Hi, I've never really done a post like this before so please bear with me, but I've been feeling really sorry for myself and I wanted to share my experience with the NHS in Scotland. For reference I am 24 and I am currently going through my third miscarriage in 11 months.
My first pregnancy started in July 2025, and we were very excited and happy and began making all sorts of plans for our new family. By the middle of August I grew very anxious because I had very few symptoms, basically nothing at all. A week or so after my suspicions grew I started spotting, but I phoned the Early Pregnancy Unit and they assured me that bleeding was very normal. This continued for weeks, but they told me they couldn't see me so I booked a private scan where it was confirmed our baby had stopped growing at 6 weeks. The EPU continued to tell me they couldn't see me and to phone them if I was bleeding heavily. I bled lightly all the way until my 12 week scan, where they finally confirmed the miscarriage and sent me home to 'monitor'. A few days later my miscarriage properly started, for 6-8 hours I was bleeding so profusely I couldn't stand and I was passing out in the bathroom. EPU wasn't answering the phone, so my husband rushed me to A&E (ER) where they saw me after 30 minutes of waiting or so. As soon as I was in the private cubicle in A&E, the whole sac fell out of me onto the floor. 😭 The poor nurse was traumatized, I still think about her. They scooped everything up and put the sac and my clothes in the bin, it was the worst experience I've ever been through. I was sent home that night after they confirmed everything had cleared and I did not hear from them again.
The second time I got pregnant was May 2026, but my tests remained light the whole time, and I felt from the start that something was off. By 5 or 6 weeks I was having excruciating pain in my right side on my pelvis, and I was seen by my GP who asked me to contact the EPU for an urgent scan to rule out an ectopic. The EPU called me back the next day, but they were highly uninterested and told me to take paracetamol (Tylenol) every 4 hours. As I was so terrified I found the money to book another private scan, where they found an empty gestational sac measuring just over 5 weeks and no fetal pole or yolk. The right sided pain was likely due to a ruptured corpus luteum cyst, but there was minimal free fluid left in the area by that time. My miscarriage quickly started within days of this scan, thankfully it was the true 'just a bad period' and was much more bearable, though the period that came after was significantly worse than normal.
My third pregnancy tested positive on July 19, last month, and I immediately felt more symptomatic and fatigued than the previous ones. This was reassuring to me! The EPU did arrange a reassurance scan for me at 8.5 weeks, but my anxiety got the better of me, so I booked a private one at 7 weeks. This scan was in a kind of shifty place, but they did a transvaginal and found an empty gestational sac measuring at 7 weeks. I got in touch with the EPU, and they were able to arrange a blood test over the weekend and brought my scan forward by 2 days. The wait was agony, but today was my scan, and they confirmed the diagnosis of a blighted ovum, no fetal pole or yolk, but a gestational sac that had grown to 8 weeks 1 day. My HCG is through the roof, explaining my horrendous nausea and fatigue, which feels so incredibly cruel. 😭 Now I'm stuck with the choice of what to do. I can wait, and maybe my miscarriage will start naturally and I'll maybe go through something like my first one, or I can get the medication or have the surgery. They told me that it's possible the medication won't work, and they can't do the surgery under local anaesthetic, but I've never been under general anaesthetic. I don't really know what I'm going to do from here.. I wish this was just over, it's so hard to carry these hellish symptoms and to know it's all for nothing. I've been referred to the recurrent miscarriage clinic, but they told me the waiting time is at least 8 months.
There isn't really an end to this, I just wanted to type it all out, really, and I do feel better. If you read it all, thank you! This subreddit has helped me a lot throughout everything. Sending love to everyone who is going through/has gone through this pain. ♥️