Huge scare last night.

***TMI and graphic warning for those that are squeamish***

Last night as I was watching TV, I felt a warm gush, hurried to the bathroom and passed a clot almost half the size of my fist.  There was no pain or warning whatsoever.  Horrified, I stared at it, trying to decide if it could be the baby and if it was possible to have a complete miscarriage that fast with no cramps.  I went and got a baggie from the kitchen, but I couldn't bring myself to find out for sure what it was, exactly, I had passed.   R was running an errand and I knew he could be as far as 45 minutes away and my car broke on Wednesday (not that I was in any shape to drive myself).   I decided it would be better to secure a ride to the ER from someone who was closer before panicking him.  I called my mother (no answer) and R's parents and told them what was going on.  It turned out R was much closer to home than I thought, so he was able to take me.

At this point there didn't seem to be more blood or fluid, so I had put a pad on an laid on the couch until R came home.  When he came in I informed him of the clot and he retrieved it.  I do not know, nor did I ask, if he even looked at it.  At that point I didn't want to know...it was better to cling to hope.  We headed to the ER, I managed to walk in while he parked the car, and felt another huge gush before I could even make it to the counter.  I cut in front of the people waiting as politely as I could and informed the nurse I was 10 weeks and bleeding a lot.  They took me and the towel I was carrying and sat me in a wheelchair in a hallway and got my vitals.  Turns out, I should have gone to labor and delivery, but all we could think of was emergency = ER.  So finally after 20 minutes of nurses trying to get an escort to wheel me the one mile of hallways to L&D, I had to ask when I was getting moved and one of them took me.  Luckily, my bleeding seemed to subside as long as I was sitting.

We got to L&D and by this time I was starting to feel abdominal cramps, but they felt like intestinal pains so I wasn't sure what to think.  Honestly, I wasn't thinking much at all.  I had gone numb shortly after it all started, though my blood pressure was 138 (normally 110).  I talked to one of the REs on the phone and he said it was very unusual for someone at my stage in pregnancy to have a miscarriage this quickly when we'd seen a healthy baby twice this past week.

They finally got us in a room and I changed into a gown, passed some more tissue, though this was clearly just blood, and waited for the doctor.  About an hour after we initially arrived in the ER, the doctor came in and started the exam.  I held R's hand and stared at the ceiling, so sure it was over.  I looked at the doctor's face, trying to read some typed of emotion, but he was a pro.  He said he needed to take some measurements, but he wanted to show us what he was looking at, and he turned the screen to show us  a large blob.  I asked "Is that my baby?" and said "thank you god" and started to cry when he said yes.  I asked about the heartbeat just as he said "right here".  It was beating away at 161.  I looked up at R and had tears running down his face as well.

Our diagnosis - subchorionic hematoma.  The majority of it was what I had passed first, but he said there was still another small clot, about an inch and a half in size, remaining and that I may or may not pass it, but that I should expect bleeding for the next few days.  Today it does seem a bit lighter, I did not sleep well at all.  I was terrified to get up and go to the bathroom during the night for fear of another huge gush, but I did, and other than what seemed like some medium menstrual flow level blood, there were no more incidents.  Today I am taking it easy and I will probably take off work tomorrow just to give it an extra day to heal and give me time to speak to my doctors again.  I'm hoping they will extend my monitoring period, because I think this week was my final week with the RE.

We are remaining positive, but this certainly knocked me down a few rungs.  What little security I had is gone and it will take a while to build it back up, but for right now we are ok.