11 Weeks with Emelia: ER

Warning: This post gets pretty graphic. If you’re not in a place to read about pregnancy and bleeding, or topics surrounding the loss of a baby, please feel free to skip this post. Take care of yourself first.

Edited to add: I’m OK. The baby is OK.

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11 weeks. I found out I have an anterior placenta, I’ve been having lots of little gas bubbles that I keep thinking is the baby, but obviously isn’t since, well, anterior placenta. Nausea=better than last week, but I still have Defcon levels some days.

I’ve been feeling pretty good about this pregnancy since week 6 when I saw the heartbeat. I worried, sure, but it was nothing like Olivia. I was feeling pretty confident, I was thinking ahead, I was buying baby items. I was feeling good about all this.

Tuesday evening, after Chris and I put Olivia to bed, we were sitting out on the couch and I was trying to get the energy to get my PIO shot done. The vial was hanging out under my boob warming up when I felt a gush of fluid between my legs. I didn’t think much about it, because, honestly, in pregnancy, there’s lots and lots of discharge. You’re welcome for that. So that’s what I thought it was and even laughed as I stood up.

“Now I have to go change my underwear.”

Chris stood up with me and both of us saw a dime-sized spot on the couch. We both reached down and felt it. Chris saw the darkness on his fingers in the dimness of the living room. I, because I insist on sniffing things that come out of me, brought my hand to my face and was hit with a scent of metal.

“It’s blood,” I said, starting across the living room and down the hall to the bedroom. I turned on the light in the bathroom, walked to the toilet and pulled my pajama pants and underwear down. My head swam.

There was blood. A lot of it. Soaking my underwear and through to my pants.

“Oh God.” I said, and as I did, I saw the red flowing down my legs. I sat down, and I didn’t know what to do. I spread my legs and saw the blood steadily trickling out of me, pooling into the toilet.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god.” My breaths started coming faster. This isn’t happening. This isn’t going to happen to me at 11 weeks. I grabbed some toilet paper and started rubbing at the blood on my legs. The trickling of blood in the toilet wasn’t stopping. I seriously didn’t know what to fucking do and I realized I was panicking.

I called Chris’s name and when he didn’t answer, I shouted it. I shouted it again. I heard Olivia’s door open as he walked into the bathroom.

“Sorry, I was downstairs, getting the peroxide for the couch,” he said, looking at me and then the toilet seat which was now smeared with bright red blood.

Olivia appeared behind him and I tried to shield the blood from her.

“You bleeding, Mama?” she asked in excitement.

I told her I was OK. I told Chris I needed to go to the hospital right now. My hands were shaking as I tried to wipe off as much of the blood as I could. I told him I needed a new pair of underwear and the biggest pad I had. Chris left to get Olivia ready and I dressed, grabbing the OB information book I had gotten from my nurse visit last week. Tearing through the pages, trying to find the number of the birth center. I honestly couldn’t remember if I was supposed to call there or go to the ER. I gave up and looked up the number on my phone. They told me I needed to go to the ER. Chris came back in and handed me my bra and a shirt.

We headed down to the entryway. Should I grab a sweatshirt? Fuck, I should grab a bar or something. I hadn’t eaten in a few hours. I ended up walking out of the house without either.

“We’re going to the hopspital!” Olivia exclaimed happily as Chris buckled her into her car seat, “Maybe they give you a SHOT, Mama!!”

I leaned back and willed my body to stop gushing blood.

“It can’t end this way,” I cried to Chris as he drove the four blocks to the hospital, “It can’t end like this after everything.”

He dropped me off at the entrance and I shuffled in alone, looking down so no one would see me crying.

“Welcome,” the receptionist greeted, “Name and date of birth?”

My life is ending as I’m standing here, I wanted to say. I gave her the information and found an empty section as Chris and Olivia came in. She babbled happily to me as she showed her book, alternating between asking me to draw shapes and telling me, “It’s OK, Mama, don’t cry.”

I texted my friend: I’m bleeding. A lot. I’m in the ER.

When the triage nurse came out and called my name, I looked up and saw it was a guy.

“Fuck,” I said under my breath. I needed him to be understanding tonight. I prayed he was understanding.

Olivia came with me because Chris had gotten a call from work. The nurse took my blood pressure (really high) and started asking me all the generic questions. Olivia put her hand on my leg and looked up into my face.

“It’s OK Mama. Mama, you have a tear on your face. Here,” she brought her hand up, “Let me get it for you.” I love this little girl so much.

