At 25 weeks, out of the blue I started BLEEDING, not just spotting but pouring out bright red blood. I called my OB and he met me at the hospital. I had stopped bleeding by the time I got there, and he did another ultrasound. He said "I thought that the placenta was placed well, (Remember I'd already had 3 ultrasounds at this point)"but now that I look at it, it is awfully low in the uterus." So I was diagnosed with a "low lying placenta" which was also called a "marginal placenta previa". My doctor told me I would be in the hospital for 3 days unless something happened. Well, something happened. I started having menstrual like cramps. Then there was a big flurry of meds, shots, etc. and my doctor called an ambulance to transport me to a hospital in San Francisco with a level 3 NICU and a team of perinatologists. Thankfully they were able to stop the labor, but I was already dilated 1 1/2 cm. I stayed in that hospital for 7 days and went home on strict bedrest. I was rehospitalized twice, once for contractions and once for another bleed. During that time I was also diagnosed with gestational diabetes, so I had to modify my diet. And also anemia, so I had to take extra iron. 

 

10 weeks after the big bleeding, labor incidents, an ultrasound showed that the placenta was completely out of the way and finally, at 35 weeks, I was able to get off of bedrest, because the baby was more or less at term and it 

would have been OK for me to deliver. Then at 38 weeks, my mother-in-law unexpectedly passed away and my blood pressure shot up. My doctor debated whether to hospitalize me for preeclampsia, but then decided it was more likely a grief reaction, so I was able to go to the funeral services. 

 

Then FINALLY, at 39 weeks I delivered a beautiful baby boy vaginally. He had some breathing problems at birth so briefly had to stay in the NICU. But he was able to come home after three days and has been very strong and healthy since. 

 

I didn't manage to find this site until long after I delivered, but was supported by another on-line site, Sidelines. I found the support made such a big difference during that difficult pregnancy, and I just wanted to give back. So here I am! I wish you all the best of luck in your pregnancies, and I'm always here to answer questions and lend support! (2/7/99) 

 

--Patti, mom to Julia (8) Diana (6) and my pp baby Miguel (4/8/98) 

MY PREGNANCY AND GRIFFIN'S BIRTH 

 

THE FIRST BLEED 

I was 14 weeks pregnant when I discovered thin pink blood upon wiping. I immediately fell apart and panicked, sure that I was going to lose this baby that I had wanted all my life. I had expected that if any thing was going to go wrong, that it would happen in the first 12 weeks, that was what everyone always said, after 3 months you are home free. My husband took me to the emergency. I was given an internal exam, however the doctor said that he was going easy on it since he did not want to disturb the placenta if it was low lying. A heartbeat was detected and was strong and healthy, the baby was not in distress. Many 'maybe's' came out of the Dr.'s mouth... "possible late miscarriage", "possible cervix irritation" and "possible placenta previa" . 

 

I knew what pp was but not what it meant for my baby and I. The next day I went for an ultrasound and the pp was confirmed, and that my placenta was completely covering the cervical os. I was instructed to stop having sex (intercourse and orgasms) for the duration of the pregnancy. I was also told "NO EXERCISE OF ANY KIND, NOT EVEN BRISK WALKS". 

 

WHY THE BLEEDING?? From what I UNDERSTAND from my doctors: Usually the placenta will attach itself at the top/side of the uterus. With PP, the placenta attaches itself at the bottom, a part of the uterus that is not meant for this kind of 'demand'. The bottom of the uterus changes shape and stretches and expands throughout your pregnancy, preparing for the growth of the baby and for the baby to move down closer to delivery. The placenta can lift or tear away from the uterus during these 'shape changes' causing bleeding. 

 

Yes, the placenta is the life force for your baby, where blood and nutrients move from your body to theirs, but if you bleed THIS IS YOUR BLOOD, NOT THE BABY'S. When the docs told me this I felt much better. 

 

My Dr told me that 90 percent of pregnancies begin with a low placenta and that often by 28 weeks it has found it's way back up near the top of the uterus where it should be. (I should point out, that I thought this meant the placenta would 'MOVE', but it actually means that as the uterus grows and expands, the placenta will 'appear' to move upwards, it does not actually move, but follows the shifting of the uterus.) If this were not the case with me, I should expect a c section delivery since a vaginal delivery would be impossible, risking the lives of myself and the baby. My next ultrasound was scheduled for 28 -30 weeks. During this time, I was never given an internal exam and all pressure on the fundus was limited to the top, very little poking and prodding near the bottom so as not to disturb the placenta. 

 

THE SECOND BLEED 

My pregnancy carried on from there without further incident. I continued work (acting and teaching drama to children, light house work, no lifting, etc.) until 23 weeks, when, after no exertion whatsoever, I stood up from my chair and felt blood gush. (I tell you this to show that blood can come at any time, there is no need to think that you 'did anything' to cause the bleeding, however take the careful precautions none the less.) This 'gush' was the same feeling, and as much blood as a first day heavy period. 

 

Kevin (my hubby) drove me to the hospital (about 20 min away) in about 9 * minutes. They rushed me right on thru to labor and delivery. (Although I did not know at the time, they thought I was going to deliver, and brought me right to this ward. This is a precaution they take in order to be ready for an emergency c 

section.) My blood was typed in case the need for transfusion. (never needed). I was put on an iv drip. An ultrasound showed that the placenta was running down one side of my uterus, across the cervical os and growing back up the other side. The baby was in no distress and growing at fine and normal speed. However, the nurses told me honestly that if the baby were born now at 23 weeks, there would not be a lot they could do for him. Right now they were concerned with my health and blood loss. Since arriving at the hospital, I had felt 4 'gushes', the last 2 being described by the nurse as "Nothing at all, not to worry!" I was given a shot of steroids specifically for helping the baby's lungs to mature faster, although the docs said that at 23 weeks, it may be too early for these to make a difference. 

 

After 2 hours, I stopped bleeding entirely, but was still confined to TOTAL bed rest, with bed pan use only. I was admitted over night as they do not release pp patients unless they have stopped bleeding for 24 hours. In the morning I was able to get up and go to the washroom, where I panicked again at the site of brown discharge. I was told this is the old blood from the episode clearing itself out. I was released 24 hours after admission with instructions from the Dr on call: "no sex, no exercise, bed rest as much as possible, no lifting, no sneezing or coughing. (If I were to get a bad cough I was to take a powerful cough medicine to prevent it.) I found out later from my OBGYN, that these were EXTREME instructions, however, it was not hard to avoid sneezing for the rest of my preg, and although it probably would not have made any difference, it made me feel better. Also, I was told I MUST keep my bowel movements regular and soft, as straining to have a movement would also threaten the placenta. In hindsight, this on-call Doctor in the hospital may (all my other Drs agree) have leaned to far to the side of caution. My own Doctor was telling me to go ahead and keep working. I chose to err on the side of caution and quit my job, restrained ALL sneezes (for 9 solid weeks!) and spent a lot of time laying down. 

 

After my discharge from the hospital, I was referred to an obgyn, a specialist with a lot of experience with pp. He was a little less cautious, warning only against sex and exercise, however he did drop 2 bombshells: 

 

#1. I would have to be admitted to hospital at 32 weeks for the duration of the pregnancy since the risk of bleeding becomes greater then. Apparently, the uterus begins to expand at the bottom, increasing the chance that the placenta will pull away from the uterine wall. I would be in hospital under observation in case I began to bleed again (according to this Dr, the bleeds would get worse each time, that I should expect bleeding, not to freak out, it was all part of placenta previa). So, I prepared for a 4-6 week stay in hospital. This Dr planned to do an amniocentesis beginning at 35 weeks and as soon as the lungs of the baby were mature, he would perform the c section. 

 

#2. There was the remote chance that the placenta would have grown into the uterine wall, making it impossible to deliver/remove, causing life threatening bleeding. The only option if this were to occur would be to perform a hysterectomy. He assured me that this would be a last resort and only if it were to save my life. In his career he had only ever had to do this once. I was asked to sign a release form stating that I gave permission to perform the hysterectomy "IF MY LIFE DEPENDED ON IT" I knew that I could accept this occurrence but ONLY if the baby in my womb right then survived. 

 

THE THIRD BLEED 

Again, no episodes until 29 weeks, when a thin pinky wipe again meant another trip to the hospital, another admission and all the same precautions as above. At this point the staff were positive about my baby's chances if born now. However, this bleed was not nearly as bad as the 23 week one (never a gush, only the one wipe) and none of us were really expecting the baby to come, all monitors and ultrasounds showed the baby was fine and the placenta still down south. At this time I was given a second shot of steroids for the baby's lungs. I had received the first shot at 23 weeks, but at that time, the docs thought that would be too early to have made a difference. I was discharged again the next day after no bleeding. Home again and on the couch, cooking the baby. At 30 weeks + 3 days, I found 'old brown' blood on a wipe. This did not scare me nearly as much. As my husband and I were on the way to the hospital for prenatal classes anyway, I dropped in to tell the nurses on the pre-delivery ward (a place I had come to know all to well by now). They surprised me by saying they though it was enough to admit me again. Another shot of steroids. 

 

This time I did not get to go home. 

 

My obgyn came in the next morning and said that 3 bleeds was just too many for him to feel comfortable sending me home.He wanted me in now for the duration. To tell the truth, I was relieved, I never relaxed at home, worrying about another big bleed when Kevin was out, or not getting to the hospital on time. Going into the hospital for (what I thought was going to be) 5-6 weeks was not difficult for me. I had quit my job and had no other children at home. I was given passes to go to restaurants or movie theatres across the street from the hospital. I know that this ' incarceration' is not as easy for other ladies, especially those with children at home. On Sat, June 8, the Dr on call gave me a tour of the nicu and the OR. 

 

On Sunday, June 9, I had brown spotting and was put on bed rest again in my hospital bed. (Up till now I could visit my new pp friend Monica in her room, go for walks around the ward, walk tot the nursery, the TV room, and 3 hour passes to go across the street. Here I was back in bed). 

 

I remember worrying out loud to a nurse once that what if I started the BIG BLEED in the middle of the night. She said "oh, don't worry, you will wake up. That is one thing about being pregnant...you know that you are NOT supposed to bleed, so whenever you do, you notice it!!" 

 

Funny we should have this conversation..... 

 

At 6am on Monday June 10th I woke up feeling a 'gush', buzzed the nurse, who immediately came running with Maalox (I had wicked heartburn and asked for it at least every 4-6 hours, so she naturally assumed.....) but alas, this was not a heartburn issue. Sudden flurry of activity. Fetal monitors, some medicine that I cannot remember the name of to calm down my slightly growing contractions.... COMPLETE WEIRD MAJOR ALLERGIC REACTION!!!....Suddenly I can not keep my eyes open...everyone in the room seems to be 4000miles away, I am slurring my words, my blood pressure is low, and I am sooooooo dizzy although I am laying down. In the event of surgery, they have told me nothing to eat or drink......NOT EVEN MAALOX!!!!! HEAVEN FORBID! 

 

Another shot of steroids (but who knows if they made any difference...with Griffin being born the same day). 

 

Ok, I am going to be a bit more graphic now. This bleed was a gush about every 3 min or so. enough to soak a pad in less than an hour. I mention this since that was something that my doc focused on a lot when we discussed how much blood there had been in my previous episodes. Apparently he worried only when you could soak a pad in under an hour.Well, my bleeding quit at about 1pm, for at least a few hours, the nurses allowed me to eat then. 3 GLORIOUS WEDGES OF WATERMELON FROM THE GODS before I started bleeding again around 3. By 6 pm my baby's heartrate was getting too fast (little did I know that this is dangerous too...I thought it was just a low heartrate that was worrisome). And so at a few minutes past 6 pm on the first day of my 32nd week of pregnancy, the decision was made to do an emergency c section. 

 

Even Bigger Flurry Of Activity. Signing forms that authorize docs to perform a hysterectomy if I won't stop bleeding was the absolute hardest part (this never had to happen thankfully). Catheters were inserted, IVs and blood pressure finger monitors. My Darling Darling Hubby, who had come in the morning, left when I quit bleeding and rushed right back when I started again, was suddenly trying to make frantic phone calls to moms and moms in laws all the while being instructed on how to get into scrubs and wash up. Bless his heart he made faces at me thru the window of the OR while he was changing to make me giggle and relax. 

 

C-SECTION TIME 

Now let me tell ya. I was not concerned about having a c section, heck, they could have ripped Griffin out my left nostril and I wouldn't have cared. Just let him be OK. But I know there are many women out there who are sad to not have a 'normal' birth. My first bit of advice, change the word normal to 'vaginal'. You are spared the contraction pain but make up for it in major surgery pain during recovery afterwards, and otherwise there are not many differences. I was able to be awake for the birth (this may not always be the case, depending on the seriousness of the bleed). At the moment that they brought Griffin out of the womb, they dropped the surgical screen so that Kevin and I could see Griffin born. 

 

It is true, I have not experienced a vaginal birth, but I cannot imagine that the joy of seeing your baby born that way could be any greater than what I felt at that moment. 

 

I was expecting a 3 1/2 to 4 lb. baby. Griffin was 5lbs exactly. He scored 9 on both apgars. He was breathing on his own. This may have been due to the steroids I received (3 shots over the 10 weeks) or, as I read in What to Expect the FirstYear by Arlene Eisenberg, Heidi E. Murkoff and Sandee E. Hathaway, BSN © 1989: "Babies who have undergone severe stress in the uterus, usually during labor and delivery, are less likely to lack surfactants (a detergent-like substance that gives the lung surfaces their elastic properties) as the stress appears to speed lung maturation." 

 

I could not hold Griffin right away since he had to be rushed to the NICU, but Kevin held him up to me and I touched his wee wee cheek and I am bawling my eyes out at this moment remembering. 

 

I held him for the first time at 11 hours old. He was in an incubator on oxygen and an IV in his head (a precaution for possible infection so they tell me). On Griffin's second day of life he started to go backwards. There was talk of transferring him to the larger hospital and venting his lungs to add some surfactants, but after 2 days (during which we could not hold him) on his back with an IV in his umbilical cord to monitor blood gasses better, he proved everyone wrong, and turned back around. 

 

He has been like this all of his life. Every time I begin to worry about ANYTHING, he immediately does or does not do what ever it was I was pulling my hair out about. 

 

When Griffin was 6 days old, they removed his IV, on day 7 he graduated to the bassinet and room air. We tried breast feeding on day 4 - it went slow. He could not stay awake since he spent all of his energy working those little lungs. So he stayed in hospital to eat and grow. He nursed every second feed, but was tube fed every other one, to make sure he got a proper meal, to build up his strength. 

 

On day 21, June 30, 1996 my darling pickle came home to his father and I. 

 

He has me wrapped around his tiny little finger and there is no where else I would rather be. (2/15/99) 

 

A couple of days before I was supposed to have the second amnio I started to spot. Nothing too bad but a little concerning. I went in again only to find out that her lungs were still severly underdeveloped. My doctor was concerned that I had a lot of amniotic fluid and that I was really large. I asked him about the spotting and he told me if it got worse then he would just take her because it was too dangerous not to. Well the very next morning I started bleeding like it was Niagara Falls! Non stop and it was a lot! I went into the hospital and they told me they are going to do the C-section and that they just needed to wait for my doctor to get there. 

 

I slowed down on my bleeding and so they were not too concerned and they wanted to wait until they finished with the C-section ahead of me. Well about 2 hours later I started to bleed REALLY bad in fact I was hemorrhaging! The nurse came in and she immediately took me into the Operating room and told me that I would not be awake for my daughters birth, that because of the bleeding they were going to put me completely under. I got really scared.  

 

All came out fine with my daughter. A beautiful healthy little girl that I could not ask for a better outcome on a newborn. However, I lost A LOT of blood but they did not want to do a transfusion, they wanted to see if I could handle having low blood. So now I am anemic and I couldn't get out of bed for almost a week because every time I tried I would almost pass out because of the low blood. My doctor said that my body would adjust to the low blood and that I would be okay. It would take a lot of time to build it back up but that I would be okay. 

 

So now I am doing okay. I have a 13 day old baby that is doing great and I am back to my almost "normal" routine. 

 

There is my story. (2/18/99) 

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