Spotting Leads to Bed Rest

Sunday started wonderfully as most Sundays these days tend too. We slept until 7am, Chris walked Nuptse and then we took our weekly bump photo. Follow that with a delicious cooked breakfast and things were good.

Chris was downstairs working away on some project or another and I was enjoying some crappy reality TV. I ducked to the bathroom in a nonchalant manner. These days I each trip to the bathroom didn't involve nervously pulling down my undies, scared I'd find bleeding. I felt good. So when a wipe after a wee left me with brown stuff on the toilet paper, it caught me off guard.

Immediately I ran downstairs and, with no mucking about, I told Chris I wanted to go to the hospital.

20 minutes later I was dropped at the main entrance and walked quickly to B block. Chris went to park the car in the old familiar side street where we have parked for years worth of hospital visits. Free parking is always a priority.

The MAC (Maternity Assessment Centre) is essentially an emergency department for pregnant people. I'd been told if I had any worries that I should head there and, from memory, it was on Level 2. A quick glance at the sign in the elevator showed that Level 2 held the Birthing Suite. "Surely not," I thought. Surely they don't have the people having babies and the people having possible miscarriages sat together. But then I thought back to my surgery to remove my cervix. A surgery that I had been told might limit my ability to carry a baby. And I had sat waiting for that surgery with those there waiting for their scheduled c-sections. Stranger things had happened so to Level 2 I went. And I needn't have second-guessed things. The receptionist soon had me filling out forms, alongside the woman who was groaning in the early stages of labour.

A further 20 minutes later, with Chris now by my side, I was seen by a midwife. We walked into a room where there was still blood smeared on an absorbent cloth (a bluey for those in the know) that was laid out on the bed. My blood pressure was through the roof and the midwife's face showed nothing but confusion when he referred to my cervix and I told him I didn't have one. I was in the too hard basket.

We were led to a birthing suite, yes a birthing suite complete with bouncy ball, to await a doctor. Instead we were greeted by a midwife and her student. The same questions were asks. My blood pressure was taken for a third time and Chris looked disapprovingly as the midwife entered her observations into one computer, and then explained that she also needed to enter it into the computer sitting alongside it.

The doctor arrived and threw an ultrasound on and all of a sudden, there was a baby on the screen. A heart was beating and the baby was wriggling. Yet I wasn't reassured. I wasn't doubting the baby's wellbeing. I was doubting my body's ability to hold it in. Again, I was put in the too hard basket and told I'd need to wait to see a senior doctor.

The senior doctor arrived and the dreaded speculum exam was completed. No matter how many people I'd had poke around down there over the last few years, it does not get easier.

I got ready to drop my knees to the side in the familiar froggy position. Until I realised that, under the draped sheet, I still had all of my clothes on. I wriggled around trying to remove my pants and undies only for the pad I was wearing to get stuck to my butt while Chris and two doctors watched on.

They couldn't see much except the stitch on the speculum exam. It hurt too much and, kindly, she didn't want to push it. Their conslusion...too hard basket. They would need to consult the obstetrician. Again we waited.

Eventually the doc popped back and told me that they'd decided I wouldn't need to stay in hospital. I didn't even know that had been an option. However, I'd be on bed rest at home until my next scan in two weeks. The doctor organised a medical certificate and we were almost on our way when I mentioned that perhaps I should have an Anti-D injection. "Oh yes, thanks for bringing that up...good idea," the senior doctor said.

And so the midwives returned and so did my tears. While we waited for the computers to boot up, again with Chris rolling his eyes, they reassured me that GCUH had the best NICU in Queensland and that maybe I'd still make it to 24 weeks, or even 39! I was given my injection and sent on my way. Chris got the car and we headed home. Sunday had certainly taken a turn.