Can it be? Really? I thought not, but I was wrong. First I will say that we are all ok, and that Autumn is still tucked away. My head is all over the place and I cannot seem to complete a thought without another coming in because the anxiety of everything has just gotten to me. My thought process and rationalization have gone to all hell. So I guess I’m gonna write this all out so I can get it out of my head and see if it helps my weepy head.

Last Saturday night, around 11pm, I started having some pretty intense contractions lasting a minute or so each, with 5 to 10 minutes in between each one. They lasted for 2 hours before they calmed a bit and I finally got sleepy and fell asleep, waking every once in a while because of another strong one…nothing was consistent after two hours of regular ones. So we decided it wasn’t enough to call the doc or go to the ER.

On Father’s Day, we had a nice day and I made dinner, my Stepson spent the day with us and then after dinner I went to take a shower. I noticed I had just one strong contraction after dinner…nothing I thought too much about except I know I wrote it down. I had to pee after I got out of the shower (and this may be TMI so you are warned) and then wiped dry, got up and a gush of clear fluid ran down my leg….I thought my water broke….so we called the doctors and they said go to the ER triage to get checked out. So we took our time, not rushing as I wasn’t contracting or in any pain, I was thinking maybe I was having a slow leak, cause the only thing I had to compare any of this to, was the slow leak when I lost the girls. When the nurse put the ID band on my wrist, I could not help but think ‘I pray this is the last one of these I will need and she is born safe now’. They did an US and she was still breech, then they did an internal exam and took some swabs so they could analyze if it was amniotic fluid or not. Turns out it was not a rupture, but I did have a presence of BV (bacterial vaginosis), which can sometimes turn some of the mucous into a thinner consistency and do what it did. I get checked for this a lot, because I ask…and I only know about it mostly from reading about what causes preterm labor. The docs say since I am not considered preterm anymore, they weren’t too concerned if it does cause a rupture, but they put me on antibiotics anyway and sent us home. I call that visit “wristband number 4”.

During the rest of the week I was having more inconsistent contractions, but would just drink more and more water and it helped.

