The Big Scare

On Saturday, I went out with my mom and the-little-girl-she-takes-care-of and we went to the mall, out to lunch and stopped for groceries. I felt pretty good all day, but in the car on the way home, I felt some cramping and an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Realizing that the brewery chicken with rich gravy was most likely the cause of the bathroom urge, I was more concerned about the cramping. I felt a sudden gush unlike I had ever felt during a period before and I was panic stricken.

At home, I went to the bathroom and I was bleeding - bright red. There was even a clot or two and I immediately broke down. By this time, it was already late afternoon on a weekend, so there was no answer and no emergency callback at the RE's office, so I called my regular doctor. When the on-call physician called me back, I was in tears on the phone and he ever-so-calmly told me to go to the ER and get checked out.

At this point, my mom didn't even know that we were pregnant, so I laid in bed like a wreck just wondering what to do. I cried hysterically and finally got up the nerve to call my mom and ask her to take me to the ER. I didn't want to call C at work for fear that he would run out, speed to the hospital and get hurt, or even have to explain to work later why he tore out of there if we lost the baby. My mom flew over and took me to the ER. After her initial panic on the phone, she was calm and collected in the car and at the hospital.

They immediately checked me into one of those pod rooms with the curtain in the ER and had a nurse take my blood for a beta check and put in an IV. When we knew C was done work, my mom went out into the parking lot and called him to come in. When he arrived, he was devastated. He was angry and red in the face, but also so sad deep down. For whatever reason though, my spirits were a little higher in the hospital. Maybe because I felt like things would be OK, maybe because I felt like I had to be strong for him.

After a while, I had a full pelvic exam and I was alarmed by the amount of blood. I am typically a light bleeder during periods, so I was rather surprised by what I saw on the swabs and speculum. The nurses assured me, however, that this really wasn't that much. They would be more concerned if I was soaking through a pad in an hour or less. This seemed to be the rule of thumb and they kept asking me about this "one hour rule."

The pelvic exam provided no answers, at least not to me, other than to say that the bleeding was coming from the cervix. I had no idea if this was a good thing or bad. All I wanted was my ultrasound and blood work.

Finally, after more waiting, a transport person came and rolled me down the halls to the ultrasound room. The technician there was very sweet. The first thing she did was show me the embryo, still tucked into place in the fundus nowhere near the bleeding, and one little tiny heartbeat. The baby was OK.

She did a full scan with every possible measurement taken. She assured me that the bleeding was coming from the bottom of the uterus near the cervix and wasn't anywhere near the baby. As soon as she showed me that heartbeat, I just started crying there in the dark by myself. The scan took a long time, longer than any other scan I've had, then when she released me, I sat in the room for a while, then in the hallway waiting for someone to pick me up and take me back to the ER. I worried about my mom and C sitting down there having no idea what was going on.

When I was finally rolled back into the ER, they were relieved to tears when I told them that the baby was still in place and that I had seen the heartbeat.

Hours later, when the doctor finally returned, we were all sitting around eating vending machine crackers and watching Pawn Stars on TV. Even though we knew that the official news wasn't in, we were so relieved. He walked in saying, "Good news!" He explained that my beta was over 36,000 and that everything looked good. He said that there was a mass of soft tissue at the base of my uterus that was causing the bleeding, not near the baby.

Then he said that we were labeled as a "threatened miscarriage" and that about 50% of women continue on to full-term births after a threatened miscarriage, but 50% do not and lost the baby. How the hell is that good news?? We were stunned. We left feeling much better, but still concerned about this 50/50 diagnosis we had been given.

The ER doctor put me on bed rest for all day Sunday and Monday. He had spoken to Dr. Check right there that evening (at 9 something at night!) and they wanted me to go back to Cooper first thing Monday morning.

All day Sunday, C was pretty sick with a chest cold, so we just bummed around the house together. My mom visited for lunch because, of course, she is in full-scale "mom" worry mode. We sat on recliners in the basement watching both the Phillies and the Eagles lose consecutively, then we made a frozen pizza for dinner. C rented some movies and I emailed work and sent lesson plans, then we both went to bed pretty early.

My mom took off work today to take me to Cooper. She was terrified about me being alone or driving myself if the news wasn't good, so she insisted. She picked me up early and waited for me while I had an ultrasound, blood work and met with the pregnancy nurse.

Everyone at Cooper was just as calm as could be. They told me that I had a hematoma in the base of my uterus which is exceedingly common. The nurse and ultrasound technician said that they see this all the time and that it was normal. They also were horrified to hear that the pharmacist at the fertility pharmacy had told me to insert the progesterone suppositories as far as I could. They said that they should just barely go in the vagina and that this misuse was irritating my cervix, another cause for bleeding.

I got to have another ultrasound and see our little heartbeat again. Everything still looked OK. When I met with the nurse, she said that I even needed to pick a hospital to deliver this week! She said she wanted me to have an OB chosen and a prenatal appointment booked before I come back!

Could this really be happening? In less than 48 hours, I went from really honestly believing that I was losing a baby, to choosing my delivery hospital and talking about graduating!

After the appointments, my mom and I decided to meet C at work and take him to lunch to tell him the good news. Obviously, there is never any certainty with pregnancy, but it sure felt good to be back in the "normal" category. C was so relieved, not to mention happy to get out of work and have a burrito with his still-knocked-up wife.

I am going to work tomorrow, then I am off Wednesday, and back Thursday and Friday. After work on Friday, I have another blood draw and ultrasound to check on little bean, and by that time we will be 7w1d. Of course, I never want to wish a minute of pregnancy away after trying for so long, but every minute I get closer to that second trimester mark, I feel so much more at ease.

For now, I am taking it easy and hoping beyond all hope that this is our sticky baby...