hospital bed rest

Well, this pregnancy took an interesting turn a few days ago...

What started out as a perfect, textbook pregnancy with only a bit of mental junk (PgAL brain) going on, suddenly changed on Sunday morning, January 4th. I woke up a bit later than normal, as both of us had amazingly slept in until 8am, and went to the bathroom. I then saw a few spots of dark blood and one spot of bright red blood in my pantyliner and started to freak out. In the toilet there was a pretty substantial amount, maybe enough to fill a maxi pad. The flashbacks from bleeding uncontrollably during my last pregnancy were playing through my mind as I tried to breathe and calm down while James was walking the dog. When he came inside I called for him to come quick and said we needed to go to the hospital.

After our past experiences of a long wait in L&D, I packed a few things just in case we'd be staying all day, like my glasses, phone charger, my water bottle, and a couple of snacks.

Of course the girl checking us in was in training, so I was sitting in an uncomfortable chair thoroughly freaking out and wondering if I had bled much on the 20 minute drive to the hospital for a long time, but we finally got checked in and sent back to a bed to wait to be examined. Luckily when I changed into the hospital gown, there was no "new" blood, only "old" blood. After a while, an ultrasound tech came in and did a very thorough ultrasound. Of course, I couldn't see the screen, so I was wondering for the next hour until we heard the results. The nurse finally came in and told us that the radiologist read the ultrasound and said that it looks like my placenta may be separating again (remember, last time I had a placental abruption). Obviously, this was NOT the news I wanted to hear and I immediately thought of the worst case scenario, only taking comfort in the fact that we were past "v-day" and the baby has a chance this time. Because of this, they were admitting me, and immediately transferred me to a room.

A whole bunch of tears later, the on-call doctor called us and told me not to worry, and that we will have a perinatologist come in the next day to do a better ultrasound. She said not to trust what the radiologist said 100% because sometimes they don't read these types of issues correctly, so I was holding onto hope from that.

On Monday, the perinatologist came by on her lunch break so we wouldn't have to wait until 5:30 like they had told us, which I appreciated. She was very positive and said that we'd take a look first at the baby and the placenta, and then the cervix, and if everything looked good I might be able to go home after 48 hours assuming there was no new blood or contractions.

The first part of the ultrasound was great, baby looks awesome, and he's measuring a full week ahead (which doesn't mean much in terms of how he'd do outside the womb, but I feel more comfortable knowing he's a little less fragile than if he was measuring on time) so that means that the placenta is doing its job and nourishing him like it's supposed to. He has a good amount of fluid, and his heart and bones look good as well. The placenta had a couple of dark spots on it, which the doctor thinks the radiologist may have thought were separations, when really they're most likely vascular pools, and apparently nothing to worry about. She did see one spot on the edge of the placenta that looked like a small separation, and could very well be where the blood had come from, but she was still positive and thinking I could go home after 48 hours if there weren't any complications.

But then she did the vaginal ultrasound (which I fondly call the dildocam), and her demeanor changed. I've gotten really good at reading ultrasounds during these pregnancies, so I can most of the time figure out what they are looking at, and I've had enough didocam ultrasounds to usually be able to point out my cervix, but I honestly could not see it. That's because it is down from its normal 4 centimeters to only about 9mm. That is EXTREMELY short. Thankfully I haven't had contractions, because it probably wouldn't take very long to dilate that thin little cervix...

Anyway, after that news, we decided that because the baby has a much higher survival rate with no longterm complications at 28 weeks, that's our first goal to get to, so I will be on hospital bed rest until 28 weeks, which falls on January 21st, and then we will reevaluate. Luckily I can still get up to go to the bathroom and shower, and because I didn't have anything bad happen in the first 48 hours, I don't have to wear the monitors all the time anymore. Instead, I have NSTs (non-stress tests), which monitor his heartbeat on one belly monitor, and my uterus (to make sure there's no contractions) on another belly monitor for about a half an hour twice a day. I actually really like the NSTs because he usually wakes up and tries to kick the monitors off, which is fun to hear.

So 5 days down, 13 to go (hopefully that number doesn't mean anything - 13 hasn't been good to me lately!) and then hopefully I can go home to be on bed rest there. I miss Liza soooooooo much and I miss my comfy bed. But until the baby has a better chance of being complication-free, I do prefer to be here where the doctors can help me as soon as possible.