We spent 3 hours at Labor and Delivery at my normal hospital getting checked out. They did not see any active bleeding, and let us go home.
One of the doctors found out our Informaseq results (a Non-Invasive Prenatal...Something that is called NIPS, other tests in this category are the Harmony, Materniti21...etc.) We were negative for Trisomies 21, 13, and 18! And baby boy was definitely a boy. Yay! We were expecting this news because none of the ultrasounds showed typical indicators of these trisomies, but still. Sigh of relief.
I spent the day quietly and Nick went to work. That afternoon we saw Avengers 2 (awesome movie!) with some friends. Baby boy was incredibly active during the loud parts of the movie and even kicked me in the amnio spot (ow!) which was still tender.
We did a bit of walking but not a lot, and it was pretty slow. After the movie we went home and Nick called his parents and told them about the blood test results.
As soon as he hung up I stood up to go to bed. And then... I felt like I was...peeing myself? I felt a gush and quickly made my way to the bathroom. It felt like when your period starts unexpectedly. I sat down on the toilet and saw that my underwear was soaked with blood and it had leaked through my jean shorts. As I sat on the toilet, blood came out for about 10 seconds.
Surprisingly I was not scared, more resigned. Thankfully, the blood stopped pouring out so much. Nick got me a pad and new underwear and pants and I called labor and delivery again. We went right in.
They did another speculum exam and saw bleeding. They ran more blood tests (they had done some that morning too) and put in an IV (in the bend of my wrist--owwww. Do not let them do this. You can't move your hand.) Then they called paramedics to transport me to the 2nd opinion hospital which was better equipped to deal with a placenta previa bleed and potential preterm labor.
Preterm labor at 25 weeks is no joke. 23-24 weeks is the cutoff for viability. If baby boy is born now, he would have a fight to survive and develop normally. I was given a steroid shot in my back/butt area which helps his lung, neuro, and skin development in case he came out early. You can get 2 courses of steroid shots for preterm labor safely, and each course is 2 shots 24 hours apart.
The paramedics came and loaded me up into an ambulance. I felt really silly because I felt fine. Nick followed us to the hospital (ambulances are crazy bumpy, fyi).
We went into the hospital and into triage in a preterm/labor area. I had another exam done and they saw a blood clot at my cervix but not active bleeding. (Yay!) I was still spotting quite a bit. They moved us into a huge private room in the PICU (Preterm Intensive Care Unit). They re-did my IV because my arm was swollen from fluids and I couldn't move my wrist. This IV was on my forearm and was much better! They hooked monitors on for baby's heartbeat and to check contractions and left those on for 24 hours. At this point it was about 4 am and they brought in a chair for Nick to sleep in. He could have gone home but I was pretty nervous and he stayed for me.
We got about 2 hours sleep before doctors came in.
We were told that we would stay for 3 days to be monitored. They drew more blood for tests (at this point I counted, and I had been stuck about 10 times in five days).
Honestly, the days kind of blended together. I had lovely nurses. The first day I had red spotting still, and may have had another speculum exam, I can't remember. Nick and I had been up for over 30 hours with 2 hours sleep. He went home to sleep for a while and I tried but couldn't. We spent the day quietly with lots of pop-ins from nurses and doctors, and lots of monitoring. I was not allowed to eat until midnight of that night in case we needed an emergency c-section. Liquid diets are no fun, fyi.
We talked to a NICU doctor who was perfectly lovely and the NICU sounds amazing... but 25 weeks is too early. 26 weeks is slightly better because he'd have more surfactant in his lungs, but still the first goal is to make it to 28 weeks. After that, 32 weeks. They told us they had a baby born at 23 weeks who was in the NICU right then. It's amazing what they can do, but there are still lots of potential complications that we want to try to avoid. Keep cooking, little guy!
Sunday and Monday were quiet days. Nick and I played some card games Sunday and spent a lot of time talking to parents and friends. The spotting continued to decrease which was perfect. I was also allowed to eat and totally took advantage!
Monday Nick had to go to work and I took it easy, but the time really flew! I was busy making phone calls and writing up this blog, as well as helping my mom work on redoing our vacation. We were going to go to Disney World a week from the bleeding episode, but my doctors forbade travel. We need to stay close in case of more bleeding, and stay close to a NICU.
I got a prescription for macrobid for a tiny bladder infection and talked to my doctor at the original hospital. Monday at 7pm my IV was removed and we got to go home! This hospital was wonderful but I am exhausted from all the resting. I'm very happy to be home! Now the goal is to take it easy and keep baby boy cooking away.
Tomorrow we have a fetal MRI an hour away at a children's hospital. This will hopefully give us more answers about what is going on with our boy!
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