Is it really a miscarriage?

kircubbin2000

I don't remember this pressure of trying for a baby that all the young ones talk about now. I dont know anyone my age who tried, they just arrived naturally.

You are very fortunate, the females in our family (going back 4 generations on maternal side) have had fertility/carrying to term problems.

Our children are very much loved gifts, some are natural born, some are IVF and some are adopted.

The earliest a test will work is around 5 days before a missed period.
So 9 days post conception, not 1.

I think of a woman knows she was pregnant she can treat it however she likes as far as grief.

Some people want the world to know, some want no one, some their closest supporters , and some (like me) can’t talk about losses until years later

I don't remember this pressure of trying for a baby that all the young ones talk about now. I dont know anyone my age who tried, they just arrived naturally.

Kali2

Imagine that is must be very different if trying and trying for a baby and hope so much that this time it will all be fine, and a period happens and destroys those hopes.

Yes it is indescribably heartbreaking.

Imagine that is must be very different if trying and trying for a baby and hope so much that this time it will all be fine, and a period happens and destroys those hopes.

I had five babies and knew I was pregnant ahead of tests. In fact, I didn’t bother even having tests with the 4th and 5th.
I knew

As regards the 12 week thing, I wonder if it’s actually better to tell people close to you early, that way you will have support should a miscarriage happen.
If you are waiting till 12 weeks and then miscarry at, say 10 weeks, you are grieving in a vacuum.
I know some might prefer to grieve in private but for some this is a very lonely time.

I agree with Galaxy

I think the reporting is also to do with the fact it is talked about more than it used to be.

Pregnancy tests in the 60s were much less sensitive and would not confirm pregnancy until 7-8 weeks.

Bluebellwoods, I totally get what you are saying. With our first I had no idea I was pregnant until I was over 3 months.

The three times I was pregnant I knew before I took a pregnancy test. I hadn't taken a test for my third but knew I was pregnant and from what I could see, that it wasn't simply a heavy period as mine always were, and it wasn't the same.

I was in no way demeaning or downplaying anybody’s sense of loss or devastation when they suffer a miscarriage. I was just clumsily trying to wonder if it was easier in the old days when you didn’t know that you had had a miscarriage, just a late or heavy period. Would women be less upset if they didn’t know they had been pregnant? There seems to be so many miscarriages reported these days, it just made me wonder if ignorance was bliss.

I think that when you have a pregnancy confirmed, whether at a day late or four weeks late, at that moment your hopes, dreams and plans start. If those are shattered, it is a bereavement. Couples wait for twelve weeks to tell people now because they are aware of the risks of very early miscarriage and raising false hopes, in the past we rang our parents the minute the test was positive. I had a 7 week miscarriage, I still wonder what that baby would have been like.

I do sort of see your point OP, in years gone by there would have been no real awareness of an early miscarriage. It would have been put down to a bad or heavy period.
That said, for someone trying to conceive, these early tests allow any potential issues to be identified earlier, which can only be a good thing IMO.
I don’t think you were dismissing the feelings of anyone who has (like I have) had miscarriages or their pain - for me, knowing what was going on in my body was ultimately a good thing, although heart breaking at the time. The knowledge that I was able to conceive despite other issues I had meant that I had hope for a full term pregnancy in amongst the pain of knowing that I had early losses.

I understand what you are saying, when I was pregnant in the 70s the only test available was from the Doctor and then after 2 missed periods.

In some ways it was better that way, as you were unaware of an early miscarriage.

I had a miscarriage at 8 weeks and one at 12. The distress is still the same.

Presumably this is about Johnson’s wife having a miscarriage earlier this year.
It’s a miscarriage, the loss of a baby, that’s all we need to know.
I don’t think pregnancy testing makes losing a potential baby any better or worse.

My sister and I gave had multiple miscarriages early and later, the time is immaterial the hurt and pain is exactly the same.