Bleeds Two and Three

One year ago, on Saturday, November 11th, I spent the day running errands and cleaning my house: my older son, Graham, was scheduled to be baptized the following day (which turned out to be good luck, because my in-laws were staying at our home and were able to watch our kids while Cory and I went to the hospital.) I fell asleep early that night, and woke up a few hours later to discover that I had bled through my pajama pants and onto the sheets (like the first time, it had been either one big gush or a series of small gushes that happened while I was sleeping, instead of a continuous flow.) I woke Cory up, told my in-laws what was going on, and drove to the ER in the middle of the night. This time, because I was 17 weeks pregnant and in the second trimester, and aid came with a wheel chair and took my over to the labor and delivery wing of the hospital instead of staying in the ER.

Once I got to labor and delivery, I changed out of my clothes and into a hospital gown, and the nurse checked to confirm that Nick's heart was beating. After they determined that Nick didn't appear to be in any distress, the doctor ordered an ultrasound to assess the cause of the bleeding. After awhile, an ultrasound tech performed the ultrasound, and I remember asking her if she could tell us the sex of the baby. At this point, I was assuming the night would go like my first trip to the ER: I would have a quick ultrasound,which would show that Nick was fine and it had been another random bout of bleeding, and I would be sent home in time for Graham's baptism. When the doctor came into our room to share the results of the ultrasound, she told us that I had experienced something called a placental abruption, which meant part of my placenta had started detaching from my uterus. Even though it didn't appear to be affecting Nick, I remember the doctor saying that we would do "whatever we could to make it to 23 weeks," and that she would go ahead and admit me until I was able to see the maternal-fetal medicine (high risk pregnancy) doctor on Monday.

I think I would have been more stunned if I was able to process any of what the doctor told me. I had never heard of a placental abruption, and, since I knew nothing about prematurity at that point, I didn't understand what the doctor meant by saying we would try to make it to 23 weeks. More than anything, I was upset that we would have to postpone Nick's baptism after I had ordered a cake and invited our relatives (see all my previous posts about not processing this whole experience while it was happening.)

I spent the rest of Sunday in the hospital, and, on Monday, had my first appointment with the high risk doctor. As my pregnancy continued to get more serious, these appointments became a major source of anxiety for me, especially because the ultrasounds took so long (they lasted around 45 minutes, which always convinced me they had found something terrible.) At this point, though, I didn't grasp what was happening, and was actually excited for this appointment because I knew they would be able to determine the sex. We found out we were expecting a boy (which I sensed all along,) and the doctor cleared me to be discharged. The ultrasound did show that I had a partial placental abruption, and that my subchorionic hematoma had gotten worse, which had caused an "enormous" blood clot, which was likely the source of the bleeding. But, since I hadn't had any other bleeding episodes in over 24 hours and Nick appeared healthy, I was cleared to go home and spend the rest of the week on bed rest.

For the next three days, I got my first taste of bed rest. I spent at least 1/3 of the time googling placental abruptions and subchorionic hematomas, watching Christmas movies, and catching up on lesson plans and grading. Because I was still hoping to return to school the following week, I had plenty to keep me busy, and this round of bed rest was tolerable.

On Thursday morning, I was feeling achy and sore, and had mild cramping and pain in my uterus. I called my OB, who instructed me to come to the office for an ultrasound and to make sure I hadn't started dilating. The ultrasound came back normal, and the nurse practitioner I saw explained that sometimes blood can irritate the uterus and cause cramping, but everything else was fine.

The following afternoon, on Friday the 17th, I was making spaghetti sauce (which might have been violating my bed rest rules, but it's difficult to totally do nothing when you have kids to feed!) when I suddenly had an intense, horrible pain in my lower left side, near where my ovaries are. It came out of nowhere, and had me doubled over in pain. I took Tylenol and tried a heating pad, but I couldn't shake the pain, so we called my mom to watch our kids so we could go to the hospital. I threw up from the pain as we went to get in the car, was sweating and shaking, and started to bleed again on the way to the hospital. By the time we reached labor and delivery, I was a physical mess and convinced I was in labor. Once again, I changed into a hospital gown, and the doctor was called right away. He preformed the ultrasound himself, but determined that there was nothing seriously wrong, and, like always, Nick was totally fine. This time, I was shocked Nick was okay. I was so sure the pain I was experiencing was contractions, and, at 17 weeks, Nick was weeks away from being able to survive had I gone into labor. I threw up again from the pain, but was given a pain killer and admitted for monitoring overnight. Thankfully, the pain never returned until three days before Nick was born, and I was released the following day to spend another week on strict bed rest (the nurse told me I needed to be "as lazy as a man on Thanksgiving.")

I spent the week of Thanksgiving home from work on bed rest again, which was bad timing because we were hosting my husband's side, so Cory literally cleaned our house, did 100% of the parenting, and cooked a Thanksgiving meal for our extended family himself. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I passed a decent amount of dark brown blood, which I was told wasn't a terrible sign, because it wasn't "new" blood. I went to labor and delivery anyways, had another exam to check for dilation, and the doctor agreed that it was just old blood passing through and nothing to worry about, so I went home as soon as my exam was completed.

I went back to work the Monday after Thanksgiving, and, aside from having light spotting every day, things were normal for the next two weeks, until the second Scariest Week of My Life happened in December. In the weeks to come, I would worry that the pain I felt that Friday would return, but, probably because my doctors were still optimistic that things would work out okay, I didn't dwell on what was happening much. I had lessons to plan, presents to buy, and Christmas traditions to carry out, and, since the baby we had now named Nicholas seemed to be totally fine, I assumed everything would work out okay in the end.