Yesterday got a little more exciting than we wanted for a little while. I discovered blood on my toilet paper after going to the bathroom. That is not where you want to see blood when you're 23 weeks pregnant. I was concerned. I googled "23 weeks pregnant spotting," which is a dangerous thing to do because you can find horror stories, and was mostly reassured. But mostly reassured isn't quite enough with my history. I lay on my right side for a while to see if Emmie would move. She didn't. I was more worried. I ate some peanut butter crackers, and she still didn't move. More worried. I lay on my back instead, and in just a minute Emmie greeted me. Less worried.
I never had spotting with my first two pregnancies, but I've had spotting every couple of months with Emmie. It's nerve-wracking every time. Previously, she's been so little that if the spotting meant there was a real problem, there wasn't much to do about it. The solution to many problems in pregnancy is to deliver, but that's not an option at 10 weeks or 16 weeks, so you just have to hope and pray and wait. But at 23 weeks there's at least a chance that she could live if she were delivered. And so if my body is telling me there might be a problem, I should make sure that everything is OK. I would hate to lose a viable baby because I ignored blood.
So I called my doctor's office. My doctor's office really needs to rethink what they play while you're on hold. I think it was a radio station. The first thing I heard was the obituaries. Just what I needed. And the first song they played was Electric Light Orchestra's "Living Thing," the chorus of which says, "It's a living thing. What a terrible thing to lose." Seriously. I don't know that English majors are more superstitious, but we've spent a lot more time considering foreshadowing than many people. As I heard these things, I told Matt, and he found them as comically ominous as I did, and that's one of the many reasons I love him. If we were superstitious, it would have been ominous but not comical. Eventually the nurse told me (predictably, because we're special) to go to the emergency room. I immediately called Shawn and Susie, who dropped everything to watch Lucy while we went to the hospital in Lebanon. I'm not sure I can ever express how wonderful Shawn and Susie are.
We checked into the ER and the Women's Center. They checked my urine to make sure that I didn't have urinary or kidney problems. Then they hooked me up to the fetal monitor. Emmie had been moving during the car ride, so I was pretty sure she was OK, but I always hold my breath when they check for a heartbeat. They weren't sure the monitor would pick her up because she's so little, but the monitor found her fairly quickly. And then she found the monitor. We have quite a bit of experience with fetal monitors. All three of our babies have been hooked to them at some point. And we knew that Neil and Lucy had fought the monitor, pushing and kicking to get it off my belly. Neil was more methodical, but they were both tenacious. It turns out that Emmie is similarly tenacious, and she did try both quick kicking and sustained pushing to move the monitor. She kicked the monitor so hard that I felt it bounce against my belly. I asked Matt if he wanted to watch to see if he could see her move the monitor. After a few minutes he saw her kick hard enough to make the monitor bounce again. She's less than 6 months, and she's already affecting the outside world. The nurse was very impressed, not just with the kicking but also with how well Emmie's heartrate tracked for half an hour on the monitor. She showed the doctor the print-out and said, "Have you ever seen a 23 week track like that?" He hadn't. So Emmie is strong and exceptional.
The lab found no problem with my urine sample. The monitor showed I didn't have any contractions. The doctor did an internal exam and found no blood. He also found my cervix was "holding up well" (for a third pregnancy? despite my advanced maternal age?). So everything was fine. He decided I should go ahead and get my Rho-gam shot (routine because Matt and I have different blood Rh) while I was at the hospital, which sounded good to me. It ended up taking three hours, which is two hours longer than it's ever taken before. My Kindle ran out of energy, and I had time to delete almost 200 text messages from my phone. We hadn't had supper, so a nurse brought us some snacks. It was a long day.
We talked to the doctor about why I had bled in the first place. What we figured out is that pregnant women should not lift six-quart enamel-coated cast iron Dutch ovens. I had been doing dishes, and when I picked up the Dutch oven, I grunted because it was heavier than I expected. Apparently, it was heavy enough to make me bleed a little. And it was heavy enough that my entire abdomen is still feeling tender 12 hours later. So no more lifting. I'm not even lifting Lucy at this point.
We were so glad that Lucy was in good hands because we didn't get home until after 10:00. Shawn and Susie played with her outside while we were leaving. Lucy waved goodbye and talked to them about her "beep" and then ran to the back yard to play some more. She didn't miss us at all for more than 5 hours. They took her for supper in the university's dining hall. She even got to eat with her friend Selah, who she hasn't seen in several months. I asked if she freaked out when Selah left. Lately she cries "friend, friend" so pitifully when one of her friends leaves that it tugs at my heart. She was getting upset until Selah ran back to give her a bracelet, which made the parting OK for Lucy. After they got back to our house, they played and watched Shaun the Sheep. Lucy just said "Shaun Baa" for the first time today to name the show. Previously, she's just bleated to request it. She's been saying "Shawn" for weeks. In fact, yesterday she was lying under the dining table naming who each chair belongs to: "me seat, Daddy seat, Mommy seat." And I expected her to skip the fourth chair at the table, but she labeled it "Shawn seat." She's right. That's where he sits when they come to dinner and when he plays games with Matt. So Shawn was part of her vocabulary before Shaun, despite the fact that she's spent many more hours watching Shaun. Tonight she transferred all of her Daddy and Mommy ideas onto Shawn and Susie. She used Shawn as a jungle gym like she does Matt. Mommy doesn't play that way, especially now, so she seemed to assume that Susie wouldn't either. I also tend to be pretty tired in the evenings, so she's been spending more time cuddled up with Matt than she used to. When we got home, she was cuddled up to Shawn playing Daniel Tiger on her tablet. I don't know how she would have handled bedtime without us if we had been out later, but it's good to know she can be fine so long with Shawn and Susie. Our plan is for them to keep her while I'm in the hospital having Emmie and recovering in May. I think this test run was a success.
So despite a scare it turned out to be a good day. I'm fine and have a comment-worthy cervix. Matt has to do all the heavy lifting per doctor's orders. Emmie is active, strong, and exceptional. Lucy can see us leave and have someone watch her for hours, all without a tear. And we have the best friends in the world. (We already knew that last part.) It was a long but reassuring day.
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