Warning: this post is graphic.
Tuesday morning I sat at the dining room table eating oatmeal with
Caden, trying to breathe through my nausea enough to get my breakfast down,
when I sneezed and something gushed out of me. I stood up to see blood, lots of
it, bright red covering the seat, more gushing out of me. I lost my head. I
felt like I moved about a foot and half away from myself and was watching as I
covered my mouth, shaking my head and saying, "No, no." I ran to my
room trailing blood behind me. Cameron followed me, offering a towel to put
between my legs. “Deep breaths, Katie, who do I call?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.” But then another gush came
roaring out of me and I said, “Call ORM, the number is in my phone.” Cameron
called the fertility doc, and I tried to breathe, heard Caden jumping on the
couch and realized I needed to find someone to care for him. When I stood up to
look for Cameron’s phone, more blood. I managed to get his phone unlocked and
made some phone calls, no one answering at 7:00 am, but Lucy called me right
back and I could barely get any words out because of the sobbing and she said,
“I’m coming right over.” Once I knew Caden would be taken care of I started to
make an attempt to clean up a little and get some clothes on, but it was like
trying to dry the floor when the bathtub is overflowing. All I managed to do was smear
blood all over the floor. Cameron was still on the phone with the clinic, and
he asked are you passing clots? I took away the towel between my legs to
inspect and just about then I passed an enormous clot, which I assumed was one
of the babies. I squatted down on the floor in a fresh wave of sobbing and
heard Caden from the other room ask Lucy, “What’s happening to my mama?” They
took him to their place. And I tried to clean myself up, with little luck and
finally just put clothes and a pad on over the mess. Cameron put towels down in
the car and we left. At some point things slowed down for me. I put on the
music we listened to just after they put the embryos back in my body, what I
think of as their coming home song. I found a place in me that hoped that one
of them would be ok. I also just sort of surrendered. I am not in control.
Cameron held my hand the whole drive. Many times I thought, “I can’t believe we
are doing this again.” By the time we got there I had bled through everything I
was wearing and the two towels on the car seat.
When we got there, the waiting room held a few women, showered and
hopeful, there for some piece of their journey to try and have a baby. I felt like a
gorey harbinger and wanted to shield them from my puffy face and bloody sweats.
The receptionist quickly checked me in and said “They’ll call you shortly.” I
looked at the chairs in their stripes and prints tastefully chosen to match the
walls and artwork. “I can’t sit in those chairs. I’ve bled all through my
clothes.” Faces creased with empathy and they led me into a room where I stood
awkwardly while a nurse turned on the ultrasound machine and laboriously
entered data. I undressed and sat on blue and white crinkly pads, a paper drape
over me, and waited. The nurse practitioner came in and in very little time she
was poking around to see what she could find in there.
Two babies. Two heartbeats. Going strong. Waves of hope and relief
washed over me as she measured them and found them to have grown appropriately
and said they looked perfect. “Then what was that?”
I have a subchorionic hematoma. It is basically bleeding and
clotting in between the membranes of the uterus and the placenta. The placenta
hasn’t completely formed yet, so this confuses me a good bit, but from what I
understand this condition at this stage of pregnancy is much less problematic
than at later stages. It could heal up and resolve itself, which is what I am
hoping for. Right now I am hardly bleeding at all. Reading different pregnancy
forums it seems sometimes they just go away quickly, sometimes they stick
around for the entire pregnancy. The doctor said that it often resolves itself,
but that this causes the pregnancy to be less stable. Not the words a five time
survivor of miscarriage wants to hear, but right now they are ok. I am still
pregnant. We might get babies out of this after all.
I am on modified bed rest until the next ultrasound, which will be
in a week. I need the rest. Nausea, a bad chest cold, a heavy bout of bleeding,
and the emotions of a threatened miscarriage have drained me of energy.
Strangely enough, there has been a positive shift in my psyche
with this event. Since I have been
pregnant this time, I have been somewhat haunted by my past pregnancies and
miscarriages, and have had a deep fear of experiencing the physical act of
miscarrying again. Got that out of the way yesterday! Although I did not
miscarry, the bleeding I experienced was comparable to some of my harder
miscarriages. It has also opened my eyes and heart to the reality that there is
no holding back at this point. I already love these babies, and if it doesn’t
work out, it will hurt like a mother fucker, but we are already in. They are
already a part of our family. There is no pre-emptive protection from grief
available. I also have renewed faith in the power of Cameron and mine’s
relationship- whatever happens, we will get through it. Driving in the car,
holding his hand, I felt our love coursing through us. Cameron even said at one
point “I wouldn’t want to go through this with anyone but you.” We have been
through so much, and we are still standing Whether the future brings us two new
babies, or their loss, we will survive. For now, we just have to surrender to
the ride, and hope for the best.
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