Not Your Typical Friday......

Yesterday was by no means a typical Friday for me and in fact, it was probably one of the scariest days of my entire life. It started out normal enough, as I woke up shortly after 7 am to get ready for work and was greeted shortly thereafter by my sweet little Hudson peeking into the bathroom to say good morning, in his own way of course! I hurriedly changed his diaper, got him some milk from the kitchen, turned on some Noggin and tucked him into our bed next to his daddy before returning to the bathroom to finish getting ready for the day. I had to run by the bank on the way into the office, so I was trying to get out on time, but was already running behind which has been the case a lot these days. It was around 8am and I was almost ready to go when something happened that caused my heart to sink and my eyes to well up full of tears......to put it bluntly, I had started bleeding and was automatically completely terrified. I started to tremble as I shouted from the bathroom to David in the bedroom and told him what was happening. Of course he was in shock and didn't really know what to do, say or anything at the time, which is completely understandable. I decided to take a few minutes to catch my breath and assess the situation as my first thought was that I was possibly having a miscarriage as the blood was bright red in color and there was a lot of it....this is probably totally TMI for most people, but seriously, I was bleeding as if I was on my cycle although there was absolutely NO cramping or any other pain or symptoms. At this point, I was hysterical and could not stop crying. Against what I truly wanted to do, I grabbed a ton of tissue and decided to go ahead and leave for work because I did have a couple of deadlines that morning that I absolutely could not put off. My thought was that I would go in and that I would call my OB and get further instruction as to if I should go in to see her or not based on whether or not the bleeding was continuing by the time I got to work or if it had stopped. Either way, I was fairly certain that she would have me come in, but I knew that it might take a couple of calls before I was able to actually speak to a nurse and get an answer. In any case, I headed to work, crying as I drove the entire way....I swear I was swerving because I couldn't see through the onpouring of tears. I made it to work and got caught up in a few things right when I arrived, but called my OB and left a message as soon as I could. After I didn't hear back within 30 minutes or so, I continued to call until I got one of the nurses on the phone. In the meantime, the bleeding had lessened, but was still quite a bit and I had also passed a rather large clot as well. Once this happened, I was beside myself and almost threw up in my office because I was in full on hysterics and was certain that I was going to lose our baby....I finally spoke to the nurse who told me to come on in and to be there by 12:30 to see my OB. It was almost 11:30 am at this time, so I called David promptly and told him that I was on my way to pick him up and go straight to the hospital where my OB offices. I also told David about the fact that I had passed a large clot and that I thought it was over....those were my words exactly....not that the worst was over by any means, but no, that my pregnancy was over. It was horrible....I felt so heartbroken, scared and angry.

I left work and drove quickly home to pick up David....I swear I drove way too fast, but I was desperate to get to my doctor to find out what was going on. Thankfully, Hudson was already at my mom's as she had offered to watch him even though David was not working so that he could put up our Christmas lights during the day. At this point, Christmas lights were NOT going to happen and truly, I thought that we were going to have the worst Christmas ever. I continued to pray as I drove home and as I had been ever since this nightmare began hours earlier. I got to the house and David was standing in the driveway waiting on me....we switched places so that he could drive and we headed to the hospital. Not many words were spoken during the drive, which so happened to seem like the longest car ride in history I might add. I continued to cry, shake my head and generally feel like I was in the middle of some bad, bad dream. I was irrational of course and decided to take my anger out on everyone that couldn't drive on the way there.....I blurted out far too many expletives between our house and the hospital, but I really couldn't help myself at the time, like I said, I was irrational and angry.

