Me and my thoughts.

Here I am, 3:58am sitting at my computer, alone in the silence of the night. Alone. Just me and my thoughts. I find it easier tonight to battle back and forth with my thoughts, rather than battle with my subconscious waking me repeatedly with thoughts in my dreams. In my thoughts of mine I wonder...


"Does anyone else wonder to themselves while pregnant with their  "miracle " baby, did I make a selfish decision? Did I make a decision to have another only because of my own motherly desires. My own wants. My own needs. Is my world going to be shattered once more, because I can only think of myself? "

I do.

And I am.

Tonight especially.

Yesterday afternoon, I insisted my family and I take a leisurely walk to the grocery store right around the corner from our house. We picked up some items at the store, with plans in our minds of coming home and making a fun lunch. Headed back, and about half way home, I felt a gush. I quickly and instantly shoved my negative thoughts into the back of my mind. A few more steps. Another. And another. And another. It was too familiar. My husband continued with his happy chit chat, as I felt the color vanishing from my face. I told him, "all I want to do is go to the bathroom. " Being a pregnant mommy in her first trimester, obviously that wouldn't sound alarming. More normal and expected than anything. I told him, "I think I am bleeding. " It was a quiet remainder of the walk, and through the door and straight to the bathroom I went. There before me was the red I feared would be staring back at me. 

As my mind raced, I mentally scanned through my thoughts on the couch before getting up, finding a spot to sink into on my bed and sob into my hands. 

"WHY!? " I began to ask.

"People criticise me everyday for the faith I have in you, and yet I stand by your side and continue to promise that no matter what YOU have not forsaken me! How can I try to continue to lead these

people, with my constant examples of what others see as your absence?  "

I felt angry. Angry in the sense I knew I was going to have to stand up once more in front of the crowd and let everyone know, my prayers and hopes, were once again shattered. Knowing all of the impending whispers would be starting about how far my faith was really getting me. I was preparing myself for the strength I knew I had to find deep inside me, yet again.

Once I had released my anger, and my heartache in my tears, I stood up, and came back downstairs. Standing in the kitchen, I hunched over as my stomach turned from the nausea I was feeling. I laid down on the couch, and forced myself to eat the lunch my husband still sweetly prepared for me. It didn't taste nearly as good as I had imagined it would only an hour prior. Turning on a movie, I fell asleep. I thought rest would be in my best interest. A few hours later, I woke and went to the bathroom. I was still bleeding, but I began to notice it wasn't what it "should" be. I told my husband that I wanted to go to the emergency room. We called my mother-in-law and she met us in the parking lot, where she took the kids off of our hands. The initial process was quick. I was seen within minutes, from a nurse practitioner. They seemed optimistic from everything I was describing. They told me I was going to need an ultrasound, and some lab work done. Where a few minutes later, they took me back to a room. I found myself waiting, and staring down at the same patterned hospital gown that I once wore only nine months ago. Ugly checkers, how I loathe you...

The doctor came in a performed a topical ultrasound hoping to see everything he needed to see. But it was too early. He ordered a "internal" ultrasound, and shortly after that some nice nurses came in to take my blood. And then began the typical emergency room waiting game. My husband and I joked and laughed ourselves into a frenzy. I suddenly thought to myself as my side ached from laughter, "why am I so happy right now? Why am I feeling so calm and optimistic? " 

Finally the ultrasound technician came and wheeled me back. {Wheeled. By that I mean bed and all. There is nothing I tense up with more than feeling the loss of my independence.} As I lay in a pitch dark room, the only light shining on the technicians face coming from the ultrasound machine, that I couldn't see, I found myself chatting up the silence in those fifteen to twenty minutes. After all, there was time to kill, and so much I wanted to inquire her about regarding CDH. {Bless her little heart, I think I taught her a thing or two about it. Because my questions ended up being her questions.} I began asking her, if she saw anything. I swear ultrasound technicians would make the best poker players. I tried so hard to read her face. But it always looked the same. No promise of hope, no promise of devastation. Just a poker face.

Once again, I had to wait for the doctor to tell me anything, and hours later, they moved me to yet another room for a pelvic exam. My cervix was completely closed...

He then began to tell me, "Okay, here's the thing. You lab numbers look perfect. Baby is measuring right on schedule at 5-6weeks. But.... " {I hate buts...} "But, where the placenta is attaching to the uterine wall, there is a pocket of fluid. Which we assume is blood obviously. We have also discovered a mass growing on your left ovary, which we don't know what to think about that. This has us at a point where we don't really know where to go from here. " He then told me he was going to call my doctor, and see what she had to say.

So back down the hall we went into my room where my husband was waiting. I told him everything the doctor had just said. And again we waited. We waited for at least another hour. I relayed the message to my mom, my mother-in-law, and a friend anxiously awaiting news back. A few minutes later, a message appeared on my phone. My friend had gathered any information based on what the doctor had just told us. She sent me a message, saying this was what "the internet" thought it was. It lifted my spirits. 

Maybe fifteen minutes later, the doctor came back in. "You have what is called a subchorionic hemorrhage. What your body is doing is releasing the blood buildup behind the placenta. Right now you need pelvic rest, and your doctor wants you to call her office tomorrow to come in and see her. She will want you to get more lab work, and have another ultrasound done. "

And like that, I was discharged. Still pregnant. But still so unaware of where life would lead us from here. We came home and I once more became a fixture on the couch. The bleeding had stopped completely. 

But here I am. Wondering. Hoping. Scared out of my mind in the middle of the night. Everything I have read, says women go on to deliver healthy babies having this sort of hemorrhage. But... do these women stand up with my odds? With my similar history? Why did the doctor not say anything about the "mass" he seemed to focus in on? What am I going to do if the doctor puts me on bed rest with three children? Will my baby lack the oxygen and nutrients to be the healthy and thriving child I hoped for? Am I going to continue this pregnancy with problems from the very beginning? Did I make a selfish decision? The list of questions continue running through my mind. What ifs... 

All I can do is make it through the rest of the night. Just me... and my thoughts.