Terrance and I have always talked about having children and we knew we wanted more than one. We had our first child, Knox, November 12 2016 at 2:12pm. Our life, as many other parents know, was changed forever. We absolutely LOVE being parents and we could not imagine life without Knox. Having children is the best blessing & after my current experience I do not take it for granted.
Like many other couples Terrance and I had an unset timeline of how we wanted our family to grow. We didn't want our children too spaced out. When 2018 rolled around we began the talk of having a second child. I am not going to lie.. Terrance was way more excited about it than I was.. I didn't exactly ENJOY being pregnant. I was however excited for another baby so of course I jumped on board. We had a plan that we would begin to try in July because I did NOT want to be full blown pregnant in the summer again like with Knox.
I tracked my fertile days & that month we got pregnant. We are so thankful all it took was one try. Many couples struggle to get pregnant & I by no means want to throw that in anyones face.
My pregnancy with Knox was such a breeze I just expected this pregnancy to be the same.
BOY WAS I WRONG.....
6 weeks into this pregnancy I was hospitalized for Viral Meningitis. I woke up one morning with an excruciating headache. I would sit down and then the minute I stood up I felt like I was going to black out. I don't normally just rush to the ER for a headache but since I was pregnant I decided to call my primary care physician to get their opinion. I was told to go to the ER. I was sent home after being examined at the hospital. I was told I had a UTI (Urinary Tract Infection) and dehydration (Headache). I went home with antibiotics and told to drink lots of water.
That night the headache only got worse & I could not sleep. I got the chills and had a fever of 103. When i woke up the next morning the headache was so bad i began vomitting. I knew i had to go back to the ER. I was eventually admitted to stay at the hospital where the diagnosis was Viral Meningitis. I continued having a 104 fever for 3 days along with vomitting and finally on the fourth day I was able to go home fever free. The vomitting continued for 3 more weeks.. was it pregnancy related? Maybe.. Was it Meningitis related? Maybe.. I'll never know. All i know was I couldn't eat for a good 3 weeks and ended up losing 17 pounds.
Finally around 9 weeks I started to feel ok again. I was starting to eat more but was still vomitting. We had our first ultrasound where we saw baby was doing great. He was moving around, SO ACTIVE. We were starting to think all this was behind us and it was.. but a whole new set of problems were in our future we NEVER thought would happen.
We had our second baby appointment at 11 weeks where everything was still going great. All great news. Since everything with Knox's pregnancy was great we decided we would share the news to the world we were expecting after this appointment. We were almost to the second trimester or "Safe Zone". Usually in pregnancy the likelihood for a miscarriage is the highest while in the first trimester. We somewhat spoke too soon.
The day after our 11 week appointment I woke up that morning and was surprised when I saw blood on my toilet tissue when I wiped. I actually didn't freak out.. I texted my mom naturally & went downstairs to tell Terrance. He actually reassured me that spotting is sometimes common in pregnancy. I called the on call OB doctor and waited for a call back. In the meantime I fell asleep waiting for the call and missed it. When I woke up I went to the restroom and there was no more blood. I decided not to even worry about it. No more blood was present the rest of the weekend so I assumed it was just a fluke.
A few days later (3 days) I went to the restroom while at work and I noticed more bleeding but it was dark brown and almost had a discharge consistency. I called the doctor and was told it was old blood and completely normal but if the bleeding got heavier or if it changed colors or associated with cramping to give them a call back. An entire week went by and i was still seeing the "old blood" but I wasn't too concerned. The next week the consistancy of blood changed and started to mix with red blood. I called my OB and was seen that day.
At the doctors they checked for the heartbeat which there was one and then I had a pelvic exam by the Midwife. She didn't see any blood in the vagina but noticed some "old blood" when swabbing the area. I was told it was all just old blood my body was getting rid of which is common during the first trimester. She did tell me to go on a slight bed rest and to take it easy.
