Before I begin this post, I want to reiterate the warning I offered in my last post: if you’re squeamish at all, or if a story about extremely heavy bleeding in pregnancy that includes a threatened miscarriage might be triggering, or you don’t like to hear about blood or bodily functions, save yourself now. Trust me, I will not be offended. It’s weird enough for me to put these details out on the Internet as it is, so I understand if it’s not your cup of tea. Also, I promise a recap to follow up these three Mayday posts, without all the ugly details.
After a full day of laying on the couch watching my new favorite show, I was feeling really proud of how easy I had taken it that day. My husband had gotten home from work and we were just sitting there trying to decide what to do for dinner, when I felt it starting again. The gushing. It was doing what it had done two days ago, where it filled a pad in a matter of minutes. I called the doctor, and she told us to go to the ER closest to us.
I went to the bathroom to change pads, and this is where it began to take on the face of a crime scene. Like two days prior, I couldn’t even stand up because there was so much blood gushing. I was beginning to panic, and my husband was calmly rushing around to get things ready to go. Between his soothing, “Stay with me”s, he asked what I needed from him, what clothes I needed, and he tried to urge me to get up and get moving. I panicked because I literally couldn’t stand up for all the blood, and in my vanity I didn’t want to be seen with blood soaking through my clothes. I passed a blood clot the size of my fist, and for a horrifying moment I thought maybe it was tissue—would the baby be next? Would this be it? Would this be the time we lost it all? My husband, bless him, examined it as well and confirmed that it just looked like a blood clot. I found it hard to believe that a clot could be that big if I wasn’t miscarrying, but I wasn’t having any real pain, and I knew that would be a key factor. I tried to focus on that.
Eventually I pulled myself up (because my husband was about to throw a towel around me and carry me out of there, which I would NOT allow as long as I was conscious) cleaned up the best I could, and with two pairs of underwear and two pairs of pants, we headed to the ER. We had left the bathroom a total crime scene, and I couldn’t stop picturing it. I was already traumatized by all that blood and that monstrous clot, and I dreaded my husband having to clean it all up (because goodness knows I couldn’t do it). Thankfully, an angel came to our rescue that night and cleaned up the mess for us while we were in the hospital. You know who you are and I am eternally grateful!
Since we had just been through the ER drill for the same thing two days ago, we knew better what to expect. This time, though, the bleeding was much more intense and we had decided we weren’t leaving until there was an explanation for this horrific bleeding. Because I’d been watching Gilmore Girls all day, I was feeling extra snarky and witty, cracking jokes to fill the space while waiting.
This time, I was thankfully surrounded by female doctors, but before they did an ultrasound and checked to make sure the baby was okay, they wanted to do a pelvic exam first.
This was a pelvic exam from hell. First of all, I didn’t know if my baby was okay, and every second I feared losing it. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I could feel it and it was ten minutes of torture. It took three of them working together to clear all the clots, and in the end they weren’t able to see much because there was so much blood. My husband held my hand and worked to dry the tears that were streaming into my ears. Ultimately, I don’t think they really got much information from that horrible process, except that they thought my cervix was still closed. And I came to the conclusion that if by some miracle I don’t end up needing a c-section when this baby comes, I will most definitely be getting an epidural.
After they had cleared all that out, the bleeding slowed significantly. They rolled me out to get an ultrasound, and the tech that night was precious and balm for our war-torn souls. She seemed to know what we had just experienced, and she took every care to be respectful and gentle. We were once again amazed to see that the baby looked totally fine on the ultrasound. Their little fists were up near their face punching out, and they were kicking their legs—our little fighter!
We were informed a short while later that the ER physicians had contacted my doctor, and she had requested that I stay overnight (because I had lost so much blood, they wanted to monitor me) but at a different hospital, where she and her partners had privileges and would be around to check in the next day. I was transferred in a van while my husband went home to grab a few things we would need before meeting us at the hospital.
It was the first time for either one of us staying overnight in a hospital, so what a special treat that we got to experience it together. Of course, he can sleep anywhere, so while he gently snored on the fold-out couch, I laid awake, reliving the horrors of the evening and trying to form words to pray. Every time I was close to sleep, someone came in to check my temperature or blood pressure or take a blood sample.
When day finally came, my doctor came in to check on us before doing her rounds. She was working in a different field that day, but she promised one of her colleagues would be in to see us. Apparently I had lost two units of blood, but my hemoglobins levels were still good though, so I wouldn’t need a transfusion.
Her colleague arrived a short while later and explained that I did appear to have another subchorionic hemorrhage, which had caused the bleeding. He said that at this point it could really go either way. He’d seen people in the same situation go on to have normal pregnancies for the remainder of the time and then perfectly healthy babies. Sometimes it doesn’t work out so well. Either way, there’s nothing to do but wait. I asked if it could happen again, and he said it was a definite possibility. He told us that bed rest does not seem to be an effective treatment, but pelvic rest and to continue to take it easy would be my best bet.
He said a lot of other things too, about what might happen if they had to deliver early, or the specialist he would send us to if I did miscarry. To be honest, I didn’t feel great physically, so I sort of picked and chose which bits of information to hold onto. He said he would put the order in for another ultrasound to check the baby’s heartbeat before we were released.
Six long hours later, the ultrasound showed our wiggling baby hanging out upside down with a strong heartbeat, seemingly oblivious to the trauma that we’d felt in the last 24 hours. But it was another major relief, like always, to see how resilient our little baby is.
I was given the order to stay off work for at least several days, unless I had more bleeding in the meantime. So we left the hospital completely exhausted mentally, emotionally, and physically, so thankful for our caring doctors and loving family who had been surrounding us with prayers (and a few visits) the whole time.
We felt encouraged that we had survived the harrowing experience, and felt the palpable effects of growing stronger together in this whole pregnancy experience. We had known that parenthood would be hard, but we had hoped we’d have that nine month cushion to prepare for it!
(To be continued...)
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