Early pregnancy scare – our false miscarriage diagnosis

Suffering from endometriosis and being aware that natural conception may not have been possible for us, discovering I was pregnant in January 2016 felt like such an immense blessing.

We had a rocky road to start with, however. I was spotting blood and having pain in my left side. We were sent for an early scan to check things out. I was nervous arriving at the scan, but also excited that I may see this little bean that would develop into the baby I had always dreamed of. My husband and I anxiously waited as the technician put the jelly onto my tummy. She scanned around for quite a while, and I looked at my husband knowing she should not be taking this long scanning. He had the same knowing look in his eyes.

“When did you last take a pregnant test?” she asked. 

I knew where this conversation was leading.

“Yesterday” I replied.

“Poppet, I’m really sorry but there’s nothing there. I would assume you lost the baby a week ago when you started bleeding”.

I felt numb. I didn’t know how to react. Tears consumed me and began to run down my face. I felt silly, it was so early in my pregnancy and i had barely known of this little life’s existence, yet at the same time I felt I had been robbed of this longed-for baby that I dreamed of.

The next week went by in a blur. My husband took the news hard too. We tried to see the positives – that we knew I could get pregnant naturally and that this precious life just wasn’t meant to be. A few more days passed and I began to think I was going crazy – my breasts were still swollen and sore, I was beginning to feel nauseous, and I still hadn’t had the heavy bleed that I would have expected following a miscarriage. I voiced this to my husband, who gave me sympathetic eyes and held my hand, saying “the lady told us there was nothing there. I saw the screen myself – there was nothing there”. Understandably, he thought I was in denial. Over the days that followed I prayed for a miracle. I never voiced what this miracle was, in my heart I knew it could be a rainbow baby that we would conceive in the future, but I prayed harder than I have every prayed for anything. That week at work I began to feel really unwell and the pain in my stomach was still there, I ended up being admitted to the emergency department and fears arouse that I was suffering from a ectopic pregnancy. I was admitted to hospital overnight as no pregnancy ultrasound technicians were on duty, so I would need to wait overnight for my ultrasound to investigate. A really kind doctor tried scanning me with a kidney machine, it really was not clear. Without wanting to give me hope, the doctor voiced that he could possibly see a gestational sac, in the right place.

I didn’t sleep that night. I felt like a frightened child, lonely and vulnerable. I felt small in the hospital bed, a rarity for me being 5ft9″. The nurses worked tirelessly with the patients around me and I sat in bed, staring into space, still praying for my miracle.

That miracle came, and it still brings tears to my eyes. The following day at my ultrasound I lay motionless. I had prepared myself that I may need to be taken into surgery immediately should it be diagnosed as ectopic, I was also prepared for it to be confirmed that there was nothing there. However, neither of these were the case. There, to the left of the screen was a little gestational sac and tiny yolk inside. The technician said it was too early to see the baby, but that everything was where it should be. I could not stop crying, to the point where when I returned to the ward to my waiting mother, she thought the worst had happened by my inability to speak through my tears. Two weeks later we returned for a follow up scan, and there was our little beansprout with it’s heart flickering away.

H really is our miracle baby, and we will be eternally thankful.