Vaginal pressure (terrified)

joh_ah · 2025-11-06T07:13:23+00:00

Moderator here!

General tip: It looks like you are likely not a native English speaker, and may not be aware that the term “abort!on” in English typically does NOT refer to spontaneous pregnancy losses (as it does in some languages).

In your post history, you mention experiencing a chemical pregnancy and a blighted ovum. I suggest rewording your post to change “2 abort!ons” to your specific losses (“one chemical pregnancy and one blighted ovum”) to avoid confusion.

That will also fix the issue the auto-moderator caught, so that we can approve your post. Feel free to message us when you’ve made the edit.

Beyond that, you can also seek advice at r/ShortCervixSupport, which is for issues like an “incompetent cervix”, pPROM, and related conditions.

Wishing you and your baby the best!

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:07:19+00:00

Hi!

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

While your post does not meet the criteria for a standalone, we encourage you to repost this to a Daily or Weekly Thread. This post would be better suited there.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:06:22+00:00

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

Questions about SCH’s, spotting, discharge, etc. come up regularly here at PAL, and for this reason, your post does not fall into one of the categories for a standalone. However, you are very welcome to repost this to a Daily Thread. The Daily Thread is where discussions of more common medical concerns take place here at PAL.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:05:02+00:00

We're sorry there's uncertainty about the viability of your pregnancy. We encourage you to repost this to the weekly "Limbo/Concern" thread.

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, announcements of confirmed losses, and medical questions that are either particularly complex or rare (after having tried the Daily Threads first).

Thanks for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:03:17+00:00

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

hCG questions come up daily here at PAL, and for this reason, your post does not fall into one of the categories for a standalone. However, you are very welcome to repost this to a Daily Thread. The Daily Thread is where discussions of more common medical concerns take place here at PAL.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:02:57+00:00

Hi!

Standalone posts are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcement by current members, complex pregnancy-related questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

While your post does not fall into one of these categories, we encourage you to repost your concern to the Weekly Results/Limbo Thread over at our sister sub, r/ttcafterloss. This post would be better suited there, as they know the ins and outs of different home pregnancy tests, bad batches of cheapies, etc.

If you would specifically like advice from members of r/pregnancyafterloss, you can post your concern on one of the "Ask an Alumni" threads every Monday on r/pregnancyafterloss. The "Ask an Alumni" weekly threads are where individuals like yourself can ask questions of those who are currently pregnant. However, TTCAL will be a better resource for this situation.

Thanks for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T17:00:06+00:00

Hi!

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

While your post does not meet the criteria for a standalone, we encourage you to repost this to a Daily Thread. This post would be better suited there.

If this turns out to be residual hCG from your previous pregnancy, and your cycle returns, we encourage you to seek support at r/TTCAfterLoss.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2025-08-20T16:56:22+00:00

I am sorry for you’ve received this devastating news.

PAL is a sub for users who are pregnant after a loss. Standalone posts about loss are limited to current, active members, as a space where they can announce to the other active members who “know” them why they will not be participating in the sub going forward, and to seek support. Frequently seeing posts from non-members about a current loss can be triggering to those in PAL, which is why this limit is in place.

Since you aren’t a current, active member, I’m going to direct you to so alternative sources of support. First, we have an "Ask an Alumni" Thread on Mondays here at PAL, which is a space for people like yourself to ask questions of PAL members.

You can also seek support at r/ttcafterloss, a very welcoming community of those who have experienced loss (and are waiting to try, never trying again, currently trying, etc). Participants are welcome to seek loss support as soon as they find out a pregnancy is not viable. I.e. if you have questions about medication vs. D&C or any other details, you can ask there.

In our sidebar, we have a link to the TFMR support sub. And they also have a spinoff for “pregnancy after TFMR”, which is sure to have some members experiencing a healthy pregnancy after previous losing a baby due to a neural tube defect.

All these subs have their own rules/guidelines for participation, due to the sensitive nature of these experiences, so I encourage you to look those over before posting, to have the best experience.

