When we first learnt of our pregnancy, we were totally overjoyed.
No words, language or music can describe our emotions on that faithful night 20 weeks ago.
And that evening, started our new journey into pre-parenthood. And more painfully, our extended "vacation" in hospital.
In my mind, I was going to stay for a really short time in the hospital like my sis who had some bleeding in her first trimester. I was at week 9, how bad can it be? I asked myself. At most week 12 lah. When we celebrate the end of the first trimester, surely that's when most pregnancy stabilizes and we can return home.
Every 10 days or so, we'll experience some bleeding.
First time, doc's clinic was still open, so we got a 2nd scan by him and he noticed something with the hematoma and left things as they were with me on valium twice a day.
I was sleeping well and eating well. And sitting up often on my bed to read, eat even play Lego with hubby.
Second bleeding happened on a Sat night (Week 12). We were having dinner and I was seated upright. Hubby was trying to tell me to eat for 2. While I was really not feeling up to a bigger appetite. So we had a sort of arguement. I felt a gush of blood coming out between my legs and informed the nurses. The Staff Nurse on duty (apparently also the head of the ward) came. She was kinda in shock when we saw my pad being full. We assured her that this was not the first time we bled. With trembling hands she insists on taking a test for amiontic fluid. She showed us an indicator stick to test for amniotic fluid that was yellow before the swap and turned brown to black after the swap. All she said was it will change colour and it did. She started to dish out instructions to her colleagues and they all leapt into a frenzy. Which got us really worried, watching the array of activities going on, we lost our cool and notion of "norm". By the time we got wheeled down to labor ward (which was way too early for my pregnancy at that point), I was in tears. Uncertain at what is happening and what all the ho ha was about.
We want to highlight here that:
1. The correct procedure for taking the swap was to clean all blood from the vagina & cervix to avoid contamination of the swap stick;
2. The correct color change for presence of amniotic fluid was BLUE, not brown nor black.
Clearly she made a misdiagnoisis but insisted that she was right. We were too shocked by her reaction and the flow of events that took place to react or reason with her.
My gynea had to cut short a very high profile dinner to come back to attend to us. When he entered the room, he asked:"What happened?"
I burst into tears, sharking my head replying:"I don't know, we were just having dinner."
He quickly rolled up his sleeves, put on his gloves and started doing a cervical examination. He checked that the cervix was ok, he did some cleaning and requested for a whole battery of tests for bacteria, yeast infection; blood tests for HB, CRP etc etc. With a tiny monitor screen he was able to detect a healthy baby heart beat and he was finally assured that our baby was OK. There was sufficient amniotic fluid around the foetus.
The bleeding stopped and I was put on the Ventolin drip at 40mg/hr, gave me severe breathing problems and the nurses decreased it to 30mg/hr and I felt instantly better. I was allowed to go to the bathroom the next day and that was when a blood clot came out. Was not too big, around the size of my pinky, looks dried up. Nurses say its ok and we went back to full bed rest for the next couple of days before shifting back to normal ward. I was also prescribed antibiotics as a precaution to fight possible vaginal infections that could have caused the bleeding.
My CRP count was at 44 when the norm was 10. considered super high lah. So gynea recommended an infectious disease specialist to look into it. He was away that few days and I saw his buddy doctor instead. She came wearing a face mask as if she was unwell herself, after a brief examination, she recommended for me to go on a course of antibiotics on drip to eradicate the high CRP. Which totally din make sense to me, but since she was the specialist doctor in-charge, I had to go along with it. I enquired if the course of antibiotics will have any adverse effects on my baby, guess what was HER response?
"No tests were conducted on pregnant mothers as no pregnant women will be willing to subject themselves to these tests." How assuring.
Third bleeding occurred not long after our 2nd bleeding, around 5 days later. That afternoon, I had some friends who came to visit from lunch time all the way till tea time. I sat upright to chat and laugh the whole afternoon. Then we went over to see gynea and spent another 2 hours waiting for our turn to see him. He declared that we should try to get off the ventolin drip since our condition has stablized and seems like the hematoma was absent during our scan. Yipee! When we returned to the room, our bedsheets were not changed. So had to spend another half an hour to wait for the change.
The moment I sat on the edge of my bed, I felt a gush of blood coming out between my legs. Thankfully nurse Yoga was with me and I told her that I can feel bleeding! It was a huge gush. Yoga quickly got me a bed pan to sit on and it was like an open tap filling up the pan. Then the bleeding came to halt after soaking my gown & the bed. I felt a clot trying to come out. But it was too huge to exit without gravitational forces. And there was nothing Yoga can do. By now, gynea was alerted and instructions was to go back to labour ward for closer examinations. Knowing the procedure, we were alot more relaxed as Yoga tried to clean me up, she was very assuring. Repeatedly telling me that everything will be alright and baby will be fine. We were relaxed and got wheeled into the labor on the same soiled bed.
Labor ward nurses did a preliminary examination and went out of the curtains to update gynea on what they saw. They returned to me to inform me that they will bring me to a private room for gynea to have a better examination. The room offers more privacy and is better equipped. Not having a clue to what is on their mind, I was delighted that I got the opportunity to be in a private room! During the shift, hubby was waiting near the nurses' station and the conversation that he overheard gave him cold chills down his back! The nurses were certain that the bump that was bulging between my legs was our fetal HEAD! Hence the shift into the delivery suite that was operation-ready!
Once again, gynea entered the room with "What happened?"
Shaking my head, my reply was again, "I don't know, we just returned back to the ward from your clinic and it happened!"
He examined me and pressed some part of my abdomen and I felt the release of the blood clot. Gynea said"I got it out." And gave my hubby a look. Hubby was unable to decipher what does that mean! In his mind.... was that my baby???
I was oblivious to the "speculations" and insisted on knowing how big the clot was. Finally, clinic nurse Ann relented and showed me the size using her hands. I was relieved and commented that its the same size as the one we had when we were home!
Hubby was still in shock, he really thought that we've lost our baby until he burst out, "What is the IT?"
Gynea assured him that its just the blood clot. Did the scan again and baby seems fine.
Went back on Ventolin drip again 20mg/hr.
This time, I was really mindful of how my actions, bed rest can affect my body to keep bleeding. So I decided to lie as flat as possible for as much as possible. I no longer sat up to eat, just eat while lying down, as low as I can. No more messing around, just full dedication to bed rest and nurse my baby.
And things were stable. Happiness is stability.
