Warning: This may contain a bit of TMI. You know, if you're uncomfortable with bodily functions. Also, all
the information I have here has been gathered from my doctor and nurse, John’s
Google search, and my new favorite website, the Mayo Clinic. I am by no means an expert.
I was really really hoping that since we are going to be having just one baby this time around that I would have a normal, complication free pregnancy. Apparently not. At this point I don't think there is much "normal" about what my body decides to do. (Seriously, I freakin' breastfed twins for 8 months and my body did not suppress ovulation. In fact my cycle started back up almost immediately after giving birth.)
Everything with my pregnancy had been going
fairly normally until 13 weeks. I had
had a really long day. I started work at
7am, came home grabbed John and the boys, we all went to an appointment,
stopped by John’s parents, then went to the grocery store. By the time we got home in the evening it was
about 8pm or so. Right when we got home
I started bleeding. Which completely
freaked me out, because really that’s not supposed to happen right?! I called the on call dr which wasn’t much of
a help, so we went off to the ER. At
this point we were both pretty terrified.
Thankfully though, other than the bleeding everything looked fine and
the baby had a strong heartbeat. I went
in for an ultrasound the next day and the baby seemed fine. I finally got to see my Dr. at the beginning
of the following week. Turns out I have
partial placenta previa. This means that
the placenta attached very very low, and the bottom of it was covering the
cervix. When that happens it can cause
bleeding; so I was instructed to try and “take it easy”, and to not really lift
anything. The Dr did say that this is
actually fairly common, turns out that some women have it and it doesn’t
affect them at all. He said that as my
pregnancy progresses my uterus will keep moving upward which should move the
placenta away from the cervix and essentially things should go back to
“normal”. He is pushing my big
ultrasound back to 22 weeks (boo!) in order to give everything enough time to
move. If it hasn’t moved then that would
be surprising, and I would be forced to have another c-section. If the
placenta is over the cervix during a vaginal delivery it could cause serious
hemorrhaging. So here’s to hoping that
things will look good here in a few weeks.
