We were recently told by my doctor that our baby at 9 weeks had no heartbeat and no movement was detected on a dating ultrasound. My family and I are still processing the news. My doctor booked a D&C right away without asking me and before she broke the news of our baby's condition. I cancelled the procedure for now until I can get a better handle of what my options are. My husband and I would prefer to honour, respect and make space for my body to go through its natural processes. In other words, we want to have a natural miscarriage. One that won't compromise my health, obviously. Any one here been through something similar? If so, how have you dealt with it? Is there anywhere where I can find more information about safe natural miscarriages? Thank you in advance.

I'm sorry to hear you are going through this.

When it happened to me, I was told there are three options: waiting for it to happen naturally, taking some pills to induce it, or having an abortion. It normally takes a day or two for the pills to induce the miscarriage. I'm really surprised your doctor didn't discuss any of these options with you.

What you have is called a missed miscarriage, or missed abortion. If you search online for these terms, I'm sure you'll come up with lots of useful information.

Hi Kit-I'm sorry to hear you miscarried. As Ana said, this is a missed miscarriage or missed abortion. Basically your body still thinks you're pregnant and isn't sending the signal it needs to end the pregnancy.I had this twice before my daughter was stillborn. Ana explained your options well. I chose the d&c because you never know when the miscarriage will start if you wait things out without pills...it could happen anytime and be anything from what is for you a normal period to an extremely heavy one...I decided for me it was better to have it be over quickly. For the d&c, it's under general anasthesia, it takes 30 minutes maximum and then it's done. As I said, that was better for me but it's not for everyone.

I had the d&c too (15 minutes, very light anesthesia), but I also had an afternoon of painful contractions 5 days later. I was warned in advance of this, so I think it's normal.

Hi Kit,

I'm so sorry for your experience of loss, and the (probably well-meaning yet presumptuous) insensitivity of your doctor. It isn't appropriate to push certain treatments on patients, when there are options to choose from. You should have been presented with all of the information and allowed/encouraged to make the choice that feels best for you.

I worked as a midwife up until the death of my son in July. I can give you some information about miscarriage and options. I have to say first, that I'm not your health care provider (obviously) and that I am not giving you advice. I'm just sharing what I know so that you can make an informed decision. Please keep your chosen health care provider in the loop with your choice or any questions.

Because this was a dating ultrasound, I assume that it was your first for this pregnancy. It is pretty much impossible to detect a heartbeat via doppler at your prenatal appointments until after 10 weeks, and sometimes not even until 11, 12 or 13 weeks. So, given this I assume that you or your doctor (or an ultrasound tech) never heard or saw a heartbeat or movement during this pregnancy, at any point. If all of these assumptions I am making are true, then there is no way of knowing when the baby stopped living, unless it measures way way smaller and less developed than 9 weeks.
The definition of a missed miscarriage is the retention of products of conception (I'm sorry for the medical term-- it is just the most accurate because it refers to a baby at any point in its development as well as the decidua and placenta) for >4-8 weeks in the uterus. As a result of this, the placental may continue to secrete pregnancy hormones and the woman may continue to experience the signs and symptoms of pregnancy.

So, unless the ultrasound can confirm that the baby stopped developing at 5 weeks (for example) when it should have been 9 weeks along at your ultrasound, then it is almost certain that you haven't had a missed miscarriage. But Ana is right that it could be possible, and if you choose to wait and miscarry naturally and you wait and wait and it just doesn't come, it could in fact become a missed miscarriage.

Basically there are three ways of treating a miscarriage: D&C (which is the most invasive), Medical (the pills that induce uterine contractions that Ana mentioned) and Expectant Management (waiting for your body to pass the baby on its own time). All three have benefits and potential risks, depending on your situation and what you are wanting for yourself.

As always it is important to seek medical attention without delay if you start to have a fever or chills that would signify infection, or prolonged or very heavy vaginal bleeding, severe abdominal pain/cramping, or foul-smelling discharge.

If you want some more information about it, I can PM you and share a couple of articles with you via dropbox, just so you can read the materials yourself. If not, no worries.

I'm so sorry that you got this news. My heart is with you and your family.

Thank you everyone for your responses and your kind words of compassion. It helps a lot in the grieving process. First of all, I am sorry for the loss that each and every one of you have experienced. Being in the thick of things, I had no idea it would be this hard to deal with this kind of loss. Thank you for sharing your experiences to help out another Mama who's grieving. It means a lot to me.

