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Tag: Miscarriage

Miscarriage at 11 Weeks, now pregnant with rainbow baby!

Posted on by Megan Hutchison

Brave Mumma to be Kirsty, now pregnant with her rainbow baby shares her pregnancy journey. Read on to hear more about her story. Content warning: Blog post mentions miscarriage.

8 weeks pregnant

Baby is the size of a: Olive

Our first pregnancy and miscarriage: My husband and I are both healthy 30year olds who began trying for a baby in August 2020. We were lucky enough to fall pregnant relatively quickly (even though it felt like forever at the time) in January 2021. I spoke to a friend of mine who recommend a midwife who I contacted, and we arrange out first appointment when I was approximately 7weeks. Our midwife asked if I knew my dates or if we required a dating scan and because we were trying, and I had super regular cycles we opted to not have a dating scan. My husband and I met with our midwife when I was approximately 7weeks pregnant, our first appointment went great, we all got long and I felt excited and supported. The next weeks went past, I had some mild nausea and tiredness but nothing extreme and we were looking forward to our 12-week scan. 

At 11w2d (Friday) I had some bleeding, I messaged my midwife immediately and she said she would arrange an urgent scan for me on Monday and to keep her updated. My bleeding became heavier over the weekend, and I started having strong cramps. The ultrasound place contacted me on Monday morning and arranged a scan for Monday afternoon. At the scan the ultrasound technician didn’t say much however she said that she could see a collapsing gestational sac and a foetal pole measuring approx. 5w3d with no heartbeat. She said she would provide a verbal handover to our midwife, and we would hear from her. My husband and I returned home, and I awaited a call from my midwife – which never came. On Monday evening I miscarried naturally at home. 

Another week went by, and my midwife finally returned my call the following Tuesday (8days after my ultrasound). I didn’t answer her phone call as I was too angry, but I text her and said I was extremely disappointed in her lack of follow up, guidance and care over the past week and that my GP would be continuing my care. My husband and I meet with my GP, and she arranged a number of follow up blood tests to ensure my HCG levels returned to normal, offered some counselling and explained what would happen next. 

My husband and I both work in healthcare so we were fortunate enough to know what is ‘normal’ when having a miscarriage, when to seek further hospital intervention etc however no one should be expected to go through a miscarriage without any guidance and follow up is essential to ensure the miscarriage is complete and there is no risk of retained tissue and infection. I feel my midwife completely let us down. 

I had two ‘normal’ cycles post miscarriage and my husband, and I decided to ‘stop not trying’ as opposed to begin trying and fell pregnant the first month. Obviously, we were happy but also very anxious. I have a close friend who is currently pregnant who recommended an OB after knowing our experience last time and so far, our experience has been great. I am currently 8weeks,2days. feeling very sick but very happy. I had some early spotting, so our OB arranged to see me before our first official appointment at 6w4d were we saw our tiny baby and a healthy heartbeat. We had an official dating scan yesterday and everything is looking great. We are yet to have our ‘first’ official appointment with our OB yet, but I anticipate that will be next week!


If after reading this you’d be happy to share your own experience of pregnancy, please email me at megan@forgetmenotjournals.com to send you one of the pages (or you can send a photo of your own pregnancy journal)

29 Weeks, suspected miscarriage at 8 weeks

Posted on by Megan Hutchison

Brave Mum to be Tesa, shares her miscarriage scare at 8 weeks. Read on to hear her story.

Week: 29

Baby is the size of a: Butternut Squash

First of all just wanted to say how much of a huge fan I am of your journal! I use it each week without fail and love it. Unfortunately it arrived the week of my suspected miscarriage and I did not want to journal anything as the whole thing was quite terrifying. 

Firstly, I do understand how lucky I am to have not miscarried and can understand how this can be triggering to people that have but at the same time think this is something not talked about enough in pregnancy. We are taught bleeding is bad and it mostly is very bad.

I was early in week 9 (which we thought was week 11 at the time but was put back at my scan) of my pregnancy and I came home from work for lunch. When I sat down, I felt this gush of liquid down there. This is my first pregnancy and I just thought that was strange. I went to the bathroom and there was blood, a large amount of blood all in one clump/clot. The blood kept coming so I called my midwife who is fantastic. We were having one of those random summer days that hit 35 degrees and she started with ‘8 have had a few of these phone calls today’ – not very reassuring. She told me to put in maturity pads and if I was changing more than one an hour, I needed to call her back a bad go to ED. The bleeding by this point had slowed down but my heart ache and worry hadn’t. Unfortunately, she could not do much so early on once the bleeding slowed down.

