I should be announcing that another baby will be joining our family by Aug 21st, but instead I’m writing about another miscarriage. While I should be over 11 weeks now, I am instead 2 weeks post Manual Vacuum Aspiration.


I drafted updates throughout the beginning of pregnancy, which will be retrodated and posted at some point, hopefully. In short, aside from a massive subchorionic hematoma, which was not the cause of the miscarriage, I had what seemed to be a healthy pregnancy up until the baby’s heart stopped beating. I had ever increasing morning sickness, requiring anti nausea meds, just like all my healthy pregnancies. My betas doubled beautifully. There was never an indication that anything was wrong. I took all my meds from the start…  Even my dr was baffled by this loss.


Ultrasounds at 7 and 8 weeks showed a healthy heartbeat at 145 and 176bmp. Baby was measuring behind by 2-3 days and then 3-4 days, which did concern me. Even if my ovulation date was off by a day or 2, it still didn’t seem right to me. The baby was measuring 8 weeks 1 day when it passed away at 8 weeks 5 days (we think).

How I wish I’d taken a better picture. This was my first real belly pic. Taken right before leaving for my appointment where I found out baby had passed.

I went for an ultrasound at 9 weeks which showed the heart had stopped, the hematoma had mostly resolved and everything else looked text book perfect.. the sac and the placenta etc were all perfect. However, the yolk sac was measuring 5.3mm at 7 weeks 1 day and 5mm at 8 weeks. Google suggests that may be a risk for miscarriage, but the Dr was never concerned about it.


Matt and I heard the heartbeat once at home with the doppler around 7.5 weeks, but after that I could never find it again when I tried to listen before my 9 week appointment, which ended up being a bad sign. I felt strongly going into my appointment that the baby was gone, and it was. Therefore I wasn’t surprised when the Dr said there was no heartbeat, but I was devastated.


We had opted to find out the gender with a dna test at 7 weeks. According to that, baby was a girl. We are waiting for results from genetic testing we had done which will confirm the gender and tell us (hopefully) what caused the baby to stop growing. She looked so perfect. Little arms and legs already visible. She was even moving around at the 8 week ultrasound! We loved her so much!!


Two days after finding out our baby had died, we returned to the hospital for an MVA. I opted for this as it gave us the best chance of getting genetic testing done successfully. With my last loss, I wasn’t able to save enough tissue for genetic testing, and I found it severely devastating as we had no answers and no closure. This was our 8th loss that I know of and we really need an answer as to why we have suffered losses so many times. (This was the latest loss we’ve had. 2 chemical pregnancies, and 6 losses between 5-9 weeks.) If the genetic testing doesn’t reveal an answer (and maybe even if it does) my dr suggested karyotyping on Matt and I. I want to because I’m an information person, but we shall see.

The night before MVA

The MVA was painful, despite being sedated. But thankfully it was quick. I had been experiencing low back pain and cramping like early labor the entire day previously and on the way to our 6:30am appointment, so I think the miscarriage was about to start at home. I’m glad I didn’t have to experience that on my own as the last miscarriage at home was so upsetting for me. The hospital staff were so kind and good to us, letting us have an ultrasound on their new, best machine and printing us lots of pictures of our baby for a keepsake.


Following the procedure, I had after pains like mild labor contractions, not just cramps, off and on for 6 days. The bleeding was never heavy, but would pick up and slow down with the contracting. On days 4-6 I passed a lot of clots, then the bleeding finally slowed and has continued as spotting since.


Next week I am supposed to have a follow up with my Dr to discuss where we go from here or if our journey will be over, bookended by infertility at the beginning and recurrent pregnancy loss at the end. I want to have a healthy pregnancy and living child again, and our families support that and our children want that. But it’s out of my control. I am afraid to miscarry again. I feel like I’ll regret not trying again but if I do try and fail… I don’t want to think about that. I’m getting older also and don’t really want to try past 35, which is next year. Only the Lord knows what will be. It’s in His hands.


I’m so thankful for my kids, more and more every day. Life is so precious. So delicate. I miss my lost babies so much. 😞