Pregnancy Scare

I know for most people, a pregnancy scare means that they freaked out because they thought they might be pregnant. Well, folks, since that situation will never happen for us, I have decided to re-purpose the phrase and use it to explain that "we are pregnant, and yes we have had a tiny scare".

So this weekend I started to feel some pain in my lower abdomen - mostly on the left hand side. It wasn't cramping, just this weird pain that came and went, mostly felt when I rolled over in bed or stood up from a sitting position. I didn't really think much of it....until.....

Until yesterday when I started bleeding. Ok, bleeding might be too strong of a term. Spotting is probably more accurate. But in my opinion, any kind of blood during pregnancy is scary. So anyway, here I am, now feeling some pain AND spotting. Of course, this was on Labor day so every place in Moscow and Pullman is closed.

I called the on call dr. (which as luck would have it is my ob) and she asked me a bunch of questions and said that we should watch it and if it continued to call the office first thing in the morning. If it got worse, I was to call her back immediately. Then she asked me my blood type. I told her that I was O negative, or at least I was pretty sure I was, and she ordered me to the hospital to have my blood drawn to confirm my blood type and to look for some sort of antigen in my blood. You see, if you have O negative blood, you have to have this fancy dancy shot called a Rhogahm shot. This is normally given at 28 weeks. The reason has something to do with your body's blood basically attacking the baby because of antigens you either do or don't have.

Frankly, I find it all very confusing. But I do know that it's unusual to have to have the shot so soon. In my case, I needed the shot just to be safe. Because I lost that third baby, and now I am spotting, I guess there is a chance that things could be getting dicey with this RH Factor thingy. I will have to have the shot again at the 28 week mark. It isn't a bad one - pretty big needle in the hip, but since I'm used to that because of IVF, I didn't even flinch. I was told to be on bed rest for the entire day, so I spent the holiday watching tv and playing dinosaurs with Connor in my bed.

Anyway, I woke up this morning and the spotting seemed to have subsided a little, but when I got to work it was back in full swing, so I called the Dr.'s office again. This time I had to wait for a call back. Finally someone called me back and asked what color the spotting was - me: brownish red. Asked me about the cramping - me: not cramping, more like a pulled muscle pain. She told me that because I was spotting brownish that it was old blood and not new bleeding, which is a good thing. If it increases in amount or turns bright red, then I need to be seen immediately. She told me that the pain I was feeling was round ligament pain. Apparently my ligaments are stretching and this is a pretty common pain in pregnant women, especially when you are carrying more than one baby. She told me to rest as much as possible until the spotting stops and to practice "pelvic rest" until my next appointment. Which basically means no sex until my next appointment...I go back to the Dr. on the 17th.

So until then, I will take it a little easy and hope that the spotting and round ligament pain go away. I feel relieved to know that it is nothing serious, but there is still a part of me that is paranoid it could be something worse, so I don't mind being overly cautious.

Till next time...