Hi Melissa
I am so sorry to read of the loss of your little girl.
I lost my son last November due to IC and am currently almost 23 weeks pg with a little girl. My ob recommended a preventative cerclage which was placed vaginally at 14 weeks of this pg. It is basically like a drawstring which is meant to help keep the cervix from dilating prematurely. As I am still on this journey and currently on bedrest due to my cervix shortening recently I can't testify for how successful the cerclage has been, but I suspect that were it not for that and also the extra monitoring I am under this time, we might not be this far along. Already we are almost 2 weeks ahead so that has to be a good thing!
As for the abdominal cerclage, I do know of a lady that has one here in Australia and so far in her pg she has had no problems and has needed no bedrest. Certainly the stats from overseas show it to be slightly more successful but I'm not sure how many doctors do them here. It wasn't something my ob suggested and unfortunately I think that sometimes a failed vaginal cerclage is needed for that extra step to be suggested. I could be wrong though. I have also read that the abdominal cerclages are used if the cervix is too short for the normal drawstring. For me, my cervix length is nice and normal...until we reach the 21 week mark of pg!
There are a couple of other threads about IC and cerclages here if you want to have a look -one is in the pg area, Medical conditions (I think) and also under the Loss section there is a post called "new and sad' which has some stories that might help too.
Good luck and if you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Everyone here is great.