Hi everyone, my name is Charlie. My wife and I have been trying for a child for over three years now.
She has two children from a previous marriage who I love but it is not the same as having my own child to cherish.
We started off well, got pregnant fairly quickly. Due to the excitement we let a lot of our family know, it being the first grandchild from my side of the family, and my sister in law being pregnant at the same time. But at our 12 week scan we found out that the baby had passed at around 10weeks with no sign of miscarriage. We were sent to our local gynae ward to force the miscarriage and remove "the Tissue" as the so kindly put it. My wife was offered two options, medical management a pill to help induce the miscarriage or a surgical option requiring the scrap of any tissue that's left. She decided on the less invasive medical management. After nearly 18hours in the hospital with zero sleep for either of us and excruciating cramps and passing of blood from my wife, we were sent on our way and told to take a pregnancy test in three weeks, hopefully the result is negative, if so we can try again.
Three weeks came and the test still showed positive pregnancy. We were advised to come in to the hospital again to get checked out. Turns out there was still tissue that hadn't been flushed from the medical management. So once again we had to endure 12 hours this time of no sleep and painful cramping for my wife. Again three weeks later results still coming back positive. We were advised to go via the surgical route this time. Finally after another three weeks had gone by we had negative pregnancy results. And we could start trying again.
A couple of failed months go by and then we receive a positive test. Tempering our excitement we tell no one. We go for an early scan at 10 weeks at a private ultra scan centre. And once again we are told the awful news that the baby us not made it past 10weeks. My wife broke down in tears before we even went it to the room, she knew something was wrong. She had been experiencing out of the ordinary hiccup episodes almost everyday from the moment we had the positive results, I joked it was the baby laughing inside her. Two days before our 10 week scan the hiccuping stopped. That's when she claims she knew something was wrong... I digress.
Once again we had to go into the hospital to have the tissue removed as there was no physical sign of miscarriage, just no signs of life from the baby. This time around she decided to go straight to the surgical method. Post surgery my wife was in excruciating pain, more so than last time. The doctors and nurses claim it was just due to the surgery and nothing to worry about. She was released to go home the next day still in massive amounts of pain. On the drive home I tentatively took corners and avoided bumps as every jolt caused her more pain. After 20mins at home I decided something needed to be done so took her to A&E to be checked over. I wasn't allowed to join her due to Covid restrictions so spent the next 5-6hours waiting in the car. Eventually they moved her back up to Gynae ward to be monitored. I was allowed to join her then.
(This is a good time to mention my wife is a critical care nurse at this very hospital) After a few hours there in severe pain where the doctors and nurses palmed her off. She contacted a close friend who is an outreach nurse wailing in pain telling her they aren’t listening and that something was really wrong. After five minutes and the observations that should have been done hours ago they noticed her blood pressure along with some other stats that I don’t pretend to understand were sky high. She was rushed to emergency surgery to find out that the operation has caused an internal bleed leading to her contracting Sepsis. This could have easily killed her if it hadn’t been spotted when it did. I’m not exaggerating when I say this was the hardest day of my life. Watching my beautiful caring wife go through so much pain and being helpless to it was so hard.
After allowing ample time (three months) to recuperate we could start trying again. We were able to get pregnant again, but this time it was the lead up to our wedding. My wife had to keep this secret during two Hen parties, only for us to lose the baby in the weeks leading up to the wedding, our hearts were well and truly broken once more. After letting the wedding aftermath settle we had an appointment with a pregnancy specialist, she eased our worries that nothing negative had come back from blood test or results taken from “The sample” and that we have provably gotten pregnant and to keep trying…. That was coming up to a year ago now and we have had no positive tests since before the wedding. Each month feels like a wound reopening each time it’s negative.
My wife and I love each other very much still, but I fear this is going to hamper us, it’s always in the back of our minds and we can’t plan anything in life in case we get pregnant at an inopportune time.
As with most of you I’m not looking for answers, but this is the first time I’ve let this whole journey come out of me in one go, as I rarely speak about it to anyone. But after trying to be strong for her through this whole thing I needed the opportunity to release my words somewhere and unfortunately for you guys this is where it’s landed.
I’m sure you will all see parts of your situations in mine, so if anyone needs help and anything feel free to reply. Fingers crossed for all of us things turn around soon.
Rgds
Charlie
Thank you Dan, they are currently looking to narrow down what is causing us our issues. we’re having tests done in the hope they spot something that we can work with. At present we’re just abit lost and unsure what to try next. Thanks again for replying.
Hi Charlie,
Thank you for your story and condolences for what you have been through. It is really kind of you to look at this as a way of helping others, and hopefully by writing it down in full, you will get some benefit as well.
I see a lot of my story in yours with multiple losses, surgeries, waiting around in hospital or in the car, the stress, worry of it it will happen, they lack of reasoning for why this happens. I think a lot of what you have written will relate to many people who read it.
Where you are at, we were a few years back. My wife and I have a very strong bond, made stronger by these losses, and ultimately for us, the outcome of having children still outweighed the stress and anxiety of the possibility of further losses.
You need to do what’s right for you and your wife. I would show her this post and see what her response would be. We had a year where we didn’t try (medically forced) which actually gave us some time just to be us after marriage. It was one of the best things we did to just step away from it all.
Secondly we had 2 or 3 different specialists we saw, for the same reason, to see if there was a different or common approach from them all. ‘You should just get pregnant’ wasn’t good enough for us so we decided to get a number of options. Research the plans / medication / tests proposed to us and choose what works best, so we were bought into it fully.
Most importantly, during this time we made sure we kept doing the things we did on the year off that we enjoyed. I went for a run twice a week, and my wife did gym and yoga. It kept the enjoyment and positivity in our lives to balance the anxiety.
I hope this helps and if you need anything more please reach out
Dan - MFM