A Missed Miscarriage

We were escorted into a private room where we could try and get our heads around what we had just been told. I then felt like I just had to deal with the situation head on. I couldn’t cry for another hour or two, I had to face the facts and find out the next steps.

The consultant came into the room to ask if we wanted to have the amniocentesis test (as we had already lost the baby there was no risk of miscarrying any longer) we wanted this to give us every chance to find out why? That was our only question.

I’m not exactly scared of needles and even though my baby had already past away inside me, I was petrified of the whole procedure!

Amniocentesis Test

7.5cm needle entering my uterus!

To take fluid from around my dead baby to be sent off for testing. The procedure was fairly quick and before we knew it we were taken to another room to talk to more doctors.

They explained I had a missed miscarriage meaning the baby had passed away however my body had not hit the stage of miscarrying. Due to this they had to give me two tablets to bring on the miscarriage. These tablets could take up to 48 hours to work.

I was sent home with my dead baby inside me for 60 hours!

I think i was genuinely in shock at this stage, we went home explained what was happening to our families and just sat at home for the next two days in front of the tv preparing ourselves for what was going to happen.

Why us? What was wrong with our baby?
The night before heading back to the hospital our consultant phoned us to see how I was doing and to give us the results of our amniocentesis – Edwards Syndrome – Triosomy 18. A rare genetic condition which can be life threatening. We finally had our answer why. We were so glad we had an explanation, so many expectant mums are not all fortunate to be given an explanation which can be hard to live with. More importantly I was pleased to understand why so I could back to hospital with a better understanding and clearly mindset.

16 Weeks Pregnant – Being Induced

Returning to hospital, as the previous tablets hadn’t set my body to miscarry I had to be induced. We had prepared ourselves mentally for this day, we knew this could be a long process. Throughout the next two days I stayed positive and cheery, in my head I just wanted this to be over so we could move on mentally and physically.

After being in labour for seven hours I finally gave birth to our Charlie Harman (born sleeping) Saturday 6th December 2014 at 17:30.

Seeing my dead baby was not heart breaking for me, it was seeing my partner cry when it happened. Charlie was taken away for a minute to be put into a small wicker basket and a fluffy blanket to be bought back so we could spend some time together. After a while the midwives came back and took Charlie away to the morgue.

I thought it was all over however the midwives had made me aware previously due to being only 16 weeks pregnant my placenta may not deliver naturally.
Another 6 hours had past, my body still thought I was in labour and the pain was getting worse, I hadn’t taken any pain relief at this point so asked what my options were.
By this point it was 11pm, I was examined by one of the doctors who confirmed my placenta was being stubborn and was not detaching from my uterus. I finally caved and decided a D&C operation was my only option. They came back and advised they could not operate in the early hours due to less staff and incase of emergency, so would operate first thing tomorrow.

Morphine
Due to the circumstances they offered me morphine. One of the best feelings in the world (in that situation) I could finally get some rest after 14 hours of pain.

NHS Service
I can not praise the NHS enough for everything they did for us starting from our 12 week scan to our consultant referfal and the labour of our 16 week old fetous. They set up a bed for my partner next to my bed and we finally got some sleep with my morphine being topped up at 4am

8am came around and the doctors were ready for my operation, the D&C (the removal of my placenta) this was carried out which was successful. I was finally done with this part of our journey and just wanted to move on.

We then had two weeks to decide on our dead baby’s name and arrange the funeral.

Edwards Syndrome

Those words ‘I’m Sorry’

At 16 weeks pregnant after being told your baby had passed away inside you and to go home and wait 48 hours before returning to be induced. I’ve never felt emotional pain like it.

We had only been trying for our first baby for six months so we were over joyed when we saw the word ‘Positive’. We (I) were too keen and booked a private scan at 7 weeks pregnant for early reassure as I’m petrified of even the word ‘Ecptopic’

Our palms could not have sweated more on the morning of our first private scan. Seeing our first baby (little bean) on a sonogram was magical, we couldn’t quite believe it. From the dates I provided the sonographer she advised little bean looked a little small so wanted to get us back in two weeks for a rescan.

Babymoon

Previous to falling pregnant we had booked a two-week holiday to Jamaica so this turned into our babymoon. I’m a cocktail lover and unfortunately could only drink mocktails and sunbathe for 10 minutes at a time 😥 Even though being in such a beautiful country all I wanted to do was jump back onto the plane to fly straight back to England for my rescan.

8 Weeks Pregnant – @raisingarialily

We booked the rescan for the day after we landed! We couldn’t wait any longer. On this day the sonographer told us our baby (no longer bean looking) was looking healthy and on scale

We could finally drive home no longer feeling anxious about the future however that was not the case

9 Weeks Pregnant

At our 12 week scan everything seemed great until the sonographer asked us a question if we had read up on the NT ‘screening test’ for Downs Syndrome. We had and advised we wanted this done and carried on the screening as normal (well we thought) in fact the sonographer had noticed an additional amount of fluid behind our babies neck so wanted to recheck this. The average measure for the fluid is under 3.5mm however, we could quite clearly see ours was 7.4mm. At this point I started to panic! With this we were referred to a specialist consultant and bloods were taken.

48 hours after having our run of the mill 12 week scan we were being seen by the best consultant in this field in the county. He reassured us with my blood results and the previous scan (the combined test) there was a 1 in 150 chance of our baby having Down Syndrome. He carried out  a scan which he was happy with and then gave us three options

– Amniocentesis Test (huge whopping needle entering the uterus through the abdomen under ultrasound guidance. 2% chance of miscarriage
– Harmony Test (£500 my blood work sent to the USA to assess the baby’s DNA in my blood
– Waiting two weeks to rescan and re-check on baby

We are big believers in ‘Everything happens for a reason’ so we made the decision of waiting it out the two weeks. Our thoughts behind this initially were we didn’t want to risk the 2% miscarriage rate nor did we think £500 would change our feelings towards our baby if they found abnormalities.

Together we decided we were to announce our pregnancy as no matter what was happening or going to occur this was our baby and we were proud parents to be!

Our Pregnancy Announcement 2014

We moved house within the long two-week wait so we had plenty of things to keep us sane! On our moving day, Saturday 29th November 2014 my mum mentioned how small my bump was looking compared to the previous week, in which I didn’t think much of it. Nearly two weeks had passed and we only had two days left to wait to see our consultant again. I remember saying to a friend at work how I had noticed I was not feeling as pregnant as the previous week. A very hard feeling to describe but once again didn’t think too much of that feeling or conversation.

The day had finally arrived, two weeks had officially passed and we could see the consultant for a rescan. In the hospital waiting room, we were both very talkative about random things, we were obviously so nervous we didn’t want to think about what might happen in that room were about to walk into.

The words ‘I’m Sorry’ only took 30 seconds to come from the consultants mouth after placing the probe onto my stomach.

Our baby had passed away within the two weeks! My mum’s comment about my bump looking smaller than normal and me telling a work friend I had not been feeling as pregnant as normal were massive tell tell signs something was wrong. Was I in denial when these things were said?

Our consultant then confirmed out baby had passed away a week before dating Wednesday 26th November 2014.