Originally written: January 21, 2012
So last Friday was my mother birthday which went well. My brother and sister in law took my mom out to dinner while I watched the baby. (Of course my niece is always the best baby but wouldn’t you know it, she happened to cry the entire time I had her.) After dinner they all came back to my place for gifts and cake. Before they arrived my husband kept asking if there was anything I wanted him to print up. He was of course referring to the sonogram pictures which he had scanned onto the computer. I told you in the last blog entry that I had contemplated putting them in a “Happy Birthday Grandma” card, but I was uncertain.
I contemplated it for weeks but with the ultrascreen so close by, part of me felt a little bit better waiting to make sure the results were normal. I had also invited my mom’s best friend over for cake and I certainly didn’t want to say anything when her friend was there so I decided it was best to wait. There did come a time when her friend left and I had the opportunity, but I think I chickened out. I was just not ready and to be honest, I think that it still had not fully set in yet.
The next morning I woke up and I was lying in bed thinking to myself how I should have just told them. I still had the card and was seriously considering telling her that day instead. I was planning to pretend my brother left a card at my house from the baby so the “Happy Birthday Grandma” would not throw her off at first. I was supposed to take my mom out to dinner for her birthday and then we had gotten her play tickets to a local theatre so I though about how perhaps we should go early and just tell her the good news before we went. But then it happened…….
Before we took my mom out to dinner, I was lying down. OK- I was lying down having amazing sex. (It was of course the first time in a while I was not nauseous or half asleep) Afterwards I get up to go get dressed in preparation for the evening festivities with my mother when my husband tells me from the other room that there is a little blood on the bed. I was shocked- I mean I felt fine. So I go to check and there is not a little blood….there is a lot of blood. They do say spotting or some bleeding every now and then is normal so if that had been the case, I don’t think I would have been as freaked out, but this was certainly more than some spotting. I sat down to wipe and see more specifically what was going on and there was a lot of blood and it kept coming out. All the sudden there was this big clot like thing that came out. I was certain I was having a miscarriage and that was the kid that had just come out of me.
I yelled out to my husband that it was more than a drop or two. “It is a lot of blood, like a very lot and I don’t think this is normal”. He told me that it was probably nothing to worry about and when I re-affirmed for him that it was a significant amount of blood, he came in to check. I held up a bloody piece of toilet tissue and told him to look in the toilet. He came over and looked and then said, “Yeah, that is not normal!” I just hugged him and said “I’m sorry…I am so sorry.” He looked at me and said that I had nothing to be sorry about, but I know how much this baby meant to him and I feel like I failed him and while I had made it a point to not get attached to the thought of having a kid for this very reason, he on the other hand, had gotten very attached. He had already decided that the baby was a boy and had started calling it by a certain name. When he saw the clot in the toilet, I honestly thought it was the baby and said, “Say good-bye to…….” (I’ll keep the name a secret for now) After saying that and trying to make light of what was not at all a comical situation, I put my hand up to flush and he yelled out “Don’t flush…don’t flush!” He works in software development for a genetics testing lab and he knows that you can actually check the tissue for defects and clues as to why this may have happened or if there was some sort of genetic defect. So he instructed me not to flush and he want downstairs to get a Ziploc bag. I was just shaking. What the hell was happening? I go almost 12 weeks and this has to happen now. Why today? Why today? I needed to take my mother to dinner for her birthday. And of course I am thinking, thank God I did not tell everyone last night.
I am just standing there freaking out, mind racing with all sorts of thoughts when all the sudden my husband comes back with a bag. He walks over to the toilet and I say, “What the hell are you doing? That is gross!” He stuck his hand into the bloody toilet to retrieve the solid “thing” (for lack of a better term) that had fallen to the bottom of the toilet. Now, while I seem to remember him poking around at the “thing” with his bare hands, my husband will tell you a different story. He claims it was already put in the bag before he started poking at it but I honestly don’t remember it that way. Who knows maybe it was in the bag but when something happens unexpectedly and you are in crisis mode, you don’t always think clearly or remember the details exactly as they happened.
