July 08, 2024

Louise - Scanxiety

27 minutes

Just a little trigger warning, this episode mentions miscarriage and pregnancy loss. If today is a day you’re not feeling too strong, perhaps leave this episode for another day. We have a HUGE back catalog to dive into, so there may be something else you fancy instead.

This episode of The Fertility Podcast, Kate is joined by Louise to talk about her fertility journey and her experiences with unexplained infertility AND all about the anxiety (scanxiety) you feel when you find out you're pregnant and you’re waiting for a scan.

Louise’s fertility journey started back in 2020 when she came off the pill to start trying to conceive. After several months of trying without success and with one chemical pregnancy, Louise went to the doctors and was eventually told that they had unexplained infertility. Louise and her husband were referred to the NHS for IVF, sadly experiencing a miscarriage during this time. Happily, Louise and her husband conceived using her last embryo.

Louise shares her experience of waiting until 8 weeks for her first scan and being convinced that, until she could see the baby on the scan, that she had had a missed miscarriage. Luckily for Louise and her husband, this experience of her scan was really positive and ended on a high. However Louise did find that her 12 week scan was a very different experience, which caused anxiety for Louise and her husband.

Louise and Kate talk about Sonographers and the delivery of bad news to patients during a pregnancy scan. They talk about how the Pregnancy Loss Review identified that Sonographers do not receive adequate training in the delivery of bad news. Many sonographers are caring and supportive, but some may not feel equipped with the training to deliver bad news and this needs to change.