Amy’s story
Amy shares her story of loss, with details of medical management of miscarriage and reduced access to hospital services due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. If you're looking for more information about the impact of coronavirus on your care please have a look at the links at the bottom of the page.
Remember there is always someone to talk to no matter who that is and everyone is different, each miscarriage is different.
On 6th February 2020 my life changed forever. I had a positive pregnancy test after being told when I was younger that I would need help with IVF when I started trying for a baby. I felt every emotion when I saw the test result – shock, happiness and scared. This was 2 weeks after I found out my sister was pregnant too! We worked out the dates and we were only 5 days apart, which made us both so excited.
I decided to go for a private early reassurance scan and on 26th February I saw my baby for the first time – a little blob on the screen, with a flutter of a heartbeat. I was so happy, but the baby was measuring 6-7 weeks and I should’ve been 7 weeks. She asked me to come back the following week to measure again. I walked away with a scan picture of my baby, which I will cherish for the rest of my life.
On 4th March I had my second early reassurance scan. I went with my partner and my mum, so that she could see her grandchild. We walked in to the scan room and the lady started scanning for the baby. That was the moment I knew something had happened. She held my hand and told me she thought something was wrong. She said she’d do a report for the hospital and that I should ring the early pregnancy unit (EPU) for an appointment.
I felt empty. I sat in the car and hoped that the small size of the baby was just because I had got my dates wrong. A few hours later I got the report for the hospital, which said no heart beat had been seen. I was absolutely destroyed. I just wished it wasn’t true. I still had all the pregnancy symptoms – sickness, tender breasts, tiredness etc. I was still hoping my dates where incorrect and maybe they’d made a mistake seeing a heart beat on the first scan, maybe it was still too small to see.
I rang the EPU the following day and got an appointment for an internal scan. I felt sick walking in there, all my hopes pinned on the baby being fine. Lying there I felt like my whole world was still. Then she confirmed there was no heartbeat and that the baby was still measuring 7 weeks. I hated myself, blaming myself and my body. Why did this have to happen to me?
I spoke to the nurse and she gave me 3 options – natural, medical or surgical management. I couldn’t think straight so she told me to ring her after the weekend when I’d had time to process it all.
I went home still in disbelief, asking myself, why does my body hate me so much that I still feel pregnant even though my baby is dead inside me? As soon as I got home I made my mind up to choose natural management. Not knowing what I was in for I searched online and some of the things I read petrified me. My miracle baby turned into a misery.
Two whole weeks I waited for my body to start expelling tissue and while all this was happening, so was coronavirus. Not only was it mentally draining, it was physically draining, just waiting for something to happen. I just wanted it all to be over. After the two weeks there was no sign of miscarrying so I rang the hospital and they asked me to do a pregnancy test. If it was negative – which I knew it wouldn’t be as I had no pain or bleeding and my sickness was still getting worse – I wouldn’t have to go in.
I did the pregnancy test and it was a more clear positive than the first pregnancy test I took. Everything was running through my head, even getting my hopes up even though they’ve already told me the baby wasn’t okay. I rang the hospital back and they told me to come in for another scan, but that I had to come in on my own because of the coronavirus restrictions. I was devastated.
Sat in the waiting room on my own with women walking past with smiles on their faces after seeing their babies on the scan, my whole world was crumbling around me. I had the internal scan again, which still had the same devastating news and this is when they diagnosed a missed miscarriage. I wanted the surgical option, the D&C, which I was then told I wasn’t allowed because of the coronavirus situation.
So on 23rd March at 2pm I started the medical management option. The nurse told me it could take up to 3 hours to start working and to ring them in 3 weeks. I was so emotionally and physically drained I had a nap at around 4:30pm and woke up to bleeding. I knew it was the start of it. I started to get slight period like pains and each hour they started to get stronger with the bleeding getting heavier, however I wasn’t taking any pain relief because it was still bearable.
At around 9pm I got a very sharp pain which lasted a minute and made me a bit sick and pale, and then back to bad period like pain. I went to bed and then at around 2am I woke up passing clots and filling a sanitary towel – and then again at 5am. This is when I thought I had passed the baby.
The following day the bleeding had slowed right down, just spotting, which worried me a little bit in case the medical management wasn’t working correctly. That evening I couldn’t stand up straight and was having to hold a water bottle on my tummy and back. I am used to suffering from really bad period pains, so it was still bearable, but very intense pain. The bleeding continued, just like a period but with no clots, so I was adamant I had passed the tissue.
On 29th March, exactly a week after having it done I was fine all day and then got into bed and the pain started happening all over again. It was very intense, making me grip hold of my partners arm. I thought I was going to be sick with it. I went to the toilet and there was a water type fluid and then I got a pushing feeling. That’s when my body expelled the baby.
I had told my partner that I did not want to flush the toilet when I passed the baby, so my step dad carved a box for us to place my baby inside. My undeveloped baby just lying on a piece of tissue broke my heart. What had I done to deserve this?
I had to FaceTime my mum because of the coronavirus lockdown, when all I wanted was for her to hug me and tell me everything was okay. I felt sick. I just sat on my bed holding my child and then a pushing feeling came again, with more clots coming out. I just wanted this to all be over. I carried on bleeding the next day, but it started to slow down and there was no pain. The blood was turning brown, like an end of a period.
I got in touch with the EPU and they told me it could be the end, but that it can come on again at any point if there is still tissue. I took a pregnancy test on 12th April, which was negative. I was so relieved that it was all over, but yet so heartbroken that I didn’t give birth to a healthy baby who I could carry home in my arms. No matter how far gone I was I was still pregnant, I still had a baby inside me.
It’s such a long, lonely journey because there is such a taboo about miscarriage. I should be 14 weeks pregnant now and enjoying my pregnancy. Instead, I’m grieving for someone who I never met, but yet will always love for the rest of my life, and that is such an empty feeling.
I will always love my baby, I just wish it was different and that I could watch every milestone he/she would reach.
Thank you for reading my story and I send my love to everyone who has/is going through it. Please remember there is always someone to talk to no matter who that is and everyone is different, each miscarriage is different x