Deja Vu - Bleeding...again

**Warning - this is one of those TMI kind of posts where a lot of bodily functions are discussed**

Last night at around 10pm, I was going about my business and getting ready to go to bed. I am still leaking amniotic fluid and I have described the sensation before as being like having a heavy period. Often, I'll feel nothing, especially if I'm sitting still or lying down; then, when I move, all of a sudden there is a huge gush of fluid. I noticed last night that the flow seemed to be a little heavier so I went to the bathroom to change my pad and I saw what I thought was a moderate amount of bright red blood. Bright red blood is never a good sign.

I immediately paged my nurse. She came down and one of the first things she told me was that bleeding, even bright red blood, was common among women who had ruptured membranes. Their treatment wouldn't vary in that they would continue to monitor the babies and ensure that they were not in distress and check with me for any other signs of pre-term labour (i.e. contractions, back aches, heavier bleeding). She put both babies on the monitor and thankfully, their heart rates were normal and they seemed to be pretty happy as I could still feel them squirming around. My nurse was great though and said that she understood that I would worry but if there was anything that she could do to alleviate some of the worry (i.e. put the babies on the monitor more frequently) she would be happy to come back sooner. I asked her to wake me up at 2am to do another check to make sure that the babies were doing okay.

Before she left, she also checked out my pad and reassured me that, although it looked like a lot of blood, it was also mixed in with amniotic fluid so it makes it look like more than it actually is. In her opinion, it wasn't a lot of blood.

At 2am, true to her word, she came back and put the babies on the monitor again and they were doing okay. She also asked to see my next pad to see how much bleeding there was and the bleeding had already started to taper off but the pad was still stained with bright red blood. Again, she reassured me that since it was mixed in with amniotic fluid, it looked worse than it actually was. She left and then I went to the bathroom only have a huge blood clot come out and fall into the toilet. Having never seen a mucous plug and the loss of one's mucous plug potentially being a sign of pre-term labour, I was immediately concerned that this was what I was looking at and I paged her to come back again. I cannot even begin to tell you how awesome this nurse was - she knew I was worried about it and so she went and got a glove and fished the clot out of the toilet to prove to me that it was just that - a blood clot and not a mucous plug.

I tried to get some sleep and she came back at 6am to do another check. By this time, the bleeding had stopped and I was leaking only amniotic fluid again. It's so strange to go from moderate bleeding with blood clots to nothing at all. The thing that confuses me the most is that I can't use how I feel as a gauge of how things are going. Usually, when something is wrong, you just know and somehow you can tell but each time something has happened (the 1st trimester subchorionic hematoma, the spotting, the rupture, bleeding), I have felt fine. I haven't felt bad at all and then something happens and I can't help but wonder if I somehow caused it. A question I will ask the doctors today during rounds.

So it seems like things have gone back to status quo for now but again, another warning that things can change on a dime. My DH told me this morning that he packed himself a bag now that he's going to leave in the car at all times so if he does need to come down, he's already ready. I'm glad that one of us is ready!