Ryan's birth story

I'm going to preface this with a disclaimer:  This may get long, and there may be a bit of TMI thrown in, but I feel like it will be healthy for me to type this out and put it out there.  I especially want to share it because I haven't found many preemie birth stories that involve SCH/placental abruption.  I'm hoping to provide some answers to anyone else in a similar situation. Thank you for giving me this outlet.

My pregnancy started out completely normal.  I had my first u/s at 9w3d and everything looked great.  Then 4 days later, when I was exactly 10 weeks, I had to go to the ER for a bleeding scare.  I'd had a m/c before my daughter was born, so I thought I was going through another loss.  I was so relieved when they found out little gummy bear with a strong HB, still measuring on track, but concerned when they told me I had a large subchorionic hematoma (SCH).  Basically, there was a large blood clot in between the uterus and the lining of the baby's sac.  Luckily, my SCH was not behind the placenta, it was on the other side of my uterus, so I was told if I went on strict bed rest, it should heal on it's own by 16-18 weeks.

I would do anything to get this baby here healthy, so I stopped working and started strict bed rest.  With a toddler.  Thank God for my husband and my parents for helping us out.  The bleeding tapered off to spotting and I went in for regular u/s every 2 weeks, and the SCH was slowly shrinking.  It looked like I was going to be one of the lucky ones.  When I was around 16 weeks, so 6 weeks of bed rest at that point, I went in for an u/s and the SCH was only 12cc (which was down from the 49cc it had in the beginning).  They told me that if I stuck with the bed rest for 2 more weeks, I'd most likely be completely healed and could go back to work.  We were thrilled.

Then, when I was just shy of 18 weeks, I had some MAJOR cramping,  I hadn't had any bleeding from the SCH in weeks, and I still wasn't bleeding, but the cramping was intense.  They had told me to call the OB office if anything changed or if I had bad cramps, so I called.  They brought me in for an u/s the next day, and we were all shocked to discover that the SCH had filled up again.  It had gone from the 12cc of 2 weeks prior to 119cc!  The craziest part was that the blood was just all trapped in there because I still wasn't bleeding.  The blood had caused the cramping because it's an irritant to the uterus.

Four days later, I had another BAD cramping episode.  I called again, this time it was after hours, and they told me they wanted me to go to L&D at the hospital.  So, I went, had an u/s, they checked me vaginally even though I didn't want them to, and everything looked similar to what we had seen a few days prior.  I still wasn't bleeding, but it was still around 119cc.  I noticed that the position of the SCH had shifted lower toward my cervix.  The next day, it found it's way out.  I started bleeding a ton.  It was so nerve-wracking, but I had a doppler at home and I could still find baby's heartbeat, which was such a relief. 

After that, I continued to bleed at an alarming rate.  It was heavier than a regular period, which is rather unnerving while pregnant.  I was sent to a MFM high risk doctor, and they gave me the statistics for moms with bleeding this late in the pregnancy.  I continued strict bed rest, and the goal was to get me to 24 weeks on home bed rest, then admit me to the hospital for the remainder of my pregnancy.  I was reading someone else's birth story on the blog, and she mentioned how she kept repeating the mantra of making it to 26 weeks.  I was doing the same thing, except I just wanted to make it to 25 weeks.  I kept saying, if I can make it to 25 weeks, he'll be ok, and I can make it 2 more weeks at a time after that.  But in my mind at that point, the goal was 25 weeks.

On March 14, 2012, one day after I hit 24 weeks, I was admitted into the hospital and giving the first round of steroids.  The next day I got the second shot.  I was so thankful.  I had been on bed rest for 14 weeks, bleeding heavily for 6 weeks, but I had made it to viability, and I had gotten the steroids.  I really thought I was going to make it for the long haul.  In fact, after a few days in the hospital, I started to feel like I didn't belong there.  I was so early in my pregnancy still, I wasn't having any signs of PTL, just the bleeding, and I felt like I could manage that at home.  I wish now that I had never complained about being there because I'd give anything to be there still, baking my little guy.  And thank God for my OB for insisting that I be there for monitoring, since in her words, "These bleeds can be very unpredictable."

