For those of you who do not want to know yucky pregnancy details (do not feel bad, I am normally one of those people), do not read the next paragraph. Suffice it to say that I experienced some pregnancy complications on Monday night and Casey and I were given quite a scare.
[For those of you who prefer details, read on. On Monday evening, while I was taking one of my numerous nightly visits to the bathroom, I found that I had some fairly minimal bleeding. As I have not had any bleeding during either pregnancy prior to this, it was cause for much alarm on my part. Not knowing what to do, I got on the internet at 2:00 a.m. and tried to google my symptoms (after all, everything on the internet is true). What I found was this: most bleeding after the first trimester is indicative of serious problems and likely means that you are having a miscarriage or some complication that will kill you and the baby. Just what someone who has already suffered through a miscarriage and is already overly paranoid in this pregnancy wants to hear.]
Ok, back to the story for all who are interested (no more gross details). After sitting in a total state of panic for a few minutes, I decided it was probably time to wake Casey up. To his credit, Casey remained relatively calm (bless his heart, he has a tendency to do this when I am freaking out) and convinced me that it was probably a good idea to call the after hours emergency nurse at our OB/GYN's office. So around 2:30 a.m., we finally got to speak with someone that has more medical knowledge than us (which is little, particularly in the area of pregnancy) and she decided that because I was having spotting and some cramping, I should probably get in to see the doctor as soon as possible. I was left with instructions to call the office at 8:30 to schedule an appointment. Fortunately, they were able to get us in at 10:00, so the wait was relatively short, which was what we needed after a sleepless night of worry.
Thankfully, the nurse who saw us knew how nervous we were that we'd lost another baby (perhaps it was the fact that I was crying???), and immediately took out the magic wand that lets you hear the baby's heartbeat, if there is one (to fully understand how excrutiating this process is for us, it was during this magic wand session that we found out that we'd miscarried during the first pregnancy). It was a total blessing to hear the sweet sound of our baby's heartbeat within what was probably 5 seconds, but felt more like 5 hours. The baby's heartbeat was very strong, and it was at this point that we started to relax a bit (more tears on my part and clapping and a sigh of relief from Casey's section of the room). The next step was to have an ultrasound done to determine the cause of my complications.
Let me just say a few things about ultrasounds in general. First, they are really cool. There's nothing more interesting than seeing your baby on screen. Second, in our experience the person performing the ultrasound (the ultrasound tech) has a troublesome accent and is almost always very difficult to understand. This has led to much confusion on our part as to what on earth we are actually looking at or being told.
The first thing that the ultrasound showed was a heartbeat. The second thing was a big blob that seemed to be shifting around a lot. As it turns out, the big blob was a view of the baby looking from the top of its head down (who knew). The last time we'd had an ultrasound done (which was when I was 7 and 1/2 weeks along, or about 10 weeks ago), there really wasn't a whole lot to see -- just a tiny thing that the ultrasound tech labeled "baby" and another tiny thing that she labeled "yolk sac" (I had never really thought about the fact that a yolk sac would be involved...). Well, let me just tell you how much changes in 10 weeks. We got to see a head, an elbow, hands, feet, eyes, nose, chin, etc. Even a profile of the baby's head (which, I will add, was difficult for the ultrasound tech to get because the baby kept moving around so much -- active little thing -- let's hope that means we have a future athlete on our hands). Like I said, so cool!!! We also got to see a view of the baby's rump, which allowed the ultrasound tech to determine the gender. I will save that detail for another post...
That part of the ultrasound was so amazing that we
almost (almost) forgot the reason we were there in the first place. Unfortunately, the ultrasound tech brought us back to reality and tried (with the accent that we cannot understand) to explain the problem.
[More yucky pregnancy stuff, so the faint at heart should skip this paragraph. As it turns out, there was some hemmoraghing (fancy word for bleeding) going on with the placenta. Not knowing what a hemmorage was (or how to spell it!!!) and not really understanding a placenta or its importance, I had no idea what this really meant or the severity of it. I'm still not sure that I do. What I do know, however, is that the placenta is very important and it is not a good thing if it detaches from the uterine wall prematurely (can lead to severe bleeding and the death of the baby and/or the mother). Apparently the problem is that a small piece of my placenta has detached itself from the uterine wall (sort of like a flap). They do not know why this happens, but were kind enough to tell me that it definitely was not my fault (I hope that's true). There is nothing that can really be done to fix this, except to hopefully allow the bleeding to dry up and stop, in which case the problem isn't really a problem anymore. I think, but am not sure, that means that the piece of placenta that has pulled away reattaches itself. In addition to this problem, it was also discovered that my placenta is relatively close to the cervix. As with all things related to my body and pregnancy, I really have no idea what the cervix does, where it's supposed to be, or where the placenta is supposed to be in relation to it. But from what I have gathered, it is not a great thing if they are too close to each other. This is called "placenta previa" and, based on the number of my friends who I have talked to about this scare in the past few days that have received similar diagnoses, must be fairly common. 99% of the time it works itself out as the baby and the uterus grow (meaning that the expansion of the uterus causes the placenta to move farther and farther away from the cervix). Hopefully I will be in that 99%. If not, I think what that means is that I'll have to have a C-section, which although probably not ideal, is a whole lot better than some of the scary alternatives I had been inventing in my mind.]
Ok, back to non-yucky stuff. So, what it all boils down to is this... I am on bed rest for the remainder of this week, and possibly the beginning of next week, which explains why I have the time to post such a lengthy account of what happened.
Bed rest... now, maybe it's just me, but this sounds like it should be AWESOME!!! Someone has actually given you a medical reason to sit in bed and relax all day every day. It is also a medical requirement that Casey wait on me hand and foot. Well, let's be honest, it is TERRIBLE!!! I am not good at sitting still to begin with, but trying to do this during holiday shopping season and while my house is a mess because I was sick last week is agonizing. I am laying in bed looking at a mountain of laundry that needs to be folded. Problem is that the doctor specifically forbid from carrying around any amount of laundry (how did they know???). Not to mention the horrible guilt I feel for not being at work (you would think the time off from work would be the best part of bed rest). Perhaps I will start feeling less guilty about this chaos surrounding me soon enough to enjoy watching daytime TV, reading books, shopping for Christmas presents (and baby stuff!!!) on-line, etc.
But enough rambling for today. I have a follow-up doctor's visit and another ultrasound next Wednesday, and hopefully they will have nothing but good news for us. Now THAT would be the best Christmas present ever!!!
My name is Winston, and I would like to state for the record that I'm sick of hearing about this baby. Please let it be understood that I am the FIRST baby boy in this family, and I will not be replaced or undermined by this "new" baby boy. I am pictured here making my position known...
