Hi

It will soon be five years since I had a miscarriage and I thought I would share my experience in the hope that it does not happen to someone else.

I realised that my period was late and took a home pregnancy test, which was positive. I went to see my doctor, who wanted a urine sample to be sent away to confirm my pregnancy. The first test came back negative, which I was told was due to the fact that you need to be further on for the hospital test to be positive. I submitted a second sample, which came back positive.(This is an important point bearing in mind what a doctor told me later).

I was eleven weeks pregnant when I had spotting in the night. I called my midwife the next morning and she advised me that she had made an appointment at the early pregnancy clinic.

I had a scan and was told that they could not see anything. I went into shock I guess, but had to go back later that day to get an internal scan to ensure that the first conclusion was correct. I was offered a D & C that day, but I could not deal with it all and asked to come back the next day.

The next day I went back to the maternity hospital and was put in a room on one of the wards. As I waited to be taken to theatre a nurse went into a room next to mine and I could hear her say “congratulations mum”.

After my D & C the nurse that was attending me told me that I should be grateful that I had not had the experience her daughter had had – a placental abruption resulting in a stillbirth. I admit that this situation is truly awful it is just not something that I wanted to hear at that time.

I was told in the hospital that my miscarriage was the result of a blighted ovum.

This was my first ever pregnancy and I found it hard to deal with. I went to see my doctor after the miscarriage to get signed off work and I hoped that my notes would have been updated by then, but they hadn’t and I had to go over everything again. It was at this point that the doctor told me that I had not been pregnant. It is probably this one point that has hurt more than anything else as I have always felt that maybe it is wrong to grieve and I have no right to feel the sense of loss that I do.

My experience is probably similar to many cases, but I just felt the need at this time to talk to some about it.

Best wishes

Lorraine