“So you’re here for vaginal bleeding? And you’re how many weeks? Are you bleeding like a period?”

I started crying and shook my head, “No, it’s more than a period.”

My parents arrived and Olivia saw them behind me through the partition with Chris.

“Gigi and Pop are here!” she hollered. She waved frantically. Bless her. To her, this was a big adventure at 9:15 at night. She took off behind me and the nurse left with her to talk to Chris.

As soon as they were gone, I bent over, put my hands over my face and sobbed. Wracking, horrible sobs that the nurses in the back probably saw. I never wanted my mom more.

The nurse came back and put his hand on my shoulder. “I know this is so scary for you,” he said softly, “I’m going to go make sure your room is free. Are you OK waiting here by yourself?” He was amazing. He came back a few minutes later and walked me to my room. “We’re going to help you tonight,” he said and then he left to get Chris.

My nurse came in a few moments later with a gown. She asked if I wanted a big chux pad on the bed under me, in case I thought I might leak through. I told her yes. I changed into the gown, and I couldn’t look at what was happening in my underwear. Chris came in right as I was getting into the bed. She checked my blood pressure again (high, but better than in triage) and I told her the story through tears. She told me they’ll want to do an exam and ultrasound and the doctor should be in soon. Then she was gone.

I lay there, trying to ignore the small spurts of blood coming out of me every few minutes and Chris made small talk. A half hour went by. I know at 11 weeks, there’s nothing anyone can do. No one would be able to save my baby if that’s what was happening, but no one was getting the memo that they needed to hurry up and figure out what was wrong with me.

At 10:00, my finger hovered over the call button. I had to pee. I was hungry. I needed the doctor to come in. A few minutes later, she came, breezing in, and introducing herself, dragging in a portable ultrasound machine. She seemed nice. She told me she was going to do an ultrasound and I told her I needed to go to the bathroom.

“Yes, that’s fine,” she said, “It’s better to not have a full bladder.” I told her I was nervous to stand up because I figured there’d be a big gush of blood. I said I felt OK going to the bathroom next door versus getting a commode in there. I sat up and scooted to the edge, looking back to see a huge smear of blood left on the chux. Oh god. She took my arm and I started to stand.

And I felt…something. Something big slip out of me and I shot my hand between my legs, the other pressing on the bed for balance.

“Wait!” I cried, “Wait, wait, wait, stop.” And then I wailed. I wailed and babbled to stop. I don’t know what Chris was thinking right then and there seeing me.

“Did something come out?” she asked gently. And I wailed harder because for some reason that seemed to solidify it for me. That someone else was asking what I was thinking was happening. I thought my baby had just slipped out of my body. I thought finding the blood in my underwear was the worst thing. This was ten times worse if it was possible.

“OK, ” she said, “Let’s get you back into bed. We’ll get the commode in here and I’ll check you out.”

I still had my hand cupped between my legs, lightly, because I would have further lost it if I really pushed and felt something there. I laid back down and she helped me undress. My underwear was fucked. The pad was completely soaked and the blood had seeped all up and down my underwear. She reached between my legs and grabbed a clot the size of my palm.

“I’m going to check this to see if there’s anything in there, but it looks like a clot,” she said softly. I laid there, my breath coming in gasps. Please, I prayed, Please don’t let it be the baby. There was silence as she took the clot to the sink in a pan. No, no it was just a clot. Just blood.

I have no words for that moment. So I’m just going to go on.

She left and I used the commode. When I stood up, I had left a huge smear on the seat. Chris balled up the old pad on the bed and spread out a new one for me. I lay back down naked under the gown. While we waited yet again, I didn’t feel the gushes as often so I knew the bleeding had slowed.

She came back in with the portable ultrasound again and gelled up my belly. The machine was turned away from me so couldn’t see anything. She moved the wand around silently. Chris was at the end of the bed, staring at the screen. I stared into his eyes for any sort of confirmation. A year later, I saw his head nod. He looked at me and blinked his eyes.

“There’s movement,” he mouthed to me. I nodded.

Yes, she confirmed, the quality was poor, and she couldn’t visualize the heartbeat, but there was a blob and the blob was wiggling around.

OK, OK, the baby is here. The baby is alive.

She told me she was going to order labs, an US in radiology and would do a pelvic exam. The nurse came in when the doctor left. I told her I still was having morning sickness and oh my god could I please have some water and crackers. She said she would go ask my doctor if that was OK. She never came back.

