I will start by saying, I was always someone who was petrified of birth and feared the pain and discomfort that I believed came with the birth process. I was very aware of what I feared - seeing blood loss, poo’ing myself, being poked and prodded, being induced then waiting days for baby to actually come, screaming in pain, having a caesarean. I felt it was something I just had to get through in order to have a baby. (These are all things that so many of my clients come to me saying at the beginning of their hypnobirthing journeys, so if you're pregnant, reading this and thinking the same - know you're not alone and in fact likely to be one of many parents-to-be thinking this). So that being said, I knew when the time came, I wanted to be in the know and have all the knowledge. I remember buying a couple books to begin with and thinking, "I wonder what I will be like as a mum"- Holly Willoughby's - Truly Happy Baby and Giovanna Fletcher's - Happy Mum Happy Baby (The labour & birth books were far from my mind at this point). So, after being with my husband for 14 years and married for 3 we started trying for our first baby.
Getting pregnant for the first time
I first fell pregnant in Jul 2019.
This was my first introduction to maternity care services. It felt very surreal at first and I remember being in total disbelief that at my booking in appointment no one checked I was actually pregnant - I thought they would have asked me to do a test (I now realise they would have known through the blood test 😉). We were unable to date this pregnancy and therefore skipped the usual GP surgery community midwife appointment and went straight to the hospital midwife. Initially we thought I may have already been 10 weeks pregnant so this meant we had all the necessary checks completed at our very first appointment (bloods, weight, height etc) and our dating scan was booked for a week later.
I felt a bit nauseous but other than that I was fine and remember being at my friends wedding the night before our dating scan and having to give the excuse that I was on antibiotics so wasn't drinking. We were staying the night so the old, "I'm driving" excuse wouldn't have washed ;) It was a nice but weird feeling to be holding our secret that I was pregnant and no one else in the world knew but us. As you will know from my socials, if you're following, I am a bit of an over sharer and keeping secrets it definitely not my strong point!
Our first scan (trigger warning from here onwards)
The first scan confirmed that we were much earlier into our pregnancy than first thought - about 6 weeks. The scan was taking a while but we didn't know any different. The sonographer was unable to detect a heartbeat and felt it was too early for a scan. We were booked for another scan a week later (beg sept). We felt fine about this as we knew we couldn’t date the pregnancy and it had all happened very quick from finding out we were pregnant to having an initial scan. We felt well supported and didn’t feel there was anything to worry about as it would have been unlikely to have detected a heartbeat at this early stage and we wouldn't have been any the wiser had we have been able to date it and had a scan at the usual timeframe of around 12 weeks in any case.
Our second scan
Off we went for our second scan. The sonographer again was unable to detect a heartbeat and on first check felt the baby hadn’t grown in the week since our first scan. She prepared us that the pregnancy was non-viable. She then re-scanned us and thought she could detect a heartbeat (very confusing). She called in a senior sonographer for a second opinion who confirmed it was a non-viable pregnancy. We left the scan room walking past everyone else in the waiting area, some of which who were very obviously pregnant, and were taken to a side room to have some time to ourselves whilst the sonographer got us some leaflets about what had happened. I was told ‘you must have experienced bleeding, this is an unusual situation’ - I hadn’t had any signs of a miscarriage. So, they confirmed it had been a delayed or missed miscarriage as they didn't know how else to categorise it. They said the sac had collapsed and my scan showed cysts and shadows that they were concerned about. I was told someone would call with further information later that day and we went home. Needless to say, our second scan was a mixture of highs, lows and now concerns about my own health completely out the blue.
Going home
We went home to a letter which confirmed all my bloods (from our first appointment) were fine - great to know for my health, but sad too. We had accepted the miscarriage well as we never really got to ‘know’ our baby or made plans for him/her - I don’t think we really grieved for what we had lost as we were too focused on what the cysts and shadows were for me. We didn’t receive a phone call until two days later (I had chased in the meantime). I received a call from a lovely lady from the early pregnancy and assessment clinic (EPAC) who informed me that a consultant had looked at my scans and they thought I had a rare pregnancy called a molar pregnancy. Essentially, I was told that I needed surgery to remove what was there, so histology (a test on what is removed) could be carried out as there was cancerous cell risk if left to miscarry naturally. I was told that with a missed miscarriage, the safest option is to have surgical management of miscarriage. I was also informed that the best case scenario was that it wasn’t a molar pregnancy but I would be referred for follow up scan and possibly to gynaecologist if shadows/cysts were still present. Worst case, 3-6 months minimum fortnightly follow ups (blood testing) from a hospital in Charing Cross, London and if HCG (pregnancy hormone) levels in my blood didn’t fall, I would need chemo to kill the left over cells.
Cue google searches ... what are the odds of the worst case scenario happening and all the feelings of 'OMG panic!'
The surgery
I had the surgery 2 weeks later.
This involved being admitted to hospital as a day patient and going under a general anaesthetic for a procedure to remove the pregnancy. I remember laying in theatre looking up at the surgical lighting and the nurse asking me "what is your favourite tipple?" I replied with "a gin & tonic", and she said "ok, a G&T coming right up" and administered the anaesthetic - and I was asleep. It was a very surreal experience and one where I very much saw it as watching myself in a film and the procedure happening to someone else. The brain is powerful in protecting us in situations like this and I know from my
past work that I was dissociating. If this was happening to a friend say, we would likely feel better able to deal with it than when it happens to ourselves so my brain put me into the scenario of it happening in a different context in order for me to process it.
I selfishly lay there afterwards thinking, "ok we have dealt with this now, what about me?" To me, you can see in the picture that my facial expression says "thank goodness this is over ... but what next" There's an unsure-ness, an anticipation and an almost child-like look of "I want it all to go away now".
What now?
I went home, had some time off work to look after myself and I had some great company - our first love, Izzy who we lost last year. This photo was taken just as I got home from surgery.
What was removed would then be sent to histology and I would have a result back from this 2 weeks later. Ironically I had to retake a pregnancy test 3 weeks later which we hoped would be negative.
Wow, what a huge amount of stress and worry this caused. From a few weeks prior feeling elated that we were pregnant - to sad to have lost the baby but feeling relatively ok about this as we knew how common it was to have a miscarriage - to now feeling worried about my own health … it was a rollercoaster.
The pregnancy test came back negative and we were over the moon (not often people are pleased about this one)!
The histology test results, however took about 8 weeks to come back (not 2)! - it was 8 weeks of worry but negative so all was good. I think I would have rather not known all the scenarios as early as they told me but I guess that’s policy because if the worst had have happened, I could’ve felt annoyed that I wasn’t told sooner about the treatment and filed a complaint.
Moving forward
I chose to have a women’s pelvic health scan in early 2020 to check all was ok. Everything was fine, then the pandemic hit and we decided to wait for a year.
I resigned from my job and started a new one in lockdown as I began to recognise that working in trauma (I was working as a manager in child exploitation) whilst going through my own health scare was not safe working practice. I also began to feel more and more like I didn't want to be working in this work once I was a mum. I loved my work and it was bittersweet to leave. However, it is a world of work that if you're not careful, can begin to taint your view of the world and bring about negative perceptions which I knew I didn't want to influence my parenting or be reflected onto my child. I also wanted to try something new.
Happy news
We began trying again at the end of dec 2020. We fell pregnant very quickly ... much to hubbys’ disgust ha ha! To be continued...
Catch my next blog all about pregnancy no. 2 - coming soon!!