Does it ever get any easier?

After the initial terror of the so-called "threatened miscarriage," each day was leaving me more reassured at the viability of this pregnancy. At first the ER docs were saying it was 50/50, then the RE's office was saying that the hematoma was completely normal and nothing to worry about. The bleeding stopped, I had no symptoms or pain and I was feeling great.

This week, my mom and I allowed ourselves to get a little excited about the baby. Knowing that she is the only person who knows besides C, she took on the role of fantasy co-pilot since I had no other outlet for our hopes and dreams. Yesterday at work, I got a text from my mom: Maybe we could go out shopping together tomorrow and just start fantasizing and looking at baby stuff. We wouldn't buy anything just yet, but we could look around, push some strollers and kick the tires, so to speak.

Even though I had an ultrasound on Monday, the RE wanted me to start having weekly visits and I didn't think that 11am on Mondays each week would suit my boss very well. She offered up an appointment a little early, but more conducive to my schedule. I signed up to come back to the Melrose Park office in PA yesterday afternoon at 5.

Despite MP being their Philadelphia area location, it took me over an hour to get there and it was a nightmarish drive through some of Philly's most notoriously trafficked roads - the Schuykill Expressway, Roosevelt Boulevard and Broad Street. The office has a very strange set-up that emphasizes Dr. Check's bizarre decor style even more than the Jersey office. I had my ultrasound right away from an also strange technician who seamlessly alternated from being super-polite to saying things like "I don't care about that, just tell me what happened here." It was weird.

As soon as the began the ultrasound, she confirmed that the baby was still in place and there was still a strong heartbeat - 143bpm. She did the rest of the scan making all sorts of measurements and it seemed pretty standard. Then I went out into the waiting room and waited for my name to be called over the loudspeaker. Once your name is called, you head up two flights of stairs to a little room to meet the nurse.

After a while, the nurse called for me and I went upstairs. She took my blood pressure and weight, then pulled me into another impossibly-smaller room with no chairs. She stood there and told me that everything during my scan wasn't so normal. She didn't comment on the old hematoma and I forgot to ask. She was telling me instead that I had a second, much larger hematoma, a subchorionic hematoma, lodged between my uterine wall and the embryo. Shit.

If this hematoma were to get larger, it could actually dislodge the baby from the wall and cause a miscarriage. However, they are still very common and many women with normal (non-IVF) pregnancies don't even know they have them as they often disappear before the 10 week prenatal appointment. She had showed the measurements and scans to Dr. Check and he had ordered an entire week of bed rest. Oh, and just to make things even better, the Melrose Park office will not be open late on Friday next week, so I have to make an appointment in the middle of the day. Again, shit.

I hate to belabor the point of my job and how little flexibility there is, so I will let the receptionist at the Jersey office do it for me. Last time I was there, I was trying to schedule appointments and I mentioned that I only get two personal days per year and that very day was one of them. She looked up from the computer and said, "You have a shitty job!"

When I asked earlier this year if I could miss a morning meeting for a doctor's appointment, my boss grimaced and asked me to change the appointment. Luckily, on that occasion, I could. A few weeks later when I had to leave work 30 minutes early on a Friday for our placement scan, she was overly concerned about me missing the middle school wiffleball tournament. That's right, I wasn't even missing a class or a meeting, but the wiffleball tournament. She whisked me through the halls asking teacher after teacher if it was a problem for them for me to miss it and if they could cover my class.

It is also worth mentioning that we do not have substitutes in our building. We don't hire outside ones, either. If someone is out, and inevitably at least one person is out everyday, we get a series of pleading emails from the secretary begging us to cover their classes. As each period is filled with a volunteer, another email update comes around begging for the rest of the slots. An email just like this came around yesterday, I am not only working Monday and beginning an important writing assignment with the kids, but I am covering a class for another teacher. Can you imagine a week of this??

In the car on the way home from the appointment, I called my mom and C to tell them what was going on. Of course, my mom's first response is that I have to do what the doctor says and worst case scenario, I can always find another job. This is not particularly helpful. I know that I sometimes have an inflated sense of duty about my job, but I don't see this happening. Naturally, C is annoyed again. He always diverts back to the unfairness of the whole sitation.

Right now, I am laying in bed propped up on pillows and I haven't seen C in hours. Did I mention he is not very good at taking care of others? He got up hours ago to take the dogs out and I have to assume that he is in the basement playing video games. When I finally reached my level of frustration and decided I could really use a drink, some breakfast and some help, I tried to call his phone. Of course, the next thing I heard was ringing right next to me on the pillow. Humph.

Perhaps it is a good thing that his band is playing a show this evening at a fall festival because that means my mom is coming over. She will not only not disappear, but she even helps me with laundry and other housekeeping.

Fortunately, C has a pretty small bladder, so I am hoping he will be coming upstairs to use the bathroom soon, but until then, I'm back to channel surfing. I'll update again when I figure out what to do about this bed rest debacle...