Long Weekend

Friday morning found me early as Love was bustling around our room getting ready to leave for breakfast before work. He kissed me goodbye and I got up to go to the bathroom. Once there I realized I was having vaginal bleeding and rushed downstairs to catch him before he left. With shaking hands I called the doctor on call and reached the answering service who said they would page him. I crawled into bed next to Love to wait for a call back as alternating thoughts of hope and graphic miscarriage played in my head. He held my hand but we said nothing, afraid of our emotions...afraid to speculate. After about 40 minutes of this, I decided I couldn't just let those thoughts have me and went and took a shower. After an hour passed by I called the doctor back to discover that it was now my doctor on call and the other doctor hadn't bothered to call me back. They paged my doctor and he called me in two minutes. My only hopeful sign was that I didn't have any cramping so my doctor told me to come in right when they opened and they would do an ultrasound to check on the baby. We got Zoe up and got out the door saying little to each other, but trying to act normal for her sake. My blessed in-laws were called and asked if they would watch Zoe and of course they said they would. What would we do without them?

We got to the hospital and sat for a short while in the waiting room until they called us back. They took us straight to the ultrasound room and I was instructed to lay on the table. I tried to calm my heart as I braced myself for bad news. When the technician found the baby it was really still, which was alarming. The last time I saw that little one it looked like a peanut. Now it looked like a baby and it wasn't moving. Suddenly the baby kicked just as the tech pointed to the heartbeat. She turned on the sound and we heard the most beautiful, quick little heartbeat. Tears sprang to my eyes as I reached for Love's hand and saw that he was crying too. She checked the baby's length and it was right where it should be. Feeling relieved we let her explore to find the source of the bleeding as we watched our baby kicking around. She discovered a small separation of the placenta from the uterus and explained that was the source of the bleeding. Surprisingly this is fairly common, and we were told our separation was tiny. We were given a couple pictures and told to go to the waiting room until my doctor could speak with us. The doctor confirmed what the nurse said, told me to take it easy for a few days and it should heal on it's own. Also, not to do anything strenuous for a week to ten days. We left feeling so much lighter than we did as we walked in. I walked in thinking it was the end of a pregnancy and walked out relieved and happy to have caught a glimpse of the baby growing inside of me. I spent the rest of the day resting at my in-laws' home and the rest of the weekend taking it easy as Love took charge of Zoe and the house and let me rest.

I'm feeling much better today, though I've been reminded just how fragile life can be...and what a miracle each child is in our lives. I'm hopeful that we'll get through this pregnancy and deliver a healthy baby in six months. I keep praying we will, anyway.