The next few weeks up until the present start to become a blur for me. Im not going to be able to tell you specific timelines but ill do my best to make it less confusing as possible. I do know we had an appointment with the high risk doctor for genetic testing at some point through all this and there was nothing abnormal seen on the ultrasounds and all the genetic testings came back normal. We also found out we are having a BOY!!!! This was great news.. we did want a girl but having a healthy baby was even more important. At this moment I became #BoyMom. Not long after finding all this great news out the bleeding started to become intense. I would wake up with a large blood circle on the bed sheets that turned into me ruining every single pair of underwear I owned. Everytime this would happen I would call my OB who would tell me to come in. We did ultrasounds where nothing was ever seen and baby boy always looked happy and healthy. There wasn't much my doctor could do for me. As long as the baby still had a heartbeat and nothing abnormal showed on ultrasounds it was just a guessing game.
One saturday I was sitting on the couch i was probably 14 weeks at this point. I got up to let Moo outside and blood started to run down my leg. I FREAKED. I went to the ER where they did an Ultrasound and monitored me. There was no conclusion to this visit other than baby is still ok and everything was looking good. Ofcourse my bleeding had stopped while in the ER (go figure). I was sent home and told to follow up with my OB on monday. The next day I started having really bad cramping. I would rate them a 5 or 6 on a scale from 1 - contraction pain. I just stuck it out and laid in bed all day because I had always been told nothing is wrong. Monday rolled around and I called my OB who wanted to see me that afternoon. They did an ultrasound and I was told they still can't find where the bleeding was coming from but now my cervix was shortening. A Normal cervix is 3-4cm but mine was measuring 2cm. They called their high risk doctor who just happened to be out of town that week and wouldn't be able to see me until the following monday. I started getting high anxiety. Why in the world is there only ONE perinatal doctor in the gainesville area?! Why can't my doctor refer me to someone in Cumming or Atlanta?! Dr. Allaire, the Gainesville high risk perinatal doctor looked at my scans from wherever he was and let me know there was not much he could do but that he would prescribe me Progesterone Suppositores that I would insert vaginally every night before bed. Progesterone tablets have not been proven to save pregnancies but there are not any negative studies on these pills either.
As I left that doctors appointment a million things started to run through my mind. One of my friends dealt with a similar situation at 21 weeks where her cervix began to open and she lost her baby. I started reading all kinds of things on google and the next day I made an appointment MYSELF with the closest perinatal group which was in Cumming. There was no way i was going to wait a week to see someone. I knew if i wasnt proactive or persistant and something happened to my baby I would never forgive myself.
At this appointment they did another ultrasound where they were not able to see where the bleeding was coming from but the good news was my cervix was back to a good healthy length! I can deal with the bleeding as long as my cervix was not shortening. The doctor told me there was not much more they could do for me. She said she does see women who bleed their entire pregnancy and have healthy babies. She always told me she has seen it end in miscarriage. The ugly truth is there is no preventing miscarriage. It will either happen or it won't and that was the reality I had to deal with. Some doctors believe in bed rest while other don't. This doctor did not. She told me to go ahead and live my life as normal, take care of my 2 year old and try not to worry about what may happen.
Two days later I woke up with cramping and bleeding.. of course the bleeding by this point is old news and it was just something i was getting used to. I had a follow up appointment with my regular OB who decided to measure my cervix length again just to make sure. This time I was told my cervix had shortened to 1.7cm which is not good. I immediately started to bawl. I for sure thought this was the beginning of the end. The midwife tried to do a pelvic exam but once I was in the stirrups there was too much blood for her to even see inside. I could see the look in her eyes as she went out of the room to get a doctors advice. Terrance and I's mind started to race. We knew this was not good. We thought today was going to be the day we loose our baby. The midwife came back in & told us we needed to go to the ER where they would probably monitor me at Labor and Delivery. I knew the gainesville high risk perinatal doctor was still out of town so I told her i would rather go to NorthSide Forsth ER where I knew there were several Perinatal Doctors on call. She agreed with me and told me if she were me she would do the same. It took Terrance and I 50 minutes to get to that hospital .Both of us just crying the entire way there. We had no idea what the night would hold but we prepared ourselves for the worse. At the ER they did an ultrasound and measured my cervix.. guess what.. My cervix was a normal size. How is this possible when just 2 hours earlier it was at a 1.7cm and not its above 3cm?? Something did not seem right. I felt strongly in my heart that the ultrasound techs at my regular OB had been measuring me wrong this entire time. I got really angry the more I thought about it. Before the Cumming ER let me go they did test my blood levels since by this point i had been bleeding almost non stop for 5 weeks. All tests came back normal and I was good to go. So again terrance and I went from horribly depressing news to a somewhat good outcome. Our minds had been through the RINGER that week .We were absolutely exhausted.
