A Less Than Welcome Womb Buddy (SCH)

I realized later I never revealed on our blog that we are pregnant. Sorry about that. We are, but it's been a scary experience so far.

We found out we were pregnant while I was in Utah visiting my sister for Thanksgiving. We were elated. Plus we had an answer for why I had been so sick (which I'm sure was a relief for my sister and her preemie twins).

A week later I started bleeding. After a less-than-ideal visit to the ER we were basically told that we should follow up with my OB that week and she would give me answers then. In the mean time, I was put on bed rest. When I arrived for my appointment a few days later I saw that the ER had schedule it as a "follow-up miscarriage". Apparently their "wait and see" was "wait and miscarry". My OB did an ultrasound and found this:

Blood in my uterus. You'll notice the baby is not in the sac (as it should have been) and blood 3x the size of the sac. It didn't look good. BUT my doctor told me that my cervix was still closed and the baby survived the initial hemorrhage, which was a good sign. Unfortunately the blood (a sub-chorionic hemorrhage) was really large and my odds still weren't great of this baby surviving. One of the biggest concerns was that I should have been 7.5 weeks and as you can see in this picture... I was measuring barely 6 weeks. No heartbeat. We still didn't know whether we were dealing with a baby who was just waiting to pass or a baby who was just conceived on a weird cycle. I made an appointment with my doctor for the following week and prayed A LOT. We told our family what was going on and asked for prayers. I was kept on pelvic rest and doing as little as possible. I cannot thank our friends enough for helping with Jane during this time.

The next week at my OB we saw this:


 A baby AND a heartbeat! We were so relieved. Med school was even kind enough to excuse Scott for the morning so that he could be there with me. The blood was still present, but there was MUCH less than the week before and the SCH seemed to be resolving. Somehow our sweet little fighter made it through this. It was our very own Christmas miracle.

The only downfall (as you might have noticed on my ultrasound) is that after a week I was STILL at 6 weeks. This marks 3 consecutive appointments where I was told I was six weeks along. I'm not sure how that happens. But I'm on my third due date of August 4, 2013.

Unfortunately during Christmas break I bled twice and right after getting home I bled again. This time a lot. On Jan. 2nd I had another appointment and we saw this:

One perfect baby. One perfect heartbeat. No more blood. Our best guess is that I had finished bleeding out the hemorrhage. Somehow we had made it through this.

Then last night I bled again. I'm still bleeding today whenever I'm upright. Good thing toddlers don't require any attention and I can lay in bed all day (...right?)

I'm sorry this wasn't a very happy post... we are extremely grateful that our baby (at least as of our last appointment) is doing well, but it's extremely scary to bleed at any point of pregnancy. Especially regularly. I can't seem to make it more than a week and a half (in order to be off of pelvic rest and being told to do as little as possible I need to make it three weeks without blood).

Please send prayers.