By now all of you know that we are expecting P3. If you hadn’t heard the news go here to read the whole story.
I am 12 weeks today and the First Trimester has been quite the roller coaster. Never mind dealing with morning sickness and also a 2 yr. old and a 4 yr. old. I’ve had some other complications that hopefully with ‘heal on their own’.
My prior two pregnancies have been textbook. I had zero complications. Nothing strange, nothing to even warrant a call to my Doctor. This time, things are different.
It all started when I was (what I thought at the time) 7 weeks. I had some blood streaks in the morning and since I hadn’t experienced this before I called in and left a message for the triage nurse. She told me to come in to the office and that they would do a quick ultrasound. If I was, indeed, 7 weeks they most likely could get a heart beat on screen and then we’d know everything was fine. What was seen on ultrasound was an embryo about 5.5 to 6 weeks so no heartbeat. Now we had to do quantitative HCG counts to make sure that the pregnancy was progressing. Talk about an agonizing week! At that point I didn’t know if I were just not as far along as we’d thought or if the pregnancy was not viable. Fortunately, my HCG counts were great and everything was fine, for now!
I was progressing normally, morning sickness and all, when at 8 weeks I had a bleed. I went to the bathroom to discover bright red blood had soaked my underwear. At that point I was hysterical, I thought for sure that I was losing the baby! I went to the ER since I wasn’t sure what else to do. I was examined and sent to Ultrasound where they did a very extensive exam getting pictures of everything. The relief was when she told me “your baby is measuring 8 wks 2 days, and has a heart beat of 157 bpm”. My baby was fine! The next day I called my doctor’s office and was informed that I had a Subchorionic Hemorrhage, and that is what had caused the bleeding. I was instructed to rest and was not supposed to do any lifting or exercise. I continued to spot over the next couple of weeks and then it finally stopped all together.
From what I understand, a Subchorionic Hemorrhage (or Hemotoma) is a collection of blood or a blood clot around the placenta. I was told that they are fairly common and that typically do not cause any harm and heal on their own. Later in the pregnancy they can become more dangerous and cause placental abruption or put you at risk for preterm labor, but this is not likely.
Now, I am also RH-negative (my blood type is negative) so I have to receive Rhogam shots during a normal pregnancy. This time, I have to be given a shot each time I bleed instead of just the normal 1 at 28 weeks. So far I’ve had 2 shots, will get my 3rd at 28 weeks and after I have the baby, if he/she is RH-positive I will receive another one. Fun, fun, fun.
At 10 weeks I had another ultrasound, this one a normal scheduled ultrasound and I was so happy to see my tiny little P kicking around and with a heartbeat of 163 bpm. I had no idea how active the little guy could be at 10 weeks, it was incredible! We could even see the teeny-tiny little feet (I got a picture)! I was also told that there was still fluid (aka blood) in my uterus. The Doctor was not worried just informative. I was reassured again that typically a subchorionic hemorrhage does not cause any problems.
I spent the next week and a half with no bleeding and was so happy, I thought maybe it had healed. I was wrong, I had another gush of blood last Friday. This time, I wasn’t as worried because I knew what is was from. I waited and went into the ER on Saturday morning where the Dr. was less than helpful. He did nothing but a physical exam and said he didn’t see any bleeding and that ‘spotting was normal in early pregnancy’. I didn’t feel like arguing with him so I waited until Monday and called my Dr. office to go in for a check up. That was yesterday…
I again spoke with the Triage Nurse and they were so caring and told me to come right in and they would do fetal heart tones for me. I got a bit of a scare when the nurse spent 5 min. or so looking for the heartbeat and couldn’t get it to register. She was going to get a Doctor to do an ultrasound but the other nurse was able to register the heartbeat… 166 bpm! Yep, P3 is doing fine!
I was told again, that these generally don’t cause any problems. They also told me that from now on, whenever I have bleeding or cramping, don’t even call just come right in to the office and they will check me out. That was music to my ears! They said again that they hope it will heal on it’s own. Only time will tell!
I am so excited every time I can mark off another Week on my calendar, just that much closer to having a healthy baby!
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