symptoms of fetal heartbeat stopping in early pregnancy

Symptoms of fetal heartbeat stopping in early pregnancy professional#

At the same time Joel, I found out, was mostly speaking to the cats. Talk of the future, of possibilities, bubbled through the phone lines between us. I walked up and down the coastline in the dark, battered by wind and rain, speaking non-stop to my closest friends and family.

Despite unreservedly wanting a baby, it became clear that the idea of actually having one came as a shock.įizzing with a heady combination of excitement and nervousness, I video-called Joel and waved the positive tests back and forth in front of the camera. I felt my mind leave my body as I watched myself try the second test, muttering ‘it’s OK, this is what you wanted’ to calm myself. I took the test fully expected a clear ‘no’, only to be confronted by two clear lines. Joel and I had been trying for about 6 months and I had passed the phase where I was so aware of my hormonal changes that I was convinced I was pregnant each time I had a stuffy nose or tender breasts. Wandering through a Cornish town, passing time the day before a conference, I popped into the pharmacy and brought a pregnancy test. In contrast, the day I found out I was pregnant rings clear in my mind. Unable to speak to my friends because it felt ‘too much’ to load on to others, I tried to lose myself in a world that didn’t even know I was pregnant. Each physical sign served to remind me of what I had lost. Nausea, the restless legs, the tiredness. My body was betraying me – the signs that demonstrated the strength of my pregnancy only a few weeks before were now some kind of sick and immensely painful joke. I just didn’t know what to think anymore, or what to say (unusually for me). That night I sat in isolation amongst friends and allies, drinking my first beer in months.Īfter weeks of obsessing over measurements and the shape of Space Baby’s sac, my mind was numb.

The day hope left, more than a week before the physical miscarriage itself, I remember leaving Joel at the train station and heading up to Manchester to speak at a mental health conference as if everything was OK. I do not know when our baby died, only that I accepted their death in small increments with each consecutive appointment.

Symptoms of fetal heartbeat stopping in early pregnancy professional#

There was no definitive scan, no blood and no kindly professional sitting me down to tell me of our loss. I started this article trying to write about the day I found out Space Baby had died, only to realise that I did not have a landmark moment to articulate. If you are looking for support, you might want to try the Miscarriage Association or SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Charity). Please take care of yourself, first and foremost, and read only what you feel able to. This post includes details of my miscarriage that may be difficult to read. I am sharing these experiences both because they are ones that I believe that, as a society, we need to talk about more AND because it’s part of my own healing to speak out.