Missed miscarriage - now contemplating to do D&C or natural??

fennho

fennho

Registered User
Hello

I have been given the devastating news that my baby's heartbeat has stopped on my 9wks checkup. I'm actually seeing two gynae and was considering who to go with when this happened. They are Dr Patrick Chan and Dr Alex Doo. Was going ahead with Dr Chan but aft he couldnt find the heartbeat, silly me expecting a miracle and went for a 2nd opinion with Dr Doo. Of cos, all i see was my 2cm baby which according to the doc has stopped growing at 7wks++. It's heartbreaking enough to see the screen of my baby with no heartbeat. Only 2 wks ago, i've seen and heard the heartbeat and it was strong!

Anyway, Dr Chan recommended for me to wait for the body to recognise this is not a viable pregnancy and terminate itself naturally. He put me on progesterone earlier so he said it's possible my body was still hanging on to the pregnancy becos of the progesterone. So he advised me to stop the meds and wait for 10days to see if i will bleed naturally. If not, i'd have to goback and take some meds from him (to be taken orally) to contract the uterus and purge the sac out. Dr Doo said similar things. Both of them said altho D&C risks are relatively low, it DOES pose a possible harm on the body, uterus lining, future pregnancies etc. Both of them advised i could instead, go for a separate test to check my and DH's genetic chromosomes to see if there're problems.

I agreed initially, but now, coping with the loss is really difficult. My body still feels pregnant, and i can still feel some of the symptoms. But i know for a fact that my baby is dead, inside me. I'm walking around thinking every passing second of the dead baby inside me and it's tearing me apart. On the other hand, i'm also tempted to do a D&C becos only thru D&C would i have a CHANCE to find out what went wrong. Docs said i could do a cells culture test to determine what kind of chromosomes problem happened. BUT this is not 100% guaranteed, becos if the culture fails, then no answers would be given. I know my family and friends have said i shouldnt cos what more can be done? But i thought that might give me some closure, to know what exactly happened. And i would also be able to know the gender. :( I dunno why but i felt like i need to know.

But but but, i'm also afraid all these "obsession need to know" will make me regret should something go wrong....i know lots of women have had D&C and went on to have healthy babies thereafter, but i cant brush my worries away. After all this is my 2nd consecutive miscarriage. My first was a chemical in April this year. Also, DH and my family is against it.

Does anyone have the unfortunate experience of going thru both a D&C and a natural mc? Can u share with me? Also, can anyone share what are the tests i should be requesting for DH and i since this is our 2nd miscarriage? I know docs usually do tests only after 3 consecutive miscarriage but becos of my age (i'm 36) i'd like to run some tests. Anyone know the costs as well?

The only thing that's keeping me strong right now is my little princess who's been an absolute trooper. But at times, i felt strained cos altho it's alright to cry and let her know i'm sad, i couldnt be crying ALL the time (which i really feel like doing right now) cos it worries her and she kept asking me "Mommy, dont be sad. I'll protect u..." so i dont have the heart to cry and tries to keep a happy face.

Sorry for the long post.
 
I'm so sorry to hear this Fennho. I think if I were you, despite the risks etc, I'd go in for the D&C as soon as possible and then hopefully you will be able to feel better quickly as it sounds like you are understandably very emotional and the longer it continues the tougher it will be on your daughter too. Hang in there and please keep us posted. Big hugs.
 
I'm very sorry to hear about your loss, and hope you will recover physically and mentally very soon, even if it will be much easier when it will all be finished.
I've been through 5 miscarriages, the last one at 10 weeks, last year.

I've decided to go for natural, as I had a past of recurrent miscarriages and didn't want to take any risk physically. I still had to wait for a month before my body rejected the foetus.
If you decide to go for natural, just don't forget to take pain killers. Losing a 9-10 weeks foetus is much more painful than a 4 or 5 weeks old.
You'll have to make sure then that everything has gone out, that there is no old blood inside, with a scan.

Like you I wondered if I should do some tests and know what went wrong, was it the foetus, was it me, something I did or ate ... ? but I just decided to let it go, because I feared that the same problem will occur again next time.

Also, you can start trying to conceive immediately after a natural miscarriage (there is a report from a medical team saying it's better to try again very quickly than to wait too long, it was in a Swiss Medical newspaper), than after a DC.

