Is this a chemical miscarriage?

[3rdFeather]

I have a very normal 33 day cycle give or take the day before or the day after. I possibly could have conceived during a positive ovulation test last month. 6 days after I ovulated I had very sharp and very painful low abdominal pains lasting only about 2 minutes and fading over the next 10 minutes until they were gone. I thought implantation? Day 34 I had a negative pregnacy test. Day 40 of that cycle came around(7 days late). I got my menstrual cycle on day 41 making that day 1 of my next cycle. Very painful cramps and heavy bleeding only for 2 days and then light bleeding for 7 days after, abnormal for me. I know it is common to be late, but not in the luteal phase. I know when I ovulated(day 18 on every cycle, I check with ovulation predictors and checking CM, I also get the cramping and the pink tinge in cm) and I always get my next cycle 16 days later(33 day cycle) So why did my cycle change in the luteal phase? Was that a very early miscarriage? I ask not because I have a hard time getting pregnant, actually my 1st 2 pregnancies were both the very 1st month we tried, but with the 2nd pregnancy I had a late term pregnancy loss back in June at 20 weeks either pre-term labor or pre mature rupture. I was having contractions when at the hospital and they were not sure when they may have started. After that I decided to start paying attention to my body and making sure everything seemed normal with me. We decided just last month to try again. I am never late, so I thought maybe it was a chemical miscarriage. Do you think it may have been, if so, should I look into having some testing?

[Debbie Miller, RN]

Hello,
While it is possible you could have had an early miscarriage, it would be impossible to say for sure and early miscarriages have entirely different causes than late ones so this would not necessitate special testing. Of course you can always be tested for clotting disorders (a rare cause of miscarriage at various stages) but other than that there would be little to be done at this point.

I would just continue trying as you have been. It is estimated that 25% of all pregnancies result in miscarriage (impossible to calculate exactly because many of these before realization of pregnancy) and there is usually nothing to be done to prevent these as they are most often caused by chromosomal, implantation or developmental problems. Nothing you could do could reverse those factors.

Best wishes.