The First Signs of Trouble
I didn’t realize that anything was wrong. That is the thing I beat myself up about the most. I should have known. I should have asked. Now, I feel like I ignored the symptoms and I keep telling myself that I knew something was wrong….why didn't I do anything?? Those thoughts are enough to make you crazy. Maybe if I would have done something I would still be carrying her, she may still be with us.
I felt a heaviness in my lower abdomen. When I had to pee it was more noticeable but after I did pee, I felt relief so just passed it off as my bladder being full. When I went from sitting to standing is when it was most noticeable but again, I usually only noticed it when I was getting up to pee.
It Wednesday May 18th 2011 when I was working from 3pm-11pm that I noticed something different but didn’t realize it was a life-threatening symptom. I had been working part time for the most part and my work pants and belt had been getting so tight I could barely button them any longer so when I noticed a tightness in my abdomen I just unbuttoned my pants and belt and felt some relief.
The dull achiness I was feeling I wrote off to be more growing pains. I had been having sharp pains, dull pains, pulling pains; you name it, the whole pregnancy. I had just been reading the other day that the baby would be doubling in size over the next few weeks and to expect some lower abdomen pain. Now, I keep telling myself, “you should have known it wasn’t normal”. I also had some cramping during the day that Wednesday, again just like menstrual cramps but nothing that I was concerned about since I had been having cramps the entire pregnancy. I just remember it as feeling crampy that day. I had an increase in discharge and a little dark red blood when I went to the bathroom earlier that day. Generally, when I did have a BM I also had increased vaginal discharge, so I wrote that off of being the cause. The achiness came and went that evening and came again once more when I returned home. After laying down all night and the next morning I relaxed all day before going into work again that Thursday night. I had no pain that I can recall while I was resting. I recall looking up mucus plugs on my forum after reading about another girl in my birth club who dilated and gave birth to her baby too early. I determined I have had no discharge like that and felt satisfied that I was fine.
At work Thursday night I felt that heaviness again. I again went to empty my bladder and when I wiped I had a giant glob of mucus – grey, white and red in color. I began shaking as I realized this was likely my mucus plug. Still in the bathroom, I immediately called my doctor’s office. They had to page the doctor and I anxiously waited in the work office after telling my DH (we work together) that we may need to go to the ER. She asked me a series of questions; did you have sex in the last 24 hours? No. Do you have cramps? Not really, nothing that I think is abnormal. I couldn't think of how to describe the feeling I felt. I came up with "heaviness" only after I got home and started doing research. A light came on when I read the symptoms for IC and heaviness was exactly how I would have described it. Then she told me I could either come in tonight to the ER or wait till morning and go in to her office. DH and I quickly decided to go to the ER.
I was numb. I was so scared, there were no words. I didn’t think, I didn’t talk and I didn’t know what to do. I never could have imagined the horror that was going to follow over the next week.
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