Pregnancy Update: 19.5ish Weeks + Anatomy Scan

I have postponed writing this due to the emotional rollercoaster that we've been on, but since we're almost halfway through, I want to get it out there before I forget.

Finding Out

After a scary week with Hailey - she spiked a really high fever and was so lethargic we ended up in the emergency room (only one of us could be with her due to COVID), multiple tests, an IV of fluids and not able to figure out what was going on until a few days later when her fever broke and she got the Roseola rash - I took a test and found out I was pregnant.  

The First Bleeding Scare

A couple weeks later - should have been about 6 weeks along based on LMP - I had some bleeding.  I went in to get a blood draw and it showed levels high enough that they thought they would be able to see something on the ultrasound so I went in the next day.  They didn't let me see the screen for the scan, and the ultrasound technician wasn't saying much, so I asked her what was wrong.  She told me (which I realize now was a way for her to deflect) that she was having trouble finding an ovary.  She went to get someone more experienced.  When the other woman came in, she looked at the pictures and told me she was sorry, but she expected to see something else at this point in the pregnancy and that she had just miscarried the previous week so she knew how I was feeling.  Since my doctor wasn't working that day and I didn't have a follow up until the next day, they were going to try to at least sneak me in with the doctor on call to talk it through.  They sent me to the waiting room until she was available.  Sitting in a waiting room alone during a pandemic when you are very sad is definitely tough.... I ended up going outside to call my mom since Joel was working and couldn't talk.  When the doctor was free, I went in and she look at the pictures and said 'I'm sorry to be so negative, but I've only been wrong one time about this.' She told me I would pass the baby naturally in the next week or so.  She did send me to get blood work again just to see where my HCG levels were, just to see if there was a trend.  That night, I walked to Dairy Queen (Joel and Hailey drove over to meet me) and it started pouring on me...

The next day, I had my follow up with my doctor (she is seriously awesome).  I didn't really know what else she would tell me that I hadn't heard from the on call doctor, so I didn't really want to get out of bed to drive the 40 minutes down to her office.  When she came in the room, she asked me how I was doing in her normal chipper voice... and I was clearly sad but said "Fine".  She looked at me, and says are you sure? and I just nodded.  She then said, "At least we know why you're bleeding". Which sounded kind of morbid to me.  She could tell I was really confused and said it was because of the sub chorionic hemorrhage.  I started crying and told her all the things that I was told the day before and she was dumbfounded.  She didn't even know I had spoken to anyone the day before.  She pulled up the pictures and showed me what she was looking at, she said she saw a yolk sac.  She said she wanted me to come back in a week to get a follow up ultrasound to see if things were progressing and also had me get another blood draw.  She called me that afternoon to tell me that my HCG levels had doubled from the 2 days prior and that was at least a positive sign and that she would see me in a week.

That week went so slowly.... I drove myself down to get the ultrasound alone since nobody is allowed in appointments due to COVID.  My doctor did a bedside scan and there was a tiny little flicker on the screen of a heartbeat! It was measuring about a week behind what they had estimated based off of my LMP.  

More Bleeding

Because things always tend to happen on the weekend when things are closed, I had another bleeding scare.  It was a Sunday morning and after the whole ordeal with the last bout of bleeding, I overreacted and drove myself over to the ER. The did an ultrasound which ended up leaving more questions than answers.  The baby was growing as expected (good!) and there was a heartbeat (even better!) but they internal septations in the gestational sac, a normal yolk sac not identified, a complex lesion adjacent to the fetal pole identified measuring .9x.8x.5cm and a small sub chorionic hemorrhage (probably why I was bleeding).  What does that all even mean?!

I had what was supposed to be my first prenatal appointment (9 weeks) and scan at my normal doctor's office a week after that visit.  That one went waaaay better than things had been going.  The ultrasound technician could not find the lesion that they had identified in the ER and she saw that the SCH had reabsorbed itself, she could even see what looked like blood in the sac.  Things looked normal!