On Thursday, it was cerclage removal day. I couldn’t sleep all night thinking about the possibility and excitement that I could go into labor that day (low low chance, but I still was excited). We had a nice pleasant morning and arrived at the hospital ER triage at 8:15 to check in…the woman actually recognized us, and “wristband number 5” commenced. On the way in, our doctor who was doing the removal met us and he is just so awesome and encouraging I couldn’t help but smile and we joked a little. He said he’d be in after they got me situated. Another woman on the floor was in labor and I could hear them say that she was 35 weeks and needed an emergency csection, so I know my doc was probably called away to that. And I had NO PROBLEM waiting as long as I had to until he or one of his partners came around. But then this doctor, a resident (it’s a big teaching hospital) came in and said “I will be doing your cerclage removal today”. Mike and I looked at eachother and then I said “I thought Dr. M was doing it?” And the resident doc said insistently “No, I am doing it” and I think he even kinda caught the sweet nurse off guard so she just went with it. I was really hesitant, but felt like I couldn’t talk or speak as I know I cannot process things that fast anymore, and I just let it all start to happen. And this is what I am most upset at myself for, for not speaking up and saying anything, cause I wanted my doc to do it. So this doctor managed to only get half of the stitch out and pinched the crap out of my insides cause I could freakin feel it! The speculum was no picnic either, but when you have a cerclage everything is even more sensitive down there. He said to us that he would have my doctors come in to take a look cause he didn’t think he got it all. GREAT. My doc came in about a half hour later and said he was sorry he got called away, and that they told him that this was done already but he needed to check it, so he did an internal and could still feel the stitch. The stitch apparently embedded itself and he and his partner would take another chance at it shortly. His partner was actually the one who placed the stitch originally, and he did a great job. So now Dr. M starts to do the whole process of the speculum again and I was in pain, but tried to work it out in my head. The docs started trying to get this other piece out, but it was making me bleed more and more and ripping my cervix and I could feel every piece of gauze they were placing and started to get really upset. After about ten minutes of knowing I couldn’t take much more and they couldn’t see because of the blood and had nothing to suction it with in triage, they stopped and told me they would have to give me a spinal block and use the csection operating room to get the stitch out. Now I don’t have anything against resident docs, most I’ve met there have been wonderful, but I cannot help but think this guy was a jerk and not explain why he was doing it, not my docs, had he read my chart and seen I’d had a tremendous loss and if he had any social skills, he would have been more sensitive. The nurse talked me through everything he was doing, he DIDN’T. So even though this whole thing turned into a big production, I wouldn’t have minded as much if it had happened the same way but with my docs cause I TRUST them. Ya know? Am I making sense? I’m upset at myself really. So anyway, next thing we are told that they have the csection room open at 2pm and then we can go and get me fixed up. We had three hours to burn at this point. My anxiety was high, I was upset still and hated that Mike had to see me this upset once again and pick up the pieces of my shattered mind because of my inability to process everything. I guess I just wasn’t prepared for all of this, thinking I was going to have a positive experience to begin with. I then got myself all upset about having a spinal block done again, because of how it made me feel the last time I had one and I was scared and made my stomach upset. I wanted to ask about the option of an epidural instead since I could handle that better. When we finally got into the csection room, I talked with the anesthesiologist and he was pretty insistent on the spinal block, and I knew he was right and knowledgeable, but I broke down in there and I know I made him feel bad and I felt terrible about it. But everyone just kept encouraging me and then he said he would try to give me a lower dose so I could move my toes and the possibility of a high block would be a little less and would wear off a little faster. So with Mike in scrubs waiting outside in case an emergency csection was needed, I got through it all and they got the stitch out, but placed another one (dissolvable) because of the cervix bleeding. I had some really sweet nurses holding my hands the entire time too, thankfully. And I could feel my toes and didn’t get a high block this time. We then went into a recovery room where Mike could be with me right away and one of the sweet nurses stayed and talked with us and watched me as I was recovering. After about an hour or so they had to move me again, because this nurse wanted to keep me as her patient, but had to take a labor patient too, that was at about 5pm. I didn’t realize it until Mike said something and couldn’t sit still, but she wound up putting us in the same room that I delivered the girls in. I looked over to the little isolette room where they laid our babies to rest over a year ago and cried. The room was so small compared to what I remember it being, but anyway we were there to stay until I was able to walk and pee. Mike just kept massaging my legs trying to get me up and out of there, just too much heartache in there. I understood and I tried. Around 6pm I started feeling a lot of the feeling back, but I also started feeling contractions. Then, they got steadier and steadier and the nurse came in and said “um, do you think you are in labor?” she said she asked the docs to look at “cerclage girl’s” monitoring strip and tell her what to do. Yes, I was known as “cerclage girl” at that point, which was endearing in a way. I said I wasn’t sure but this didn’t feel right. The docs ordered more IV fluids and I finally got to pee and it seemed to slow things down a little bit. Finally at about 8:15 (12 hour day), they released me to go home and I was contracting about every 10 minutes irregularly, so they said to just keep the fluids up. I went home and just kept weeping, feeling broken and feeling horrible for my husband having to go through this day with me. I had contractions through the night, but not like they were. So that was Thursday.

So for the past two days I have been sore and on pelvic rest and not doing much except having a pity party for myself and having lots of tears. But that’s me, after I have a day or two I cannot handle, I crash and burn for a while and then resurface. My hubby is taking good care of me though, as he always does.

An extra thanks to a few of my girls on an email chain that kept me going on Thursday with thoughts and prayers and sweet notes. I don’t know what I would do without knowing you are all there. I wanted to enjoy every ounce of my pregnancy and I feel like my mind wouldn’t let me with all of the things happening. I suppose if things were uneventful then it would have been different. So now I just try and keep pressing on to the finish line to have Autumn safe and screaming in our arms. She continues to move around in there and let me know she is alright after the whole ordeal.

Why can’t I just sound grateful for what I have and stop feeling so negative? There are so many of us in the loss community struggling just to get pregnant or finalize an adoption, but that thought completely goes out of my head when I am going through any tough times. It’s like I can’t focus or rationalize anything. I spoke with the therapist about my thought process but we haven’t worked on anything yet because most of my appointments are going over everything that happened since I last saw her, as you can imagine it’s all spewing out words.

Hopefully you haven’t bailed on my long post, thanks if you haven’t. I think this is the longest post I’ve ever written. I wish for my next post to be a positive one with nothing but happy thoughts.

Thanks for listening.

Love, Nan xxx