Termination.. I cant forgive myself

[Poppet1990]

I'm not looking for any hate. I hate myself enough.

I had a termination in Feb, of a planned baby. I had my procedure 3 weeks before my wedding, with full support of my husband. I had severe morning sickness from the day I found out I was pregnant, all day, every day without fail. I couldn't keep water down, I lost over a stone in a matter of weeks. I spent every other day at the hospital on a drip, tried every medication offered to me. Nothing helped. My mental health took a severe battering, I was suicidal, I didn't see a way out. I wanted the sickness to stop, I went for an appointment, they told me I could get a termination the next day in Essex. We travelled for hours. I hate myself for what I did, it has consumed me daily since, incredible guilt and feeling like I no longer deserve to live because of what I did.
Does it get any easier? Will I always feel like this?
Its been a months, my due date is nearing and I fear I won't make it to that day in one piece.

Sorry to hear your story. You said you were in hospital, did they know you felt like this mentally and try to help?

I completely understand but in a different way. Mine was planned also. But it didn’t feel right from the start with my symptoms and thought I had a missed miscarry (had before miscarried quite a few times). The hospital checked for ectopic due to my symptoms and they told me it was in the wrong place and if it stays it needed to be removed and dangerous to me etc. it was at this point I just shut down and dissociated. It felt wrong and they told me it was wrong. It was such a crazy situation with lots of details. The next scan showed the same. I was preparing for a d and c mentally only to be overturned by the consultant who said it was normal and safe to take a pill (I was crying and said I didn’t know if I wanted to continue after the scan). The original thing the nurse told me was that the consultant might want me to wait another 2 weeks to see if it moves but the nurse asked for an answer due to me considering not continuing. The nurse called and just said good luck. I asked how 2 different sonographers and 2 different nurses over 2 weeks can say it’s wrong and then a consultant can read an email and say it’s normal and safe to take a pill. The nurse said it was just the consultants say.

thats my story short without lots of details of symptoms etc.

i wanted another baby. My situation became too much for me. The reality could have been that it may have ruptured and I be extremely poorly or I lose the baby down the line or I have problems due to a complicated pregnancy. The reality also could have been that it may have worked out fine. I will never know.

BUT….

I am getting there, I have had counselling and taking sertraline. And now I realise that horrendous things in life happen. I will never know why it happened this way or if it would have worked or not worked. My situation was not great and yours did not sound great also.

you are now married and have had a horrendous experience. If you want children then my advice it to wait to heal…. It really does happen and time is a massive healer. Get support. Talk to the gp. And get support in place for trying to conceive again should you have severe sickness again.

good luck, you will heal and you will begin to not think about it every second of every day again. Also, call the Samaritans, I thought they were wonderful. xx

Thanks so much for your kind response. I'm so sorry to hear you went through that. I had a similar experience with a missed miscarriage in June 24 before my most recent experience.

I was in hospital, I spoke to the mental health midwife, numerous nurses and 2 doctors.. all of whom I told i was suicidal. They all told me I couldn't get peri-natal mental health team until I was 12 weeks. I never heard of them again, despite being high risk and none of them knowing what I decided to do.

Thank you for the advice.. I'm 34 and feel like time is running out, like that might have been my last opportunity. I feel like if I wait much longer it may never happen, or if it happens now, I'm trying to replace what I did. I've recently come off Citalopram as felt it didnt help with my already up and down hormones.

Thank you again x

Can I ask what your similar experience was before with your missed miscarriage?

how are you doing this morning?

I really felt your pain when I read your post as I just think the extremely difficult circumstances lead to our decisions. Have you sought counselling? It helps to just talk about it to get it off your chest.

34 is absolutely fine and you still have plenty of time. You definitely have time to heal first. I had my first the week after my 34th birthday.

i haven’t heard of citalopram, what does it do?

im sorry they seem like they didn’t support you when you told them you were suicidal in hospital. I’ve read terminations are quite common for women who suffer HG which sounds like what you had.

when you had your missed miscarry did you have the same severe sickness or was it just this time around?

thinking of you xx

Hello there,

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through. It sounds like you're being incredibly hard on yourself though. You were in a desperate situation with a lot of pressures mounting up on you. You did nothing wrong. You made a decision based on what you had to do for your own survival at the time. Many women have made the same decision, even in less difficult circumstances.

I think it's easy to look back when those pressures have ceased and see things differently, but you did the best you could in the situation you were in at that time. The 'baby' had no consciousness and knew no pain; you carry that pain for it instead. There is nothing to feel guilty for.

If you want another baby then of course you should be able to have one. Just make sure that it's truly what you want, not as a plaster for the grief. Forgive yourself and stop torturing yourself - tell yourself every morning, "I am a good person and deserve to be happy" and "every day I am healing and getting stronger." You won't always feel like this.

Good luck.

@Clangershome of course, we had a pregnancy in June 24, planned. All seemed well, we had private early scans, all was progressing, the heartbeat didn't start when they thought it should, they said missed miscarriage, it was a few days later then it started then it was too slow. I had 3 weeks from when it started, of scans every 48 hours, it continued beating too slow and they told me to prepare for the worst and that I would eventually miscarry naturally. No sickness with this one, they said because it wasn't a healthy pregnancy.

Citalopram is a depression tablet, it has very minimal impact on a baby but can cause low heart rate and impact hormones negatively. My GP has took me off them slowly over 6 months.

I do think hospitals and doctors aren't the greatest with HG, reading some of the statistics afterwards of the volume of people who suffered suicidal thoughts and/or harmed themselves as a result of HG was awful. If it wasn't for my husband, that could have quite easily been the case for me.

Doing slightly better this morning, found the courage to make an appointment with a mental health practitioner to discuss couselling only for them to cancel the app. Lucky enough to have private health care through my husbands job so I've rebooked for tomorrow.

Hello, I’m glad you seem to be slightly better this morning!! And great news on booking counselling!! You can google if there is any specific charities in your area which may help. Also archtrust.org are brilliant. It helps to have someone who deals with this specifically also.

I think the same also about the care around ectopic pregnancies since my experience. I have looked a lot into it and often women have ruptured because they are put on watch and wait. Which is what happened in my case for while. I have found it so difficult to understand why I was told it was wrong and ectopic if it stayed there and then changed opinion. They said corneal ectopic which I looked up at the time and said it was the most dangerous of all ectopics due to the location with high mortality rate. I just literally couldn’t cope with this information. I have children I had to consider my health. The date they gave me was a week behind my dates and I had a super strong line then a weak line then increased in darkness and symptoms I didn’t feel right for me like diarrhoea, backache and so on. There are lots of extra details that just made me feel like it wasn’t going to turn out right in some way. But after I made my decision I just couldn’t comprehend what I had done and what happened and why. Why did they not reassure me it wasn’t dangerous anymore and safe to continue and looked viable and healthy - if that was the case!!??

yours was definitely about survival and that is absolutely ok. I say to my husband that I feel like I had a termination for medical reasons. I feel like that about yours also.

I went to see a play last year about the Brontë sisters and I think it was Emily at the end of the play she passed away in her pregnancy from HG. They said this was something now that modern medicine can be prescribed. I am telling you this not to scaremonger but just to bring the gravity of some situations and still with modern medicine can be really bloody challenging. You must be kind on yourself. Your body did not like what was going on and that’s ok to get out of the situation.

I found the GP very good on hearing my story as they couldn’t understand also about the scans and said it is almost like the consultant didn’t read the notes. It might be helpful for you to talk it through with the gp and ask for a plan for a future pregnancy when you are ready. xx