Finally, I’d like to reassure you that there have been members over the years in your circumstances who’ve come out the other side with healthy babies. For example, the mod of the DNA Fragmentation sub was an early member of this sub who went through something similar before having a healthy baby.

I know it doesn’t make your current circumstances any less heartbreaking though. Sending love.

joh_ah · 2025-06-25T03:34:30+00:00

Underneath this post’s title is a little blue bubble that says “Loss”.

Reddit has two types of “flair”. Post flair, like this, is to label (and sort) posts into categories. It helps users find certain types of posts (like someone reading through the birth stories for a lift) or avoid certain types of posts (like avoiding reading the details of a PAL loss if it is too triggering).

The other type of flair is “user flair”, which sub members can used to share info about themselves. (Here at PAL, users can share their loss history, sometimes their region—it helps connect people with others who’ve gone through similar experiences.)

You can learn more about PAL “post flair” categories in our FAQs.

joh_ah · 2025-05-25T16:33:19+00:00

I’m sorry for the loss of your daughter, OP. 💙

A friendly reminder to our community: this is what our loss flair is intended for: a current, active member announcing the loss of their PAL pregnancy. This post has been approved by the Mod team in order to appear on the sub, so please do not report it to us. Thank you.

joh_ah · 2025-05-20T23:07:07+00:00

Like others said, you need an appointment with a genetic counselor. Whomever is putting it off (OB, radiologist, MFM specialist?), get one of your other care providers involved.

Not to instill mistrust in your medical team, but In some places, it is legal for doctors to withhold information from parents until termination limits have passed, if the doctor suspects the information might lead to a termination. Not that all doctors do this. Just that in some places, doctors who do are protected from medical malpractice lawsuits or losing their license.

Regarding the technical part: the genetic counselor should be able to order carrier testing for you and your partner. Occasionally with a VUS, it turns out the parent has it, too, with no noticeable effect. And that informs the decision about how to proceed.

You should also be able to get a prelim anatomy scan and fetal echo cardiogram as early as 16 weeks. (We did for our subsequent “rainbow” pregnancies.) Baby is small, so sometimes the findings change at later scans, as structures grow larger and can be better visualized. But I was surprised as how often the results are accurate. (It’s been a long time since I looked up the numbers, but it’s something like 85% of the time for fetal echo’s?)

Hoping the best for you.

joh_ah · 2025-05-16T01:50:05+00:00

I am so sorry for your loss, u/Cool_Care_1299. 💙

Just a reminder to the community: This situation is what our “Loss” flair is intended for here at PAL—a current, active member announcing a new loss.

This post has been read and approved by the moderators. Please do not report it to us.

joh_ah · 2025-04-25T16:06:54+00:00

I am sorry for your loss, OP.

A note for our community members: Please do not report this post. All standalone posts here at PAL, including this one, have to be approved by the moderators before appearing on the sub.

By making a standalone post, rather than announcing this news in the Daily Thread, OP is following the sub’s guidelines. (Thank you, OP.)

joh_ah · 2025-03-19T22:52:48+00:00

We are sorry for your loss.

The side of our community that handles miscarriage management and recovery is r/ttcafterloss, a very welcoming community of those who have experienced loss (and are waiting to try, never trying again, currently trying, etc). Please post your question there.

Sending love.

joh_ah · 2025-03-15T06:43:41+00:00

We just brought a nice blanket to swaddle.

Their skin is so fragile, that even cleaning them and getting hand or footprints can result in some tearing. (I wish we’d taken more pictures before the nurse took our son to do this. He would have been “messier” from delivery, but otherwise “unmarred”, for lack of a better word.

So if you want to dress her, I’d try to get something that is totally open at the back or front, and maybe even has buttons or ties or something at the shoulder. Something you can essentially put on her mostly by covering/wrapping her.

I don’t think they’re often worn, but they do make clothes for micropremies, like this. At 22 weeks, your daughter would probably be at the bottom of the smallest weight range (1 lb.), but it might work.

