Pretty Scary

Sooooo....just a few days after my "so different" post, things started to seem very familiar - and not in a good way.


Sunday evening I was lying on the couch when I felt a little fluid leaking - I went to the bathroom and there was blood.  I was concerned, of course, but not freaking out, because they had seen a subchorionic hematoma on the ultrasound since our week 10 scan.  


I went to the other room to get my phone to call the doctor when I started leaking a lot of fluid.  I started crying and told Forest my water broke. We were in shock - incredulous - my cervix was <4 cm long and closed last Tuesday! How could this happen??!!?!?


We went to the closest hospital and called my doctor's exchange on the way and told them my water broke.  She called back immediately and said she was calling the hospital and telling them to admit me right to L&D.


They put me on a stretcher and took me up to L&D.  There was a large pool of clear fluid on the stretcher.  When my doctor arrived she examined me and there was a lot of horrible, awful looking blood.  She said she couldn't see my cervix and she said that was good, because it meant nothing had progressed very far down the birth canal, but she didn't want to be poking around in there anymore.


They brought in a bedside ultrasound machine.  Both babies were kicking and squirming and appeared to have normal fluid levels.  She said it was a good sign that Baby A was fully visible on ultrasound, in a transverse lie - she had not entered the birth canal at all.  She said that they'd have the perinatologist evaluate me Monday morning and that it is theoretically possible to be on bed rest for many, many weeks - even ruptured - to reach viability.  We had zero hope before she got there, but with those positive findings, we had some hope to hold on to.


Monday's ultrasound revealed normal fluid levels around both babies.  They looked at my cervix with the abdominal ultrasound and said that, while they couldn't get exact measurements without a transvaginal ultrasound (which they didn't want to do because it might exacerbate the bleeding), my cervix appeared long and closed. He said that it "definitely isn't wide open".  The only part of that exam that was disturbing was that Baby A had moved "head down" and that made me upset - I felt like she was getting ready for birth.  But everyone else just said that it was a good sign, because they move around all the time, and that if she had lost too much fluid, she wouldn't be able to move at all.  The peri said that he wasn't convinced I was ruptured and he said that "we might all be looking back on this as just a very scary day".


They told me to sit tight in the hospital until Wednesday and then, if the bleeding stopped, I'd have another scan, including a transvaginal evaluation of my cervix.


Yesterday's scan was even better. Zoe had moved back to a transverse lie (no longer head down) and the fluid still looked normal. I had no leaking and the bleeding was very light and was just old stuff.  The transvag showed that my cervix is still completely closed and long.


I think the peri was ready to send me home yesterday, but my doctor wants me to stay here until at least tomorrow, when I'll get another ultrasound and make sure everything is stable.  


They might do a procedure kind of like an amniocentesis where they inject blue dye into Baby A's sac and then put a tampon in and see if it turns blue.  Niiiiice. I'm thinking that they will decide not to do that since the leaking has stopped completely.


So, apparently, the fluid was all with the hematoma, which finally reached a critical mass on Sunday and broke free.  It is showing as being much smaller on ultrasound yesterday vs. Monday.


I am on bedrest for now.  My doctor said we'd come up with a "long-term plan" after tomorrow's scan.


Unbelievable. And the scariest thing I've ever been through.


We are so, unbelievably, happy and feel so blessed that our babies are still with us and appear to be totally fine.


What a week!