What now?

Facing the Future

You may find that making decisions about future family planning is difficult at this time. Work through these decisions when your grief is less intense. While grieving, you may feel physically and emotionally drained. Take time out for yourself. Arrange for private time and rest. It is important to grieve the loss of this pregnancy before planning another future pregnancy.

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Future Pregnancy

It may be advisable to wait a few months to a year before considering another pregnancy. Discuss this with your doctor.

Contacts & Resources

Who to call for help:

Your doctor or midwife

Public Health Nursing 250-565-7478

Your Spiritual Advisor/Clergy

Crisis Line 250-563-1214

Words, Meanings, and Special Terms

Spontaneous Abortion:
The medical term for miscarriage.

Missed Abortion:
When the embryo dies and stays inside the uterus for at least two weeks before the miscarriage occurs.

Incomplete Abortion:
When tissue remains inside the uterus during or following a miscarriage.

Threatened Abortion:
There are all the signs of a miscarriage, including bleeding, cramping, etc., but the miscarriage has not happened so rest is often recommended.

Ectopic Pregnancy:
The pregnancy grows outside the uterus, usually in the Fallopian tube, and cannot live.

Blighted Ovum:
When the embryo does not successfully develop.

IUD (intra-uterine death):
This means the baby died in the uterus after you have reached your 20th week of pregnancy.

Miscarriage:
The word most often used to describe the very early delivery or loss of an embryo when the mother is still in the early or middle stages of pregnancy.

Molar (hydatidiform) Pregnancy:
A collection of cells in the uterus that makes the body think it's pregnant.

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