Anyway, I saw him poking at what I thought was our baby and I said, “What the hell are you doing, that is disgusting!” He replied, “I read that bones are already starting to form by now. I don’t feel anything crunchy. I don’t think this is the baby.” I don’t know what it was that he was poking at, all I know was that it was gross and this whole experience was like something out of a bad reality TV series. After the “thing” was bagged (and poked at), he asked me if I knew the doctor’s phone number and he handed me the phone. My doctor was working last weekend but the other doctor in the practice was on call and promptly came to the line. I explained what had happened and he told me that it probably was less blood than I thought. “When a few drops of blood hit the toilet they tend to spread and look worse than it is”, he said. I replied back, “No, trust me it is more than a few drops and this big clot came out and this is definitely not normal.” He then went on to ask if I had any cramping or any lower back pain. When I told him that I did not, he did not seem too concerned. I think he said, “It is probably nothing, I wouldn’t worry about it but if it rests your mind at ease, I am on call. I will be in the hospital tomorrow morning if you want to go to the ER and we will do a sonogram. Now if it makes you feel a little better, you can go tonight to the ER and we will do a sonogram- it is up to you but I don’t think it is anything to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about! I’m pregnant, I’m bleeding, particles of God knows what are coming out of me, but I should call the office on Monday for an appointment unless it rests my mind at ease to take a trip to the ER sooner. I just hung up in disbelief. I told my husband what the doctor had said, that he did not seem too concerned and that he tried to tell me it probably was nothing. Then I told him how if I was concerned, the doctor told me I could go to the ER now or wait until the morning for a sonogram. I then spoke out, “How the hell am I supposed to explain this to my mom?” My mind then started thinking again….We were supposed to take her out for dinner and to a show and I had to start having this happen today of all days. Maybe I should go to the hospital now. How am I supposed to tell her that we can’t take her out after all. With moments to spare how was she supposed to find someone else to use the extra tickets and accompany her…….
Hello Mom, Now don’t overreact. I know we are supposed to take you out for your birthday but I need to go to the hospital instead. I didn’t tell you this yet, but I am pregnant but think I am having a miscarriage. I am bleeding and have to go to the ER to have things checked out……..
All I kept thinking was how this is not happening and how was I supposed to explain this to my mom. My husband, acting all unphased by the whole event finally said, “Look, the doctor does not seem too concerned. I don’t think whatever that was was the baby. Your mom only has a birthday once a year so I don’t think we should ruin it for her. I think we should go out as planned and then go to the hospital in the morning.” I just looked at him and said, “You think we should just pretend like nothing happened and go out”. He said, “Yes, let’s just take your mom out and see the show. The doctor did not seem concerned so let’s just see what happens.” In my head I was thinking, this is not happening. Then I said to myself, “Ok you can do this. I used to pretend all the time with my ex. I’d go out, put on a smile so people did not let on and then I would come home and let it all out…..I can do this.” And with that little pep talk, I went to the bathroom to freshen up and instructed my husband to call my mom and tell her to be ready to go at a certain time because we were running a little late.
I sucked it up, got in the car and tried my best to pretend that I was not worried to death or bothered by this whole experience. My husband told me that he loved me and no matter what- if the baby was OK or not, I had nothing to be sorry about and that I was the most important thing to him. He then asked as we drove if I was OK to which I answered, “NOT REALLY!” He then wanted to know what I was thinking to which I answered, “You really don’t want to know.” So what was I thinking? Let me tell you.
Well, I was thinking how fucked up it was that on the two year anniversary of my father’s death, my baby dies. Talk about irony and a messed up, heartbreaking experience. Of all days, my baby has to die on the anniversary of my father’s death. That is what I was thinking, however, I did not want to say it out loud because I was already trying with all my might to put on the happy face, pretend like everything was normal when we arrived at my mom’s house and to not bust out in tears. Oh, and one more thing I was thinking. He (meaning my husband) thinks I am waiting until the morning to go to hospital and get this checked out. There is now way I am going home and sleeping after all this. We are taking my mom out as he suggested, but we will be going to the hospital tonight, not in the morning, but I will tell him that later.
So we arrive at my mom’s and my husband told me to wait in the car as he went into the house to get her. As he walks up to the house I am thinking to myself, not to worry, I am not moving any more than I have to. After a few minutes, my mom finally comes to the car, we go to dinner and the first thing I do when we arrive at the restaurant is go to the ladies room to check if I am still bleeding. It appeared to have stopped or at least slowed down significantly. Of course I am still panicked thinking I need to see if the baby is still alive- I can’t be walking around with a dead kid inside of me. But as we are supposed to be pretending things are normal, I just go back to the table, try and smile and make conversation as if it were a normal day.
The conversation was OK but at times I had to ask to speak of something else as I was finding that it was hard for me to talk about certain topics. My father came up a bit and certain areas of conversation were easier for me to handle than others. Then the topic of Disney came up which I found rather upsetting. A week prior my husband and I were talking about how when the baby was 5 we wanted to take it to Disney with my niece. Out of the blue, my husband starts asking my mom about my niece and if she would like to go to Disney with her when she gets old enough. In my head I am thinking I no longer want to go and was getting upsetting over the thought so I asked him to talk about something else instead.
