Just over 2 years ago I was heading to my first doctor’s appointment at almost 11 weeks pregnant. Jared and the kids were with me and we were all so excited to see the baby on the ultrasound.
As they did the ultrasound it only took a couple of minutes for them to go get the doctor. They couldn’t find a heartbeat.
The pregnancy was diagnosed as a missed miscarriage.
What is a Missed Miscarriage?
Until that appointment, I had never heard of a missed miscarriage. I had always thought a miscarriage was accompanied by symptoms and signs that there was a problem.
Throughout those first 10 weeks I never had any indication that something was wrong so having a miscarriage was a total shock.
A missed miscarriage is different than a typical miscarriage, it’s sometimes called a silent miscarriage. This happens when the embryo dies your body hasn’t recognized it.
With a missed miscarriage you don’t experience the common miscarriage symptoms of cramping or bleeding. Instead you can still experience pregnancy symptoms like weight gain and morning sickness.
Instead of experiencing the normal symptoms of a miscarriage with a missed miscarriage, you find out you’ve had a miscarriage when you get an ultrasound and there isn’t a heartbeat.
What Happens After You Find Out?
After the ultrasound, the doctor took us to a different room to talk about what our options were. I remember feeling like I was going to pass out and being so shocked that our appointment had changed so much from what we expected.
Depending on your doctor and how far along you are there are different options for the miscarriage.
I was sent home and told I would probably miscarry naturally in the next few days. After trying to miscarry naturally for a week, they decided that a D&C (Dilation and Curettage) was the best option because of the size of the baby when I miscarried.
After the Miscarriage
After the miscarriage and D&C, it took some time but I was able to work through my feelings and come to feel peace.
Both my husband and I ultimately felt like it wasn’t the right time to expand our family. Which ended up being a blessing with all the changes that came just a few months later.
They told us that we could try to get pregnant again after a month or two for a while after this experience, I felt like we were done having kids. I was happy and content with our family of 4 and didn’t think we would have any more kids.
I got rid of almost all of our baby stuff except for a few favorite outfits. Which ended up being a good thing since we have moved 3 times since then.
Now a couple of years later we felt like it was time to grow our family again. This pregnancy after having that unexpected miscarriage has been different than I expected.
Having a miscarriage is hard. It’s hard to understand and can be so unexpected. No matter when they happen it takes time to deal with the emotions and be able to move on and try again.