Yesterday at work I had a big scare. I was on my lunch break, laughing with a co-worker, when I suddenly felt a warm gush of something down below. Thinking I'd peed myself a little (like I have been since being pregnant when coughing and such), I didn't think much of it. But it didn't stop. As I walked to the bathroom, it was still gushing, and then when I was in the bathroom I realized it was blood. Bright red blood, soaking through my pants.
I was freaked out and used our Vocera (like a personal walkie-talkie we use at work) to call another co-worker. She
got a wheelchair and a couple of them got me down to the ER. As I transferred from the wheelchair to the bed, I could feel more blood just gushing out of me. I thought I was miscarrying and I was so, so scared. A co-worker called Mike at work while the ER team worked on me, asking me all the admitting questions, getting my vital signs (203/130 BP, 130 pulse!), throwing away my underwear, and getting an IV placed. The good news: the ER doctor heard baby's heartbeat with doppler, and found my cervix to be closed. The bad news: I was losing a lot of blood and I was tachycardic. I had an ultrasound which showed Baby B moving around, measuring correctly for its gestational age (around 14 weeks), my cervix long and thick, and no blood in the uterus. When I returned to the ER, I was still gushing a lot of blood (I estimated at least 400 ml loss), and after another cervical check, two liters of normal saline infused via pressure bag, and calls to the OB at my regular clinic and the on-call OB at St. Joe's, the ER doctor decided to let me go home with instructions for bedrest.
Today I went to the clinic to be checked out, and they basically found the same thing -- baby is doing okay, and the ultrasound shows no placenta previa, no subchorionic bleeding, and my cervix is holding up. They didn't see any polyps on my cervix which could cause bleeding, so the only other thing they could test for was bleeding abnormalities. I've never known myself to be a bruiser, but I have a big purple bruise on one arm from the IV, and dark red bruising on my other arm from blood pressure checks. They took tests for hematocrit (blood count), protime (bleeding time), and ran a Von Willebrand panel (checking for clotting factor abnormalities). If anything comes up weird, they'll give me a call tomorrow.
So, in short, the baby is doing well for now but I'm still bleeding. No longer gushing, but it's still bright red. Hopefully it stops or they figure out what it is soon. Until then, I'm on bedrest. Mike and my dad brought down a mattress in the living room, so I've been here since last night watching TV, napping, and going online. I've been perfecting my Mama voice from "Throw Mama From the Train" and asking Mike/Owen to bring me a pepsi. He's been great about everything so far. I'm so lucky to have such a loving and supportive husband. We just hope and pray that everything will work out for us and Baby B.
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