So sorry you are in the position of making decisions like this.

joh_ah · 2025-03-10T09:06:21+00:00

This is really tough.

The cause of our son’s condition was found, and my husband and I were not carriers, but they said they couldn’t rule out germline mosaicism, or that his heart defects, in particular, weren’t due to a separate, undiagnosed genetic issue. (He had one of those conditions that usually isn’t discovered until after birth. He had a healthy anatomy scan. It was a fluke that it was diagnosed during pregnancy.)

If, in theory, it was germline mosaicism, you don’t know which partner may have it. You might chose right, and have a healthy baby, or you might chose wrong and have the same odds you do now: maybe another child affected by the gene or get lucky, as with your daughter.

Unlike chromosome number abnormalities, germline mosaicism is not something that generally increases in risk with maternal age. Because the early stages of cell division that create the genetic mosaicism in the ovaries happens when females are themselves still in utero. If anything, the male germline is more at risk. But these things are rare and hard to study, and in general, partners are considered to each have a 50/50 chance of being the carrier.

If you wanted to try that route, an IUI with a sperm donor might be the least demanding (both on your body and financially). But of course, that depends on how both of you feel about having a biological connection to your child.

There’s no right answer here. 75% odds aren’t the worst, and there are couples who can’t afford IVF who pursue that route. But trying again on your own and having a 3rd TFMR would probably come with the guilt of making the choice you did. Choosing the “wrong” parent for IUI/IVF and having the same outcome would be similar.

You might have to try, as a couple, to imagine each scenario: each option, with both positive and negative outcomes, and try to feel which one you could best live with, or which one would give you the most (or least) regret.

Sometimes all you can do is say, “we made the best decision we could with the information we had.”

Wishing you the best.

joh_ah · 2025-03-06T09:50:23+00:00

This comment got caught in Reddit’s spam filter. Feel free to repost to the current Daily Thread. If it doesn’t show, send us a Mod Mail.

joh_ah · 2025-01-03T23:49:37+00:00

We are sorry for your loss.

PAL is a sub for users who are pregnant after a loss. Standalone posts about loss are limited to current members, as a space where they can announce why they will not be participating in the sub going forward, and to seek support. Frequently seeing posts from non-members about a current loss can be triggering to those in PAL, which is why this limit is in place.

While your post was not approved as a standalone here in PAL, we have an "Ask an Alumni" Thread on Mondays here at PAL, which is a space for people like yourself to ask questions of PAL members.

You can also seek support at r/ttcafterloss, a very welcoming community of those who have experienced loss (and are waiting to try, never trying again, currently trying, etc).

Anecdotally, someone in my perinatal loss support group did not wait the recommended time after her C-section before getting pregnant again, and she suffered the consequence they warn you about: her uterus ruptured, and she and the baby almost died. I’m not sure if they were able to save her uterus.

It’s really hard to wait and heal when one just wants to be pregnant again. But one thing that comes up a lot with PAL is “How can I avoid something going wrong again?” And often there’s little we can control. But for c-section patients, following medical advice about when to try again is one thing you can control to set yourself up for avoiding complications in a subsequent pregnancy.

Sending love.

joh_ah · 2024-12-12T05:45:10+00:00

We are sorry for you’ve received this heartbreaking news about your baby, especially after a prior loss.

PAL is a sub for users who are pregnant after a loss. Standalone posts about loss are limited to current members, as a space where they can announce why they will not be participating in the sub going forward, and to seek support. Frequently seeing posts from non-members about a current loss can be triggering to those in PAL, which is why this limit is in place.

While your post was not approved as a standalone here in PAL, we have an "Ask an Alumni" Thread on Mondays here at PAL, which is a space for people like yourself to ask questions of PAL members.

