I've decided that Baby Deuel has a goal to give his mom & dad heart attacks before he makes his grand arrival into this world. Here's our latest adventure caused by him!
We flew home from California on January 1st. We got to the airport that afternoon and said our goodbyes. After Ryan and I checked our bags, we started walking towards security. Baby felt reeeaaaally low, and I felt a ton of pressure. It was making it difficult to walk. I made a comment to Ryan about needing to ask the doctor at my next appt if it was normal for him to be so low at only 27-28 weeks. We walked slowly throughout the airport and finally got to our gate. We boarded the plane, and once we took off I started trying to get comfortable so I could sleep for the flight. My back was hurting, but that wasn't anything unusual for me and my poor body. I was able to fall asleep, and slept for most of the flight. I wasn't sleeping so deeply though that I wasn't aware of how bumpy this flight was. We were on one of those little planes, the ones that just have 2 seats on each side. I think the size of the plane made it so we felt the turbulence more easily. But other than that it was an uneventful flight.
Once we landed and got off the plane, I let our ride know that we were going to get our bags and then we would call them once we were ready. Ryan and I both decided to make a stop at the bathroom before heading to get the bags. When I wiped, I discovered blood. Not just spotting either, but like I had started my period. My head started spinning and I couldn't quite catch my breath. With tears streaming down my face, I got myself together and headed out to tell Ryan what was going on. Seeing my face he obviously knew something was wrong right away, and I did my best to explain without starting to sob. We headed towards baggage claim so we could find someone to ask where the closest hospital was. I was reviewing in my mind when I had last felt him move, and as I thought about it I hadn't felt him move since before we boarded the airplane. It was getting harder to breath as my panic kept growing. We got downstairs to the baggage claim and Ryan headed straight to a police officer he saw. After they spoke for a minute, the cop had Ryan him to me, and then over to some chairs. I was so scared, and on the borderline of having a panic attack. The cop asked for details of what was going on, and he jotted down some notes as I spoke. He then said that he was going to call in the paramedics to come talk to me. As we waited for them, several other police officers started gathering around me. One went with Ryan to watch for our bags. By the time the paramedics arrived, we had about 5 cops around me, plus the one with Ryan. I'm sure to on lookers, it was quite a scene with me bawling and surrounded by cops, and Ryan being escorted by a cop. There ended up being 4-5 paramedic firefighters in addition to all the cops. They took my vitals, instructed me to calm down so I didn't cause problems for the baby, and then told me to tell them what was going on. As we were talking to them, I continued praying mightily for our baby, and for guidance. Ryan and I both felt that it would be ok to refuse the ambulance and just have our ride take us straight to the hospital, and the paramedics seemed to agree. Since I wasn't coding they wouldn't have gotten us to the hospital any faster, and we couldn't really afford the bill for an ambulance ride! The paramedics left but all the police officers hung around until our ride got to the door. The one that had been by my side the whole time took a look around, laughed, and said "Obviously you've got quite a few officers hoping that they would get to deliver a baby today!" I guess so! Haha.
Our friends let Ryan drive, knowing how I am in cars and not wanting to get me more upset than I already was with everything. How thoughtful, right? We got to the hospital quickly, and were sent straight to the maternity ward. We sat there for quite some time before they had a room ready to take me to, and in the meantime we made some phone calls to let our families know what was going on & to ask for extra prayers. Once they got me into a room, they had me change into a gown and then hooked me up to 2 monitors. One for baby's heartbeat, and the other to watch for contractions. As soon as she got me attached to those, he finally moved. So with that and hearing his heartbeat, I finally started to really calm down. We told the nurse everything, then waited for the doctor to come and do her evaluation. When she got there, she continued to put us at ease. She had a GREAT bedside manner, and we liked her a lot more than my own OBGYN. She asked us to go over our story again, and then listed off the tests she wanted to do. I ended up having some blood tests, a urine test, regular ultrasound, intrauterine ultrasound, and the fetal monitoring. Once baby moved again, he had the wiggles and just kept going. He even got hiccups once during the time we were there, which sound funny on the heart monitor. It would cause a funny static sound when he moved, and then when he had the hiccups it was a different sound. All of the tests came back normal, and they couldn't find the cause of the bleeding. It had stopped on the way to the hospital, which was a good thing. I didn't have any contractions, and his heart rate stayed strong the whole time he was being monitored. They did say that he is currently breech, but that isn't something to worry about yet since he still has plenty of time to flip. He was sitting really low though and putting a lot of pressure on my cervix. That would explain why it was uncomfortable walking! Eventually they said that either it could have been related to the subchorionic hemorrhage I had back at week 6 of the pregnancy (the initial bleeding scare), the altitude changes from the flight (although it didn't happen on our way there), or it was my body just having a freak moment. I think the last is most likely, since I have a long history of it doing just that! I was given instructions to stay home from work the following day and rest, and to keep taking it easy over the next few weeks. If it happened again, I was to call my OB immediately and go from there.
After all of that, I was finally released a little after 2 am. We got home and into bed by 3am. Our flight had landed at 9:35pm, so it had been a looooooong and exhausting night! Our dear sweet friends stayed with us the whole time, and then went to work as usual the following morning at 8am. We are so lucky & grateful to have such amazing friends!!
Since that whole episode, things have been just fine. Although I was going to the bathroom every ten minutes (at least that's what it felt like) for the next few days to check for bleeding, there hasn't been any more. Like I said, I think baby just has a goal to give me a heart attack before he comes! We were both grateful that everything turned out so great, and not having a teeny tiny 2lb (give or take) baby join us almost 3 months early. He still needs time to grow in there! I had my regular follow up appt with my OB on the 10th, and I told her about the whole experience. While she could access the records electronically, they didn't send them to her so she had no way of knowing anything had happened. I was surprised they didn't, but oh well. She didn't like what had happened, and again gave me strict instructions to call if anything seems to be going wrong. We discussed the upcoming birth, and we are going to move forward with a regular vaginal delivery. After hearing her talk about it, and the fact that she got 4 other opinions from various maternal fetal doctors & orthopedic surgeons, I feel much better about things going this way. They all feel that there isn't any risk of re-breaking my pelvis (which was a HUGE worry of mine), and that even with the screw my pelvis should still allow enough movement to let baby get through. And because my doctor is aware of my history, she will be watching baby extra closely to monitor him for fetal distress. At that point, we would switch to a c-section.
It's hard to explain how I feel about all of it. After operating under the absolute knowledge of needing a c-section for the last 6 1/2 years, it's really hard to suddenly switch gears mentally and be happy and excited about this change. I know that there are pros and cons to both ways of delivering, but you don't really know how your own body will respond to a certain type of delivery until it happens. No one knows for sure what really will be best for my body, because my circumstances are so unique. The way my doctor put it, I don't have a problem (like gestational diabetes, etc) where she can go research medical journals and get ideas on how to proceed. So she's just coming up with the best plan that she can, based on her knowledge and my medical history. I have to trust that. If at any point I start to have a feeling that things need to be done differently, I most certainly will voice that opinion! We're feeling pretty good at this point that things will all work out ok.
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