On the night of Monday, March 19th I started to feel some cramping.  They hooked me up to the contraction monitors and we found out I was having contractions 2 and a half minutes apart.  They watched me for a while, then gave me a pill (procardia) to try to stop them, but it didn't work.  They were getting more intense and were now  more like 2 mins apart.  Then they gave me a shot of terbutaline, and the nurse assured me that should knock them out.  I was still in denial.  I just wanted to try to sleep.  They gave me ambien to try to help me sleep, but the contractions were still coming 2 mins apart and were just painful enough to keep me awake the whole night.

The next morning, my OB came by for her rounds.  I was starting to feel better, the contractions weren't as painful, but she wanted to keep monitoring me because they were still coming pretty regularly.  She left and I was sitting up, eating breakfast and talking to my mom on the phone.  All of a sudden, I felt a huge pop in my abdomen.  I couldn't tell if it was the baby giving me a huge kick, the SCH popping, or my water breaking (or any combination of those options), and I still don't know what it was, but it wasn't good.  My mom heard me shout on the phone and told me to page the nurse right away, so I did.  Then I ran to the bathroom because I could feel a gush of blood coming.  The nurse got there just in time to see a ton of blood/clots come out, more than ever before.  It was as if the entire SCH finally decided to come out.  I couldn't decide if I was happy (maybe I was finally getting rid of that stupid SCH and could go on to have a normal pregnancy), or scared (was that the SCH??  Or was it the placenta?).  No matter what it was, I was definitely going into shock.  She got me back into bed, and called a doctor.  My OB had just gone into surgery, so they brought in the emergency surgeon.  He checked me internally and then told the nurses they needed to get me to the OR right away.  The nurse had me call my husband to come in.  They transferred me to another bed and started to wheel me out of my temporary home to the OR.  I grabbed onto my phone for dear life.  I feel like I was in so much shock that it was actually happening.  I was only 25 weeks pregnant, this was too soon.  The pain was intensifying 100 fold, it was much worse than the contractions I'd have overnight.  Baby boy was breech, but I think they would've done a c/s anyways at that point.  As they were wheeling me around, they had him hooked up to a monitor to check his heart rate, and I could hear it speeding up and then stopping and then picking up again.  That was when I got really scared and new that they were going to have to get him out.  I was bleeding profusely on the table, and the pain was horrible, but all I could think about was making sure they got him out ok.  Once they got me to the OR, they transferred me onto another table and I remember asking for something to help the pain.  I felt like if I was in that much pain, my baby might be feeling some pain, too, and I needed it to stop.  The anesthesiologist was right behind me, telling me that they were trying to decide if I should get a spinal or be put under.  I guess they made the decision because the next thing I knew, they had one of those gas mask breathing tubes over my mouth, and the nurse was next to me telling me it was all going to be ok.  She took my phone and my wedding rings from me, and that was the last thing I remember. 

When I woke up, my husband was sitting behind me.  I was in the recovery area, separated by curtains from so many happy parents who had also just had babies but were cooing and talking cheerfully to their little ones.  Where was my baby?  I was still pretty out of it from the drugs, but that part of this ordeal still feels like a bad dream.  Actually, all of it starting from the "pop" feels like a bad dream.  I had been in that recovery room before with my daughter, and this was just surreal to be there without a baby in my arms.  A nurse finally came and told me that Ryan was in the NICU and we'd be able to go see him in a few minutes.  I found out that the reason I had to deliver was because my SCH had started to get behind the placenta, and I was having an abruption.  I am just so thankful that my OB put me in the hospital so that I was already there when it happened.  I never ever expected it, I thought for sure I was going to be in the hospital until my scheduled c/s at 39 weeks, but my body had other plans.

Ryan is now just over 3 weeks old, and is showing great signs of improvement in the NICU.  On the day he was born he had to be transferred from the hospital he was born in to a larger NICU a few miles away.  We are so blessed and lucky that he has this amazing team of doctors and nurses looking after him.  It's definitely not the birth story I'd ever imagined I'd have to write, but he's here and he's fighting and I can't wait until we get to bring him home with us.  Thank you for letting me share.

Ryan on his birthday:  1lb 13oz, 13.5 inches

Ryan at 3 weeks/28 weeks gestational  (Love that our NICU is letting us use cloth diapers!):