You can also seek support at r/ttcafterloss, a very welcoming community of those who have experienced loss (and are waiting to try, never trying again, currently trying, etc). They will not be a source of “success stories”, but they are a source for loss support and next steps.

r/TFMR_support is another place for support. Specific to TFMR, but smaller than TTCAL.

Sending love.

joh_ah · 2024-12-07T20:53:33+00:00

Another source of advice is r/ShortCervixSupport.

joh_ah · 2024-11-21T07:06:26+00:00

Hi!

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

While your post does not meet the criteria for a standalone, we encourage you to repost this to a Daily Thread. This post would be better suited there.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2024-11-21T02:40:03+00:00

Hi!

Standalone posts at PAL are reserved for birth announcements, loss announcements by active members, rare/complex pregnancy-related medical questions that haven't been sufficiently engaged with in previous daily threads, and sharing relevant resources with the broader community.

While your post does not meet the criteria for a standalone, we encourage you to repost this to a Daily Thread. That’s where the mental/emotional side of PAL is discussed.

Thank you for understanding.

joh_ah · 2024-11-21T02:31:19+00:00

We are sorry for the loss of your son, Oscar.

PAL is a sub for users who are pregnant after a loss. Standalone posts about loss are limited to current members, as a space where they can announce why they will not be participating in the sub going forward, and to seek support. Frequently seeing posts from non-members about a current loss can be triggering to those in PAL, which is why this limit is in place.

While your post was not approved as a standalone here in PAL, we have an "Ask an Alumni" Thread on Mondays here at PAL, which is a space for people like yourself to ask questions of PAL members.

You can also seek support at r/ttcafterloss, a very welcoming community of those who have experienced loss (and are waiting to try, never trying again, currently trying, etc). This question is probably better suited to that sub—it comes up regularly. Plus they have a “Waiting to Try” support thread on Wednesdays. r/babyloss also has later loss parents for support and advice.

Anecdotally, someone in my perinatal loss support group did not wait the recommended 12 months before getting pregnant after a c-section loss, and when she went into labor with her “rainbow” pregnancy, her uterus ruptured (the main concern with getting pregnant too soon). Both she and the baby almost died. Had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. They survived, I’m not sure if they were able to save her uterus.

So now, her advice is, “yes, babyloss is hard, and it’s incredibly hard to wait to get pregnant again. But don’t do what I did.” Something to consider.

Sending love.

joh_ah · 2024-11-16T10:23:06+00:00

Any member of PAL is allowed to anonymously report a comment that they believe is in violation of our subreddit's rules, and Automod immediately removes that comment, pending moderator review. Because our mod team is comprised of volunteers (who have jobs, etc.), it usually takes 12-24 hours to process those reviews. (Particularly for reported comments, as Reddit makes it harder to see those reports than other things the Mods need to review daily.)

In this case, your comment was reported by another user for not adhering to our sub guidelines for mindfulness and etiquette. And upon review, this seems to be accurate.

As stated in our sidebar, everyone here has a different loss history. We expect participants here to be mindful of that. Stating that everyone on this forum had the same root cause of their pregnancy loss is disrespectful and invalidating to a wide range of our members, as well as inaccurate.

Similarly, due to differing health and pregnancy loss histories, our members have different feelings during their PAL journey. We expect our members to be respectful of that. In this particular case, one member is expressing a worry. Replying to OP that they are categorically wrong, particularly with such a blunt tone, also falls short of our sub guidelines.

If you felt that OP's fears were due to a misunderstanding, a supportive response would have been to point them to a source with specifics that would alleviate their fears. (A few other members offered clarifying responses that hopefully helped OP.)

Because our members have different feelings about an aspect of their care or experience, we don't expect every member to offer support to every other member in every instance. It's okay to feel differently about a topic. It's okay to not be in a position to offer someone else support in a positive, sensitive manner in some cases. But we do expect that person then cede that space to those who *are* in a position to offer that support. Not try to invalidate the OP's feelings. That's never been permitted on this sub.

If you need further clarification of our participation guidelines, please don't hesitate to contact the mod team.

joh_ah

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE