One of my darling valentines. If you look closely you can see the other one in the background. Rhys wasn't cooperating with the camera so that's about as good as I could get. They crack me up when they play with each other. Zoe has recently started climbing on top of Rhys, which is only fair I guess since he's been doing the same to her for weeks.
***Disclaimer*** If you continue reading you may find yourself in the middle of TMI. Just so you know.
Last week I had my cerclage. My OB told Cody that I bled a lot during the procedure so I should expect a fair amount of bleeding and clotting. First couple of days weren't so bad, but into Friday afternoon I started bleeding a lot (think heaviest day of your period) and had some pretty sizable clots. I wasn't overly concerned at first since my OB specifically mentioned this could happen, but then it just wouldn't stop. I stayed off my feet all day Saturday, but that didn't help. As afternoon came I really started to panic. I wasn't cramping or hurting, but it was a lot of blood. I called the after hours line and had the doctor on call paged. Luckily it was a doctor in my OB's practice and not a random. She told me bleeding up to a week afterwards was to be expected, especially with a repeat cerclage, and since I wasn't cramping or contracting it sounded fine, but if the clots were that big and I was worried I should go to such and such 24 hour clinic to have them take a look.
Even though the clinic was 35+ minutes away (there aren't any 24 hour clinics around us) I decided to go. By this time it was nearly 10 p.m. so I quickly got dressed and called the clinic to make sure they took my insurance. It may sound ridiculous that I was thinking about insurance, but if they didn't contract with my insurance it would have been considered out-of-network and I'd have to pay everything out of pocket, with nothing going towards my deductible. Sadly, the lady who answered my call didn't know diddly about what insurances they accepted so I decided just to go to the regular ER. But instead of driving to the hospital my OB belongs to, which is 30 minutes away, I opted for the one 6 miles from my house.
Once at the ER I explained my situation to the front desk and the lady quickly jumped on the phone to call the charge nurse in L&D to ask if she should just send me upstairs, since in her mind a cerclage indicated a high risk pregnancy. The charge nurse said no since my OB didn't belong to that particular hospital. Fine, whatever. But then I was (literally) told I should probably go to my OB's hospital next time. Seriously?! I'm a high risk OB patient who is currently 15 weeks pregnant and just explained I'm bleeding and clotting like crazy and you're really going to tell me I didn't choose the right facility? Once in triage the nurse checked my blood pressure and the baby's heart beat, which were both fine, and told me the on call doctor could look at the cerclage stitch to make sure all was well but he wouldn't manipulate it in any way. I was reassured the baby was fine and didn't particularly think digging around down there would be helpful to the situation so I opted to go home and see my OB Monday morning.
I got up early this morning and was at the office before they opened. During an uncomfortable pelvic exam my OB said the stitch was fine, but a polyp had formed. It was on my cervix and that was the cause of all my bleeding. There are several reasons cervical polyps can form, two of which are inflammation of the cervix and clogged cervical blood vessels. He put some medicine on it, which seems to be working thank goodness and the baby looked fine on the ultrasound. I go back Thursday to have him check me again. I'm really hoping this is a freak thing and not a sign of things to come. Just one more thing to add to my catalog of random pregnancy experiences!
Last week I had my cerclage. My OB told Cody that I bled a lot during the procedure so I should expect a fair amount of bleeding and clotting. First couple of days weren't so bad, but into Friday afternoon I started bleeding a lot (think heaviest day of your period) and had some pretty sizable clots. I wasn't overly concerned at first since my OB specifically mentioned this could happen, but then it just wouldn't stop. I stayed off my feet all day Saturday, but that didn't help. As afternoon came I really started to panic. I wasn't cramping or hurting, but it was a lot of blood. I called the after hours line and had the doctor on call paged. Luckily it was a doctor in my OB's practice and not a random. She told me bleeding up to a week afterwards was to be expected, especially with a repeat cerclage, and since I wasn't cramping or contracting it sounded fine, but if the clots were that big and I was worried I should go to such and such 24 hour clinic to have them take a look.
Even though the clinic was 35+ minutes away (there aren't any 24 hour clinics around us) I decided to go. By this time it was nearly 10 p.m. so I quickly got dressed and called the clinic to make sure they took my insurance. It may sound ridiculous that I was thinking about insurance, but if they didn't contract with my insurance it would have been considered out-of-network and I'd have to pay everything out of pocket, with nothing going towards my deductible. Sadly, the lady who answered my call didn't know diddly about what insurances they accepted so I decided just to go to the regular ER. But instead of driving to the hospital my OB belongs to, which is 30 minutes away, I opted for the one 6 miles from my house.
Once at the ER I explained my situation to the front desk and the lady quickly jumped on the phone to call the charge nurse in L&D to ask if she should just send me upstairs, since in her mind a cerclage indicated a high risk pregnancy. The charge nurse said no since my OB didn't belong to that particular hospital. Fine, whatever. But then I was (literally) told I should probably go to my OB's hospital next time. Seriously?! I'm a high risk OB patient who is currently 15 weeks pregnant and just explained I'm bleeding and clotting like crazy and you're really going to tell me I didn't choose the right facility? Once in triage the nurse checked my blood pressure and the baby's heart beat, which were both fine, and told me the on call doctor could look at the cerclage stitch to make sure all was well but he wouldn't manipulate it in any way. I was reassured the baby was fine and didn't particularly think digging around down there would be helpful to the situation so I opted to go home and see my OB Monday morning.
I got up early this morning and was at the office before they opened. During an uncomfortable pelvic exam my OB said the stitch was fine, but a polyp had formed. It was on my cervix and that was the cause of all my bleeding. There are several reasons cervical polyps can form, two of which are inflammation of the cervix and clogged cervical blood vessels. He put some medicine on it, which seems to be working thank goodness and the baby looked fine on the ultrasound. I go back Thursday to have him check me again. I'm really hoping this is a freak thing and not a sign of things to come. Just one more thing to add to my catalog of random pregnancy experiences!
1 comment:
I'm so glad the baby is well and hope that things smooth out really quickly for you. It sound like such an unnerving experience to have gone through all of that!
The hospital telling you to go somewhere else reminded me of this other CRAZY story from Portland this week--cops noticed a man having a heart attack in the parking lot of a hospital, ran into the ER to get help, and were told to go back out and call an ambulance before said guy could be admitted. RIDICULOUS. Things are so anti-common sense with the institutions sometimes--I'm grateful you were seen and taken care of!
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