Blogger Sally Whittle at Who's the Mummy recently wrote a very moving account here of what happened when she was pregnant with her daughter. It's part of a series of stories being compiled by Peggy at A Mother's Secretscharting the low points of pregnancy.
Sally's low point involved going through a pregnancy involving repeated bleeding. Having also had this experience, and having spoken to many mothers about this, I want to reassure anyone who's experiencing bleeding in pregnancy - it's much more common than you think.
It's not something that women really talk about all that openly, but if you ever admit to this experience, you'll be amazed at the number of people who say "Yes, that happened to me too."
And the good part about it is that bleeding doesn't always mean miscarriage. Sally has her daughter, and I have my son to prove that.
My story started when I went for a nuchal fold scan, only to be told that the baby was four weeks older than we'd thought. So my pregnancy had started with bleeding - what I'd thought was a light period, the doctor now said was an "implant bleed". I'd never even heard of those before, but apparently up to a third of women experience them.
But all was well with the scan, and I went to a coffee shop with my partner to discuss this news. We were in the middle of buying a house, so all our plans now needed to be pulled a month forward. But then I went to the loo and found I was bleeding. Could it be that the baby we'd just found out was coming sooner than expected, was now not coming at all?
We took a taxi straight home and called the hospital. But they really weren't too bothered - I guess they knew how often bleeding in pregnancy happens too. That's why the NHS calls it "relatively common". So even though light bleeding continued for several weeks, the only response I got out of a doctor was a shrug of the shoulders and a "it happens".
And terrifying and stressful as it was, it didn't stop the pregnancy going to full term, and my son being born five months later.
Did you bleed in your pregnancy? Leave a comment and tell us about your experience
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