All in all, dinner was not bad. The food was good and the rest of the conversation had me somewhat engaged, but in the moments of silence….man does your mind play dirty little tricks on you. Your thoughts can be your best friend or your worst nightmare. As I always assume the worst case scenario in preparation to brace myself for something bad, guess which mine were.
Anyway, we left dinner, walked across to the theatre and sat down to watch the play. It was The Sound of Music and as you know it has several kids in it. I was watching the kids sing and started thinking how I would never see my kid perform in a school play. I then started thinking why did this have to happen. I would rather have never been able to have a child than to go through this. I was feeling bad for my husband as I knew he would be devastated. I was feeling like a failure and again I was thinking how could God be so cruel as to take my child the same day my father passed away. I tried with all my might to pay attention, and at parts I did; but I was sitting there letting my mind run away with all these thoughts and crying. All I could think was that I just wanted to go home, crawl into bed and cry and cry and cry. I had held it back for long enough and I just wanted to go home and cry.
After the play ended, I once again pretended like everything was normal, we dropped my mom off and as we headed home, I could feel the tears I had been holding back well up in my eyes. Part of me wanted to go to the hospital, but it was late, I wanted to go home and cry and it appeared the bleeding had stopped. Ultimately it was going to be what it was going to be. As we drove closer to home, we did need to drive right past the hospital so my husband looked at me, saw that I was upset and asked me if I wanted to stop and get checked out. I told him that it was late and I did not want to be there all night. He decided that it would be better for me if I got checked out and we would just go see how long the wait was. If we were there too long, we would leave and come back in the morning. Much to my surprise, they took me in a lot sooner than I had expected.
A nurse came in and took some info and then a doctor came and spoke to me. They told me that they were going to have me do a sonogram but the room I needed to be in was occupied and I should just relax for a while. The doctor was going to send someone to do some blood work, they wanted a urine sample becaus they were going to do another pregnancy test on me and then they would do an ultrasound. She told me that I needed to drink a lot of water for the sonogram and handed me this big pitcher and told me to drink up.
Somewhere in between a blood draw and being handed a gallon of water, two nurses from Labor and Delivery walked in. They asked me a bunch of questions and they too asked if I had any cramping. They seemed pleased when I told them that I did not. The Labor and Delivery team then explained that they brought a portable device with them and they were going to try and see if they could detect the baby’s heartbeat. They warned me that they may not find anything which was perfectly normal. They said that sometimes it is hard to find it externally with that device. Often time they find nothing but then when you go for the sonogram, they sometimes have better luck. She told me not to be concerned if she could not get something because that did not always mean something bad. (Looking back, I think that is just something they tell everyone so they don’t panic until a sonogram confirms your baby is dead, but that is another issue. For what it is worth, they did do a good job of quelling my concerns over their possibly lack of a heartbeat detection.)
But…..lucky for me, that was not the case. They Labor and Delivery nurses put the Doppler thing on my lower abdomen and said, “That is your heartbeat.” And then they moved it around. I was trying to read the look on their faces when they were searching for the babies, and then all the sudden they smiled and said, “And that is the baby.” “It sounds good. You hear how it is faster.” They then put it back on mine and said, “Yours is slower” and as they moved it back, “And the babies is much more rapid which is normal.” They then said, “We have a strong heartbeat and you have no cramping. I don’t want to tell you everything is normal, but certainly that is a very good sign.” And as they walked away with smiles on their faces, a smile cracked on mine followed by a sense of relief. I still had no idea what was going on or why I was bleeding, but the baby had a heartbeat so I guess it was not dead after all.
And with that sense of relief, I could finally relax some and concentrate on drinking my water. And then I waited, and waited and waited. With my bladder so full that if I moved the wrong way I was going to explode, I tried to sleep some with my husband crawled up in the tiniest ER room I had ever seen. Finally after and hour I said the hell with this and got up and had to pee. I did not let it all out, but the pain- I thought I was going to put myself into kidney failure if this continued. So I let a little out as the nurse told me I could do and then still in pain because I could have peed for another 5 minutes straight, I walked back to my bed and waited some more. When the nurses saw me walking around, I think it jogged their mind that they had forgotten to call the sonogram tech who was on call that evening. Finally after waiting for about an hour and a half or so, I was taken back for the test. It was now around 2:30am but I was wide awake waiting to see what was going on.
