Is this miscarriage finally over...

Apologies in advance for sharing tmi as usual, but hey if nobody talks about these things then how are others going through the same going to know what's "normal" or not...

I'm daring to believe that this last miscarriage is now actually over, nearly 5 weeks after it started.  Proper bleeding lasted about a week and since then it's been brown blood and so very light, but still enough to require a panty liner and make me feel "icky", but nothing since Tuesday afternoon!  It's been getting me down as I just didn't know how much longer it could go on for, and I just want to get my cycle back, well what passes for a cycle, so we can put this last loss behind us and move on. 

Max told me I should see the Dr if I was worried, but instead I turned to "Dr Google" for answers.  I haven't wanted to make a Drs appointment or call for my scan and blood results because that would have meant taking my head out of the sand and facing up to the fact that all may not be well.  Though surely if the results weren't good I'd have been summoned to the Drs by now??  However, now the bleeding's stopped I'm feeling a little better, in need of answers and looking forward to trying again.  I called the Drs, to be greeted by an automated message telling me to call back for results after 10.30am, so that means waiting 'til I get home this evening as I can't call from work and I know they never answer the phones at lunchtime pah!  I need to chase up on my referral for repeat miscarriages too.  I'm also debating whether I try to bring our next Fertility Clinic appointment forward to next month rather than waiting for mid May - Dr "James" gives me so much hope each time we've seen him; I know I could explain this last pregnancy and loss to him and he'd be sympathetic, honest, full of positivity for us, and draw up a new action plan - after all we know we can GET pregnant, it's STAYING pregnant that's the problem now....

So, my head is out of the sand and starting to whirr away with all it's usual TTC thoughts and plans.  Time to start looking forward again, sort my diet (it's been a definite see food diet these past few weeks and I know I've gained lbs) and lack of exercise out, and get back to feeling good about myself.  If I'm being totally honest, I also need to work on making things right again between Max and I because I know I've been very distant towards him these past weeks and shown him more spite than affection, I've also been a real lazy cow and barely done more than cook dinner and load/unload the dishwasher at home whilst he's working so hard on the house and garden.

Anyway, here's to closing this chapter and starting a new one...


**Update**  I managed a sneaky call to the Drs from the toilets and got my results, both blood test and scan were normal, yay!

Spotty teenager or old granny?!

My hormones are well and truly all over the place since the last miscarriage.  I have no idea what is going on with my cycle, I've had various niggles that I'd normally put down to OV but that doesn't seem to be the case now, and over the past couple of weeks my face, and even neck and chest, has gotten so spotty, more spots than I ever had as a teenager! 

Also, I've started finding grey hairs in amongst my natural brunette mane.  It seems for every spot I find, I discover a grey hair.  I'm guessing the grey hair is due to stress rather than hormones, but I'm not even 35 yet, I'm not ready to reach for the bottle of hair dye.  Ok that's probably a bit extreme at this stage, but I don't want grey hair!!  By the same token I don't want spots either!!  Hormones sort yourselves out, please...

Holiday planning

Max and I have been looking at holidays for the past week or so, well when I say Max and I, I actually mean me.  I'll do all the leg work, whittle it down to a selection of 3 or 4 then present him with said selection and see which one he choses.  I'll have already picked my favourite by then though and fed him with subliminal messages to make sure he picks the right one hehe... just like I did when we were looking at honeymoons, and with pretty much every holiday we've ever been on together!!!

After having a miscarriage following our holiday last year, I've been very worried about flying when possibly pregnant, but I've now decided (well we both agree) that life is far too short to put it on hold.  Yes I may be pregnant by the time we go away but by the same token I may not, and even if I am, after 4 losses and only one following flying, I have to keep in mind that the flight will have no bearing on the outcome.  Surely there are pregnant air hostesses cabin crew who do just fine...

So, where to go?  We definitely want a beach holiday to just totally relax after the stress of the past couple of years... Egypt, Morocco, the Canaries, Portugal... or maybe the Caribbean or Maldives (not sure Max would go that far for only a week's holiday even with me using all my best womanly charm to convince him!)... Wherever we choose, I can't wait to go!

Mothering Sunday

Today is Mother's Day in the UK, normally the day doesn't bother me but this should be my first Mother's Day, a day I have been looking forward to celebrating for years, but sadly our baby left too soon for me to be one of the Mummy's celebrating today with cards and flowers. As the months passed, I then was given the opportunity to look forward to today as a Mummy to be, but those opportunities too were taken away too soon.  Of course I've had a lovely day celebrating with my Mum but now I'm home it's hit me what should have been, especially having just logged on to Facebook to see pictures of a friend's baby boy who she gave birth to this morning.

Four chances to become a Mum this year but each taken away, I can only dream, hope and pray that next year I will have my own little reason to celebrate this day. As a wise lady just told me, "look to the sky tonight, I see pretty little stars", for those pretty little stars are my angel babies smiling down at me (and their daddy of course). 

My thoughts today are with all the mummies of angels, and with each and every lady fighting to become a mummy xxx

I feel numb

I don't know how else to describe how I feel, just numb.  There have been several BFP announcements over the past few days, and although I'm genuinely happy for the people concerned, I have no other feelings about it.  In the past if someone said they were pregnant, I'd congratulate them then run home and cry my eyes out that it wasn't me.  But nothing, no tears, no anger, no wishing it was me, no feelings whatsoever. 

