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'I'm sorry, there's no heartbeat' I thought it was my fault we lost our babies

Losing a baby through miscarriage, especially in your first trimester, is a very peculiar and isolated kind of grief. All I wanted was for people to acknowledge our loss and say ‘I am sorry ’.

I HAD A blood test, was sent home and told to have a follow-up scan a week later. The hospital rang a couple of hours later to say that my hormone levels were abnormal and they were a bit concerned that it might be an ectopic pregnancy.

They wanted to repeat my bloods in two days to check the progression of the hormones.

By later that evening the pains were very bad and I was admitted to hospital. Another blood test showed the hormone levels were rising but not at the rate they should have been and following another internal scan, I was being treated for an ectopic pregnancy.

‘The pregnancy was viable’

I had a laparoscopy the next day, which thankfully confirmed it wasn’t an ectopic pregnancy. I would have to wait ten days for a repeat scan to see if – in the doctor’s words ‘the pregnancy was viable’.

Those ten days of waiting were like slow torture.

The repeat scan (at almost 9 weeks) now showed a pregnancy sac and a tiny baby in the womb, but no sign of life. The doctor confirmed it as ‘a missed miscarriage’ and said that the baby ‘never really developed’.

I cried, but not as much as I expected myself to, I suppose I was all cried out by that stage to some extent. I opted for a D&C because I just wanted it be over with, physically at least.

Unfortunately, there was a complication during the D&C which meant it couldn’t be completed. I left the hospital feeling absolutely battered and so fragile. As my miscarriage was now classified as ‘incomplete’ I was given tablets to help my body pass everything with follow-up scans and blood tests to be done until ‘everything’ was gone.

I can’t remember anyone saying to me that they were sorry for my loss.

Our much-wanted baby

I had been ‘through the wars’ and for that reason the emotional side of things took a bit of a back seat. I was really sad that our much-wanted baby hadn’t made it but somehow I didn’t feel I had the right to grieve for a baby that never really developed.

In my mind if I could be pregnant again,then I would feel better. In ways, it was like I was trying to replace that baby with another one. It was my way of coping, I suppose.

In September 2010, I found out I was pregnant again. We were happy, but obviously cautious. I was so sick I could barely function and I got past seven, eight, nine weeks with no bleeding. I thought I was home and dry!

We went to the hospital for a scan at ten weeks. The midwife seemed to take ages to speak and then just said ‘I’m very sorry, your baby is only measuring eight weeks and there is no heartbeat’.

I looked at the screen and there was this tiny little life as still and quiet as anything. My mind was racing, I just couldn’t think straight. A junior doctor came to see us. She told us she was very sorry, that I’d had another ‘missed miscarriage’ and we would need to decide what to do next. Another D&C wasn’t an option so I opted to take medication to bring on the miscarriage.

When we were told our baby was no longer alive 

When you are told that your baby is no longer alive, one half of you wants the baby out of you and the other doesn’t ever want to let go. They told me to go home, expect cramping and heavy bleeding. I was booked in for a follow-up scan in four days’ time.

I felt desolate, I couldn’t stop crying. My husband was so gutted but he put a brave face on and focused on looking after me and our little one. I took the tablets as instructed. The cramps were manageable at first, but little did I know that later on that evening I would be on my hands and knees with terrible contractions.

I was in agony for over three hours until the pain eased off and then the bleeding started, which was like nothing I had experienced before. I felt frightened and vulnerable, with only my poor husband to help me.

The next morning I had a scan at the hospital. Even after all of the pain and bleeding the night before, the scan confirmed that the miscarriage was ‘incomplete’. I left the hospital not really knowing what to expect next other than more pain and bleeding.

Graphic and terrifying ordeal 

In reality, what actually happened was far more graphic and terrifying and so undignified for everybody; me, my husband, our tiny, little baby. I was traumatised and felt sad that I had been sent home for this to happen. I was so wrung out, but after a few more weeks I felt physically much stronger.

Emotionally, it was a totally different story. I was completely devastated. I felt like my body had failed me, that it was my fault that we had lost our babies and that I was never going to carry a baby to term again. I blamed all of the stress of my job and I wished I had looked after myself better and rested more.

No matter what my husband said it was the wrong thing, and yet he stood there right by my side all of the way. I got through the days as best I could, but inside I was screaming. Some people felt it best to stay away or avoid the subject altogether, but that just upset me more.

Feeling like a fraud 

All I wanted was for people to acknowledge our loss, just to say ‘I am sorry ’. Losing a baby through miscarriage, especially in your first trimester, is a very peculiar and isolated kind of grief. Sometimes I felt like a ‘fraud’ because I was so sad. After all, I was only nine weeks or 10 weeks along when we lost our babies.