I came back a couple weeks after that to get the blood draw for the NPIT test.  We got those results, they came back normal and we were having a baby boy :)

Even More Bleeding

Things seemed to be going okay for about 2 weeks but the day after getting the NPIT test results was rough.  It was an unseasonably warm day in early November, I took Hailey for a long walk to eat breakfast in the park.  Then we went for another walk to the park.  I definitely was tired and had overdone it.  As I was about to go to bed, the bleeding started very heavily.  There was no way that I was going to be able to go to bed so I went to the ER.  It was eye opening being the ER, it seemed like everyone in Blaine was there.  They had it partitioned so that people with COVID symptoms were able to be kept away from people without COVID symptoms.  It was a long wait in the waiting room since no rooms were available.  They brought me back for an ultrasound and saw the baby was growing and there was a heartbeat.  They sent me back out to the waiting room for about an hour before a PA was able to meet with me in a side room to tell me I had a SCH and that was causing the bleeding. 

That bleeding continued for days but finally seemed to stop Friday morning when I had my first consult with the MFM Physician.  It was a short half hour chat to go over interventions and risks since Hailey had come at just over 36 weeks.  

That night we were going down to Joel's parents house for dinner and to stay over.  Just as we got to their house, the bleeding started even heavier than before with decent sized clots coming out.  It was terrifying.  I was almost 13 weeks at the time.  We called the nurses line and told them what was going on and they had me go to the ER.  Joel was able to drive me and and drove waited out in the parking lot while I went in.  They were slammed from COVID.  They were finally able to get me back to a room.  The ER doctor was the nicest person ever.  I was there for almost 3 hours when they were able to finally get me in for an ultrasound.  Hearing the baby's heartbeat was the best sound.  He looked was growing well and his heartbeat was strong.  The doctor said the bleed was coming from the SCH.  

I bled for 4 weeks after this..... no running, no real activity, no lifting more than a gallon of milk.

In that time, I had a follow up with my doctor.  My bleeding had slowed down to spotting, but it was VERY watery.  She was a little concerned it might be amniotic fluid.  I walked over across the street to the hospital and was admitted to labor and delivery triage so they could take a sample and see.  I was put into the room that I was triaged in when I came in for Hailey's birth.  She took a swab sample.  About an hour or sitting there waiting, they finally came back and said that it was negative and there was no amniotic fluid present.  Those nurses in labor and delivery there are just the nicest.

MFM Appointments

I love my OB.  I think I realized this even more after going to the MFM.  I had thought that I would be seeing the same doctor that I had done my initial consult with, but found out that I would just see whoever happens to be working at the time.  

I was scheduled for every other week scans to check my cervix but they also were monitoring the SCH.  My first appointment with them showed my cervix still long and closed.  I had the follow up with the doctor after the scan, and the doctor talked to me for 20 minutes about the risks with the SCH (which was a little over 7 cm at its widest and retroplacental).  The way he presented the data was so much more terrifying, saying I have up to 25% risk of either my placenta detaching or my bag of waters rupturing with the SCH.  He said that as the baby gets bigger, if the bleed stays the same size, the risk goes down.  He told me no activity like running and no lifting anything more than 5-10 pounds.

Since I was still bleeding, my OB had me come in between the MFM visits.  Like I mentioned, she's awesome.  She walked in and said "So, you saw MFM... I read the notes, they told you some pretty scary stuff, huh?" She then talked to me the whole appointment and helped put things more into perspective.  As an engineer, I LOVE data.  I appreciated the MFM physician that told stats.  But working in med device and hearing risks that high is terrifying.  To have my OB put it more into a perspective that I could grasp.  She prescribed me progesterone to start, more as a peace of mind for me than having real data that says it would work.  There's no risk and there's potential benefit, so I figured I wanted to do anything that I can do in my control.

The Tuesday before Christmas, I had another MFM appointment.  The bleed looked to be the same size.  The MFM Physician I saw was really nice and talked to me about everything.  My cervix was still long and closed.

My 19.5 week follow up with MFM included the anatomy scan.  It went as good as I could have ever wanted.  Baby boy was measuring well, all the organs look to be functioning and the bleed looks like it has resolved!! The MFM Physician wants me to follow up with my normal OB since she has followed me the whole time and this was the first time I met with this doctor (another doctor! I think I've seen a good majority of the physicians at that practice), but she has no real reason why I can't start up some activity again.