Clara: When loss keeps on happening...

At the moment, I am waiting to miscarry. My fifth pregnancy, my fifth child... yet still no living children.

All was going well. Various early scans had shown a little bean, with a heartbeat, developing well. A scan at 11 weeks on Tuesday showed the heartbeat had stopped. This has been so completely unexpected and I feel completely numb. If anything, I expected the bad news to come as we approached 20 weeks and beyond. I have been taking all my myriad of medications, focusing on getting to that point and then taking it from there.

Since finding out we were pregnant again, I have injected myself with heparin over 100 times. I have taken over 200 steroid tablets as well as the daily aspirin tablets. I have had two intralipid infusions. Folic acid tablets, vitamin D tablets, pregnancy multi-vitamins. All to no avail.

We do not yet know if the condition that took Molly and Grace from us (massive perivillous fibrinoid deposition) is responsible for this loss also. My placenta will need to be sent away for testing. If this condition is found again, we have nowhere else to go. This treatment plan was our last hope.

If the loss of this fifth much-wanted baby is just ‘one of those things’, I still do not know where to go from here. I just don’t know if I can cope with being pregnant again. My body needs a break. In the past 28 months, I have spent 18 of them pregnant with absolutely nothing to show for it, except a gravestone commemorating two little girls and a shattered heart.

A very close friend with the same condition lost her 4th child last week. She has 4 children in Heaven now and, like me, has no living children. I have 5 children in Heaven now. It’s too much, it’s unfair to expect so much of one bereaved mummy. As this friend has said, we are a medical mystery. Despite the advances in modern medicine, we are a rarity and people don’t really know what to do with us. Our children are perfect but our immune systems are letting them down.

I just don’t know where to go from here. My heart has shattered. I feel I have let everyone down... again. It’s just horrendous.

You can read more about my journey here: Clara- My Story

You can read more about my condition here: Clara- Massive Perivillous Fibrinoid Deposition

Update Feb 2013: Placental tests came back to show that MPFD had returned with a  vengeance despite the extensive treatment plan. So this does not work for us. Where do we go from here? We just don't know.