Only people who have experienced the loss of a baby through miscarriage truly understand what you are feeling. Slowly I started to feel stronger emotionally and more like myself again, not the same as before, because losing a baby through miscarriage changes you.

A year to the day we had lost our second baby I found out I was pregnant again. It was a very tough pregnancy in so many ways, but we now have a healthy and crazy three-year-old son and we are so thankful for him and his big sister.

In time I have come to realise that even though we lost both of our babies in early pregnancy, it doesn’t mean that our loss isn’t as significant. It’s okay to talk about them and acknowledge their existence. I’m so glad I got to be their mammy. They are as much a part of our life story as our two other children, just in a different way.

International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day and this year Ectopic Pregnancy Ireland, the Miscarriage Association of Ireland and Feileacain are hosting the first Baby Loss Awareness and Remembrance Evening in Ireland. It takes place this evening from 6.30pm to 9.30pm in the Davenport Hotel, Merrion Street, Dublin.

babylossawarenessandremembranceeveningpage001

Read: ‘Nothing else seemed to matter when she died. I didn’t understand why God would take our little girl?’>

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    Mute mary carey
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    Oct 1st 2014, 12:31 PM

    I know I’ll get slammed for this, I hope he’ll be in quarantine for 3 wks after arriving back from Monrovia.

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 1st 2014, 3:17 PM

    There is nothing unreasonable about that. It’s actually the most common sense measure we can take to protect ourselves. The longest period for Incubation of ebola zaire subtype is 21 days. So to be on the safe side that count should start on the date of entry and they should be released on day 22/23

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    Mute Neal Ireland Hello
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    Oct 1st 2014, 6:46 PM

    Mary do you know anything about why it is spreading in West Africa? It’s because it’s in the third world with no education, access to information or modern medicine, which means people substituting all that with medieval beliefs, doing stuff like hiding the bodies in their homes in case they get hauled away. None of which would happen here. We are safe. Please relax and stop watching so many movies and / or Fox News!

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    Mute mary carey
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    Oct 1st 2014, 9:06 PM

    Em @neal…. I have a degree in biochemistry, and an MSc in Pharmacology.
    I’m not some hysterical housewife worried about the end of the world because I watched too many Netflix re-runs.
    I am an educated, perceptive individual who made a remark that by the WHO’s standards is reasonable. So take your somewhat snotty attitude and shove it up ur hole!

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    Mute Range Rover P38
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    Oct 1st 2014, 10:03 PM

    Did you read the thing? ffs

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    Mute Range Rover P38
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    Oct 1st 2014, 10:04 PM

    Is ‘hole’ a technical term?

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    Mute Solas Aireáinnach
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    Oct 1st 2014, 12:58 PM

    Journal says we should be worried about Ebola not for ourselves but for Africa. We should be greatly concerned for ourselves. Infected aid-workers & immigrants coming here are real cause for that concern. Aid money, aid workers, we can’t do enough for them but still we dare consider ourselves. It would be “racism” to do so.

    First case of Ebola diagnosed in United States
    http://www.thejournal.ie/ebola-united-states-1699703-Sep2014/

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:44 PM

    The aid workers are getting blood tests before they come back, so they and the doctors coming home are the LEAST at risk of spreading it.
    The odds of someone getting past all the exit screening OR a time fluke like the US guy where he goes to the exit screening without showing up as infected and making it through…the odds of that happening again and on top of that it coming here are incredibly low. There has only been one case of European ebola in human history and it was outside the EU.

    Since there are no direct flights, the only possible route now are refugees or economic migrants. The former coming from that region should be disallowed totally, and everyone else should be subject to a time quarantine from the time they get into the country to the time the virus takes to incubate (assuming infection on the date of entry just to be safe). We should be making a deal with the UK to prevent anyone from the region coming here to begin with.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Oct 1st 2014, 4:20 PM

    “The aid workers are getting blood tests before they come back,”

    No they are not being tested.

    The virus does not show up unless a person is showing symptoms, when the viral load in blood increases. Testing people who are incubating Ebola will give a false negative result, Dr Kent Brantly tested negative at first and then later tested positive when his condition deteriorated.

    “When Specimens Should Be Collected for Ebola Testing at CDC”

    “Ebola virus is detected in blood only after the onset of symptoms, usually fever. It may take up to 3 days after symptoms appear for the virus to reach detectable levels. Virus is generally detectable by real-time RT-PCR from 3-10 days after symptoms appear.”

