Leanne’s story
Leanne describes her experience of a missed miscarriage and needing hospital care during the coronavirus pandemic. If you're looking for more information about the impact of coronavirus on your care please have a look at the link at the bottom of this page.
I feel as though, although grateful to be alive, I am only a shadow of myself. I am not whole.
Some people want to be doctors when they grow up. Some want to be lawyers. I always wanted to be a mum. So when me and my husband got married last summer, all I wanted was to start a family as soon as we possibly could. When the time came that we had agreed to start trying COVID-19 had just hit and we were in lockdown. We decided to try anyway, as I didn’t want to wait any longer, and I knew it would likely take a few attempts.
We got pregnant immediately! It felt absolutely incredible knowing that we didn’t have to wait any longer. I had a very good start to pregnancy. Very little morning sickness with the only symptom my exhaustion. We thought we were lucky as I could afford to rest at home while being in lockdown, without work ever knowing.
We both started to get so excited. We were picking out baby names, telling family and some very close friends. I knew miscarriage was common but I was nearing the end of my first trimester without any issues and I was so hopeful.
That feeling didn’t last long. I was almost 11 weeks when I first noticed something was wrong. I woke up in the morning and noticed light spotting. I wasn’t too concerned as I knew this was common. Then evening came and I noticed I had soaked through my clothes with fresh blood. We went straight to A&E. The doctors told me that although I was likely suffering a miscarriage, I had to wait until the next morning to be scanned for confirmation. We went home and to bed, but it felt like an eternity waiting until the next morning.
In the morning I still had a glimmer of hope until I started bleeding again. I was beside myself. I threw myself on the bathroom floor and couldn’t move. My husband had to pick me up and take me to the hospital for the scan.
As my husband wasn’t allowed in due to COVID-19 I was all alone when the sonographer told me she could see the gestational sac, but there was no baby. I couldn’t understand what I heard. No baby. How could that be? I was almost 11 weeks pregnant. How had this happened? The midwife explained she couldn’t even confirm a missed miscarriage as there was no embryo to measure and the gestational sac was too small at only 6 weeks 1 day.
I couldn’t understand what was happening. A silent miscarriage? Everything had been ok a few days ok. I was almost out of the danger zone. How had I been carrying around my dead baby for a month and not known? My body had lied to me. Betrayed me.
When we were exiting the hospital another girl walked past telling her partner how glad she was that her baby was ok. I felt like I had been stabbed in the gut. All I wanted to do was scream and cry. I had lost everything.
It seemed as though things couldn’t get any worse until I woke up at 2am covered and soaked in fresh blood. I was haemorrhaging out blood. Fast. An ambulance arrived and rushed me straight to hospital. Again, my husband wasn’t allowed to come with me. I was all alone.
At the hospital I proceeded to haemorrhage blood despite the doctors doing their best to remove any clots they could find. Eventually, they told me I would have to have surgery and my husband should come. That was when things got even worse. I had lost so much blood I went into haemorrhagic shock. My blood pressure plummeted to around 40/20 and I crashed. They were getting ready to have to start my heart. Luckily they managed to bring me back and took me immediately down to theatre where they performed an ERPC. I had lost almost 2L of blood in total.
I am now at home recovering, but feel so weak I can’t even move. My husband watched me almost die. That put the loss of the baby into perspective. He hadn’t lost both of us. He could survive. For me, it’s different. I feel as though, although grateful to be alive, I am only a shadow of myself. I am not whole. The only way I know I will feel better is for us to try again. But I am so weak I have no idea when we will even be able to.