My Miscarriage

A sad post, but one which I hope can provide other women an idea of what to expect if they are going through or expecting a miscarriage. For me, being able to read other women’s’ stories through threads such as on MumsNet was invaluable as the nurses at the hospital don’t give you any specific details of what to expect. It was very reassuring to read about other women’s similar experiences, as I was more prepared and less shocked when my own miscarriage started to happen.

 My Miscarriage

Finding out I had a Blighted Ovum @ 10 weeks

About 10 weeks into my pregnancy I had the tiniest amount of pink in my discharge. Having heard that small amounts of blood can be entirely normal I ignored this. Two days later there was dark brown discharge. The dark brown spotting continued to increase slightly so I decided to go to A&E to get it checked out . I was booked into the Emergency Gynaecology Unit for the next morning.

Within 10 minutes of my appointment time I was lying on the bed whilst the midwife sonographer performed the transvaginal ultrasound scan. After scanning for a few minutes she informed us that the sac was empty and that she couldn’t see the embryo. ( I later learned this was called a Blighted Ovum) She twisted the screen round for me to see. It was very clearly empty. I focused my mind to what the nurse was saying and forced myself to listen carefully so that I wouldn’t get emotional. She told me that by 6 weeks she should normally be able to see something, but that there was a chance my dates were wrong as the sac measured slightly less than six weeks at 21 mm. As I had no prior scan she couldn't be sure so booked me in 10 days later to see if anything developed in the sac. I asked her why I had had no period yet and if that was because my body might not have realised yet that there was no embryo and she concurred. She seemed pretty sure it was bad news for me and said I might get heavy bleeding, and that if i got through more than 2 pads in an hour to go to A&E, she did caveat that as the sac was small my dates could be wrong. However my husband and I we were pretty sure we couldn't be as much as 5 weeks wrong so mentally prepared for the worst.

During the 10 day wait for the next scan I wore a sanitary pad every day into work just in case i started to miscarry at work. My spotting increased every so slightly day by day and by the 6th day after I'd had my first scan I would say the spotting covered a large portion of a small panty liner in one day. The following day was a Friday, and in the evening I started to get bright red blood. I knew this was the miscarriage starting. I started to bleed more heavily and I had cramps and back ache just like a period for the next several hours. I wasn’t panicked at this point as I had accepted I would be miscarrying and was just glad my body had worked it out and was following through with that needed to happen. As the cramps and dull back ache increased I took some paracetamol so I could sleep. 

 The Contractions

At 4am I woke up with a squeezing and twisting sharp pain. It lasted 30 seconds before subsiding and returning 10 minutes later. I realised this felt more like contractions and started to panic a little bit as the hospital had not mentioned this. Luckily I had read in a few threads that other women had experienced the same thing, so I decided it was still safe for me to continue miscarrying at home. I was still lying in bed, but as it pain progressed I felt like I needed to sit on the toilet. A while later I felt like I needed to poop as I felt a lot of pressure pushing down everything below my belly button. When I pooped my contractions stopped. I then had a shower and felt the contractions start to return again. The warm water and feeling of it blasting again my belly did soothe the pain temporarily. I got out the shower and I sat on the toilet again and the contractions continued to 7 am. I then had three very closely timed contractions. The last contraction was the worst sharp twisting pain before suddenly stopping. I started to move off the toilet and as I did something slid out of me. It felt a lot larger than the previous blood clots. I pulled it out the water and onto some tissue paper and could see this wasn't a blood clot. It was a tissue mass measuring about two and half inches with what seemed like a thick dark red branch coming out of it. I was pretty sure it was the placenta and sac and the red branch was what attached the placenta to the womb. The contractions stopped straight away after the placenta came out and I felt an immediate sense of relief. I had a shower and felt a bit faint. I then got in to bed and knew my body had done it's job. The bleeding became a lot lighter after that. I felt very proud of my body for being able to do what it needed to. And very lucky it happened across Friday night for me to have the most of the weekend to recover. I was also relieved I had expelled it all within about 12 hours as I had read it has taken other women a few days. 

My husband called the EGU unit at 8:30am when the opened and they put us through to a nurse who confirmed there wasn’t much they could do unless I was bleeding very heavily and the best thing was to continue to come for the scan she had already booked for me to confirm that the miscarriage was all complete and nothing was left inside which could get infected.

Side Effects After Miscarriage

In the days after the placenta had been ejected I was very tired, both from the pain and lack of sleep. I also had continued light bleeding. I was also in a lot of discomfort, it felt like there was a tight elastic band around my womb and all my bowel movements was knocking and pressing heavily into my very sensitive womb sending uncomfortable spasms down my vaginal canal and everywhere inside. Another pain i was experiencing was heavy aching in my hips. Even 4 days later I’m still getting uncomfortable twisting spasms inside my womb and abdominal area. My theory is that my organs and bones had moved and expanded to accommodate a growing sac and that it all needs to move back into position and this was causing the discomfort.

 Scan to Confirm Successful Miscarriage

Luckily I had the follow up scan already booked for Monday, and so had this appointment to confirm my womb had expelled everything and that I wouldn’t require medical intervention such as taking a pill to force further contractions or surgery called D&C. The nurse did a transvaginal ultrasound scan, it wasn’t painful but more uncomfortable than when I hadn’t had the miscarriage. The nurse showed me on screen that the womb looked like it was resolving itself nicely, and i could clearly see the empty sac that was once there had gone. She has told me that I could expect more blood for another 2 weeks and she reassured me that I shouldn’t be worried about the next pregnancy and that when I fall pregnant next to come and get a 7 week scan to help reassure ourselves that everything was good at an earlier stage.

I hope this post helps anyone who is going through this sad time.

***UPDATE*** Our rainbow baby finally arrived in June 2021. We ended up going through 2 miscarriages which was hard. I write about the mental anxieties I experienced and also the lifestyle changes as well as tests and treatments we took in a blogpost here. We will never know if any of those actions made the difference, but it did give me hope and the strength to try again for the third time. I hope this positive news gives others going through similar some encouragement.