The next week my appointment with the Gainesville high risk perinatal Doctor finally came around.. had yet ANOTHER ultrasound. He looked at all the ultrasounds my OB took from when my cervix was "short". He confirmed that the measurements were correct although its still hard for me to wrap my head around that.. all i can do is trust him. He then diagnosed me with "Threatened Miscarriage". A threatened miscarriage is when you have all the symptoms of a miscarriage... Bleeding, Passing tissue and Clots, cramping except your cervix stays closed. I did forget to mention that while all this was going on I had been also passing baseball size clots which are HORRIFYING when they come out because they are bigger than the growing baby at the time. I was so scared my baby would be inside one of them. He told me that with threatened miscarriages I have a 50/50 chance of having a miscarriage. As long as my cervix stays closed all should be ok. It was nice to have a name to what was going on... but now I worried day after day "will i loose my baby today?". Its hard to get excited for a pregnancy when you are being told there is a high chance of miscarrying. I should be in the clear zone.. im 15 weeks..
That week was of course another emotional rollercoaster. I would bleed so much that i was going through a pad every hour.. How could SO much blood come out and my baby be ok? It was just something I needed to get used to and try not to worry about.
A few days passed and while i was sleeping i woke up and needed to use the restroom. The minute I stood up blood ran down both legs and left a trail form the bedroom to the bathroom. The halls and bathroom looked like a murder scene. It was so intense... but even then I didn't freak out. I had dealt with this for so many weeks and no one can ever give me an answer. By this point I was numb to all emotions. Poor terrance noticed I wasn't coming back to bed (I had to shower to remove all the blood) and woke up to blood everywhere. I could tell he was scared to death by what he saw. I went back to bed almost like nothing happened and Terrance was just shaking. The next morning we woke up.. cleaned the murder scene & went on with our day.
The next day I had another episode where I needed to go to the ER. I was checked out by the ER doctor who took my blood levels and determined I had become Anemic due to my blood loss over the last 6 weeks. So here I am.. Admitted in the hospital at Labor and Delivery.. Not sure when I get to leave. The Perinatal Doctor did an Ultrasound on me and was actually able to see the blood on the ultrasound. Unfortunately The bleeding had gotten really big and is hanging out between the placenta and the uterus. I am now at risk of Placenta Abruption which is where the placenta tears away from the Uterus. If this happens there is no saving my baby. He is too young at 16 weeks and would not make it in the world. Doctors don't try and save babies until 23 weeks.. I still have 6 more weeks until i'm in a "safer" zone. I have no idea when I will be released from the hospital. They want to monitor my Blood levels to make sure I don't need a blood transfusion and to monitor the bleeding. Our hopes are the bleeding will eventually stop and all this will be behind us and we can go on to have a healthy baby.. BUT the reality of miscarriage is still a high possibility.
Sometimes its easy to say "why me?". Why do bad things always seem to happen to me? You question God but at the same time pray to him asking him to save this baby & thank him for the gift of even being pregnant. Its a wave of emotions. One minute I can be hopeful and the next I just burst into tears because i can't even think of losing this baby who I have carried for 16 weeks. I am so sad for all the families who have gone through loss. NO ONE should experience that kind of pain and I hope and pray I will never have to experience it on that level. I know this was a long article and if you've made it this far.. WOW! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We need all the good vibes we can get. Each day is a blessing & the further we get the more likely it is everything will be ok. :)