We were overjoyed to share our news with our families at Christmas. Hubby and I both knew that this baby would complete our family and we were so excited to finally be done with trying to have babies and would get to relax and really just enjoy our little family. I went to bed on Christmas night feeling full of hope and joy.
Some time in the middle of the night I got up to pee and immediately noticed red blood. I tried not to freak out too much, as I had had bleeding with G at almost the exact same time in my pregnancy. With her it had just been a sub chorionic hemorrhage and I prayed that this time it was the same. The bleeding wasn't heavy and there were some small blood clots. Of course I couldn't go back to sleep right away, but after a few hours I convinced myself to sleep and deal with it all in the morning. I knew that there was nothing I could do, that the life of this baby and my pregnancy rested in God's hands.
The next morning I called the clinic and was basically told what I knew they would say - it could be from anything, most likely a SCH, could be from having the ultrasound earlier in the week because of the meds that I was on, etc, etc. I was told to call if it got worse, I had painful cramping, etc. Finally by the next morning it appeared that the bleeding was stopping and I was just getting a little bit of brown upon wiping. During all of this, we were in the middle of a funeral viewing on Friday evening and had a funeral on Saturday morning because hubby's grandmother had passed away the weekend before Christmas. She was 97 and went peacefully in her sleep, but it was a sad time nonetheless and all the uncertainty with the pregnancy wasn't helping either of us.
I felt good most of the morning on Saturday but in the middle of the wake when I stood up to get in line for the food, I felt a gush, so off to the bathroom I rushed to find what appeared to be a large blood clot. But it was a dark dingy church basement bathroom, so I couldn't be sure. All I could think about was how during my first pregnancy I had such little amounts of bleeding yet lost a pregnancy. I then called the doctor on call because by that time the clinic was closed for the day. She again assured me that things were probably fine and it was really a wait and see game. She didn't want to schedule an ultrasound right away because she didn't want to make the bleeding any worse than it already was. She said to follow up with the clinic on Monday if nothing worse happened between now and then. I was reassured but not at the same time. Again, this pregnancy was still in God's hands and there was nothing I could do about it.
The bleeding began to taper off and by Monday morning and when I called the clinic to talk to my coordinator, she talked to the doctors and they decided to bring me in for an ultrasound on New Years Eve. I was super nervous, but had no more active bleeding between Monday and Wednesday so I was hopeful that things were just fine as they had been with G. At this point I was 6weeks6days pregnant. However, the ultrasound was not very encouraging. The tech doing the scan was very quiet and said she was going to scan and would then let me know what she found. She turned the screen and showed me the gestational sac and the yolk sac and said she was going to look in the sac. I figured she would show me right away that there was a baby and a heartbeat, that's how it had been with G and my ultrasound with her was at 6weeks1day and this time I was much further along and the baby should have been easily seen. But she didn't say anything and continued to scan.
Eventually she told me that she was looking at my ovaries and would go back to the gestational sac and look for a fetal pole. I can remember thinking to myself, ok, fetal pole, why isn't she looking for a heartbeat? but then I thought, who knows, I'm not an ultrasound tech, I don't know what they are supposed to be seeing. Finally she turned the screen towards me again and showed me the gestational sac and the yolk sac but said that there was nothing else there. Then she left to find us a room to meet with the doctor. I can remember telling hubby that this wasn't good. At this point in my pregnancy they should at least be able to see the baby and it sounded like there was no baby at all.
The tech came back and took us to a conference room to wait for the doctor. I was trying hard not to lose it while also trying to accept that this pregnancy was over, that there was no baby, that we were back at square one. Finally the doctor came to see us, it was my favorite doctor in the practice, the one who did my previous two transfers and who I had seen after the bleeding with my pregnancy with G. She explained that the gestational sac was only measuring at 5weeks5days and that the tech couldn't verify cardiac activity. The tech said she would catch a flicker, but couldn't find it again or long enough to stay on it and measure. What?? This was completely different than what the tech had said to me or at least led me to believe. The doctor was hopeful, saying that we were so close to being within a normal range for the pregnancy but once again we were in a wait and see situation.
We had already been scheduled for an ultrasound the following week. The ultrasound was originally supposed to be our second ultrasound that verify a viable pregnancy with a heartbeat and would then release us from the RE's care to the OB. Now it was an ultrasound that would tell us the fate of our pregnancy. The doctor also suggested that we could wait another 2 weeks instead if we wanted, because time would give us more definite information, but if we continued with the already scheduled ultrasound and the pregnancy hadn't progressed, then we would know for sure it was nonviable. She told us the choice was ours. Oh .. and on top of the baby measuring small, there was a very large sub chorionic hemorrhage around the baby, so that would account for the bleeding and could possibly lead to further bleeding.
We decided to keep the appointment for the following week and asked the doctor what to watch for as far as bleeding goes. How would we know if it was the SCH or an impending miscarriage? She explained what to look for in a miscarriage - dark brown blood, flesh like tissue versus red blood clots. She said that if I had extreme bleeding or pain, to call her immediately. So home we went to struggle through the next 6 days of waiting.
During all of this hubby was trying to get his work schedule situated so that he could be with me for the ultrasound and possibly home for the rest of the week after if necessary - meaning if we lost the baby or whatever he could be home for any type of procedures.
Finally, Tuesday morning was here and we were headed to the clinic for our ultrasound. I had no further bleeding, just some light spotting and mostly brown discharge when I wiped. I was thankful but nervous too. Most of my nausea had gone away, but it was hard to tell whether that was the normal course of things or if it was because I was losing the pregnancy. My nausea throughout the pregnancy so far hadn't been anything like it was with G. I would have one really bad day where I was sick to my stomach off and on all day followed by 1 or 2 days where I felt great and only had minimal nausea. I tried not to read too much into anything and continued to try to keep positive about the fate of the pregnancy. I kept telling the baby that I wasn't giving up, so he needed to not give up either.
We had a different ultrasound tech this time so I had to go through all that had been happening and what we were told with her before she began the scan. She explained she was going to scan and measure and then would show me what she was seeing. At least this time I wasn't freaking out because of her lack of feedback to me. After about 10 minutes or so she finally turned the screen towards me and showed that the gestational sac looked pretty much the same as it had the week before and that she couldn't see a fetal pole or a heartbeat. I should have been 7weeks5days, but the gestational sac was measuring at 5weeks3days and there was no yolk sac this time. In addition the SCH had grown larger.
Our pregnancy was officially over and the doctor was surprised that I hadn't been having more bleeding than I was. She told us we had two options. We could wait it out and give my body time to miscarry naturally. The pregnancy was small enough that there wouldn't be any problems passing it, but that it could takes days before I even started the miscarriage. My body seemed to be clinging to the pregnancy but I was also going to stop all of my meds, so that might help the process along as well. The other option was to have a d&c done, but the clinic would not be able to do it for another 10 days. Because they were not actively doing egg retrievals yet for the year, they did not have regular personnel for the anesthesia. Our third option was to contact my regular gynecologist to see if they could perform the D&C.
Luckily, the gyno was able to get me in for a consultation appointment the next day.
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