First thing the tech said was, “My God- look how full your bladder is. I am going to hurry up so you can go relieve yourself.” And with that, she showed me the baby kicking all around. The last sonogram about 3 weeks prior had the kid looking like a blob of nothing. Now it was clear that the baby had an identifiable face. A profile revealed eye sockets, a nose, lips and chin. You could clearly see arms and legs flickering all around. For those not in the know, when they do a sonogram in the doctor’s office it is usually 5 minutes or less, but as this tech was looking for the source of the problem, she went into much greater detail and took her time looking at every nook and cranny. As such I got to watch in amazement as the thing inside of me clearly was starting to look like a person and was clearly alive and well. And my God- what a difference a few weeks make. The thing had developed so rapidly. When I first found out- around 8 or almost 9 weeks, the baby (according to the baby website I subscribe to) was the size of a kidney bean and was tadpole looking. Now it was just about the size of a lime and clearly was more identifiable looking.
The tech took her images and then told me to go relieve my bladder. She also wanted to do an internal sonogram which she said would most likely give her clearer images. So after I went potty, back on the table I went and got to look at the baby even more. The thing was active as can be and all I was thinking is my God-when this thing starts to get bigger I am in for a world of hurt with him or her kicking all around like that. As the tech did her job, I just watched in amazement. Up until now I was having a hard time grasping the fact that I was pregnant and didn’t really feel much different (not that I know what pregnant is supposed to feel like having never been before.) Up until this point, I went on with my daily routine as normal (with some minor modifications here and there) not feeling pregnant or phased by what was going on, but when I thought I was losing the baby- my heart just sanks with the thoughts of what could have been.
I had to be in sonogram for a good half hour - maybe 45 minutes. I just stared at the forming baby the entire time on the screen with a smile on my face that everything was Ok with the baby. Finally after 2 sonograms and 12 weeks, it hit me…..there is something growing inside of me and despite what happened earlier, it is alive and well. I have to admit that prior to seeing and experiencing all this, it still did not seem real. I mean I knew what has happening, but I still had a hard time grasping the fact that I was having a baby. Now it hit me. Before I did not care- it was what it was, but now; now I cared.
If I am being honest, that morning I was thinking how I was not sure I wanted a kid. I was upset at how drastically my life was going to change. I was upset at how my career might need to take a back seat for a while. I was stressing how I was supposed to get up even earlier, dress, feed and drop a kid off at daycare (which we can’t afford), then get to work on time. Then when the day was all over with, I could do it all in reverse. Pick the kid up, get home, cook dinner, give the kid a bath, put it to bed, make my lunches, clean up after dinner, take my own shower and then maybe around 11pm collapse just in time for the kid to start crying because it wanted to eat again or needed to be changed. But after this whole experience, I did not care. I knew I would figure it out. All I cared about was that the baby needed to be OK. Up until this point, I really wanted a girl. I don’t know, maybe I felt I could just relate better- someone to bake with, dress in frilly clothes, go shopping with and have a girl’s day out. And then there is my husband who is dead set on a it being a boy. Boy or Girl, after this experience, I no longer cared…….seeing the baby move around and hearing the heartbeat again…PRICELESS! Healthy is all I now want.
After a very long sonogram and an experience that totally changed my view on everything, the tech finished her tests and left to write up her notes and wait for a radiologist to look at the results. She left one picture up and told us if we had camera phones or something to feel free to take pictures since her machine was out of paper. So when she went to do her job, my husband took a bunch of pictures and shortly after they wheeled me back to the ER where we needed to wait for the radiologist to read the results.
Finally around 3:30am the doctor came back in and told me that they had detected a blood clot behind the placenta. Sometimes when the placenta is forming, blood gets caught behind it and comes out. She said the fact I had no cramps was a good thing but told me to take it easy and asked if I wanted a note to excuse me from work on Monday which I declined. I mostly sit so there was no need for that. She also told me that they did detect another clot about 1.7cm behind the placenta and I could possibly expect for that to also come out. She gave me a copy of all the lab and sonogram results and told me to give them to my doctor. She told me to have them keep an eye on the clot to make sure it did not get any larger. Along with test results, she handed me some discharge paperwork which included a paper on possible miscarriage- what to do and what to expect. The ER doctor kind of let on in a way that things were going to be what they were going to be and there was nothing they could do to stop it. It is almost as if she were preparing me that something could still go wrong.
So after a very long evening, I went home with a sense of relief but not necessarily a sense of calm. After an experience like that, you can’t help but worry every minute of the day. Every ache, every pain, every cramp, every little trickle and you panic. So while I slept well that evening, I woke up the next day feeling completely overwhelmed. I did some research and some people said it happened to them and they went on to have a normal baby. Other people said they had to go on bed rest and were restricted from having sex for the rest of their pregnancy. Others said their babies died at 20weeks and they had to deliver a still born. Trying to research every possible cause or option, I came across one medical website that said once this happens it is a sign that the entire placenta may detach completely. In anticipation of what my own doctor was going to tell me, I spend the rest of the day crying and in fear that something terrible was going to happen.
Until I write again…….
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