...but it didn't.

All over (more or less) the day before yesterday - a morning of gentle cramping with one or two "ouch" ones, and two lumps of gestational sac slithered out, about 20 minutes apart, around lunchtime. Since then, there's been the usual period-like aftermath, with a few bigger clots and one more suspicious lump today, following a bit more cramping; so, physically, a miscarriage at 6 1/2 weeks is even easier than one at rising 8 weeks, in my experience.
Mentally, who knows? The miscarriage was about 2 hours before I put my beloved old dog to sleep (see other blog), and she was a far more significant part of my life, obviously, so the emotions I may or may not be feeling about the miscarriage are buried in my sorrow at losing Copper. I think that the predominant feeling is one of closure, actually: the weekend was the end of an era in so many ways. That ship has sailed; I can truely say I hope I'm never pregnant again, which is not something I could have said a couple of months ago, so if this last debacle has helped me move on in a more focussed way, then maybe it wasn't so futile as all that, after all.

This one could run and run..

No coloured discharge at all today, but coffee tastes just like normal, so I am quite sure this is the sign of doom. Breasts still tender, though; this strange state of stasis could go on for weeks, though I hope it doesn't. Mentally, I am switched right off the whole thing, and am surprised to realise, for example from a bout of overwhelming fatigue this afternoon, that my body in many ways still thinks it's pregnant. Oh well, this too shall pass, I suppose, sooner or later. If there has been no change when term starts, I'll go and get a scan to check what's going on, but I do hope I don't have to do that.

On my way out, again

Back on coffee; brown discharge and a flicker of blood, this morning, so now it's only a matter of time, and please God it won't be too bad, as I'm only just over 6 weeks, But still sore breasts, so not today, I don't think.

A sign - of what?

Well, we spent a lovely New Year seeing various friends, and I was pretty careful about alcohol etc, just in case this is a viable pregnancy, but not totally abstemious, because I think the chance of that is really rather small, and a teetotal new year AND a third miscarriage is just so, so grim. I continued to vary between thinking that really things might be viable after all and being sure they won't be; my breasts are still pregnant-looking and pretty tender but not getting more so, just staying the same; coffee is nasty but not vomit making; in fact, there is a moderate amount of feeling a bit queasy but no severe nausea at all, which I don't think is a good thing. And this afternoon there was a smidgeon of pink discharge. Now, I know quite well that that might mean nothing at all, but it's hardly encouraging. And it is so much better to think negatively in this situation, and be prepared for the worst, that that's what I am doing. It's a terrible nuisance that I have children in tow for the next 10 days, because I can't get a scan without farming them out, which is tricky without an explanation; and somehow I feel that in 10 days I'll know quite well what's going on. I am trying to be Zen like and calm about it all; and sometimes I can; and sometimes I can't.

If this was fiction, it would be funny.

Did you hear the one about the 42 year old woman who got pregnant by accident the night of her husband's Christmas party? Because he forgot to bring a condom to the hotel?

No, I couldn't believe it either. At least I was spared the agony of the 2 week wait when deliberately trying to conceive. But when I recognised that familiar tingly feeling in my breasts again ....

As I write, I am at about 5 1/2 weeks, and I don't think things are quite as much of a non-starter as last time. Which is bad, if I'm going to lose it; the earlier the better. I vary between thinking, "hey, this one might be ok! Feel how sore your nipples are!" and "no, no, not enough nausea - doom is inevitable."

Symptom roundup: nipples tender, breasts sore, Montgomery tubercules and veins visibly enlarged. Increased hunger. Sometimes increased urination, but not always. Off coffee, but not retching at the smell of it. Sometimes feeling tired and queasy - often in the afternoons - often feeling normal. Increased sense of smell and oil of skin.

This is very, very hard to cope with. I was doing quite well with talking myself into the "all this is behind me" mindset, and here I am, back with the likelihood of something nasty in my future, which I had so hoped to put behind me. Having a baby now, after all, would not be easy or problem free, but losing yet another will be so, so hard to deal with. I am mostly trying to cope by pretending it's not happening, except for the 30 times a day I feel my breasts or try to catch myself feeling nauseous. But, with it being Christmas, it's hard to ignore it, because I'm having to avoid alcohol (not that I did, for the two weeks I didn't know what was happening). In some ways, it's good, because we're all together and busy socially, so that I can take my mind off things; but this is hard, very hard.