The next day she saw me in clinic. It was too risky to do the heartbeat and she probably would have found it anyway and in South Canterbury they have this thing about not over scanning people (I am unsure what this is like in other districts). She sent me for bloods 2 days in a row to see if my HCG was still rising. Waiting for these results was horrific I was trying to work as people did not know I was pregnant and not stress as can harm the baby. My levels were rising but not like they should have been at the thought 11 weeks. This left a blank whole and 10 days until my already scheduled scan. The midwife made the call to just wait as our ultrasound place is crazy busy.

When we went for the scan everything was thankfully and luckily ok, but this was 14 days after I bled and the way that physically and mentally wears on your body was something I don’t wish on anyone. Since talking to more people about this a lot of women can have this and a friend of my mums who was a midwife quite a few years ago said this use to be quite common and it was considered a final clean out from left over blood which usually comes out each period. I wish I had discussed this more when it happened but because I was before the 12 weeks it was my first baby and a surprise, I kept quiet and grieved with my fiancé and mum. Luckily my story was one of the lucky ones, but it doesn’t make those 14 days any less real. You get a glimpse at what people really go through and how heartbreakingly awful it is.

My whole first trimester I was horrifically ill with sickness and vomiting each day. This stopped about 16 weeks and since then I have had the odd day of vomiting. In my 12 and 20 weeks scan they have monitored my pregnancy closer to make sure there is no slight tear or anything which may have been where the blood come from. At this point they cannot locate anything.

I have been so anxious now and I feel that gush of liquid more than I would like to admit. Every time I feel my baby move around these days I smile because I came so close to not getting that feeling and I know how lucky I am to be only 11ish weeks off meeting out little one.

I know just knowing one person’s story may have made those 14 days slightly more bearable because now I know my symptoms weren’t a miscarriage but when you are in the early stages and no one knows you don’t know what is normal and what isn’t. Your midwife can tell you it’s fine and not enough blood but sometimes knowing someone else has been there may make people understand more. I now know I did not lose enough blood but when you are going through it you think you must have why else would you be bleeding..


If after reading this you’d be happy to share your own experience of pregnancy, please email me at hello@shesaidyes.co.nz to send you one of the pages (or you can send a photo of your own pregnancy journal)

20 Weeks Pregnant after Miscarriage

Posted on by Megan Hutchison

Baby is the size of a: banana 
Current weight: 69kg (3.5kg gained)
Cravings: None weirdly 
Symptoms: Very sore sciatic nerve and ligament pain 

How have you been feeling: Very nervous up to this point, until I had my 20 week scan on Monday which confirmed a happy, healthy, growing baby. I lost a baby mid last year and found out at my 12 week scan, all alone during level 3 lockdown.

Do you feel comfortable sharing your miscarriage experience? I discovered I had miscarried when I went for my 12 week scan. I had a dating scan at 7 weeks which showed a heartbeat, had been to the midwife at 10 weeks and she had found a heartbeat on her monitor but we couldn’t hear it as baby was sitting down by my hip but there was a clear 144bpm reading on her monitor, she even showed it to me.

I had no health issues at all, regular exercise, eating all approved pregnancy foods etc. I had been feeling my usual pregnancy symptoms daily, no sign of any changes, no cramping, no bleeding or anything. The night before my scan we went into level 3 lockdown and I was disappointed that my husband wouldn’t be able to come along to see baby growing.

I turned up for my scan alone and when she put the scanning machine (no idea it’s technical name haha), the uterus was big and black.

There was a small object on the left side which was the baby. Unfortunately there was no blood flow, no heartbeat and no growth from what she thought could have been 9 weeks. I told her about how we’d seen a heartbeat recording at 10 weeks and she was confused. I burst into tears and let her finish doing what she needed to do. I left the scan clinic and sat in my car crying for a solid 5 minutes before ringing my husband. He luckily only was 5 minutes down the road in his office and came up to meet me. The rest of the day was a blur, my husband came home and took over looking after our son while my mum went home.

The next couple of days I just cried on and off and tried to focus on the positive that I had my son and he was healthy and happy. I was thinking I’m lucky I’ve got one healthy one.

My midwife was very supportive and checked in on me for those days until the hospital rang me. I had three choices; one was to naturally miscarry when my body was ready. I knew this wasn’t going to work, I had no cramping at all, my body had held onto this fetus already for at least a week or two with no symptoms. Option 2 was to take tablets to soften my cervix which I wasn’t interested in as I knew a couple of people who had done this and ended up at a&e with bad bleeding. I went with option 3 which was surgery to remove the tissue.

