Pregnancy after miscarriage - a personal story
Please read with care, this is a personal story discussing baby loss. Here’s a handful of the wonderful charities supporting parents and families through loss, should you need them:
Falling pregnant
I fell pregnant easily the first time, though at the time it felt like it had taken ages. It was January 2021 and we were in the middle of a bleak lockdown. We had been trying for about three months and when I saw those two lines on the test I was so excited that I accidentally used antiseptic cream instead of toothpaste. I remember spending the day with the test propped up against my laptop so I could keep drinking in the joy of those lines. I told my Mum about a week later on a socially distanced walk and I thought she was going to pass out with excitement. A day later, I started bleeding. It came suddenly whilst I was standing in the kitchen and I felt the blood rush out of me before I ran to the toilet to check, praying it was discharge. I shouted to my husband that I was bleeding and we both started googling what to do – the NHS website said to call my GP, but it was a Saturday so that was a no-go. I can’t really remember what happened next, I think maybe we called 111, and I definitely remember phoning a friend who I knew had had a miscarriage to ask for some advice. We ended up in the walk-in centre of a local hospital, where an incredibly unhelpful doctor prodded my stomach a few times, determined I wasn’t having an ectopic pregnancy (seriously) and then told me to wait ‘a couple of weeks’ to see what happened. He told me that bleeding in pregnancy is common, but deep down I knew I was having a miscarriage, a fact that was confirmed a couple of days later at a scan which my GP kindly referred me to (after expressing a fair amount of anger at the tummy prodder). I was devastated, and it being lockdown didn’t help. When three of my friends revealed their pregnancies in one weekend, all due at the same time mine would have been, I found it very hard to deal with – I know pregnancy loss happens to one in four, but why did I have to be that one?
The miscarriage process
A couple of months passed, and I found myself staring at those same two lines again. This time I wasn’t quite as excited, but I was cautiously optimistic. I seem to remember reading that there was only a 2% chance I’d have another miscarriage, so I focused on the odds being good. Once I’d passed the stage that I’d lost my first pregnancy at, I felt calmer, maybe this time it was going to be ok. A week after that, I began spotting. This time wasn’t like the last, it was just a small amount of dark brown blood which never really picked up pace. Of course it had happened on Good Friday, so again there was no GP around to speak to and I was given the advice by 111 to go to A&E and get admitted to the EPU if it hadn’t stopped the next day. I spent all night lying awake, convinced I was having another miscarriage. When we got to A&E the following morning, I burst into tears at reception. I was seen relatively quickly by a consultant who did a scan and confirmed that he could see a heartbeat, and that it didn’t look like I was miscarrying, though he said the heartbeat was a little slow so we should come back in two weeks. Two (very anxious) weeks later, we went back to find there was still a heartbeat, the foetus had grown slightly, but they were still concerned about progress, so we got told to come back ten days later. After a lovely trip down to Devon to see some friends for a week, we went back to the EPU, this time a lot less worried, and hoping it would be our last visit before our 12 week scan. I’ll never forget the look on the face of the sonographer as she scanned me. I think what she said will be etched on our minds forever: ‘I’m so sorry, I can’t see a heartbeat’. Our baby hadn’t made it.
We were ushered into a side room and given a few pamphlets about our options. Because I had not miscarried naturally, I had a few choices – either I waited to see whether my body would begin the process itself, or I could have medical intervention. I opted for what is called an M-Vac procedure, where a local anaesthetic is administered to the cervix, whilst the products of pregnancy are essentially vacuumed out of your womb. It was about as nice to experience as it sounds. Three weeks later, I had to take a pregnancy test to make sure I was amongst the 95% of women who this procedure worked for. Sadly, I was not, and a few days later I found myself back in the EPU being scanned again, after having had to relate my entire history of pregnancy and miscarriage to a doctor who had no notes and was disagreeing with me about the date I had had the M-Vac (as if I would forget one of the worst days of my life). Sure enough, there were still ‘products of conception’ in my womb which I was told would probably bleed out naturally when I had a period. Slightly concerned about my impending wedding in five weeks’ time, I asked whether there was anything they could do – they couldn’t.
Two days before my wedding, I began to bleed. Relieved that my period had finally come, I wasn’t remotely thinking about the white dress, just that this marked the end of the miscarriage and the beginning of a new cycle. The following day, having checked into our hotel and greeted all our family members, we had to make a quick trip across London to get a covid test for our honeymoon that we were departing for three days later. As we walked out of the tube, I felt a rush of blood, and realised the white spots on my dress had turned red – the blood was dripping down my legs and hitting the pavement. My husband who was with me managed to half carry me into the covid test centre. I ran to the toilet where I remained for some time, waiting for the bleeding to slow down. Fortunately it abated about an hour later, and our wedding happened without a hitch (although I did almost faint after the covid test and I had to stop them calling me an ambulance otherwise I might not have made it to the church). Someone was looking down on me that day – had it been 24 hours later, I’d have been standing at the altar drenched in blood.
Two weeks later, back to the EPU we went for what we hoped would be a final scan to confirm that the pre-wedding blood saga was my womb clearing out. Sadly, there were still products of conception in there, which the doctor said would need to be removed via a hysteroscopy… which I could have in six weeks’ time. I was devastated and so frustrated to have to wait another six weeks before my body could reset – all I wanted was to get pregnant again. Fortunately, we had an appointment that day with a private miscarriage specialist who scanned me and advised that I was at risk of infection if I didn’t have the hysteroscopy in the next couple of weeks – he referred me to a private gynaecologist for the procedure which was covered on my private medical insurance. (CHECK YOUR POLICIES LADIES!) Long story short, I ended up having to have a further three procedures – one to remove the products of conception, one to check for scarring (I had some) and one to remove the scarring. By August, I left hospital for the last time, and was signed off to try again next cycle. I had been diagnosed by the specialist as having high levels of natural killer cells, which essentially means that my body’s immune system fights pregnancy like it is a virus, so I was prescribed various forms of medication which I hoped would be what my body needed to carry a baby to full term.
The birth of our daughter
I am happy to say that after a lot of pills, pessaries, injections, terrifying scans and an embarrassing number of visits to the pregnancy assessment unit, our daughter Isabella was born on 30th May 2022 and she is my favourite thing in the entire world.
Before all of this, if you’d have asked me what a miscarriage entailed, I’d have said that I thought it was a spontaneous, painful bleed from the vagina that lasted a couple of days. I had no idea that miscarriages could happen even when there was no pain or bleeding, or that they could go on for so long. We referred to it at the time as ‘the never-ending miscarriage’, because it really did feel like it was never going to end - I had it confirmed in April, and it wasn’t until August that we were able to begin trying again. Even though what we went through was horrendous, I know how lucky we are to have our baby girl. Not everyone is as fortunate as we are to be able to afford private specialists and I know that a lot of people have to wait to have three miscarriages before the NHS will begin any kind of investigation, and even then, it could take up to a year before they are able to see a doctor like ours.
For anyone who has been through pregnancy loss, or is going through it now, please know that you’re not alone. There is a huge amount of support out there including a fantastic community called ‘The Worst Girl Gang In The World’ which is a place to meet and talk to others who are going through pregnancy loss – I have spoken to so many wonderful women on there, and it really helped to know I was not battling through it on my own. It also has lots of brilliant courses, including one called ‘Pregnancy after loss’ which I would highly recommend for anyone struggling with their anxiety levels.