I don't know how much I'll post, because I am trying to stay off the pregnancy web this time; it only brings grief when you don't progress to the next stages as you thought you would. But I can't let the next unexpected episode go without at least a footnote.

closure

I need to finish this blog. Once again, an overwhelming inertia stopped me posting about this miscarriage at the time. After the last post, I had the NHS early pregnancy ultrasound the following morning. By then, I was beginning to bleed quite definitely, and therefore was in no doubt at all that the news would be bad. Imagine my annoyance to be faced, yet again, with an unreasonably cheerful and condescending ultrasound technician, who showed me a small, heartbeat-free speck in a small, collapsing sac, and managed, in the face of me bleeding on her couch and affirming my certainty about my dates, still to tell me that maybe the bleeding was trivial, maybe my dates were wrong, and maybe this was a 5 week pregnancy with a bit of insignificant blood loss rather than a 7 week one (or whatever the age was, I forget now) on its way out. Who do they think they are kidding, or reassuring, with this blind optimism in the face of reality? I really don't understand.
Anyway, I got a picture of the embryo to remember it by (in an incongrously cheerful folder with a duckling on the front) and had another conversation with the same very nice midwife as last year, who agreed that since I'd had a natural miscarriage successfully last time, it was reasonable for me to try the same approach again,and contact them if I had problems.
So I went home, and went to work that afternoon, and sure enough that very evening I began to have cramps, and had the most low-key, stress-free, natural miscarriage imaginable, all over by about 1.30 am. Really, in comparison to last year's, it was nothing; hardly more blood than a normal period, a small, recognisable gestation sac easily passed, a few cramps, and that was it.
Emotionally, it's been much, much easier than last year, too. I haven't seriously considered trying a third time. This is partly because I don't see why I should put myself through all this again; I have two children, the odds of a successful pregnancy aren't improving, and at 42 with two healthy children, I don't think it's appropriate to investigate or keep trying as I would if I were younger or had no children already. Also, as I get older, I realise I don't exactly want another baby any more: I want a third child. What I really want is to have had another child five or six years ago, when I was still comfortably on the other (I won't say "right") side of forty. And I didn't, and nothing I can ever do will change that.
And I'm in a different place now, slightly; my older daughter is a teenager now, and it's time I moved on. I want to write more on the other blog again, but for now I just want to close this one. I think it will be years before I completely stamp on the "what-if"s, especially when I know I'm ovulating and am passing up another of the few remaining chances to conceive. But the horse is dead, or nearly: it's just not on to flog it any more.

You couldn't make it up, really

Ultrasound appointment is now in, oh, 16 hours. One hour ago: large and unsavoury plug of brown mucus on routine loo trip. Now: fresh red blood and cramps. Curiously, my main emotion, at the moment, is relief - at least I am out of my uncertainty, looks like nature/my body/the Goddess has taken the D and C decision out of my hands (again), and surely a natural miscarriage at 7 w 5 d has to be less bad than one at 10 w 4 d (last time) - doesn't it?

This time tomorrow -

- I'll know for sure whether there's a live embryo on board, or not. 95%, I think not, but there is still that little flicker of hope that I can't quite give up on yet. My breasts are still tender, still no spotting at all, and coffee is still not all that appealing, but there is so very little nausea, and in other respects I feel so much the same as usual (not much increase in urination, no overwhelming fatigue, just the usual kind) that I really can't convince myself that things are as they should be. I would put a moderate sum of money on an exact repetition of last time, overall, I think.
So my main concern is how to deal with the end of all this, assuming it's about to end. Do I go for a D and C (yuck, yuck) or a home miscarriage (bloody yuck)? Do I tell Mum? the girls? Do I try to schedule it for sometime convenient (ish) or hope that everything works out for the best on its own?
Julia , who is currently on her 13th pregnancy with only one live child, and is at exactly the same stage as me with this pregnancy, having had her last miscarriage at the same time as I did, has been a great source of wisdom to me through all this. Not that I know her or anything, but her writing is enormously helpful, and the struggles she has been through make mine look like fleabites in comparison. She says, on her "Infertility Diaries" blog, linked from her personal blog, that her philosophy on this issue is to worry about reproductive crises conflicting with other life events when it happens, and otherwise to keep on arranging everyday life as if there were no crises to be fitted around. I can see that she is absolutely right about this. We had a very pleasant weekend, having friends round for dinner on the Saturday and seeing John's sister and her family on the Sunday, and I was able not to think about all this for - oh - hours at a time. And once all the practicalities are done, I think it will be easier for me to move on mentally than it was last year, both because I have been through it all before and because this time is the end of the path, closure on all the circular thoughts I have crawled endlessly around for the last year.
But today, with nothing much happening, and the definitive ultrasound creeping so slowly closer - today, it's hard. At least I'm cleaning the fridge.