Navigating the Unknown: A Late Missed Miscarriage and What Came Next

I’ve sat down to write this many times, always feeling like I can’t find the words. It’s now May 2025, 14 months later, so here goes…

We found out we were expecting our second baby in December 2023.

Over the Easter weekend, at almost 20 week (19+4) I had, what I suddenly learned is known as a ‘late missed miscarriage’. Simply, my body didn’t let me know that our baby’s heart had stopped.

Late afternoon on Good Friday I had a very small dot of brown blood. I went to triage to be checked over. No other signs at all…

By the time I got there I was bleeding. After waiting a couple of hours for a doctor to scan, I was told there was no heartbeat and that baby’s heart had stopped, around 16-18 weeks (based on size) and that my body was now miscarrying my baby.

I was alone in triage as we hoped it was nothing to worry about! My other half, at home with our 3-year-old, had to arrange for my parents to drive an hour or so to ours so that he could come to the hospital to be with me. (I told him a white lie about lack of doctors and tests taking longer than usual.) I sat with the news of our baby for 2 hours, alone, until he arrived and I could tell him in person.

I was suddenly thrown into a world of words and phrases I’d never heard of, let alone understood.

I begged to be sent home that night, and under instructions to return at 8am the following day for another scan and ‘the next steps’, I was given permission to leave.

I was suddenly thrown into a world of words and phrases that I’d never heard of let alone understood. I felt as though everything being said had an abbreviation and more alarmingly, a presumption that I was following and understanding our ‘next steps’. Of course I didn’t understand any of it.

On Saturday morning after another scan, indeed confirming I was miscarrying, I was given medication to induce labour, sent home and returning to the hospital a day later, giving birth to our tiny baby on Easter Sunday. The birth was calm and quiet, all things considered, followed by the same euphoric feeling I had when I’d given birth to our daughter. This only added to the cruel and confusing feelings.

We went home on Easter Monday, just the two of us, after the same jam on toast and tea I’d devoured in 2021, except this time I’d forced it down with no desire to eat or drink, or enjoy anything.

I’d been thrown into these discussions of induced birth, funerals and post-mortems when really my ears were still ringing with ‘I’m so sorry but there’s no heartbeat’.

A scan a few days after birth, showed I needed a surgical management of miscarriage so was booked in the next day. I was supposed to be going to Wembley to watch the Lionesses, instead I was sat in a gown and stockings waiting for my first flirt with a general anaesthetic to remove the small amount of placenta and tissue remaining.

This thankfully went as well as it could and I was let out, late that same day.

All this, in the space of a week.

I’d been in fight mode and couldn’t think straight or clearly about anything. The week had been a whirlwind of information, emotions, procedures and birth. I felt lost, angry, hurt, vulnerable, confused…

I wish I had known more. Before our loss. The lingo, the ‘what happens next’…

We spend so much of our life being instructed on how not to get pregnant but nothing about infertility, difficult pregnancies or loss! To be learning about the next steps – methods and procedures in unimaginably hard circumstances is reckless and leaves lasting damage. It needs to change.

After a few months of waiting, the post-mortem didn’t show anything too concerning apart from a couple of blood clots behind my placenta. With further tests I was diagnosed with ‘Sticky blood syndrome’ (or Antiphospholipid Syndrome/ APS). Another thing I’d never heard of! It’s an autoimmune disorder where the immune system mistakenly produces antibodies that make blood clots more likely to form. It took a series of repeat blood tests, at least 12 weeks apart, for comparison, before diagnosis. It is unknown if I had APS during my first pregnancy or not but the specialists seem to lean towards something triggering it in the time between my first and second pregnancy.

Whilst we will never have any definite answers or causes, I am hugely grateful for the testing I have received. It has led us to a point where we have a plan in place, of twice daily blood thinning injections and aspirin from early pregnancy and throughout. This is by no means a guarantee but it is something.

Journaling gave me a voice, and for a while, I became my own soundboard.

It has taken me a long time and months of talking therapy to get to where I am now. With a little belief, cautiously hopeful even. I’ve found looking for my daily dose of gratitude and journaling crucial. I have TWGGE course to thank for introducing me to these practices. Often a simple ‘thank you’ to myself for showing up that day or sticking to a personal boundary I’ve set, have been invaluable to my healing.

Journaling gave me a voice and for a while I became my own soundboard. The isolation, the pressures, often self-inflicted, were so tiring. My personal timeline of working through our loss became overwhelming in itself. I felt I needed to do better, be better. I couldn’t always see that what I was doing was enough. But reading back over the notes on my phone or written words in my notebook helped show me, remind me, that I was in fact doing enough.

I am a different version of myself since losing our baby. I am calmer, more considered, thorough, hugely protective of my little family – more so than I ever thought possible! I’ve spent the last year getting to know this new me. I felt like a total stranger to myself but like most things, with time, I’ve come to learn, adapt and understand.

I find myself thinking of our tiny baby most days. It’s complex, continuing to parent, nurture, love and walk this path of life whilst grieving and healing.

We are about to begin our journey of trying to conceive and the possibility of navigating a pregnancy after loss. I am nervous but cautiously hopeful and ever so grateful. I don’t know what the future holds for our family but I’m ready to roll the dice and see…

Lastly, to our tiny baby, thank you for choosing us little one, it breaks my heart you couldn’t stay.

I’ll remember you, and what could have been, forever. Love always, Mama.