Chris, because he’s my soul mate and because I knew the baby was OK, asked me if I wanted to see my blood clot. Yes, yes, I did.

The lab tech came soon after to draw my blood. I saw him glance at the commode, the seat smeared red. I saw him glance at the pan with my palm-sized clot, now in pieces. My bloody chux pad was hanging out by the garbage. My room was starting to look like someone had been murdered in there.

“Sorry about all the blood,” I offered.

He waved a hand, “Oh don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse tonight.”

Yeah, I’m sure.

Later, an older man from radiology came and took my whole bed to get the US since I didn’t want to stand. He was nice enough, but I wished I had a woman. Actually, I wished I had had a damn OBGYN, but I don’t get that luxury until I’m further along. I explained to the guy that I had an anterior placenta and a tilted-as-fuck uterus so it would probably be better to do this vaginally. He spread the gel on my stomach and for the next three minutes pushed the wand around my bruises and C-section scar. I dig my fingers into my gown and gritted my teeth against the pain.

“I think we’ll try this vaginally,” he said. Fuck.

Then he propped something under my butt, had me spread my legs and asked if I could insert the probe myself for privacy.

I didn’t give a shit about privacy at this point, but I stuck it in.

“I don’t know how far to put it,” I said. He said that was fine and took it from me.

And then we waited again. I couldn’t see the screen again. I looked up at Chris’s face again, waiting.

And waiting.

And finally, a nod.

“Heartbeat,” he mouthed to me.

The tech finally turned the screen so I could see Queso… wiggling around like mad. Cool as a cuke. Had better things to do than freak out over his assumed demise. Heart rate of 146. Measuring exactly on track at 1.8 inches. If the tech had paused the image just right I could have counted all five of my baby’s toes. Jesus.

I thought I lost him that night. You know, I’m pretty sure I felt this way about Olivia in the first trimester, but this little baby, this was a baby I needed to protect at all costs. But if you would have asked me before if I loved this baby like I love Olivia, I probably would have hesitated a bit. That night in the ER, when I thought his little body had left mine, that was when I knew I loved him. As fiercely as I love my little girl. You guys, I can’t go through this again.

Later, when I was back in my room, the night nurse came on call and introduced herself. I asked her if I could please please have some crackers and water. It was midnight, six and a half hours since I had eaten anything. The adrenaline and the fact that I was just lying around in bed had kept my symptoms away, but standing up to walk to the pelvic bed now in my room, did me in and I could feel the nausea and hunger returning with a vengeance. She came back with not two or three, but an armload of crackers and a styrofoam cup of water. Holy crap, I ate four packs in a row waiting for the doctor to come back.

After the pelvic exam, the doctor told us she couldn’t find any source of bleeding. There was no SCH on the ultrasound, no lacerations in my vagina. My cervix looked a little irritated, but she couldn’t say for certain that’s where the bleed had come from. She wanted to check my cervix and make sure it was closed.

“If it is, it means, everything is healthy,” she explained, “If it’s open…” she stopped. “Well, that would mean things aren’t looking healthy.”

I licked my lips. What if this was it? What if my cervix was open? Oh my god, can they fix that?

She checked. Cervix closed. I decided I couldn’t take any more stress that night. We were cleared to go, and I was told to take it easy. Call my fertility clinic. We got home at 1:00 am. Olivia was sleeping at my parents. I retrieved the vial of PIO from the bedsheets where I had tossed it earlier that night. I stuck it under my boob and ate an ice cream sandwich while we waited for it to warm. Then he gave me the shot and we went to bed. I thought I would have trouble sleeping, but because the blood had drastically slowed, I felt a little better to fall asleep.

The next morning I called and miraculously got in with my new OB for the next morning after someone canceled. Houston told me to give myself a 3mL shot of PIO and wait for a callback.

Later that afternoon, they told me that weaning off the PIO could cause bleeding, which could have been exacerbated by the blood thinner. They said to take 3mL of PIO (my usual dose is 2) that night, Thursday and Friday, then drop to 2mL over the weekend and then I can start alternating every other day until the following Saturday. So yesterday I gave myself three PIO shots in a span of 17 hours. The Lovenox is officially discontinued.

I feel better today, but yesterday I think I was really feeling the effects of blood loss. I was tired and weak and every time I would sit back down again, my heart was pounding.

I’ll talk about my OB visit from today in another post because this one is already around 3,000 words and because it’s me and I’m high maintenance, it’s a post all on its own.

So. 11 weeks. Let’s never do this again, shall we?