Is that natural?  Am I shutting the door to how I really feel, only to have my feelings erupt at a later time?  Or am I just so used to my own disappointment and shed so many tears in the past that I no longer feel anything?

The Husband's birthday

Ok, I'm a day late in writing this but Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband for yesterday! xxx

He spent most of the day helping a friend move house, then in the evening we were to go for a meal with another couple but unfortunately the wife was ill so they had to cancel, and by the time Max got home he was shattered so we cancelled the restaurant (to be rearranged to a later date) and got a curry instead.  Some lagers for him and a mini bottle of champagne I've had in the fridge since New Year's for me, a yummy curry, great company, a comfy sofa and Saturday night TV, what more could a man ask for to celebrate his 36th birthday!!

Today we went for lunch with Max's family at a pub near my sister-in-law's.  I've never seen portion sizes like it, great value for money and the food was delicious, but omg huge portions!  I feel like I've eaten enough food this weekend to keep me going for the week, my diet definitely starts tomorrow!!

Scans

Wednesday evening I returned home from work to a thick envelope with a franking mark from the hospital, yep, my appointment letter and paperwork for the booking-in appointment with the Midwife and 12 week scan details.  A week after my first miscarriage I got the same letter, now nearly 2 weeks after this one I receive the appointment.  I can't believe how incompetent they are at updating records, and that it took them nearly 4 weeks to issue the letter after my first visit to the GP.


Friday, 9th March - Back from my follow up scan and blood test. Both ultrasound and transvaginal scan showed everything to be fine. Uterus, tubes and ovaries all as they should be, no cysts anywhere. Womb lining is 4.8mm, normal apparently.  I'm still bleeding slightly but as far as the Drs are concerned the miscarriage is complete. However, I'm still testing positive on the hpts with quite a strong line today so the Dr I saw is concerned and told me to go back to my GP, which I will do anyway as we'll need to discuss my bloods and the scan reports.  I guess the next step will depend on the outcome of those and what, if any, further tests I'll need prior to a repeat miscarriage appointment.  I feel in limbo now, we can't try again yet, part of me is "pleased" to have the break, but a part of me is panicking that we're losing time and I don't know what to do.  I feel like we're forever waiting for something, waiting for AF to show, waiting for OV, waiting for a BFP, waiting for appointments, waiting for our baby...

Why???

Why are we going through this heartache again?  Why us? Why, why, why???

As I hadn't heard anything from our hospital with details of my booking-in appointment or 12 week scan, because of our previous history, and because I had a bloody "show" albeit old blood, I booked a private scan for Saturday, 25th February to check how things were progressing.  I would be 6 weeks + 5 days then.

The afternoon of the 25th arrived, nervously we sat in the waiting room at the private clinic, emotions a mix of excitement and worry.  We waited and waited, eventually 40 minutes after our appointment time we were seen and given a half hearted apology for the delay.  The silence that filled the room was deafening, why wasn't the Sonographer saying anything?  Just as I turned to look at Max, the Sonographer said "I'm sorry" and turned the screen to face us.  She said I'd had what looked to be a complete miscarriage.  How can that be, I hadn't bled or had any pain...  All I could do was squeak a response to what she was saying, my husband sitting beside me with a look of disappointment and hurt.  The Sonographer continued the scan to check for an early ectopic but my tubes (and ovaries) were fine, she suggested it could be an ectopic in an unknown location and that I should contact my GP to have HCG beta tests.  She also said that I had a couple of cysts in my uterine lining and didn't know if these were significant or not.  Neither Max or I could say anything, we were left in stunned silence while she went to write up a report for me to give my GP.

A report for the GP, a leaflet on coping with miscarriage, a leaflet on my options for medical management and £90 poorer we left the clinic, I sobbed the entire way home.  It's not fair.

Yes I had the odd worry, and any slight pain would send me into a panic, but in general I was happy and carefree about this pregnancy.  It felt so different to the others, I felt positive that this was THE one, and although still early days with every passing day I felt more confident to start dreaming about pushchairs and names and the nursery decor.  How could my own instincts let me down so badly.

Saturday night I started spotting, and Sunday not much more, maybe my body needed to be told the baby had gone in order to miscarry.  Sunday evening it started properly.  I spent most of the next few days like a zombie, the only things I could do was cry or snap at Max, and he didn't deserve that.  As always he was there for me in every way, he carried on for both of us, cooked all the meals, cleaned the house amongst other things, I just sat on the sofa a prisoner to my thoughts.

I saw the Doctor on Tuesday afternoon, he was so apologetic for our loss and even more so when he found out how many losses we'd had and that we didn't already have children!  He gave me the forms for the HCG beta tests, arranged a scan for the following week to check everything's gone, and made a referral to a Gynae for recurrent miscarriage tests, he also signed me off work for a week.  Before I'd gone back to work within a couple days, but this time I NEEDED that time.  The rest of the week was emotional and tiring, and to top it off I pinched a nerve in my neck so spent most of it in agony from that as well, and then Max came home from work on Thursday to say someone had driven into the back of him and written off his van.  Thankfully nobody was hurt and it's a company van so he can still work.

Universe please give us a break!!!