how swedish fails but doesn't
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the fail
Last night, I started gushing bright red blood while getting ready for bed and promptly freaked out. I've never seen my husband look so broken in his life before. So we called Swedish to figure out what to do, since we haven't even had our first appointment with them. We kept getting the phone run around with them, getting sent from this department to that. It was really disappointing. I feel like if a woman who is pregnant is calling you to tell you this is her first pregnancy, she has not had her first OB appointment yet, and she's gushing blood, the reaction is not to shuttle her around. But maybe we were just stupid and should've gone to the er immediately.
the doesn't part
Once we decided to go and get to the ER, everything was nice. Everyone there was nice and calming and I have nothing but great things to say about the ER front desk, the doctors and nurses on call last night, and the ultrasound technician. This wasn't how I expected my first ever ultrasound to go, but we saw the baby and the baby's heartbeat and it was so beautiful. Unfortunately, though the tech said she would consider this a viable pregnancy, at the time, she couldn't say for sure, so we didn't know whether to be happy or heartbroken.
The baby is still viable and the pregnancy is fine now, but I'm a wreck. I'm trying to let it go, but it was a lot of blood and some clot clumps. Has this happened to anyone before and resulted in a healthy baby later?
Re: how swedish fails but doesn't
I'm sorry for the run around you got from Swedish. I'm sure that was super frustrating and scary.
I had spotting up until 12 weeks. Every time I hear a story like this, though, I always think of Lynchie. With her first, she had (at least one) like full on periods. She was even told she was miscarrying, I think, but from that pregnancy, she has a beautiful son!
You saw a heartbeat and that is a giant step. Good luck to you. Try to relax this weekend and then try to get into your OB Monday.
TTC #2 for a million years: SA normal, CD 23 bloodwork shows nothing amiss, ovulation detected. Next step: ? maybe CD3 bloodwork to check eggs? All out of pocket, so limited IF tests/treatments.
Try to just take it easy and relax the next few days.
I had early bleeding at around 8w with clots and cramping. Turned out baby was still doing well and it was a fairly common perigestational bleed. Then again at around 18w I had gushes of bright red blood. Again, baby's heartbeat was perfectly fine and she was growing right on track. Sometimes there is just unexplained bleeding...20w ultrasound showed an "A+ baby" the doctors said.
I have been through two miscarriages, and one pregnancy with bleeding in the 1st trimester which I later ended up delivering at close to 31 weeks. I dealt more with my obgyn Seattle Obgyn directly rather than Swedish hospital during pregnancy.
With my miscarriages that happened in the 1st trimester, I knew that there was not anything that they could really do if I started to bleed--at most, if I was further along, they could confirm if there was still a heartbeat. Looking back though, I feel like I was more likely to hear from someone from the obgyn office (a nurse or triage) during the week when it was an issue regarding bleeding early in my pregnancy, and luckily some of the bleeding happened during the week that I could just go get my Beta and be seen by someone if I was further along for them to do an ultrasound.
It was a different scenario when I was close to 31 weeks, and I started cramping, brown spotting and then brown bleeding. I called the pager for the oncall obgyn at Seattle Obgyn, and she called me back. My water broke while on the phone with her--she told me to go to ER--and Swedish did an excellent job with meeting me in the ER with a wheelchair and getting me up to Labor and Delivery ---the Obgyn, the nurses, and the NICU were all ready for me when the obgyn determined I was fully dialated.
I can understand if you feel like you needed to go to the ER with the bleeding. It always seems to happen when you least expect it to happen. It is a waiting game at this point. I hope that this pregnancy works out for you.
I had the exact same experience with my first pregnancy, tons of red blood and clots, I called my dr and she said it was a m/c. Well, I went into the er anyway and they found the sac but no fetal pole which they said they should have been able to see at that point (6ish weeks), so they said it was kind of a waiting game since my cervix was closed still, but things didnt look they way they should. 3 days of crying and bleeding later I called my dr and asked for a blood test for beta levels cause I was sick of waiting and just wanted to know what was happening. WELL my betas doubled and then tripled and now my "M/C" is a happy healthy 3 year old boy!!
On the other end of the spectrum, when I was ttc baby #2 I got pregnant and started spotting again around 6 weeks, thinking this was just my normal I didnt freak out, but the bleeding continued and eventually I did miscarry that baby around 7 weeks.
So there ya have it. 2 stories, one happy one not so much. I will keep you in my thoughts that this is a sticky baby, good luck and Hugs!!!
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