Second miscarriage - does the UK offer anything?

[Autumn leaves]

Hi ladies,

I'm absolutely heartbroken to explain how back in August i miscarried at five weeks, took three months trying again, bfp two weeks ago and now at 5 weeks 4 days it's happening again.

Before I start please let me apologise for anyone who views my post and feels its insensitive to people with further losses and at later stages, I cannot begin to imagine.

I Have a scan Monday to confirm, hopefully this will also share that inside is all normal. In terms of moving forward painfully is there anything that UK doctors can offer you?

A blood test to look for any of the blood clotting disorders?
Or repeated blood tests for hcg increase when pregnant again?

Please if anyone can enlighten me I'd be hugely grateful. For now I've gotta muster up the courage to step forward x

 

[tinyfootsteps]

Hi Autumn Leaves,

I am really sorry for you losses.

I'm in the UK too and have just had my second MC. (I've had one healthy pregnancy in between).

As far as I'm aware, you'd have to have three consecutive miscarriages in a row in order to have any kind of investigations. Which totally sucks.

The reason being that many women who do have one or two miscarriages do still go on to have a healthy pregnancies... so I hope that gives you at least a little glimmer of hope?

I know it's so frustrating as all you really want after a MC is answers. It's a crappy situation.

My advice would be to try again when you feel ready. I hope the next time you get a BFP it leads to your rainbow baby. It does happen. We have to believe that.

Best of luck. xxx

 

[Autumn leaves]

Thank you tinyfootsteps your words are very kind. I hope you are right and it's just pure bad luck x

 

[BunnyN]

We have been going through our second loss. We have two healthy pregnancies inbetween but I also had problems with the placenta with DD that could have been caused by a clotting disorder so I am considering doing some testing privately. I have read that it is not that expensive to do some basic tests.

I'm really sorry for your losses. Hugs

 

[bubbles82]

Sorry for your losses, I hate that anyone has to go through this and hope you heal as much as you can as soon as you can.

I'm just going through my third loss, I should've been 10-11 weeks but my scan at 9 weeks showed the heartbeat had stopped, which I'd seen at a scan just 10 days earlier. I went for medical management last week which didn't work and I had to go back for internal examinations and a repeat dose. So this time has been the worst physically and emotionally with it being our third and us being further along and thinking everything was going ok.

I really hoped they would give us some kind of help this time or support in any future pregnancy, but they told me pretty much straight away not to be expecting any tests or anything as they are only offered with three consecutive losses, and I had my two year old DD after the first one. I can't believe I have to go through all this for a fourth time before it's treated as important enough to look into even with basic tests, and I'm still unsure if I want to try again and risk going through all this again when it's been so hard this time, I'm still off work and my family who ended up dragged into it to help us with DD and all the hospital trips etc have all been effected.

I knew from the first scan at 7+5 things weren't looking good as the measurements were way off, but EPU/midwives/GP weren't interested then, so I had to keep paying out £100 a go for private scans until I finally went through one where I was told there was no heartbeat anymore, just so I could get referred to EPU rather than have to actually wait until my 12 week scan to hear the expected bad news then, knowing I'd probably been carrying my baby around for weeks after it had passed away.

I can understand there's a lot of cost involved with testing so many people when many do go on to have healthy pregnancies, but I've had to go through three losses and don't really see why I have to wait to go through three consecutive, when something is obviously not quite right, and if it's a simple thing like a clotting disorder it is a straightforward test with a simple solution, so it frustrates me they won't even try that and I'd have to risk another loss before possibly discovering I just needed something to fix the clotting.

I've enquired with my nearest private hospital in relation to fertility testing and how much I'd have to pay to get them done myself, but they just sent a load of stuff back about IVF which in hopefully still a way off needing, and a few blood tests which didn't include the clotting etc, they were more like tests for people who can't conceive at all. So I'm not sure what my next steps are other than try again and hope it goes well next time, but I can't feel hopeful at all, it just feels like I'd be trying again to lose again to get the help I need.

 

[Autumn leaves]

Gosh bubbles82 my heart goes out to you. I agree completely with everything you said. Especially about the blood clotting, surely the cost of running one set of bloods for that is the same as it would be for Mr x suffering x at the gp surgery.

For example pernicious anaemia runs in women in our family, thought I may have it about a year ago, ran a blood test with no questions, all was ok. My fiancé had his blood tested with IBS symptoms last week. Why is it Any different to that?

I pray that the new year brings us healthy pregnancies and that these moments are a a distant memory in the long term story xx

 

[bubbles82]

It doesn't make any sense to me, if I have to go through another loss then surely that is costing them more to treat each time than a few simple blood tests to rule out the easily treatable things. They've already had to take my blood twice with this loss anyway and test it for low iron etc so it can't be much more difficult to run a few other simple tests. I don't know if it's even worth going back to my GP, when I pestered them enough before my first loss when TTC#1 and my cycles were all over the place, they eventually ran a few blood tests to rule out hormone imbalance and then a scan for PCOS, but everything just came back normal. At that time I pushed for thyroid testing as thyroid problems run in my family, and mine came back as borderline at first but a repeat test showed normal so they left it at that, but I know levels that show normal for every day life aren't the same as levels classed as OK for TTC, but it's so hard to find a GP who knows enough about TTC, most of the ones I've seen take absolutely no interest in my charting as if it's just a load of nonsense but it obviously is a good record of my cycles and ovulation. So I could probably do with thyroid testing again at least, and the blood clotting tests would really make me feel better about not trying things like aspirin if they came back clear.

 

[minties]

I'm not in the UK, but wanted to offer you my condolences

 

[RaspberryMini]

A previous poster was right, in the UK you do have to have 3 before any investigations occur, I know from experience this is heartbreaking, and I am sorry for your losses. I had two consecutive miscarriages before I had my son, obviously now it was just sheer bad luck. I was even scared to try for another baby as I wouldn't have wanted to go through it with my son around, but my pregnancy with my daughter was straightforward no complications.

So it does and can happen, I hope that gives you some hope