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    Mute Munster2014
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:03 PM

    I’d be more concerned about these do gooders carrying the virus back to Ireland with them. I personally think that any aid worker who visits the hot zones where this virus exists should not be allowed to travel back to Ireland until the full incubation period has passed. If they do get infected, no repatriation should be made.

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    Mute John Rabbett
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:16 PM

    That’s a bit Harsh, without do gooders we would be in the dark ages when it comes to medicine…

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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:38 PM

    ”DO GOODERS?” you mean those incredibly brave, selfless medical professionals to are going over and risking exposure to a nasty and deadly virus to help stop innocent people (including CHILDREN) from dying a horrible death?

    Cop on to yourself mate, those people are the best of what humanity has and they are doing an incredible wonderful thing. They are taking every precaution under the sun to avoid gettin infected. They are wearing full PPP suits most of the time ffsake. They are getting blood tests etc before they come back and any one of them coming back infected have been flown back under a full isolation set up.
    Luckily the rest of us are not cold hearted monsters.

    Do you know what this virus does to you? It turns your organs into pulp and you die of internal bleeding and multiorgan system failure it’s one of the most painful deaths imaginable, you’re ok with that happeing to innocent children and for the rest of humanity to sit there and do nothing to help them?
    It’s easy to say all this from a keyboard when you don’t have to set eyes on the victims of this thing, maybe if you had you would not be so cold.

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    Mute George Grey
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    Oct 1st 2014, 12:37 PM

    We can drop anywhere we want throughout the world, but when it comes to doing something positive western governments are very slow to react. This epidemic will come to haunt us if we do not do the right the right thing. The WHO are screaming out for funds and government personal…..boots on the ground…..to help resolve the crisis. Yest there seems to be little happening. Meanwhile, as we see in this report, thing just get worse. Africa’s plight is the world’s shame.

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    Mute Sakura
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    Oct 1st 2014, 1:18 PM
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    Mute Ryan Carroll
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:41 PM

    It’s indeed disheartening and annoying to see reactions like that, I have to admit when I saw that some of them had murdered doctors who came to help them I began to think ‘f—k them maybe we should leave them there to die’ but think about it:

    1. A great deal of those dying are children, and they should not be left with no hope
    2. We should not let the few morons prevent the rest getting help
    3. Most of the conspiracy theories causing those reactions you cite above are coming from western websites some of which are frequented by a few of our nuttier posters on this site.

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    Mute Solas Aireáinnach
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    Oct 1st 2014, 2:56 PM

    George
    €700 million a year in foreign aid, billions of Irish aid to Africa throughout the decades as well as Irish volunteers going over to build their medical, educational & engineering works, contradicts your assertion we are very slow to help these people, we have done nothing but help them & are called racist as a thank you.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Oct 1st 2014, 4:43 PM

    “the west has been trying to help them for decades. They destroyed the Ebola centre in Liberia within two days. They need to help themselves too.”

    Very true. And ironically, the holding centre at West Point, Monrovia, Liberia, was ransacked because people thought Ebola was a hoax, a hoax that started by the corrupt Liberian government in order to attract foreign aid. They are as sick of foreign aid as we are.

    President Sirleaf of Liberia made 2 of her sons ministers in the government and made another son Vice President of the Central Bank, they then sold 25% their forests to foreign logging companies; Norway recently bribed them not to cut down their forests.

    It was deforestation, human encroachment and the bush meat trade that likely caused this Ebola epidemic.

    “Why Liberians Thought Ebola Was a Government Scam to Attract Western Aid” http://www.thenation.com/article/181618/why-liberians-thought-ebola-was-government-scam-attract-western-aid

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    Mute Jonny Baxter
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    Oct 1st 2014, 6:18 PM

    4. A tiny minority of people is not representative of the whole.
    5. Simplistic thinking is simplistic.

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    Mute Garry Dempsey
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    Oct 1st 2014, 3:35 PM

    Block everything from Africa stop shipping containers leaving stop people travelling out of Africa quarantine all of Africa from the rest of the world so it doesn’t become world wide and I look out for myself not Africa…..

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    Mute Jonny Baxter
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    Oct 1st 2014, 6:16 PM

    Ever so slightly disproportionate there Garry.

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    Mute Éire Calling
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    Oct 1st 2014, 8:14 PM

    Just like other African exports such as AIDS, tuberculosis, Leprosy (yes, remember the 2 cases of that last year!) etc all reintroduced/massively increased thanks to wide open mass immigration from the dark continent (and other third world places) Ebola will find its way here eventually to add to the diversity of unwanted diseases in Ireland.

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