Ok, this one is about something that can be both a very sensitive subject and very frightening, but I’m just gonna put it out there – not all bleeding during pregnancy is a bad omen.
Now I am definitely not implying that you should ignore it if you start bleeding at any time throughout your pregnancy, but just know that it doesn’t always signal the worst. Certainly call your doctor if you see anything more than some light spotting (or even if you do see spotting and it makes you nervous, for that matter) just so they are aware and can direct you if anything needs to be done. Let me give you my little example…
When I was about 4 months along, I woke up one Sunday morning to some nasty bleeding. I thought oh my god! What is that?? What’s happening? What’s going wrong? For I had zero pain or discomfort whatsoever and had done nothing strenuous at all in the days prior. It was just all of a sudden there when I first went to the bathroom that morning. So I went into a mild freak out and called my doctor’s after hours line, it being 7:30am on a Sunday and all. The on-call doctor with whom I spoke didn’t seem concerned since there was no pain associated with it, there appeared to be no lumps in it, and it was more of a dark red than a bright red. He told me to just lay low and relax that day, and try not to do too much physical activity. Ok, done. I sat in bed all day watching tv. This was actually what I would have done most of that day anyway, since R and I had gotten in a huge fight the night before when I picked him up from an all-day bar crawl, he slept on the couch that night, and I was going to generally try to avoid him all day Sunday even without these new doctor’s orders.
And things seemed to be clearing up just fine. There was no more bleeding that morning and into the afternoon. About 3pm, however, it was back. Shit! I called the doctor again, and this time he wanted me to go into labor and delivery at the hospital just so they could check me out and do a little investigative work. Double shit. I almost had a panic attack. I was so scared. If something happened to the baby I didn’t know how I was going to be able to handle it. Everything had gone so wonderfully in my pregnancy up until that point I hadn’t even thought that losing the baby was still a concern for me. But what else could all this blood mean? Plus I hadn’t said 1 word to R that whole day and now I have to tell him that I’m going to the hospital because I’m bleeding and I don’t know if there’s something wrong with our baby? Oh god, I can’t do it. So I went out in the living room, sat down on the futon to put on my shoes, and he looked over at me to see what I was doing. I told him I had to go to the hospital and instantly broke down in tears. It was the scariest day of my pregnancy, my husband and I were mad at each other, and I thought I was going to have to hear the news every pregnant woman fears most all alone. I broke. R immediately flew off the couch and into action to get ready and take me. I told him he didn’t have to come and he told me not to be ridiculous. I was so relieved. I thought he was just going to be more mad for some reason, hence me not even wanting to tell him where I was going. I honestly thought I was just going to walk out the door without saying anything to him. How awful would that have been?
On the way to the hospital I did one of those sniffle-sobs where you’re really just breathing in, but since you’ve been crying it gets all jumbled up and noisy. You know what I’m talking about? When R heard this he grabbed my hand and held it the rest of the way. I felt so much better. Still scared shitless about what was going on inside me, but at least our fight from the night before was instantly a distant memory. When we arrived at the hospital they showed us up to l&d, and I explained to the nurse at the window that I was the one with the unexplained bleeding about whom the doctor had called in to them. They showed us to a room where I waited to be examined. The nurse had me change into a gown and asked me to describe what had been going on and if there was any pain, blah, blah, she hooked up an ultrasound machine and placed it on my belly, and right away we saw the baby in there, swimming away totally a-ok. Oh thank god and all things holy! You have no idea how relieved we were. Awesome, fantastic, whew! But where was the blood coming from? They weren’t sure. The nurse did an internal exam and said it was old blood, so it could really have been caused by anything – maybe I strained too hard in a movement and it escaped, or it may just have been hiding out in my va-j that whole time and got jostled out somehow, she really wasn’t sure. All right, fine. As long as the baby is ok I really don’t care. I had another ultrasound scheduled with the perinatologist for a different reason a few days from then anyway, so they told me to just take it easy until then and he would be able to get a much clearer picture of what was going on in there. My god was that ride home a bazillion times better than the one on the way to the hospital.
At my next ultrasound, the doctor found the cause of my bleeding – a low-lying placenta, otherwise known as placenta previa. This is a condition where the placenta does not grow up and into the uterus as the baby grows, but rather stays down near the cervix, either partially or completely covering it. If it stays down there until it’s time to deliver, it almost always results in a c-section, since a vaginal delivery would be much too dangerous for both mom and baby and would entail a ridiculous amount of bleeding and tearing. Yee-ouch and yikes! Fortunately mine was about the least severe classification possible – my placenta was just barely touching the cervix, not covering it, but it was still close enough to cause that blood to come out. So I was placed on a 6 week no sex, no heavy physical exertion restriction, in the hopes that the placenta would just naturally correct itself and move up. And fortunately it did. At my ultrasound 6 weeks later everything looked great, I got the all-clear, and I didn’t have to see the perinatologist again during my pregnancy. He’s a nice guy and all, but I’d rather know everything is healthy in there than continue to have to see him.
So you see, as scary as it is when it happens, bleeding doesn’t necessarily mean everything’s going wrong. Like I said, absolutely call your doctor if you do start bleeding, but please try not to assume the worst. I know I’m a bad example since I obviously failed at that, but after going through my little experience I now know that there are so many other causes, and hopefully if it happens again during any future pregnancies I might be able to stay a little more calm until we figure out what’s really going on in there.