Hey all, I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather like we are this week! Over 20 degrees today in Peterborough, pretty much unheard of in April! As well as saying hello to mr sunshine again I have been tracking my cycle in preparation for ttc and I received a letter confirming a genetic consultation appointment has been made for me on the 16th May to discuss the possibility of having genetic testing done on me and my husband Rob. It's been a bit of a struggle even getting to this point but I'm glad I'm in the system now and I'll at least be able to discuss my options with a specialist. I'm preparing myself for refusal for the tests so I want to have my argument ready in my head for the appointment. If anyone has gone through genetic testing before after multiple losses please get in touch with me and share your experiences, I'm pretty anxious about the whole thing.
I'll carry on with Bean's story, last week I was talking about how we had gone back to the early pregnancy unit for our first scan.
Our turn came and we entered the scanning room. We explained the brown spotting and minor car accident and they did an internal scan. We saw Little Bean on the screen and he was so cute (we thought Bean was a boy from the beginning). He actually looked like a Bean and measured 4mm from crown to rump, he had a little tail still like a tadpole. The sonographer asked us how many weeks we were and I said eight. She said Bean was measuring at 6 weeks, I was sure my dates were correct but I thought it was possible for me to count from the day of conception and the hospital could have been counting from the first day of my last period. As a precaution she suggested we have another scan in a weeks time, and we came out of the scan pretty much fine. I was confused by the discrepancy in dates and was a little anxious but that was all.
Since we'd been having to go to Warwick the whole time for these scans we asked if we could book the next one in the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford which was fine. I rang my gp for a referral and explained our situation, while speaking to her she said it was important to get another scan to find out if the pregnancy had mistaken dates or was "a no-goer from the start." At the time I found these use of words pretty insensitive but thinking now I think her choice of words out right shocking and I will never forget that. I understand that GPs will come across stuff like that all the time but to use those words while talking to an anxious patient was not professional in my opinion.
Before long our next scan came along in Oxford in the early pregnancy unit, during the week leading up to it I'd received a text from the hospital alerting me to our 12 week scan scheduled for 30th December 2015. Whenever Rob and I talked about Bean we only wanted to see some growth, we knew a heartbeat may not be detected at only 7 weeks (judging by the first sonographer's prediction) so we just wanted to see Bean bigger than 4mm long.
I remember feeling desperate for the loo before the scan as they said they may do a normal external scan first, they were also running late with the appointments as an emergency case had come in. By the time our appointment finally came the nurse said they'd do an internal scan anyway so I was allowed to go to the loo! Again they asked how many weeks and we explained our dates and the scan dates. Then they scanned me, she was quiet for a little while while I craned my head round to see Bean on the screen. Then I heard "sorry". In those first moments I remember everything and nothing at the same time. I remember gasping and my hand on my mouth, I remember lying there with rob beside me on the chair wondering what had just happened. I broke down into a fit of emotion and didn't hear anything like I was enveloped in a cloud. My world pretty much crashed at that moment, it changed forever. There had been no growth, no heartbeat, Bean had not grown for the past 3 weeks.
Before I knew it I had been bundled into a spare consultation room, they had to move me quickly so they didn't frighten the other expectant mothers in the waiting room, I had to try and hold my emotions for those few steps to the room. We were left in there for what seemed like an age, I have no idea how long it actually was. I cried, I begged, I crumpled into a heap on the chair, the whole world seemed to darken around me like I was in a tunnel. I remember being lifted onto my feet by Rob, he was so strong emotionally while I fell apart, I can't imagine the pain he felt at that moment, because even though we didn't know it then, he was about to lose his baby and his wife all at the same time.
I buried my face into his chest as we stood there together while the world around us fell apart. I don't remember if I spoke, I can imagine myself asking questions out loud but I don't know what they were. My mind became a fog, a very dark, cold, foggy place. I don't remember anything Rob said I just felt everything close in around me.
Eventually someone came in to see us, she asked if I had any pregnancy symptoms, I told her I hadn't suffered morning sickness but had had some severe fatigue that had improved over the last few weeks. She then proceeded to tell us our "options". First was to wait two weeks to see if my body would recognise the missed miscarriage and react accordingly. Second was medical management of the missed miscarriage where tablets would be inserted to bring on a miscarriage. And the third was surgical management. How dare they give me these options when 30mins before I thought I would have a healthy baby inside me? How could they talk to me about inducing miscarriage so early after I was told? There was no way I was ready to let Bean go, so I opted for conservative management, I was to wait two weeks and see if I would miscarry naturally.
Now it's been a while since this happened I can look back with a different mindset. In hindsight when the nurse had asked me about my symptoms I understand now that my energy levels had started picking up again around the time that Bean had ceased to grow. I wish she had explained that Bean was measuring at 6 weeks while I was at 9weeks pregnant, meaning he had not grown for 3 weeks, I wish she would have explained the likelihood of my body realising in another two weeks that Bean had died when it had failed to realise for 3 weeks already. Maybe I still would have gone with the conservative choice and waited, maybe I would have thought about medical management. Maybe I wouldn't have heard her even if she had told me these things. Maybe she would have said these things if I wasn't such a mess to begin with. Either way I opted to wait the two weeks to see if I would miscarry naturally, I see now I was probably in denial which I believe was totally understandable for the time frame, everything seemed to move so fast in terms of the next steps but the time in my mind seemed to be moving through treacle. I couldn't process the information I had been given, so there was no way I was going to make a big decision like medical management. After the decision was made we were given another appointment for two weeks time - which happened to be the 30th December 2015, our original 12 week scan date which I thought was incredibly cruel then we were sent home.
While writing this portion of the blog I asked Rob if he felt he had any say in that decision making process. He felt like he didn't really have a say but that was because he wasn't carrying Bean so it was ultimately my decision. Later on in the blog I'd like to get a fathers point of view when it comes to miscarriage, I think it would be beneficial for Rob and myself to get it written down.
That's all for today, thank you for reading and if you have any comments or similar experiences get in contact.
Love, Adele xxx
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