We arrived at the hospital just minutes before I was scheduled to see my OB and we hurriedly parked the car and went to the doctor's office. I quickly signed in and thankfully, the nurse came out and called my name within minutes after our arrival. We headed back and of course, the first thing I got to do was pee in a cup yet again. This was a good thing as I did get to acknowledge by this time that the bleeding has virtually subsided, so I was a bit more hopeful....well, let me just say that I never fully gave up hope and fully believe that God will provide and take care of us in any situation, he will not give us more than we can handle and I wanted so very badly to believe that we would be protected in this horrible situation and that our baby would be saved....with that being said, everything seemed very grim to me up to that point purely just because I was bleeding so much and it's so hard to believe everything would be okay when everything clearly seems so wrong. I get weighed, have my blood pressure taken, the nurse asks me some questions and then quickly ushers David and myself into the ultrasound room. She explains to me that my OB will be doing a sonogram first, then asks me to undress from the waist down and to wait for my OB. Again, more waiting, the room was so quiet and David was just sitting there reading magazines while I stared blankly at the wall. I was thinking what I could have done to have caused this or why was this happening to us and then I looked over at the ultrasound monitor and saw my name and remembered the last time I saw it......with Hudson. For some reason a peace came over me at that time, I felt more at peace sitting on that table looking at that screen then I had felt the entire day. I was still terrified, but something about seeing that screen made me breathe a slight sigh of relief even if it was just for a brief moment. Finally my doctor came in and immediately made me feel so much more at ease just by her demeanor and her warmth, she seemed so concerned and caring and although I was scared to hear what she would have to say, I knew that she would take the best care of me and of our baby. She explained what she was going to do and continued to prep my poor little belly for the sonogram, she waved the wand over my abdomen and continued with the words....well, let me tell you first what I do see...I held my breath at this time and clinched my hands really tight awaiting the words to come from her mouth....I wasn't sure at that time what she would say but I was terrified of what she might say....she continued and said, I see a strong heartbeat....and I also see a completely healthy little baby....WOW, I was beside myself....Thank God, these words were the most beautiful words I have heard in a long time and I seriously started to tear up from joy just from hearing those perfect words coming from her mouth.....it was the answer to my prayers, I smiled and looked at David and we both breathed a HUGE sigh of relief. A couple of minutes later, I actually even cracked a joke and asked him if he was mad at me for scaring him like that! We were in a moment of complete happiness and even better, we were able to soak in the amazing news while looking at our little one, completely healthy and active too! My OB did show me that for some reason, my placenta is really low and she explained that with the placenta being so low it could have contributed to the bleeding. She also said that any cramping, intercourse, dehydration and many other reasons could contribute to such bleeding and that based on everything she saw she did not think that it was anything too serious. She did say that I should definitely report any further bleeding or if it did not completely subside, but that other than that, the placenta should move upward as I progress in my pregnancy and that I should not anticipate to have any other problems. With that being said, it is not completely out of the question that I might have further bleeding and she did say that I could have complications if the placenta did not move up and continued to stay low, but again, she said that normally it moves upward so it should be okay. I did explain to her that I was sick for two days earlier in the week and that I threw up quite a bit and she did say that between the cramping from throwing up and the dehydration from the same thing could very well be why I started bleeding. She said that I should be on pelvic rest for some time and that she would see how I was doing on my next visit. She went ahead and did measurements on the baby and gave us an official due date. Amazingly enough, she gave me the EXACT same due date that I had previously calculated on my own based on my last cycle dates. We all got a little chuckle out of that....David was pretty shocked that I called it right on! She also sent along one of the sonogram pics of our little one with us as well, which is the cutest little peanut I have ever laid my eyes on! (I will post the sonogram pic later since I need to scan it first) So, the official due date is June 28th, which makes me 11 weeks along right now and I will be having a scheduled c-section that we will schedule later in my pregnancy. Since my next appt. was supposed to be this next Wednesday, she said that I did not need to come back again until 4 weeks for my normal appt. in January. She said that she probably would not do a sonogram next time unless there was a reason to do one, but that she would do one at the following appt., so we will likely find out our little one's gender on the next visit after which will be in early February. On that note, she did say that the baby was being stubborn when she was trying to measure it and told us that we might just have a stubborn little boy in there, ha! So, everything is fine.....it's more than fine actually, it is perfect in my eyes as my worst fears and what I had presumed to be the beginning of the worst day of my life had ended with such a beautiful thing......a perfectly healthly little heartbeat and the image of a perfectly healthy little baby girl or boy that was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It was absolutely incredible, especially after thinking that you would never get to see such a thing. I already love this baby more than I could ever imagine and I absolutely cannot wait to meet our little one in just a little over six months away. We are both just so relieved and so happy, it's simply amazing and we couldn't ask for anything more. What a blessing we truly have been given! God is good.