At 19 I had my first miscarriage. 14 weeks in, my bby was found to have trisomy 18, and it was too severe for her (I believe she was a girl) for her to cope. She left me the morning before the amnio to confirm the trisomy. I was grateful to know the amnio could not hurt her as only her body remained. I had a D & C and tried to get on with life. I wrote her letters, which I still occasionally read.

Just as I turned 25 I discovered once again, I was going to miscarry. 6 weeks in, they discovered my baby was ectopic. On the morning the surgery was scheduled, he (a boy this time I thought) left me so once again, the surgery only removed a body. Again, small consolation in a miscarriage, I had not had to do anything to hurt the baby while it's soul still survived.

At 27, I gave birth to my hero, at 42 weeks my gorgeous dd came to meet me and is now a thriving nearly 3 year old.

And then at 29, I found out I was pregnant, just days before I found out I would not be pregnant much longer. It was only 3 weeks in when that baby left me, so there was no surgery required, nor was there any real signs, no reason, but I guess that was classed as a chemical pregnancy, everything happened to make a baby but the baby just did not stick. It was no less upsetting than the other two, just because it was so early did not ease the pain.

I fell pregnant straight after. And up until this weekend, apart from being tense from my past experiences, and spotting at 6 weeks, everything seemed fine. An ultrasound after the spotting showed a beautiful heartbeat and a 7 week old developing baby. And then on Saturday, 11 weeks exactly, I started bleeding. Not spotting, full on bleeding. I went to the hospital. Eventually I got seen. They did a scan, my baby measured 8 weeks, 3 days, and had no heartbeat. Eventually I got to see the doctor again. I wanted to know if I could have the drugs (surgery not really appealing after 2 previous). She said I didn't need either, because my body had finally realised what happened, it would take care of it. I had to go home and wait for nature to take it's course, but to go back if the bleeding was so bad I had to change my pad every HALF hour (this was stressed) or if the pain was too unbearable (I could have panadol, panadeine, panadol forte - though they didn't give me a prscription for the latter). I asked about testing what came out, she said that would be fine, and just bring it back. I then had to ask what to collect it in (she had my medical history - clearly I hadn't done this before!). I came home and a few hours later I felt something "fall out" of me. For half an hour I "dropped" massive clots, which I tried to collect. There was blood all over the bathroom. We drove in to drop of the collections, and I explained to the doctor over the phone before I drove in that I could not emotionally handle collecting anymore. When I got there she told me that she thought what I had collected was rubbish, she said she'd have a look in another room and probably throw it all out. I told her about the bleeding and the fact that I had had another heavy bleed while waiting to see her (a full hour after the last) and she repeated changing the pad every half hour and I should come back (clearly finding a pad completely useless FOR half an hour wasn't hospital worthy). The next 20 hours had me going through the same situation every hour, running out of underwear and trousers as everything kept getting covered in blood (I slept on a folded up blanket and towel and only just saved the sheets. Then it eased off, while the pain started. I took some panadol and laid on my bed in a ball screaming every so often (eventually realising I was having labour pains). I made it to the toilet in time to push a massive bloody mass (I am sure contained the baby somehow) which I couldn't quite completely push out. I grabbed some toilet paper and had to pull it out - it didn't take much. Horrified by what was happening I dropped it, and gravity and physics meant it straight away left the bowl so I never really saw it. My toilet was covered in blood. I was covered in blood. Most of my bathroom and clothes were covered in blood. I am horrified by the whole experience.

I don't believe the hospital should have made me go through this at home, I don't know how much blood was lost, but it seemed like far too much. I had no one to check if I was physically ok. There was no way in the world I was mentally ok and I feel it will be some time before I am. I never knew this is what happens when it is left to nature. No one had ever told me about this. I hope someone who reads this finds it useful, because maybe if the doctor had told me what to expect I would not have been so horrified by it all, not feel like I was in some very bad horror movie. Can anyone tell me if this has happened to them, or if there was somewhere I could have got an inkling of what was to come?