Our scary trip to the ER

Sunday was like any other Sunday. I was extra tired and having some cramping, but I wasn't worried until I went to the bathroom and realized I was bleeding. Not the "Oh, pink or brown spotting can be normal during pregnancy." It was super scary bleeding. I googled as much as I could, talked with Shaun and decided it was probably a good idea to go to the ER.

I didn't expect our trip to be short, but gawd it was LOOOOOONG. First they took about a gallon of blood (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) and made me pee in a cup so they could do a pregnancy test. Then the put us in a exam room and we waited...and waited...and waited until a very nice doctor who knew very little about obstetrics came in and gave me the most violent pelvic exam EVER. Not only was it extremely violent, but she didn't know if my cervix was open or closed (open would have meant we were miscarrying and there would have been nothing they could do except "send me home and let nature take it's course") so she called a nurse over and asked for her opinion...it was closed. She told me since it was closed they were sending me for an ultrasound to find the cause of the bleeding.

When we got to the ultrasound room much later, the tech told us she wouldn't be able to tell us if it was good or bad, but the doctor would read the results later. She did an external and I figured it was a bad sign when she told me she needed to do a transvaginal ultrasound. She had me empty my bladder and I whispered to Shaun to look for a baby flickering because she told us she couldn't say anything.

After a couple of minutes she let me know that everything looked fine, which was so incredible to hear after being so scared. She took tons of measurements and asked me if I wanted to see the baby. DUH, of course I did! For the first time that scary scary night, when I cried it was happy tears. It was the most amazing feeling every to see the little baby nestled in the corner and it's little flickering heart beating so fast.

We were sent on our way and waited in the exam rooms for the doctor to come and tell us that our baby was measuring further along than we thought (8 weeks 2 days) and our new estimated due date is Feb 20! Our baby's heartbeat was 163 beats per minute, which the nurse said was a great heartbeat! The doctor told us though that miscarriage was still a possibility and we needed to follow up with our doctor to figure out the cause of the bleeding. He put me on bed rest for 1 day, pelvic rest for 3 weeks and I'm anxious to hear what our OB has to say on Wednesday for our appointment.

I am glad we went, I was sure we were miscarrying on the way to the ER and although my fears aren't 100% put to rest, I was so happy we got to see our little beautiful baby. I'm still anxious to tell people, but I'm glad we've waited and we'll probably wait until our doctor gives us the OK. Hopefully we'll get pictures of our baby at our next ultrasound which we will schedule this Wednesday.