A week ago everything was perfect. Then I go to the toilet and bright red blood streams into the bowl. I yell, “No, no, no, please no!” and clench my legs shut. If I can keep the blood in maybe my baby will be okay? Knowing this precious life inside me is now in jeopardy I race to find the phone. But who do I call first? My Obstetrician? My husband? An ambulance? Tears are streaming down my face and my two daughters follow me asking questions I can’t even hear over my loud sobs. After many frantic calls I collapse to the ground, and feeling my hair wet from tears pressing against my hot cheeks, I anguish over what kind of a world it will be if I lose this life that I love so deeply.
I lay on the grey carpet waiting for help to arrive. Does nobody care that I am losing my baby right now, here on the floor of my home, surrounded by my children yet utterly alone? I think of those women who have lost babies. You know who they are, their sad stories whispered in secret by other mums. You have made eye contact with them knowing what pain they have endured, but until this moment I never fully understood the immense and all consuming loss and grief they had experienced. Finally the ambulance arrives and at that moment husband and my mother in law walk through the front door. They look at me with concern and sadness, an almost pitting look. I understand why. I am only 9 weeks along in this pregnancy, we all know there is nothing we can do to save this precious life. I continue praying anyway.
After a quick assessment the paramedics agree husband can take me to see our obstetrician. He is the only person I want to see right now and I want to see him, right now! The traffic is awful but we eventually make it to his rooms. I sit legs crossed, tears melting into my cheeks as they flow steadily. I notice the look on our obstetrician’s face before he begins the scan. I haven’t seen this look before and I know it isn’t good. But amazingly as he scans my uterus we see our baby and a heartbeat! Our baby is alive! All praise the Lord, what a blessing! Yet I can’t rejoice quite yet, there is a cause for the heavy bleed. A hematoma sits beside our baby, silently threatening our pregnancy and our baby’s life.
Over the following week whilst on bed rest I google and become familiar with hematomas, and also frequent nightmares that follow such terrifying information. I dream of our baby, I see her, she is perfect, she has green eyes and blonde hair, but there are spirits trying to take her away from us. I won’t let that happen, I hold her tight and tell them, “NO!!!!!”
Today I go to see our obstetrician for a follow up. We hope for good news as the bleeding has stopped. My belly is scanned, our baby has grown, she waves at us. Then beside her we see the hematoma, it too has grown. Our obstetrician tells us he is now anxious and we are not out of the woods, yet. I hold onto that yet. I question him. Many questions. He is surprised by my knowledge of hematomas. I follow his instructions carefully, another week of bed rest, but stricter, no getting up to sit with my children on the floor as we play blocks, no going in the car to watch their swimming lessons, no nothing. I wonder how we will cope with these new restrictions. But I also know we will do anything to keep our baby alive.
Tomorrow husband will cancel our weekend activities; our holiday and our daughters birthday plans will be put on hold. He will assign cake duty to his mother and begin reign as a full time SAHD (Stay At Home Dad). We had so many hopes for this pregnancy given it will be our last. We had organised a special way to announce our happy news to family and friends, we had discussed when to upgrade the car, what to name this baby, how our family will be complete when she is born in May next year. But now, after everything else is stripped away, we see at the root of everything the only thing that matters is that our baby survives. We prayed for this baby, we want her more than anything. It is going to be a very long week and an even longer 28 weeks as we count down to C-Day (cesarean day) hoping that when it arrives so does our baby, kicking and screaming, healthy and very much alive.