Scary Day But Things are OK Now

So I woke up this morning, fully intent on getting up and going to work for my last four days. It is year-end for the company I contract for and we mutually agreed to extend my contract until the end of this week. They have been very good to me and the extension in my contract is the only reason why I now qualify for Employment Insurance benefits.

I have to admit that I still check the TP every time I go to the bathroom, especially after I had all of the bleeding early on from the subchorionic hematoma. Things have been all clear for the past 4 months. Well, this morning at 6:30am, I wiped and found some blood.

OMG.

I wiped again, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things but yep, there was some blood on the TP.

Inhale. Exhale.

I called my DH up from the downstairs and showed him (honestly, we share everything) - what to do? I called triage at our hospital and the nurse asked me a few questions to try to figure out what was going on.

Nurse: "What colour is the blood?"
Me: "Dark brown"

Nurse: "Have you bled through a pad?"
Me: "No - there is nothing on the pantyliner but when I wipe, there is blood"

We go through a few more questions regarding symptoms of pre-term labour like whether I am experiencing any back pain (no), any contractions (no), leaking fluids (no), any cramping (no).

Nurse: "Wait until your doctor's office opens up and see what they say. They'll likely tell you to come in and have it checked out as any bleeding should be followed up with and then come into triage."

My DH and I live in a suburb of Toronto and we decided to go down right away rather than waiting for the doctor's office to open up. It's a traffic thing - if you don't get moving ahead of the rush, you get stuck for a long time and we decided that since it was a high probability that we would be told to go into the hospital, we should get moving ASAP.

Once we got there, we checked in with our doctor's office and was told to go to the hospital so it was a good thing we got a jump on the traffic and left when we did. We checked in through admissions and then went upstairs to triage. By then, I went to the bathroom to discover that there was not a trace of any of the bleeding. Good that the bleeding stopped but bad because I always wonder if I'm making a mountain out of a mole hill and it doesn't help that you can't show the doctor what is going on. I was strapped to two fetal heart monitors and something else to monitor uterine activity and then we waited. The one comfort was that the two babies were moving around like crazy, so much so that my belly was rippling away, and their HBs were right where they should have been, around 150 bpm.

11:30am came and I was up to go to the bathroom and discovered that the bleeding had resumed. Again, nothing on the pantyliner but something on the tissue when I wiped. The resident came in and did an internal exam and saw what I saw so it was good in that we could actually talk about what brought us into the hospital that day. She confirmed that the bleeding was coming from inside the uterus and not from the cervix itself. The doctor came in afterwards and did an ultrasound and both babies were doing fine and showing no signs of stress. His theory is that the bleeding is old blood due to the colour and that there is a tiny placental abruption. In layman's terms, this means that he thinks that the placenta has torn away from the wall of the uterus a little bit. If it was something that was severe and required immediate attention, I would be bleeding profusely and the colour would be bright red. He reviewed with me the signs of pre-term labour and reminded me that this was the number one concern for people carrying multiples. He also told me that I have been having some contractions and I didn't even know it!

He asked me if I was still working and I said that I was and that this was my last week and he said to me "Well, you're done now!" I was pretty surprised but he really wants me to rest more and not work at all. I haven't been confined to bed rest but I was told to rest more and take it easy from here on out.

Wow.

I was reminded again today as to how things can turn on a dime and one second you're fine and going about your business and the next thing you're in triage, having an internal and discussing bleeding. Life can change in a second and I am reminded about how fragile things are. I didn't have a fall, bump into anything, slip and land funny...I don't even think I've done anything strenuous over the last few weeks. However, I guess I need to redefine my definition of "strenuous" because I have been tired lately with all of the Christmas activities. They're fun but they're also tiring.

I'm okay. Lefty and Righty are okay. I'm resting at home. I let my boss know that I wouldn't be able to help them this week after all and that I would be returning my laptop to them. When I was in triage waiting to be seen, 37 weeks seemed to be a LONG way away from my 29w2d. Hopefully, with these changes, we'll have a shot at making it that far.