To be honest, I got way more info from all your responses than I got from my doctor. This is after we went back for another appointment with her to ask questions, specifically. We had to pretty much pull teeth to get her to mention that there might be other options aside from D&C. My apologies for being frustrated. I just feel that my right to decide what I wanted to do with my own body was taken away from me, on top of dealing with the loss of our baby. Thank you for your understanding.

Melissa, I would totally take you up on your offer to send some info my way, via links. Let me know what I need in order to do that. I'm not as computer savvy as I would like to be.

My main question is, we found out that on September 16th ( the day of the ultrasound), that the baby had no heartbeat. I was supposed to be 9 weeks at that point and according to my doctor, the baby was approximately 9 weeks. So, it was very recent that he/she has passed on. What is the average time that women start to see/feel symptoms of miscarriage? Days/weeks/months? I'm still not bleeding or cramping. I just want to know what we need to prepare ourselves for, if we decide to wait it out. Thank you again

I'm so sorry this is happening.

I had a MC before we lost Shelby. I started spotting at 7 weeks, was told it was normal and wasn't offered a scan until 9 weeks when it continued. It was found my baby had probably never developed past 6 weeks. I waited it out for a natural miscarriage. This involved spotting on and off but no pain, acupuncture (with the purpose of helping my body process) and after 2 full weeks post scan I miscarried naturally at home. It was traumatic for me. Much more than I expected.

I continued to bleed on and off for another 2 weeks. they finally did another scan and it was found that I had retained "product" and was immediately sent for a D&C. So after over a month of bleeding and miscarrying and stressing I had to have the D&C anyway which was totally frustrating. In hind sight I wish I had just had the D&C immediately and saved myself a lot of heart ache and worry.

The D&C itself was a simple process, I went under general anaesthetic and was in and out in an afternoon. I was extremely emotional afterwards for quite a while.

I hope whatever you decide goes smoothly for you and again, I'm so sorry you are going through all this. xx

I'm so sorry Kit. I had 2 miscarriages after my son died. One of them was a missed miscarriage. I wanted to avoid a D&C too for a lot of reasons. I'd had a D&C after my son's birth for retained placenta and ended up with uterine scarring. So D&C's are generally really safe, but there is always some risk with any surgery. I was so anxious to get pregnant again and I didn't seem to be miscarrying naturally (plus dealing with pregnancy symptoms was horrible since I knew there was no living baby). I took the pills--I felt like I wanted to be home, not in a hospital and I wanted to do it as naturally as possible. For me, it was nicer to be home with my husband and I felt like it helped me grieve the miscarriage. Plus I was fairly traumatized by hospitals by that point. (I didn't pass everything and still needed a procedure which a guess is a risk, but I'm still glad I at least tried to avoid a procedure.) If you are going to wait and see if it happens naturally, you might want to ask your doctor if the placenta is still growing--my HCGs were still going up and my uterus was growing on ultrasound. I was worried that if the placenta kept growing, it would be tougher to miscarry naturally, so that was part of the reason I went for the pills.

Hi Kit,

If you go to www.dropbox.com you can sign up for free and get a dropbox. Then let me know the email address you used for your dropbox account, and I will be able to share those resources with you.

Within those articles you will be able to find out about the risks and benefits of the different types of management, so you can make the decision that feels right to you.

Hi Melissa,

Thank you so much! The email I used with the Dropbox account is kitanadegen@hotmail.com.

Hi Kit,

I just shared those resources and they should appear in your dropbox. I hope you find them helpful! If you have any questions or don't totally understand any of it due to medical jargon, feel free to ask.
I really hope you're doing ok. Pregnancy loss at any point in the journey is so painful. You and your family are in my thoughts (as is every one on this forum... this is a sad place...)
It can take 2-4 weeks to miscarry via expectant management. No worries if you're not feeling anything yet, but always be mindful of the symptoms of sepsis that I outlined in my earlier message. There is no reason to expect that any such complication would happen, but it is good to know what to look out for.

I just want to thank everyone here who have helped me get the info I needed to deal with my missed miscarriage. Thank you Melissa for the files. They have been extremely helpful. After contacting over a dozen places, I finally got a place who's willing to help me monitor my body while doing expectant management. They are able to monitor my hCG levels, order an ultrasound and perform a D&C, if needed. I have an appointment coming up to discuss further what I need to do to safely deal with the loss of our baby. I also have a counsellor that I'll be seeing soon to deal with the emotional and psychological impact it has had on me. Thank you again everyone for your help.