The following week, exactly a week after my scan I went in for surgery. At this point I had accepted mentally what had happened and was feeling a little better about things. Surgery went well, little pain, usual 12 days of bleeding and results showed nothing unusual. 7 weeks later I had a period. 7 weeks after that my period hadn’t come. I took a pregnancy test which showed a positive result. I knew I wasn’t pregnant and booked in to see my GP that arvo. Long story short, after having to be referred back to hospital for scans and bloods, it showed 2cm of tissue had been missed in surgery.  This was 16 weeks post last op.

So I was booked in three days later for surgery round 2. This surgery wasn’t great. They put a camera up to check they had got everything and cut my cervix which needed stitches. I was in serious pain for a good 10 days, saw my GP twice to get checked etc. eventually 17 days post op, I stopped bleeding and had a scan to check nothing was left. We were finally at the end of the ordeal. My HCG level was finally 0 and I could move on.

Two months later, two periods as recommended, I got pregnant again and I was excited but so nervous! So glad that this one has stuck and is growing well!! 

I’m most excited about: Seeing my toddler become a big brother and welcoming a new life into our family finally!
I can’t wait to be able to: Cuddle, nuture and grow a new life outside of the womb and celebrate all the exciting milestones with a second baby. 

When I see my body I feel: So happy this life has survived and excited to see my stomach expanding as baby grows and develops inside me. I feel a lot bigger this time round too but it’s a nice feeling too. 

The first time I felt my baby move: I haven’t felt him move yet as my placenta is anterior, this hasn’t helped with my worries of baby not growing but I know in the next couple of weeks I’ll start to feel those movements. I’m super excited to be able to feel the kicks and hiccups again. 

The best thing about the last week has been: My 20 week scan, seeing my beautiful boy growing, all his fingers and toes, his face and all his gorgeous features.

When strangers react to my pregnancy I feel: a lot bigger as they often think I’m a lot further along than I am. 

How I am going with exercise, sleep, diet, stress and other health goals: I’m keeping up with my weekly boot camps which I’m super proud of. I’m going for daily walks with the toddler and dog and am super proud I can still chase my toddler around at this stage. Sleep isn’t the best with a toddler who hasn’t appreciated much sleep his life but I try and nap when possible. 

If I could say anything to my baby right now it would be: Keep growing little bub, I can’t wait to meet you when you are big and strong so you can learn so much from the world and your big brother too!

If after reading this you’d be happy to share your own experience of pregnancy, please email me at hello@shesaidyes.co.nz to send you one of these pages (or you can send a photo of your own pregnancy journal)

26 Weeks Pregnant After Miscarriage: Endometriosis and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Posted on by Megan Hutchison

I am incredibly grateful to the soon to be first time Mama for sharing so generously and openly about her chronic health conditions, the loss of her first pregnancy last year, and her journey with her second pregnancy, now at 26 weeks gestation. When I read her 26 week diary entry, I saw that she experienced a miscarriage prior to this, and asked her if she was comfortable elaborating.

I hope you get as much out of this as I do. Thank you again Mama.

I wondered how you would feel about sharing more details around your previous pregnancy loss?

I don’t mind sharing at all. So I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and the treatment for that consists of certain medications that are not compatible with getting pregnant as they harm the baby. So before I even attempted to get pregnant I had to come off my medications for 3 months prior. With RA being worse in winter I literally planned it with the seasons so I stopped in August, to mean coming into Summer I would hopefully conceive quickly. Although we didn’t know if that was the case, as I also have Endometriosis.

I was really lucky to conceive first time in November but that ended in December at only 5 weeks. I think the worst thing was I felt responsible because I felt like my body had failed me (this is also a common feeling with chronic disease). I was also really surprised about how upset I was considering I was so early.  Being a nurse I knew the medical stuff but never considered the emotional stuff.

We were so lucky to again conceive straight after that miscarriage, however the first trimester my anxiety about losing it was 10/10.

Constantly thinking at anytime the pregnancy would fail. That was really hard. I couldn’t bring myself to even look at baby stuff till about 16 weeks.

So here we are at 26 weeks, and then baby is measuring small (not uncommon with RA) and now dealing with my joints starting to play up again. It’s a constant mind game of ‘is my disease harming my baby’ and also being pregnant but also dealing with the joint pain that’s unseen to everyone around you.

I think if I could give any advice it would be… to try and trust your body can do it even after a loss/trouble conceiving. Which is so hard because that also means giving up a sense of control.

If after reading this you’d be happy to share your own experience of pregnancy, please email me at hello@shesaidyes.co.nz to send you one of these pages (or you can send a photo of your own pregnancy journal).

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