The Incident

I wrote this the other night before all the lung drama happened.

So, almost immediately after posting last night's post about trying to stay positive and looking at the big picture regarding Weston's medical progress, I called the NICU and discovered he lost 50 grams AGAIN (back down to 1 lb 7 oz), was back up to 50% oxygen after an afternoon of de-sats, and was not with his assigned primary nurse. Sigh...I'll admit I had a very hard time practicing what I had just preached.

Now, after sleeping through one pumping session and oversleeping through the next one, I have had to cancel my morning plans to make up those sessions. So, I have some unexpected time to myself and, therefore, will blog about the incident that started this crazy journey.

NOTE: If you don't like reading about gross pregnancy stuff, this might not be the post for you.

On April 18, 2012, I was 12 weeks 5 days pregnant. I had gone to my midwife a couple of days before and heard the baby's heart beat. I was also finally feeling good again after weeks and weeks of debilitating nausea and fatigue and the parenting from the couch that comes with it all. So, I decided to take Caroline to the park. It would be the first semi-physical activity I had had in many weeks.

The park is about a half mile walk from our house. On that date, a large portion was fenced off for lawn repair, so I had to walk around it. It probably ended up being about a 3/4 mile walk. I pushed Caroline in her stroller, and she was so excited to be going to the park again. It was a beautiful day.

We got to the park, and Caroline wanted to swing. Usually I recognize a handful of people at the park, but I didn't that day. There was a man with his granddaughter on the swings next to us, and two women with two toddlers. Caroline likes to swing on EVERY swing, so I was lifting her in and out of swings a lot.

After only about five minutes of this, I felt something. I looked down and saw some blood on my pants (I was wearing cropped, fitted khakis). I immediately knew this was NOT a good sign, so I left Caroline on the swing and immediately walked over to the stroller to get my phone and call my midwife. Caroline got mad that I had stopped swinging her, but I was obviously in the middle of a very urgent situation. It is about 50 feet from the swings to where my stroller was, and the blood was still coming. It was starting to trickle down my legs and was staining my pants. But I was feeling no pain. By this time, I was basically in a panic. Somehow I found my phone and called the midwife. Our conversation went something like this:

Me (screaming): I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, and I'm at the park!
Midwife: Wait, who is this?
Me: This is Shauna Yoder. I was just there the other day. I'm 12 weeks.
Midwife: OK. Are you cramping or in any pain?
Me: No.
Midwife: Great. That's a very good sign. You need to get home and lie down.
Me (still screaming): But I'm at the park. It's still coming and coming. [By this point, the blood had flowed past the bottom of my pants and was going into my shoes, and I was attracting the attention of the others at the park. Poor Caroline was just standing there screaming, and I couldn't pay any attention to her.]

The gist of the rest of the conversation was that it was OK for me to walk home. Practically speaking, I had no idea how I was going to do that, with a screaming toddler, panicking myself, and pants and shoes soaked in blood. By this time, Caroline knew something was going on and was upset about much more than the interrupted swinging.

In retrospect, it never occurred to me to call 9-1-1. I was convinced that I was losing the baby, and I knew the hospital couldn't do anything for me. I also had Caroline to worry about. And if I WAS losing my baby, I wanted it to happen in the privacy of my own home, not at an impersonal hospital (or park) surrounded by strangers.

By the time I hung up the phone, the two women had somehow materialized next to me. They asked how they could help, but I could barely speak. They had two little kids with them, so they were somewhat limited in what they could do. They offered for one of them to walk Caroline home in the stroller while the other one drove me home. As trustworthy as they seemed, I still was very leery about leaving my child with a perfect stranger. Before I could say anything, they offered for one of them to drive us home while the other one stayed with their two kids. That was a good solution.

I was still bleeding and bleeding, and this woman had a very nice white Lincoln Navigator, so I was worried about staining it. But they had planned a picnic and had a big blanket. They even had a toddler seat that Caroline could ride in. As this woman (Ashley, I later learned) put Caroline in the car seat, I called Shannon and told him to get home.

During the short drive home, Ashley told me that she had had a bleeding episode with her second pregnancy while she was lifting her toddler son, and her second child turned out just fine. After hearing that, and the midwife's statement that the fact that I wasn't cramping was a good sign, I felt better and more optimistic that my baby might be OK. I hope I run into Ashley again someday so that I can thank her for her kindness.

When we got home, Ashley took Caroline out of the car seat and got the stroller out for me. Caroline saw all the blood and starting crying and saying, "Mommy, clean it up." That was such a sad moment for me. I showered off and got in bed. I was still bleeding, but it had slowed down. Caroline was just hysterical. I asked her to come sit in bed with me, but she was scared to even get near me. She started screaming for her daddy. He had had to stop for gas on the way home, so it took him a little longer than usual.

After we calmed down a bit, I called my mom and then the midwife. The midwife knew of a traveling sonographer who could come to our house for an ultrasound that day. I called him, and he said he could be there in about 3 hours. So we had to wait...and wait. If I had not heard those two hopeful statements/stories, I would have been a complete disaster.

By the way, the traveling monographer thing is just about the coolest ever.

So the sonographer showed up mid-afternoon. Caroline was up from her nap, and I was afraid of my reaction upsetting her if we got bad news. But I had to have Shannon in there. I was pretty calm by that point. The monographer had me lie down on the couch and hooked his machine up to our TV so we could see the image on the TV. Very cool! He asked about my symptoms and then said he was guessing that I either had an amniochorionic separation or something else (I can't remember).

Before getting started, the sonographer paused, looked me in the eye, and said, "Are you prepared for the worst?" Well, how the hell am I supposed to answer that question?! I don't even remember what I said; I think I just looked at him. I had been thinking of that scenario ALL DAY. He said something like, "As ready as you can be, right?" and got started.

Within about 30 seconds, he said, "Your baby is fine." We were overjoyed. After a couple of minutes, he said, "I can't find anything to explain the bleeding." He looked around some more and finally said, "It looks like you have an amniochorionic separation. You will continue bleeding for a while, and your midwife is probably going to prescribe complete bed rest." He called her, I talked to her, and-surprise!-she put me on bed rest.

For those of you dying to know, an amniochorionic separation occurs when a small part of the membrane surrounding the placenta pulls away from the uterine wall. I still don't quite understand it, and there is not very much information about it out there. Bed rest is the only treatment, and the vast majority resolve by 20 weeks gestation. I learned that 1-3% of pregnancies experience an amniochorionic separation. Of those incidents, about 85% resolve on their own. We all know now that mine did NOT resolve, which puts me in the .0015-.0045 percent. I always thought it would be more satisfying to say, "I am the 1%," but, no, it's not.

If these odds continue and my luck runs the other way, let me know if you want me to buy you a lottery ticket. I'll charge a small commission, and THERE is my new work-from-home career.

So, thus began my bed rest journey. I was on bed rest at home for about 8 weeks before I had to go to the hospital. To state the obvious, bed rest with a toddler is very difficult. We got through it with a lot of help.