It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times

I stopped posting because I started bleeding. The Monday night after Thanksgiving, Dan and I were sitting on the couch when I felt and odd gush of warm liquid spill out of me. I ran to the bathroom and discovered more blood than I'd ever seen. I think I said something like "oh no," because Dan asked if everything was okay. I told him in quivering voice that I thought I was having a miscarriage. My pants were soaked through with blood, there was a trail of blood on the floor to the bathroom, a puddle of blood at my feet and I proceeded to fill the toilet with blood three times (as well as several overnight pads in the coming hours). Dan called the fertility clinic, who told me to come in first thing in the morning for ultrasound and, if I felt it necessary, I should go to the ER. I decided our bad news could wait until morning and tried to focus on the positives, like I wasn't cramping at all and the doctor did confirm the presence of a small blood clot (that could cause some bleeding).

The next morning, bleeding had slowed to slightly heavier than spotting. We learned the baby was fine and the clot had grown. I was taken off baby aspirin and put on light bed rest for a week. The bleeding turned to spotting, which I would do throughout my pregnancy. I would have several more (6-8, I'd guess) serious bleeding episodes like this, most of which became nighttime visits to the ER to confirm everything was alright. The last one was around week 20. I was on bed rest until week 23.

I had a subchorionic hematoma. Usually, this does not occur. When it does, it is usually small, produces little to no bleeding and resolves in the first trimester. Mine was large, continues to grow into the second trimester, produced so much bleeding I developed anemia, and never went away. I passed it several days after giving birth, along with what I assume was the large piece of scar tissue keeping it in place. I also assume it is what kept my placenta from releasing and required the doctor's entire arm to spend several minutes up my business tugging and twisting to get it out.

If dealing with the stress of thinking every movement was going to cause another gush of blood to the floor wasn't enough, things got much, much worse after our genetic screening appointment. There is a larger story here, but that is for another day. The bottom line was that the nuchal fold (a sac of liquid at the base of the neck) measured considerably larger than it should have and the baby had a 95% chance of having something terribly wrong with it. We were advised to schedule a CVS test right away and to start talking about our options.

We were devastated. There is no other word. We scheduled the CVS and waited sadly (it would be a few days because of the New Year holiday). CVS, in case anyone tried to tell your otherwise, was unbelievably painful. Like holy shit that hurt. But it only lasts a minute, so you can grit your teeth and get through (they kept telling me to breathe, but if I was going to hold still, breathing was just going to have to wait). They do an initial screening of the extracted tissue right there, and they told us it looked really good. But it would be a week to ten days before the full results came in.

When they did, we learned everything genetically was fine and that we were having a boy. There was still a chance that the large nuchal fold meant a heart defect, so we had to schedule a specialized ultrasound for week 23. We were so happy, but still cautious. It was hard for us to believe that everything was suddenly okay (plus I was still having the massive bleeding episodes). Eventually, the bleeding stopped, all ultrasounds looked normal, my blood iron levels got back to normal (so I could do things like stand for more than five minutes and take a shower without wanting to pass out) and I was diagnosed with B12 deficiency and started shots for that. Then I had a spike in my blood pressure that had me seeing green spots, so I had to monitor that everyday to make sure it didn't get out of control (it remained borderline for the last month or so).

So went spent the entire pregnancy holding our breath in fear that something was wrong or about to go wrong. Oh, and bed rest wrecked me. I lost all muscle tone and by the time I could move around again I was too pregnant to do anything to get it back. It made every movement difficult and the first weeks post partum a little extra strenuous. And oh yeah, just for shits and giggles, my uterus fell, which resulted in my cervix hanging out for a few weeks. That was UNCOMFORTABLE. It went back in, thankfully. Has the potential to be a huge problem if I ever have another kid (another subject for another post).

So pregnancy sucked, big time. I mean, it had its moments, don't get me wrong. And at times it's easy to remember how special it felt to have him moving around inside me and to ignore the sciatica, the heartburn, the swelling, the discomfort, the pain, the constant worry....but I haven't forgotten and don't think I will that overall it was a really bad time. And that's why I didn't post through any of it.