Doctors generally start tests after 3 miscarriages to be considered as recurrent. Scans to check there is nothing wrong with your uterus, ovaries etc... then blood tests to check your hormone levels would be the first tests.
Depending on that, they will tell you what to do (coagulation problem, anti-virus...). If you check on internet, you'll find the whole list of tests you could go through, but very often, they will just not find anything !

And... I've had a perfect pregnancy right after my last miscarriage, there is always some hope !

Take care or yourselves.
 
So sorry to hear of your loss fennho. I had a missed miscarriage at 9 weeks too. I was seeing Alex Doo. He gave me both options (natural and D&C) and i chose the D&C as i didnt think i would be able to handle the wait. I also read somewhere that you are quite fertile after a D&C, so i started planning again right after my procedure and got pregnant successfully that cycle!
 
Very sorry to hear about your loss. I had a miscarriage last year at 8 weeks. I was also seeing Dr. Chan. Originally, I wanted to wait it out and see if my body would just do it naturally (I was also on progesterone) but after 1 week, I just couldn't handle it anymore so I decided to just go ahead with a D&C. After the D&C and after my period came, I started to see Dr. Chan and an acupuncturist that specializes in fertility issues at the same time. 2 cycles later I was pregnant again. My little girl just turned 7 months :)
 
Hi Fennho,

When we started TTC, I had two miscarriages in a row and both times did a D&C. Could not bear to be pregnant when i was actually no longer. Like Frenchy said, i browsed the internet for tests to be done, my ob-gyn suggested a bunch of them which we did but because of my research on the web, i asked him to include one for killer cells. It's an auto-immune disorder wherein the body rejects anything foreign, including a fetus! My ob-gyn sort of just said whatever because at that time, this was not a common test. It turned out to be that and he, a very well-known reproductive gyn, was not too sure about the treatment because it was fairly new to him. The monitored my ovultaion. I was put on corticosteriods, heparin and baby aspirin a short time before ovulation. after 2-3misses, i conceived again and we got a baby girl! After that, i learned from his nurses that he recommends this test more often now after recurring miscarriages!

I also had a friend who had a healthy first child then had trouble keeping a second pregnancy. After 2 miscarriages, her ob-gyn put her on heparin injections and aspirin once she conceived and the pregnancy held. she didn't do any tests in her case.

So i would say get the tests done. I would also recommend a D&C - less chance of anything getting left behind and causing problems later. And i would highly recomend Dr. Doo. He was my ob-gyn for my second pregnancy and he's great! Very thorough with scans and explanations.

You'll be okay - just takes a bit of time sometimes!
 
Really sorry to hear of your loss, i know it is heartbreaking. I am similar to Frenchy, I have had 4 miscarriages, including 1 missed miscarriage which i discovered at 10 weeks. All but one (including the missed miscarriage) i allowed to happen naturally. The one i had a D&C with was because the miscarriage happened the day we were due to fly out from Australia to the UK (to live) and we had to delay a week and couldn't wait for it all to happen naturally. I am someone who prefers to try and avoid surgery if at all possible and so even though it was hard to wait and in fact when the missed miscarriage finally happened at 12 weeks I was planning to ring the next day to say I changed my mind, I am glad i did. i never had any problems and in fact got pregnant with my 1st child immediatly after the 2nd miscarriage (to my shock) and she is perfect.
For the record the 1st 2 miscarriages were before I had any children and my ob(in Australia) did all the major tests partly because of age (41) and partly because of my medical history - normally in Oz they will not do any tests until you have had 3 miscarriages in a row. They couldn't find anything and did a very wide range including the ones mentioned above. I also take mini aspirin during pregnancy due to my non pregnancy history. With the next two when trying for my 2nd I just accepted that there was something wrong with both foetus' and that there was nothing i can do.
The later missed miscarriage was much more painful (like a mini labour) so do be prepared for that if you decide to let things happen naturally, but i was fine. I got pregnant again 3 months later and my 2nd child is now 1 and perfect too. Please PM me if you'd like any more detail and good luck with your decision.
 
Fennho, I'm sorry for your loss.
I've had two miscarriages that I know of and have let them go naturally.
Yes, it'll be good to know but I was always concerned about future potential i.e. the ability to conceive. So I stayed away from any invasive intervention.

Hang in there. *HUGS*
 
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