are miscarriages painful?

How long does it take, what exactly happens, and as I said, is it painful?? How do you know when you start to have one?

I am asking cause a friend of mine had one and I don't know anything about them. Thanks

I guess everyone's experience of a miscariage is different, depending on many individual things. I have 3 beautiful children, though unfortunately i miscarried 7 weeks ago at 14 weeks. My experience was that i started to bleed unexpectedly about two weeks before, paniced straight away of-cource. Having had three easy pregnancies and births i guess i knew that something was wrong. At 12 weeks 2 days i was sent for my normal scan and it showed that everything was ok, i guess that gave me a little more hope seeing my little babe moving about. Though i did still have the doubt that everything was not ok, regardless of what the results were etc.. u know when something is wrong, guess it's just instincts. Well the doctor then assured me once again after this that sometimes you do bleed and for no apparent reason. 8 days later, bleeding had subsided a little but started to feel a little ill. A little like my body had some kind of infection, just not sure what as i had not been sick at all. Went back to the doctor and he prescribed antibiotics as he seemed to think i had an infection due to the bleeding. I guess i had. I still can't help thinking that if this had been treated earlier things would of been ok as they had been up until this stage, maybe i am just looking for some kind of explanation i don't know. ( I did experience an ectopic pregnancy 18 months earlier where my tube was removed and this could well have been the scar tissue bleeding just from the uterus expanding i guess) still not sure, though this is what i am told. Well miscarried 2 days later and to me it was exactly like birth except for the stretching of the vagina. I had labour pains for about 3 hours, which had been much worse than all my births as they were 45 mins-1hour. I made it to the hospital just in time, my little babe just came out and hung in the toilet the moment i arrived in emergency. So not only was this more painful experience than giving birth to a beautiful newborn it was so much more painful emtionally as well. My periods have just returned 6 weeks later and seem to be quite normal. My body seems to be ok and well adjusted but i figure this is something that takes time to get over, if you ever do. For the first couple of weeks after losing my babe all i wanted was to have her or another so desperately, but as time goes on i'm not sure i eva wan't to go through this kind of trauma again. Waiting and waiting till you pass the mark of your loss, and it is also harder to accept as they say that once you pass the 12 week mark you can start to feel a little safer about pregnancy loss. i guess it doesn't really matter how long you carry your babe for it is still a painfull experience, though the longer you have the tiny babe growing inside you the longer it takes to

I miscarried at 6 weeks and it was pretty painfull. I had alot of horrible cramps that I just had to stay doubled over. I also got really sick to my stomach. So I guess it does just depend on the person.

I too miscarried at 6 wks, and unfortunately the cramps feel like the worst menstrual cramp ever. I took advil as soon as they started and it seemed to calm them down a lot. I think the worst was when I had to go in for the ultrasound to confirm that it was indeed a m/c, and sitting in the waiting room with all of these happy and glowing women who had to have been at least 3-5 months pregnant. I sat there, my hand in my husbands, for an hour, b/c they were so behind, and sobbed as I heavily bled and cramped. Everytime I went to the bathroom all I could think of was, "this could have been our baby" Sorry to be such a downer but it is a very difficult thing to go through. I would have rather dealt with the pain aspect than the emotional aspect.

I have miscarried twice. The first one was a long process. I started bleeding and cramping around 6 weeks of pg. I was put on some progesterone because it appeared I was carrying twins and that at least one was still alive. At 8-9 weeks I had a full scan run and there were no heartbeats so my doctor had me stop the progesterone which would allow me to start the miscarrying process. After a few days I began to have pain, cramps, and bleeding and it was horrible! I felt like I was in labor! My doctor called in some pain killers but it didn't help. I went through this slwo uncomfortable process for two days and than my doctor did a scan and saw I was filled with blood so that afternoon I had a D&C and after that I was fine.

My second miscarriage I do not believe there was ever a heartbeat and if there was I don't know. I went into the doctors to get a scan right after I found out I was pg at 5 weeks. There was no heartbeat and I wasn't miscarrying again naturally like I should have so I had another D&C and never felt any pain with it. I did have a second opinion which confirmed there was no heartbeat and that if there was a baby there it had died. I was devastated!

I went on to try a 3rd time to get pg and I had a healthy baby boy who is now 4. Before the miscarriages I had another healthy boy who is now 8 so I'm blessed. Miscarriage is not easy, but the experience is different for all women. Some are painful, short, long, and don't happen at all and need medical intervention.

For me ....

the first week was very painful, first few days with the cramps were darn near unbearable ... after a week of bleeding, I finally was able to use a tampon (for the first week it was much too painful to use one, and I hate pads)

The pain subsided after a week, but the bleeding took just over two weeks to finally end ...