Just a quick tale from me. I’m a midwife, and would just like to firstly give hugs to all, especially mangetout. Labelling (ie incompetent) is a really unfortunate thing. One of my strongest memories in all my years of practice involves a woman who had a loss at about 21wks. After she had delivered the baby, I took him to wrap him and wash him a bit as she wanted to have a bit of a hold. I took him back and we had a bit of a chat (and a cry too, I must admit). A year or so later, she walked into my ward, pushing a cot with a beautiful little boy, born at full-term. She looked at me and smiled and said “here Norry, have a hold of this baby”. One of the more positive experiences I have ever had, as we talked about all that had gone before. Give yourselves time to grieve, and make sure you have people you can express yourself freely to, that’s so important.
Time to grieve varies. I began trying to conceive about 3 weeks after Ambrose’s death. That went down like a lead balloon at the SANDS meeting but that was my way of dealing with the grief. It wasn’t denial, it was that I wanted a baby and getting pregnant was what I needed to do.
In the end it took 4 months to have a pregnancy stay. It did mean that when anniversary dates came round, I was pregnant and dealing with grief. Now granted, my reaction was extreme but I still maintain it wasn’t pathological or anything. Worked for me in any case.
After the 10 week miscarriage I did take a year off from trying and that was healing.
On the subject of telling people, I often wanted a little badge to wear which said ‘The baby died, be nice to me’
With optional flashing light which said ‘The baby died, now f*ck off and take your stupid opinions, platitudes and cliches with you’.
A ‘missed’ miscarriage (correct me if I’m wrong, please) is when you have a miscarriage that is ‘incomplete.’ In other words, the baby dies inside you (his/her heart stops beating) and you don’t bleed or have cramping.
In my case, I didn’t know anything was wrong until I went in for a routine ultrasound. We’d already seen the baby had a healthy strong heartbeat, so, it died some time during the 10th week.
In addition, the doctor told us that we could choose to wait until the baby was expelled naturally, which could take up to a month. In some cases, after a natural one, the doctors have to do a D and C anyway. In our case, we were travelling and had to work under time constraints.
Also, the thought of our beloved baby dead inside me made me want to get him/her removed as soon as possible. Many women have bleeding and cramping naturally. We only found out the baby was no longer alive during a routine ultrasound.
Speaking of that, that is one benefit about having more routine ultrasounds (in France). You have more of an idea how the baby is doing. If we’d lived in the States, it’s possible we wouldn’t have had an ultrasound until the 18th or 20th week and by that time, the baby would’ve been expelled naturally.