My miscarriage journey

This is such a hard topic to discuss. There are only so few stories online that we can lean on. And I wish to share my experience so that you can perhaps use this to guide your decisions in case you are unfortunate enough to be in the same situation as this one quarter of us pregnant mothers.

Perhaps every miscarriage journey started with this photo of the test kit. It was an unplanned one and I had mixed feelings about the possibility of another child - anxiety over work and time management plus a little bit of excitement of the possibility of a bigger family. I know the hubs would be thrilled.

I have two beautiful girls. And this time I wanted to take it easy and schedule the first gynae appointment on the 6-7week.

The first sign of miscarriage could be the lack of fatigue. I knew my surest sign of pregnancy was always the fatigue that sets in in the afternoon. With this one, i hardly felt it at all. On hindset, it could be a sign that the hormones were not rising enough for this pregnancy to be viable

so on that fateful sat, I visited the gynae on my own as the hubs was busying sending the kids to their enrichment classes.

My gynae was so happy to see me again. After our brief hellos, I told her my symptoms and the date of my first day of my last period. Based on the date, I should be 7 weeks 3 days along.

However the transvaginal scan showed a sac that was empty. Based on the scan, I am only 5 weeks plus along.

So she offered me three course of actions. 1) Go for a more detailed scan today, 2) go for a scan 1-2 weeks later. 3) go for a blood test to check the rise of the hormones aka HCG. So if there is a healthy rise, the pregnancy could be safe. If it is plateauing, this could be a miscarriage.

Wow, a miscarriage. I couldn’t even say it to myself at first.

I decided to opt for the blood test to have a clearer and faster conclusion. To be clear, I was a little shaken by the news but I was also anxious to know what I can do to move quickly from this place of uncertainty.

So come the day of the second blood test (we need two points to know the increase), the doctor revealed that the hcg had only risen by 17%. A healthy increase would cross a threshold of 60%. Another scan revealed an empty sac again (silver lining here as I have nothing to be attached to). Anyway, I am convinced that this is a miscarriage and my hubs as well. I have prepared him for this possibility, calculating the likely conception date based on the test kit and that it does not match development on the scan.

So what’s the next course of action? I asked.

I was given three choices again

1) wait for body to expel the sac and tissues naturally

2) use medicine to induce (can choose to go home and wait for the “mini labour” to begin or be warded)

3) surgery.

my first thought was that I need to believe in my body’s ability to expel this. And I really didn’t want to do anything too invasive.

So I chose option 1. And I was advised to return to the o&g emergency in case of bleeding/dizziness.

I asked if it would always be messy? She says it is hard to say. Some do not even go to the hospital at all.

Okay. With the choice of option 1, we fixed an appointment three weeks later in case it doesn’t happen and the risk of infection increases.

As I ruminate over this decision for the next couple of days, I started to realize that I am practically waiting for a potentially messy miscarriage to happen. Maybe even at work.

Omg I don’t want.

So I quickly called the hospital to arrange an appointment for my miscarriage to be induced by medicine.

and this is where I am now. Will follow up with another update on my journey in my next post.

Feelings:

Even though this was an unplanned pregnancy, we do feel a sense of loss. It weighed on us to the point that it was hard to even discuss about it. However, we are also silently supportive of each other and there is a common goal to move on and achieve the best outcome we can have - that is For me to have a good recovery from the trauma of a miscarriage.

wish me luck.

#tfmr #miscarriage #RealTalk