If you decide on this route, going for a good brisk walk seemed to help things along for me. Sending a hug, sone understanding and the assurance that it does get better 🩷🩷

So sorry for your loss, your hospital don't sound very professional and understanding at all. I had a MMC last year and found out at my 12 week scan that baby had stopped growing at around 8/9 weeks. They bought in a couple of other sonographers for a 2nd opinion and an internal scan and then was lead to a private room where someone came in and gave us leaflets and tried to talk to us and said someone would ring with options.

I chose to have the surgical management, since it had been 4 weeks already and my body still hadn't realised. We had to go in at around 6am, I was put under general anaesthetic, so when I woke up everything was done, I was out in time to pick the kids up from school. I did get really bad period type pain about 2/3 days after but just for a couple of days. They told me as soon as I got my next period we could start trying again.

So sorry you are going through this, I also had an awful experience with sonographers and nurses when I had my mmc, so much so that I changed hospitals afterwards (and had a way better experience with subsequent mc and eventually my son)

i went for medical management rather than the D&C, its was physically ok, not pleasant but I was feeling so numb and down anyway. For me it took months (I think 4 in total) for my periods to return afterwards so I couldn’t have tried again quickly if I wanted to but I don’t remember the doctors telling me we had to wait a set time.

there are also some excellent books and Facebook groups full of people who get it, I found dealing with people (however kind and well meaning) who hadn’t been through the same quite difficult for a while afterwards

So very sorry for your loss. I had a missed miscarriage around the same time. I ended up having my miscarriage naturally everything was low down and it started before there was a free appointment for surgical management.

In my experience the blood loss was heavy but manageable and the pain was low. Some people do report high levels of pain and blood loss so natural management does have a bit more of an unknown quality to it. Be aware that if you go for the surgical option there may not be immediate availability but the accounts of surgical management seem to be very positive.

I found the worst girl gang ever book and resources helpful worth checking out xx

How compassionate epus seem to be is a bit of a postcode lottery which it absolutely shouldn't be. I only had positive experiences but had heard so many that haven't been.

I had two miscarriages last year both at 10 weeks. The first one I wasn't having any monitoring so I don't know when the pregnancy was lost. I started bleeding one evening. The next afternoon it went very heavy and I presented at a and e after using 3 night pads in an afternoon and needing to sit on the toilet due to the level of bleeding. In A and e they checked me over and measured my haemoglobin due to blood loss and my HCG. As presented as being physically ok they said it would be unlikely that my haemoglobin was low enough to mean I needed to stay in overnight whilst I waited for my already arranged scan at the epu the next morning but they would phone me if the results said otherwise. The next morning at the epu there was no evidence of pregnancy when they scanned me. They remeasured my HCG an it had halved in 16h. As my pregnancy has never been witnessed they monitored my HCG until it was back to normal to rule out pregnancy of unknown location. As I should have been 10 weeks they said this was unlikely.

In my next pregnancy I was having scans at the epu. The first at 7.5 weeks was just over 10 days behind with a heartbeat. I was rescanned 2 weeks later and there had been a few days growth but now no heartbeat. I was scanned again a week later by a different sonographer to confirm the loss of the pregnancy. By which point I was now 10 weeks. I had started spotting the night before so asked for a few days to see if my body would pass the pregnancy without intervention which it did. Had it not done so I was going to ask for the medication to bring about the loss. The loss of this pregnancy was very similar to the first so I think with both I had a slow growing pregnancy lost some time around 8 weeks (my all day nausea stopped at 8 weeks with the first miscarriage although I was still vomiting everything I ate) although the pregnancy was probably more like 6 weeks gestation with it taking a couple of weeks to pass the pregnancy after losing it.

The blood loss for both was very heavy for a couple of hours about 24h after spotting started but then more like a normal period. It was uncomfortable more than painful during the heavy bleeding but nothing a couple of paracetamol and a hot water bottle couldn't resolve. I didn't feel the need to go to a and e the second time as it was within the parameters I had experienced last time. I had been told that if the bleeding was heavier or for a more prolonged time to get checked over.

I'm so sorry the staff weren't more compassionate. That was my experience too with my early miscarriage. I think they just see a medical issue rather than all the emotion and trauma that it holds for us.

I had spotting at eight weeks and then a scan confirmed the baby had stopped growing at six weeks. They told me to come back in a weeks time for another scan to confirm there was definitely no growth and after that they would do either medical or surgical management.

I started to miscarry naturally in this time period. I found the pain very manageable but I began to bleed very heavily and after a few hours was feeling very unwell so I went to hospital.

I'm so sorry this is happening to you. Charities like Tommy's and the miscarriage association are a great support if your hospital continues to be insensitive.

I'm so sorry. Unless it's happened to you I don't think people can understand what this feels like.

I had a missed miscarriage then went on to immediately get pregnant with DC1 who is now 4 months.

Everyone is different, but for me, I passed the pregnancy about a week after having the scan at EPU confirming missed miscarriage, at about 9 weeks as I recall. I felt really unwell and strange for a couple of days before passing it. Passing it was really painful but there was instant relief after that. My advice is to stay close to home if you choose to pass it naturally and get a few weeks off work if you can. The emotional impact was far harder on me than the physical one. Take care x

Thanks for all your replies. It's reassuring to know I'm not alone. Miscarriage is horrible but a missed miscarriage feels especially cruel. I've had a previous mc but that happened very quickly. It feels very strange to still feel pregnant knowing that development has stopped.
I think its looking like I will need to proceed with surgical management or medication at this point nothing is happening and I feel to still be sitting here in several more weeks time with still no passing would feel mentally unbearable . I think getting it over with as quickly as possibly will probably help me process it better .
I'm sorry that all of you have had to experience this aswell