Relief

It has been a rough few days. I've been spotting on and off for the last few weeks. It was always very minimal. It happened some in weeks 5 and 6 and seemed to disappear. Then some more came back at the beginning of week 8 which turned to full on bleeding. Sunday, I went to the bathroom and when I wiped, there was blood. It was mostly dark red, some pink and some bright red, but I had to wipe several times before there was no more. It was enough to wear a panty liner. It continued on Monday. It wasn't constant but would occur several times during the day and always with lots of cervical mucus.

Obviously, I was freaked out. I kept thinking this is exactly what happened last time. I started light period like bleeding, my cervix started to efface, and within a week we lost the baby. I couldn't help but think things like "what if I'm miscarrying again?" "What if it's just a blighted ovum?" "What if it's twins and it's too much on my cervix?"

I didn't call the doctor sooner because we already had an appointment on Monday with my OB and for an u/s. She did an exam and said there wasn't so much blood that she was worried. It's a good sign that the blood has been in the cervical mucus and that it's not a lot of bleeding. She also said my cervix looked a little more open than she would have liked but nothing of too much concern right now. We would have to wait until the ultrasound to determine if that was a problem. Well, of course I was thinking there would be a problem. I was very scared of the idea that maybe they wouldn't find anything on the ultrasound or that what they did find wouldn't have a heartbeat.

Much to my relief, we got to see the little pumpkin! He/she was measuring at 8 weeks and 6 days. That's 3 days further along than I thought and 2 days behind what the doctor's office thought. We got to see the little one wiggling around on the screen, moving its little nubs. There was a good healthy heartbeat of 157bpm. Also, the inside of my cervix is still closed, which is the important part. Everything's perfect!

Unfortunately, the ultrasound tech was a little dumb. She said she's never seen a request to check cervical length this early in pregnancy (really, at 9 weeks it's that unusual?) and due to gestational age it's hard to determine where the cervix begins and ends. Um, under normal conditions shouldn’t your cervix stay the same length for the duration of pregnancy? I told her why they wanted to do it (due to incompetent cervix) but she still called their "guru" who couldn't even find what a normal cervical length should be. Are you kidding me? This is the expert? Any woman on baby center that has a cervical disorder can tell you what is normal and what is bad. I told her what the specialist that was going to do the cerclage last time told me (4-5 cm and anything below 2.5 is something to be concerned about) although I don't think she took me seriously. She also seemed to think that 9 weeks was early for an u/s. I think that is about average for a lot of women to get their first u/s. Ah well, she was able to show us the baby and that's all that matters!

There's a baby in me. A real, living baby. It was so hard not to cry. I'm still worried by the fact that my cervix isn't 100% closed, but at the same time, she never did an exam on me while I was pregnant before so maybe that's just what I look like when I'm closed. Or maybe from now on this is just what it's like for me to be pregnant. I wish I could have a normal, uncomplicated pregnancy, but that's just not in the stars for me I guess. I don't care what happens as long as I have a beautiful, living, healthy baby to hold in my arms at the end of this all. 9 weeks down and only 31 to go!